"Is this your gun, Mister…Talley, was it? It's quite nice. Must have cost quite a lot of money…was it paid with some money from your old accounting job or your new job as an investigative reporter?"
The small, gauche me and watch the wing young man study his shotgun, eyes widened in shock as the wings twitched now and again in a show of possible excitement. The young man looked like his hair was a victim of a crazed wind tunnel, the brown hair swept back of the tips and white as snow on the mountain. The gauche man, Mr. Talley, flinched in his binds as the wings spread suddenly to their full length of about 6 or 7 feet. The young man laughed in a debonair manner, clearly enjoying Mr. Talley's fear. He folded his wings again.
"Ah, that seems to have snapped you from your ennui," the young man chuckled, patting the shuddering Mr. Talley on the head, "I apologize. This dimly lit room has sepulchral and vapid tastes to it, doesn't it? I keep asking for a new change, maybe an interior designer to go crazy on it, but it's hard enough to get a plumber here. Now, back to the matter at hand…this gun costs quite an unwieldy amount of money…and according to this serial number, it was stolen about two months ago. I know you didn't do it, Mr. Talley – you were on a list of accountants that were working for the British government. We have security footage for it and several witnesses. So you can relax a little. Hmmm…I wonder if your source loaded the gun…" Mr. Talley's florid brown eyes widened as the young man positioned the barrel of the shotgun into his own mouth – was the young man crazy enough to shoot it while it pointed into his mouth?
He voiced his concern in a sputter, "Blo-bloody 'ell, are yo-you insane?"
"Let's see," the young man answered discursively, his finger pulling the trigger. He didn't even flinch as the gun made a clicking sound. "Like I thought. You were carrying an empty gun to bluff some simple minded oaf. Though I can probably guess that you don't know how to load a gun. Your mother was a widow – nobody taught you how to when you were young like most young boys born in your era. You probably didn't think it was necessary now – you have too much trust in the police. Tsk, tsk, Mr. Talley. You're a reporter now. You should know that knowledge is power, little man…I'm sorry, I'm acting very pretentiously, aren't I? Very rude of me, scaring you out of your wits and what not. I didn't even tell you my name. It's Apollo. Rest assured, I'm not going to kill you. I just want answers. Who gave you the gun and the lead you were tracking?"
"A…a large ma-man," Mr. Talley sputtered in a faint British accent, "Brown-n hair…lar-largest man I've ever se-seen. About eight feet tall, h-he was. Heavy Irish accent. Arms we-were thick as firewood lo-logs." There was a moment of thick, intense silence after Mr. Talley answered. Apollo turned and walked into the darkness that surrounded them. Mr. Talley was alone, tied to a chair. He began to sweat nervously, wondering what the winged man was doing. Apollo had said that he wasn't going to kill Mr. Talley, but lying was obviously a perfected talent the winged man had. He shuddered, imagining how he'd die. Strangling? No, that seemed too simple and brutal for a man like Apollo. The winged man seemed too proud to have someone else kill him, so it'd probably be poison. Mr. Talley nearly jumped out of his skin as Apollo came back, a paper in hand.
"Thank you, Mr. Talley. I just have a few more questions and then Ms. Althea will escort you out," Apollo replied. He held the paper in front of Mr. Talley, letting the small, greasy haired man study it.
"Y-yes, that's hi-him! Except…his hair wasn't that shade of bright orange. Other than that and the scars, they co-could be twi-twins!" Mr. Talley exclaimed.
"Good…this is very good. Where did you meet him?" Apollo asked, a smug smirk growing on his face. Mr. Talley was reminded of a cat that caught a very elusive sparrow.
"A…a pub. It's hard to remember the name…something to do with a maiden…I told him how I got fired from my job and didn't know what to do. He told me to check out being an investigative reporter and gave me a lead on Myth Corps…" Mr. Talley answered slowly. He flinched as Apollo sniffed the air. Was he angry? Or just sniffing for a lie?
"…thank you for your service, Mr. Talley. Ms. Althea, please escort him out," Apollo commanded, turning and walking into the darkness.
"Your wish is my life, Prince Apollo," a young woman walked out of the darkness. Her eyes were completely black – no pupil, no whites. She was bald, had no nose, and her skin was white as paper. She struggled across the room like she didn't know how to use her legs. She was a cadaverous monster. Mr. Talley felt a faint protest rise on his tongue, but Apollo cut him off.
"Please, Ms. Althea, I'm no prince. Just a hunter…a hunter that has the scent of his prey," Apollo chuckled, "Oh, Diane, your act is coming to a close. Curtain time."
"You should've seen her, Harley! She popped out of nowhere and just caught Arrow before anyone could flap a wing! She was all like Emperor Palpatine with the 'UNLIMITED POWAH!'"
That was Barley's explanation of how Diane had apparently saved Arrow (who apparently got split up from Marley and Barley) because she was falling from a height of around fifty feet. Arrow was immortal, but she still felt pain. Preventing that pain was a top priority for the three Bloodriver brothers.
Harley looked to Marley and asked, "Why doesn't Rose like Diane? She saved one of our own. Hell, she gets fucking brownie points for it being Arrow."
"That's why – Diane's an outsider, not created or trained by S7. Rose sees it as an intrusion – it doesn't help that Diane insulted Rose's leadership skills in front of us," Marley answered, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, "Rose has to look at the good part of this – Diane has obviously dealt with Myth Corps before. That lizard-man-thing, Sharptooth – he knew her. This is Diane's territory – she'd know it better than any GPS S7 could ever offer us."
"Rose is a proud little bitch. I can probably bet that she's manipulating Caesar and Dagger by blackmail that she's going to hurt the other," Harley replied, equally frustrated by the events, "Ever since her older sister got medic job on that team, she's been so whiny. Then when S7 gave her this job to stop the whining, she takes everything out on the rest of us because we're all family. Remember how Caesar was supposed to get the position of leader?"
"I do, I do!" Barley exclaimed, excited to be part of the conversation, "We threw an epic party to congratulate him! I made my best nachos that day and I even managed to swipe a kario-"
"Barley, it was a night to remember," Marley interrupted, his tone set to appease and quiet his hyperactive brother. Barley grinned.
"It's all bullshit in this division," Harley growled, "Look at Toby's division – they have a leader who is trained to lead. We get an abusive, whiny, power-hungry –"
"It's where we're stationed," Marley interrupted, "Until otherwise, we have to respect Rose. That does not mean we have to like her. Back to the matter at hand…do we all agree that we should work with Diane?"
"Yep," Harley and Barley answered together.
"I still don't like Diane very much. Don't hate her like Rose does, but I don't like her," Harley added, "She trolls me."
"Then we vote that and win," Marley replied, "Then we work to complete the mission in one piece."
"Hey…where's Arrow?" Barley asked, blinking his sea-foam green eyes while scratching his blonde head. (A/N: Yeah…forgot that I didn't give Barley any description to speak of)
Harley answered, "Outside, with Diane." They all looked out the doorway to where Arrow was fluttering around the brunette woman as she hung upside down on a tree branch (said tree branch was about 50 feet from the ground. For someone who couldn't fly, she sure loved heights). Arrow seemed to be telling her life story to Diane, the woman taking note of every word as she swung up to sit on the branch. Arrow seemed to adopt Diane already as an older sister – something Rose had been trying to do for a year. Diane started to tell her own story, Arrow listening with curious, wide eyes. Diane began to make faces and hand motions, entertaining the little girl with ease. Harley almost smiled.
"Aw, that's so cute!" Barley exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.
"I wonder what her trick is," Marley muttered, watching with curiosity.
"…I don't like her," Harley declared again, "But…I'll work with her. 'Till this is done."
Marley smiled, "I think she'll grow on you."
"You're crazy, Marley," Harley snorted, "She's not my type."
"We're all crazy here, Harley," Marley smirked, replying, "And I think you'll find that you two have more in common than you think."
A/N: Again, I apologize for not uploading this sooner. I'm going to put Define Deity on hold because it may need a reboot (because nothing in that story makes sense to me when I reread it), so there's going to be more focus on this and Seeds. That works for me because, despite what you may think, they're highly related...one of the side-plots in this sets the ground work for CATS vs. DRAGONS as well as the third plot-arc in Seeds. So you may want to read both this and Seeds, as well as the rest of Aurorawolfa's CATS vs. series (I warn you - the first two are rather cliché and filled with plot holes and things) to get the whole picture in place.