Part 1

Chapter 3: Project Crown Jewels

"This is Shadow to Halo. Do you copy?"

"Halo to Shadow, loud and clear."

"Mission is clear, you go in at seven o'clock."

"Okay. Good luck, Kyd."

"Shadow."

"Shadow, sorry."

Kyd switched off his earpiece and looked out over the rooftops. Crown Tower stood proudly between the other apartment blocks and office buildings. Today was the day.

oo0O0oo

The receptionist looked up from her computer and smiled at the young woman at the other side of the desk. She had pale blonde hair, almost white, and her eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I came here to speak to the Deputy Assistant Manager."

"Mr. Baker?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Can I have your name, please?"

"Wyatt. Anna Wyatt."

"Just a moment." The lady picked up the phone and put it next to her ear. "Mr. Baker, there is a young lady here to speak to you, a Mrs. Wyatt… Yes… Okay…" She hung up. "Mr. Baker is free at the moment. Floor fifty-two."

"Thank you," 'Anna Wyatt' said as she started walking towards the elevator.

"But," the receptionist said before she could leave, "I'll have to ask you to let us check your luggage." She pointed at the backpack she was carrying.

"Oh, sure."

A security guard came from the side and showed her the way to a smaller room. They walked in and he closed the door.

"Can you take that off, please," the guard asked, pointing at the backpack.

"Ugh, that's such a pain. Can't you just check it? Please?" she asked in her most convincing voice.

The guard agreed and walked up behind her. He opened the backpack, but was surprised to find a bunch of white feathers inside. "What the…"

He didn't get any further before the feathers suddenly came to life, and he was knocked in the face by a wing that seemed to grow out of the bag.

Angel wasted no time using her other wing to cover up the camera in the corner of the room. A cracking sound came from the camera.

"Oops," Angel said. "Clumsy me."

She walked out of the room, back into the lobby. She smiled at the receptionist briefly before walking into the nearest vacant elevator and pressing number fifty-two. After the doors closed, she brought her hand to her earpiece. "Okay, Shadow, I'm in. And Mr. Baker is free for a visit."

"Give him the time of his life, Halo."

oo0O0oo

"Come in."

Angel stepped into the neat looking office. "Thank you for seeing me," she said to the man sitting behind the desk.

"No problem," Mr. Baker said as he took off his glasses. "What is it that you want to discuss with me?"

Angel reached behind her back and grabbed her helmet from her backpack. Mr. Baker looked at her actions suspiciously. When she took off her sunglasses to reveal a pair of yellow eyes, he was clearly scared.

"I wanted to discuss how much your life is worth."

With that, Mr. Baker reached underneath his desk and pushed a button, causing an alarm to go off.

Angel laughed. "You think that'll save you?" Her wings grew larger and she flew at him, knocking over the desk and the chair, with the man in it.

"Please," he cried as he looked up at her in fear. "Spare me!"

Angel lifted her wings high up in the air before slamming them down onto the poor man. When she took her wings off him, he was completely still.

"Okay, Shadow, target is down. Your turn."

oo0O0oo

"That's odd," the man behind the monitor said to his colleague. "Camera four is down."

"See if you can get it back online," the other said. "It probably has to do with…"

He was interrupted by a beeping sound. The two men were immediately alerted and their eyes scanned the monitors for the cause. "It's Baker!" one of them said. "He's being attacked by… something with wings!"

"Units needed on floor fifty-two!" the other yelled into his walkie-talkie. "Send as many as quickly as possible! Matter of life and death!"

"What is that thing?" the first man asked, mere seconds before a new series of beeps came from another different device.

"What's that?"

"Intruder on level minus two! Wait… Minus one! No, minus three! He's all over the place! All the sensors are triggered!"

"Extra security to the vault! I repeat, extra security to Cadynski Vault!"

"Control, should we go up or down?" it sounded through the walkie-talkie.

The two men looked at each other. "What's more important? His life, or the files?" one of them asked.

The other took another look at the winged woman and the fast-moving shadow on the screens. He grabbed the communicator. "I want one team going up in the staff elevator, shut off all the other ones. All other units, get down there! And call the goddamn police!"

oo0O0oo

Kyd stopped teleporting when he was sure he had alerted most of the sensors, and found himself on the correct level. He took a look at the wall, where a sign said 'Cadynski Vault' with an arrow to the right. Well that's convenient, Kyd thought.

He followed the corridor. If he was not mistaken, the vault should be right around the corner… along with a dozen of guards. He smiled. This was going to be interesting.

oo0O0oo

Angel easily lifted the unconscious man, while alarms were going off throughout the building. Kyd had done a good job at confusing everyone, it seemed. She walked up to the elevators. The leftmost was going up. She was going to have company.

A press on the elevator's button revealed what she had suspected: they had been shut down. I guess I'll have to find another way, she thought as she used her powerful wings to force apart one of the elevator doors. With a look down the shaft, she saw the elevator with the guards approaching at a high speed. She took a deep breath… and dived down into the elevator shaft.

She rushed past the rising elevator, clamping her hostage against her chest. When she saw the bottom approaching, she let her wings grow to the largest size that could fit inside the shaft, and spread them out. She smoothly landed on the ground floor. Good thing they have separate elevators for the underground floors, she thought. She forced open the door and walked into the lobby.

"Halt!" she shouted at the receptionist, who was holding the phone in her hand when she walked in. Several people screamed and dropped what they were doing. "If I see any cops in or around this building, I'll fly up this elevator shaft again and drop this man fifty-three stories down!" The receptionist slowly moved the phone away from her ear. "None of you will leave the building until you have my permission to," she said to the people who seemed to be more than eager to leave. Come on, Shadow, she thought. Teach them a lesson.

oo0O0oo

"Control, we have arrived on floor fifty-two. No one's here. She seems to have flown down."

"Then get down!" the man behind the screens shouted. "But a few of you stay upstairs, in case she goes up again."

"Alpha three, how are things going at the vault?" the other man asked.

"No sign yet, Control. No one appears to be he- wait!"

"Alpha three? What's happening?"

"Black smoke is coming from around the corner…"

"Don't go check it out! Let them come for you!"

"Copy that, Control. Everyone, stay pu-"

White noise filled the room.

"Alpha three!" the man yelled, panicking. "Alpha three, report!"

"He's… can't… see… fast…"

The signal died. The two men in the control room looked at the cameras on level minus three, but the only cameras that were still working showed nothing but thick, black smoke.

oo0O0oo

This is almost too easy, Kyd Wykkyd thought. A fancy smoke bomb was enough to throw them off guard, and now he just had to teleport around, slapping the guns and tasers out of the guards' hands before knocking them out with a slash of his cape.

After he knocked out what seemed to be the last one, he looked at the man he had been saving for last. A man with a very round face and a moustache, keeping his gun aimed at Kyd.

"Don't move…" he said, not coming over as very threatening because of the fear in his voice.

Kyd just smirked as he teleported right behind the man. Dave, the gatekeeper, as it said on his badge, quickly turned around, but couldn't prevent his gun from flying out of his hands, and before he properly knew what was happening, he was hanging from the top of the building, Kyd Wykkyd tightly holding on to his shirt.

"You know the code," Kyd said in his most threatening, demonic voice. "What's the code to the vault?"

"I'm… I'm not telling you that!"

"You are hanging fifty-three levels above the ground. This is the kind of moment in your life where you have to think about your decisions very carefully."

The gatekeeper glanced down, almost fainting after seeing the height he was on. He gathered his courage. "I'm still not telling you."

Kyd didn't even blink as he let go, sending the man falling down to his death. As Dave screamed, he suddenly saw something black appearing next to him, and before he could see what was happening, he was hanging in the same place again, held by the same person.

"Next time, I won't save you."

"You can't kill me. You need me," the gatekeeper said with a grin. "Me and Bruce Wayne are the only people on this planet who know the code."

"It would only take me five seconds to make a trip to Gotham and get Wayne," Kyd said as he loosened his grip on Dave's shirt ever so slightly.

"Okay, okay!" he finally screamed as he felt himself slowly slipping out of Kyd's fingers. "It's an eight digit code! Seven-one-six-nine-three-nine-nine-three!"

Kyd said nothing for a few seconds, and then simply teleported away, letting Dave fall once again. Inside the building, he entered the code into the vault's locking system, taking his time. He waited for a second while the computer processed the code. 'Access approved' it said on the screen.

"Shadow to Halo," he said to his companion, "Code's correct, I'm going in."

"Good job, Shadow."

"Oh, and by the way, Halo, I think I might've dropped something."

"Nice going, Shadow," Angel said as she rolled her eyes. She let go of Mr. Baker and started running towards the glass doors of the building, past all the terrified bystanders in the lobby. She unfolded her wings and jumped, flying right through the glass door, and making a ninety degree turn upwards when she was outside. She soon spotted a man approaching the ground with high velocity and she changed her route so that she would pass right next to him. She could hear him scream as she passed him, and she could vaguely understand 'help'. When she was past him, she made an elegant turn in the air, and flew down after him. She quickly caught up to the man and she stretched out her arms. Only a few meters before he hit the ground, she grabbed the man and she flew up again.

"Next time," Angel said as she deposited the still terrified man on top of the building, "Try not to piss off my friend. It could cost you your life."

oo0O0oo

Kyd wasn't kidding (see what I did there?) when he said that he felt as if he was in Ali Baba's cave. He was searching through the files, passing many interesting buildings and stuffing his favorites underneath his arm.

"Grandgate Prison… That's a keeper," he said to himself as he took out the file and added it to his collection. "Jump City Power Plant… Nice. And what do we have here… Ooh!" His excitement reached a peak when he found a document with an image of a large, T-shaped tower. He almost felt the urge to kiss the file, but he kept his dignity.

He was too preoccupied browsing through the file cabinet to notice that behind him, one of the guards had woken up.

oo0O0oo

"Halo, you can return home, I'll be there in a minute with the loot."

"Okay, Shadow," Angel said as she flew through the air, high above the buildings. She suddenly realized how long it had been since she had been able to fly this freely. "Good job."

"Couldn't have done it without you, Halo. Congratulations on this o-"

The connection disappeared, completely out of the blue. "Shadow?" Angel asked, concerned. "Shadow, do you hear me?" No answer. "Shadow? … Kyd?"

oo0O0oo

"Control, this is Alpha three."

"Alpha three? Good to have you back online! What's your status?"

"I… I think I have captured one of the criminals, Control."

"What? How?"

"I shut the vault on him."

"Great job, Alpha three! Keep the vault locked at all times! Don't let him get away!"

"What are you going to do, Control?"

"I think it's time for him to take a nap."

oo0O0oo

"Halo? Halo? Angel?"

Kyd desperately tried to get a signal. When he continuously failed, he concluded the vault's walls jammed the signal. And that wasn't the only thing.

Despite knowing better, he tried to teleport out one more time, but just like before, he just ended up smashing against the wall. Barmathium, huh, he thought. He rubbed his head as tears started to form in his red eyes, not because of the pain, but purely because of despair.

He aggressively slammed his fists against the door. "Let me out!" he yelled. "Let me out!"

He gave up, and slid down to sit against the cold wall. His gaze fell upon the files he had dropped and were now scattered across the floor. He grabbed one. Grandgate Prison. If they were going to get him, he might as well store as much information as possible inside his head.

He barely made it through the first page, before he noticed a sound. It sounded like gas leaking through a small hole. He looked up, and saw a greenish aerosol spraying out of the ceiling.

"No…" he said, covering his mouth and nose, but it was too late. Everything started to spin around him.

Kyd couldn't even try to teleport away anymore before his body hit the floor and everything turned black.

oo0O0oo

James Gordon walked around on a rooftop, glancing around cautiously.

"Over here," a deep voice sounded.

"Jesus Christ!" Gordon yelled as he turned around, his heart racing. "Don't sneak up on me like that! Why did you call me here?"

The Caped Crusader handed him a portable screen. "This is security footage from a failed heist in Crown Tower."

"Crown Tower? Jesus, Batman, I didn't know you had access to Wayne Enterprises' camera footage! Were they after…"

"Yes. They tried to steal information from the Cadynski Vault. Security captured one of them, but we haven't found an identity yet. You might want to take a look at camera sixty-one, though."

Gordon watched how a winged woman knocked down a man in his office. "Wait… Batman, do you think this is…"

"I'm almost certain it is."

"Oh my god…" Gordon gave the Dark Knight back his screen as he took out his phone. "Henry? Henry, this is Jim. You might want to take a look at the camera footage Batman is about to send you."

oo0O0oo

A/N: Dun dun duuuh!

The scene with Kyd on the roof reminded me of "WHERE WERE THE OTHER DRUGS GOING?" from Batman Begins XD. I even imagine Kyd's demonic voice sounding kinda like Batman's.