Chapter Twenty-One: Birds of Prey Part Two.
Dinah Laurel Lance, better known as Black Canary, slipped into the side entrance of the Penthouse. The fishnet clad crimefighter entered the window. An old friend waited her the second she entered the penthouse.
"You know, the conventional entrance is the best entrance sometimes. Or is this too much to ask from a crime fighter?
Barbara Gordon dressed in a black tank top, a black pair of leather pants, and black boots. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and wore a pair of glasses. The prodigal young woman resembled a person who put herself hard at work at something or another.
"So, what's in the news from Gotham City?" Barbara asked.
"You heard about the gentlemen who had been attacked on the way to the summit, haven't you?"
Barbara's arms folded, gaze meeting Dinah. The two old friends met eye to eye with each other.
"Yes, I've heard of the attack. I don't know if anyone believes the line they're trying to shove down the throats of people. I mean, mobsters get into a car accident coming in from Gotham City. I've only paid half attention, but there's a storm brewing in Gotham. And it could be spilling into Metropolis if half of the rumors are true."
Dinah sighed. Any kind of Gotham City storm proved to be the least of their problems. She gripped Barbara by the shoulder.
"It's…..no, I'm not going to buy it. In fact….."
The curtain whipped open to interrupt Dinah's statement at the finish. Kara joined the two of them, still dressed in full Supergirl attire.
"You know, it's a good thing we don't have any nosy neighbors," Barbara said. "Because, super heroes bursting in here through the window is bound to gain all kinds of attention."
"Sorry about the dramatic entrance," Kara said. "I need your help, with Maggie Sawyer. I found a lead about her disappearance, but not a good one."
Kara lifted up a bag. Barbara viewed the contacts of the bag. A broken chunk of wood rested in the bag.
"Not the best clue to go off of on, I know," Kara said. "But, it's about all we could find. And the MCU has swept Maggie under the rug. She doesn't register."
"It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact she's been a supporter of the Girl of Steel, would it?" Barbara asked.
"Funny enough, it might be," Kara said.
Kara's eyes peered out of the window. She sensed a change in the guard in Metropolis. Intergang's activity changed. Mannheim grew more cerebral in his attempts to consolidate. Cheshire attacked him and caused Mannheim to become a whole new man.
'Really weird when you think about it,' Kara thought.
Kara turned to Dinah, turning her attention to the fishnet clad siren for the first time.
"Dinah, it's good to see you again, I wish I could see you under better circumstances. So, how are things in Gotham City?"
Dinah smiled. She walked over to the couch to sit down. Kara joined her.
"The usual, Gotham City has its periods of eerie calmness, and the calmness shows itself to be the prelude of an even worse storm. With Helena out of the picture, Gotham City is even more dangerous than ever before."
"Bad?" Kara asked.
Dinah sighed as she mentally went over everything happening in her mind. You had to be a Wayne to piece together everything.
"Badder then bad. I don't know, with the Roman getting knocked off of his pedestal a few years back, a power vacuum has opened up. Maroni and company lost a lot of influence; Black Mask is still dangerous as ever. The Penguin's gone legit, but he still has his fingers in as many pies as ever. Many of them not really legal."
Kara pulled a face at the recap of some of the most notable mobsters in Gotham City. Dinah flipped her golden-blonde hair from her face.
"Then there's Rupert Thorne."
"What about Thorne?" Kara asked.
"Well, Thorne set up this summit and may have set up these mobsters to be killed. The bastard's pretty crafty. He fancies himself as some kind of Kingpin of Gotham City. And now, he drew his enemies into Gotham City. One of them told me Thorne set them up."
Kara touched her hand to her forehead. Did this complicate everything? The Girl of Steel knew a mob war from Gotham lingered on the bottom ten of her list of activities for a fun day.
"I've got to return back to Gotham City. Another lead to follow there. Wish I could help here, but good luck."
"Believe me, I understand," Kara said.
Gotham City needed help, like Metropolis did. Kara moved over to assist Barbara with her investigation.
Black Canary disappeared as soon as she appeared. Kara sighed, certain a sudden disappearance proved to be a Gotham City trait.
Ella returned to one of her father's safe houses. Safe enough to crash the night, at least until the young heiress figured out what to do with her life.
'I need to find a place to hide out until it all blows over. Safe house doesn't live up to its name, now does it?'
Ella stood in the front hallway. She noticed a light on in one of the rooms. A light on, and no one entered this place but her for months.
The sound of broken glass brought Ella closer to the edge. The mob princess listened in to figure out what exactly she stepped into. At least two people threw objects around upstairs. Neither intended to be quiet, or conceal the fact they searched for something.
Ella made a split second decision. The mob heiress peered into the hallway. The mobsters upstairs failed to leave any kind of look out.
'At least any kind of visible look out.'
The ransacking continued upstairs. Ella tensed up for a second when the men stopped talking.
Ella's two options became clear. Get out of here, and call the police. The same police she never trusted, and the same police who might be in the back pocket of these mobsters. The same mobsters who might have been behind her father's death.
No go, Ella thought calling up Gotham's finest is a no go.
The other option presented itself, and Ella made her way back out the front door. The ransacking continued. Ella paused for a moment. What did they think her father had? Who sent them?
She stopped at the door. The girl's compulsion struck her in an instant. Ella vowed to find out what these men looked for. And did they have any connection to her father's death? Ella clenched her fist at the thought?
A pair of strong hands gripped Ella from behind. Ella struggled against the grip of the man who grabbed her. The big unshaved gorilla wrapped his arms around her.
"Looks like you picked the wrong house to crash at, princess."
Ella ran straight into the look out. He concealed himself very well. The mob princess struggled against the grip of this large man. For her, he tightened his arms around her with a crushing maneuver. The more Ella struggled, the tighter the unshaved gorilla wrapped his arms around her slender waist.
"Your breath, it smells terrible."
Ella elbowed the goon in the face. The goon's group loosened and Ella hauled off to kick him in the groin.
The part-Italian girl smiled. No matter how big you are, she nailed the bastard in the stones, and he dropped for the count.
She rushed out of the door. The scrambling of his two fellow goons down the stairs indicated to Ella time ran short. She needed to slip away.
The two goons exited the house. Both of them looked around, but the girl slipped out of their sight.
One of them picked up a cell phone.
"So, do you have it?"
"No, we can't find it anywhere. I thought you said it would be in this joint, somewhere."
"Bertenelli hid it there, I'm sure of it. You better keep searching. The cops are going to be interested in any dirt he might have had, leverage against us. His father, one of the top five mob bosses in Gotham City at one time, and Franco knew where a lot of the skeletons got buried."
"Well, shame he got in a car crash, especially given the fact he left a headache behind. And a real mess for us to clean up."
Ella sat still in the bushes. The mobsters stood about five feet away from her. If one looked around, peered down, they peered into the bushes, and spotted Ella in her hiding spot.
The girl knew all about her father's night work, but she distanced herself from it. She wondered who these men worked for.
The men stepped inside to resume the search. Ella held her breath for a moment and slipped out of the bushes. She made her way to the gates, and hoped to find some answers.
The best place to find an answer lurked in one of the worst parts of Gotham City. Ella geared herself up.
The Joker left the premises. The good news, at least for Maggie, panned out to the fact the Joker left her and did not kill her yet. The bad news, for everyone out in Metropolis, the Joker loomed over them like a tornado. Just waiting to strike and cause the most amount of damage possible, and she shuddered to think what his plans were.
Maggie heard Harley humming a tune. She bounced up and down. Maggie found her body bouncing up and down to be very distracting.
"What's the Joker up to?"
Harley turned to Maggie and narrowed her eyes at the cop.
"What do you mean what's the Joker up to?"
"What's his plan, Harley?" Maggie asked.
Harley paused and walked over to Maggie. She looked over her shoulder to ensure no one listened into the plan. The moment Harley verified no one listened in, she leaned in face to face with Maggie.
"Well, I'm not sure if the Joker has a plan, if he hasn't, he never told me. But, you see the thing about my puddin' is he's a spontaneous kind of guy. He goes with the flow, because the world's a whacked up place when you really think about it. Hell, even Superwoman's baby sister lost her fucking mind because she had one really bad day."
The jester sighed, and smiled.
"Just like Mistuh J always said, all it takes is one really bad day to shove a person over the edge. Or in his cast, a really bad day and a chemical bath. And Batman pushed him over the edge. But he's gone now, and it means I don't have the competition for my dear sweet Puddin' anymore. I swear, he talked about Batman twenty four/seven, it was always Batman this, Batman that, talking about all of his schemes to fuck with the Bat."
Harley finally needed to breathe. Maggie's eyes averted to the face to the crazed female jester.
"Why are you with him, Harley? Why are you with the Joker? I've read the records, and he's thrown you out of cars to lighten the load….."
"One time, ONE TIME!" Harley yelled. She started to breathe in and out heavily. "Jeez Louise, even the weirdo who talks to ants doesn't get as much flack for what he does, and he's far more of a psychopath than my dear sweet puddin' is."
Maggie rolled her eyes.
"Hey, you don't believe me, do you?"
"It's not like I don't believe you, Harleen, but you can't deny the Joker hasn't shot you, stabbed you, and put an exploding whoopee cushion on the passenger seat of the getaway car just for the hell of it."
"Hey, my ass healed eventually!" Harley said. She took a deep breath. "But, like I said, all of this happened when Batman lived. Now Batman's gone to the big belfry in the sky, things have changed. My puddin' is a reformed man. He's gone legit, he's gone big time. You'll see how special he is!"
Maggie recalled the song and dance many other women told her about their men. Battered women existed all over the world and Harley resembled the poster child for them.
"You think he loves you, but he doesn't know how to show it?" Maggie asked.
"Yeah, you've got it, good, I'm glad you got it!"
Maggie frowned. The poor deluded girl's ideas of what love is twisted around in a pretzel. Given the woman's past history, Maggie wanted to pinpoint the exact instance where she turned out to be so warped.
"You know, you're something else, Harley….I hope you….."
"Yeah, you hope for a lot of things, better hope whatever happens, is going to happen. Because, you're nothing, but bait for some kind of trap, you know."
"What kind of trap?" Maggie asked.
Harley's lips curled into a frown. The crazed jester's frown deepened and she sighed.
"You know, I'm not sure what kind of trap there's going be. Mistuh J was kind of a mime on the particulars. Which is strange, because Mistuh J doesn't like mimes, he doesn't find them funny at all, but I'm pretty sure whatever trap you're being baited for, I'm sure it's going to be a barrel of laughs."
Maggie groaned and not because her run on sentence made Maggie's brain hurt. She much preferred being killed, than being a damsel in distress. She tried to figure out a way out.
"Oh, it's time for you to go to sleep now, I think!"
Maggie's eyelids grew heavy. The MCU officer faded into a state of comatose.
Barbara suited up as Batgirl to join Supergirl on the investigation for the missing Maggie Sawyer. The two crime fighters arrived outside of an abandoned warehouse. Batgirl sighed.
"Metropolis's economy isn't much better than Gotham, you know."
"What do you mean, Batgirl?"
"You know all of these abandoned warehouses. Not exactly the sign of a booming economy. And a breeding ground for a criminal empire. I don't really know what to tell you about this."
"Our little clue pointed us here, though," Kara said.
Barbara nodded.
"Five years ago, this warehouse folded underneath massive debts. I know, hence why people think it's an abandoned warehouse. It's not an eyesore in the middle of Metropolis no one owns. It belongs to Bruno Mannheim."
"So, Mannheim owns this place?" Kara asked.
"Yeah. Word on the street is he uses this place as a storing house for some of his weapons."
Kara sighed. She knew all about Mannheim's weapons. Two men walked around outside of the docks. Homeless gentlemen at first glance, but a closer look pointed out to Kara something else loomed in the distance.
A bad feeling passed through her. The feeling worsened when something stirred in the darkness. Kara lingered closer to the edge. Barbara touched her hand to Kara's.
"I feel it as well," Barbara said. "Something bad?"
"Worse than bad," Kara said.
The two of them passed the gentlemen outside, through a blind spot. They entered the warehouse. Stacks and stacks of crates greeted them. Kara frowned and looked over the crates.
She lifted one of the crates up and pried it open.
'Wonder what kind of weapon he got his hands on this time.'
The glint inside the crate belonged not to the weapon, but a crystal vial of some substance. Barbara lifted another crate and opened it. More of the same vials lingered.
Barbara ran a scan on the substance, and the prodigal young woman hitched in her breath. Kara's eyes turned at Barbara, waiting for a response.
"It's Venom!"
"You mean the drug Bane uses?" Kara asked.
"Yes. Or to be more accurate, it's a drug derived from Venom. There's enough derived from Venom, but there are changes. I know someone put a watered down form of Venom on the black market, but this proves it.
Kara raised an eyebrow. If every crate contained Venom samples, Mannheim acquired enough of the juice to empower an entire army.
"Why would such a dangerous drug fetch a good demand on the black market?"
"Venom is more powerful than any steroid, and undetectable by drug tests. At least until the users go insane, their livers fail, their kidneys fail, or they turn into a vegetable. Then it becomes obvious. But people have done worse to themselves for a short term moment of glory."
"More powerful than any steroid, but kills them faster, doesn't it?"
Barbara frowned and nodded. The lengths people took to be bigger and stronger alarmed her. Perfection came at a price.
"We're going to have to destroy these crates," Kara said.
"So, are we taking a page out of the Arrow's playbook?"
"Do you want any of this stuff out on the street?"
Barbara conceded Kara's point. She thought of the best way to destroy the juice, where none of it remained intact.
"I think we should also look for the manufacturer as well, because….."
"Step away from the crates."
Batgirl and Supergirl turned around. Three muscular goons stalked them. Kara looked over them.
"Don't worry, I got this."
Kara flew at one of the goons faster than a speeding bullet. She punched the goon in the face. The goon staggered back a step. He blocked a second punch and flipped Kara over. He launched Kara halfway across the factory like a used tissue.
Batgirl groaned the second the goon attack.
"Great, they're using Venom, and they've injected it straight into their….."
The second goon charged Batgirl. Batgirl dodged out of the way of the goon's attack. Her adversary crushed a cinderblock behind her.
Batgirl slid a tazer out of her glove, and jabbed it into the chest of powered up thug. He bellowed in pain, and Batgirl blinded him with sparks from her gloves. The thug doubled over. Batgirl never eased up on her attack to kick the enemy in the face.
The other two goons surrounded Supergirl. Supergirl flipped into the air, and kicked one of the thugs in the base of the neck.
"DESTROY YOU!" the goon bellowed.
Supergirl slid out of the way of the thug's attack. The thug smashed through the wall into a table.
The thug groaned. Several needles on the table impaled into his body. Kara watched the needles impale into his body, injecting him with more of the venom.
"YES!" the thug yelled. His eyes bulged and his skin bulged.
The thug's head expanded. To Kara's horror, said head exploded from the overdose. Blood splattered Kara's costume.
The third super powered goon grabbed Supergirl's cape and flung her against the wall. The Girl of Steel dented the wall. The Venom thug rushed Supergirl, but she avoided the attack.
He punched through the wall. Kara used her ice breath to create a ring of ice around his hand to stick him into the wall.
Kara nailed the goon with the full force of one huge Supergirl punch to the head. The goon's head snapped back. Blood splattered out of his nose and mouth.
The final goon followed up the attack on Batgirl. Supergirl rushed off to the side and speared the goon out of Batgirl's way.
Supergirl flew back over to check on Batgirl.
"Thank, I owe you one," Batgirl said. "LOOK OUT!"
Supergirl flew into the wall when the venom-powered thug recovered. The Girl of Steel crashed into the wall with a huge punt. She slumped against the wall from a violent impact delivered.
The thug smashed the pillars and caused the warehouse to start to collapse around them. Batgirl dodged the attack, but her cape caught underneath a piece of falling debris.
A large chuck of debris flew down, smacking against her. Numbness spread over Batgirl's lower extremities.
The thug collapsed in the rest of the debris. His heart pumped his last breath.
Supergirl dug Batgirl out of the debris.
"Kara, I can't feel my legs."
"Don't worry, Babs, I'll get you to the hos….SHIT!"
The Anti-Vigilante Task force arrived. Of all of the times, they arrived, it would be this one.
"No, no hospital, please."
Kara failed to find a reason to argue with Barbara. She scooped up Barbara and flew her out of the collapsing factory.
Maybe not the best idea to move her at this point, but Kara's options limited due to the idiots from the Anti-Vigilante Task Force breathed on her neck.
The bad part of Gotham City received a reputation for a good reason. Ella walked, pulling her hood over her face. The chill of Gotham City's notorious winter rattled her bones, and her teeth as well.
The side entrance to the club might be where she found answers. Ella needed to sneak into the club, given her status as under twenty-one.
"You stepped into the wrong part of town, sweetheart."
A group of tattooed, scarred thugs stepped into the alleyway. They blocked her way out of the alleyway. One of them stepped behind her to block the doorway into the club.
"So, do you punks have a gang bang you're late to? Or maybe a rap concert?"
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to see your ID, if you're running down this neighborhood."
The leader of the pack pushed down Ella's hood. The half-Italian female looked back at him. Her dark skin made her elegant features stand out. Her slick black hair tied back in a ponytail.
"Perfect little piece of jailbait aren't we? Must be about sixteen, or so? Well, we like them raw."
One of the goons griped her ponytail.
"And this will work for grabbing on when we take you in the backd…..YOU BITCH!"
Ella kicked him in the groin. One of the lead goons grabbed her. Ella dug her fingers into the the eyeball of the goon, and punted him in the jewels. He dropped to the ground.
She scratched her way out of the attack, and bit one of the goon's on the fingers. Ella regretted putting his fingers in her mouth because he tasted terrible.
Three of the goons jumped her at once and held her down to the ground.
"She's a feisty one isn't she? Good, like it when a bitch doesn't lie there, and make me do all of the fucking work."
Ella squirmed, and headbutted one of them. Blood splashed into the air, and she slid away, knowing she backed against the wall.
The gang bangers fell to their knees. Their hands clapped around their heads. One of the goons threw up before he passed out.
Ella looked up. A blonde woman dressed in black leather, a jacket, and fishnets approached her.
"Wonderful, I'm saved by some fucking hooker. Great."
"My name is Black Canary."
The woman reached forward to assist Ella to her feet. The mob princess slapped away from her hand. She rose to her feet on her own accord, and stepped on the head of one of the bastards who tried to have their way.
"You're one of those fucking do-gooders, aren't you? Great, now I wish you were a hooker! I'm pretty sure I could afford you if I wanted to."
Black Canary frowned at the young girl's mouth.
"So, what do you want?"
"I've been looking for you," Black Canary said.
"If you're going to take me to the police, you can take a hike to the street corner you walked in from. Thank you for saving me but…"
"I know who killed your father."
Ella's sharp tongue ceased at this news. Her eyes widened and gasped. Dare she hope?
To Be Continued September 25th, 2015.