PART 1 - INTERMISSION 3 - Night of The Owls - Meanwhile...
"(...) Look at the owl, scarce seen, scarce heard,
O irritant, iterant, maddening bird!"
Sidney Lanier
WORD OF WARNING: This author has STILL NOT played the new PS5 Spider-Man 2 game nor watched any "let's play", trying to keep the surprises still surprising, and probably that could be the same for many other readers, so, be considerate and avoid spoilers in the reviews, please!
Gotham City
The Chrysalis
The Night of the Owls
07:38 pm
Dressed in his cerulean bathrobes, black silk pants and Blue Beetle-themed fuzzy slippers, the genius millionaire Ted Kord had just come out of a long shower, with the urge for something sweet and hot.
Ted had just prepared his evening cocoa in his coffee bar when he felt it. Surviving years in the superheroic business granted him enough live-experience to recognize a stealthy entrance when it happened. Sometimes, he could even catch one of the Bats, but he suspected they purposely let other heroes know of their arrival to test their colleagues.
('Or maybe they just took pity on the non-ninja side of super-heroes')
Kord was wondering if he had to prepare another hot cocoa when the cold voice came from his balcony.
"Ted Kord."
'Huh?', the millionaire wondered, as he turned around, spotting the man dressed in an uncomfortably familiar black uniform.
"The Court of Owls", the uninvited visitor declared, "has sentenced you to die."
The genius gave the man a quick once over, then took a sip of his hot chocolatey treat. "Now, that is a surprise", he spoke, lips stained and quirked eyebrow. The assassin moved the curved dagger from his cloak's folds. "I mean, I'm from Chicago, not Gotham, but weren't you guys supposed to be sent against those who spoke word of the Court?", Ted took another sip. "I have my own suspicions on the matter, though… oh, sorry for the rudeness, care for some cocoa?"
The Talon calmly stepped forward, as Ted turned toward a small cupboard on his coffee bar, then the assassin stopped, as Ted pulled out… a glass container, full of small white little balls. "Or marshmallow?"
Despite the mask, Ted would swear he could see the expression of confusion on the man's face, as he put the marshmallows on the bar counter. "Oh, come on, don't be like that, I'm a rich guy living in Gotham, I've had my share of assassination's attempts, so the novelty gets lost."
"This night, there won't be… an 'attempt'", The Talon spoke, sounding almost sarcastic.
"So right you are", Ted agreed, lifting his cup in a toast. "Pharaoh's Pit."
A small section of the luxurious office's wooden floor opened up, revealing a metal plated pitfall beneath it. The assassin had no time to realize the trap, before dropping into it. A gloved hand extended, trying to grab onto the edge of the pit, but a glass container of marshmallows smashed on it midair, preventing the assassin from stopping his own fall.
The man disappeared into the darkness below him, wooden panels returning to their original position, almost as if nothing had happened.
"Attacking me in my own office?", Ted said in disbelief, dropping a couple of small sugary confections he had saved and dropping them on the hot concoction. "Big mistake."
The millionaire touched a secret scanner on his wall, revealing his super-heroic equipment. More importantly, a screen that showed the captured Talon, now inside a barred cage in one of his secret floors he had installed inside the Chrysalis. Ted made a face of disgust, remembering the autopsy he had helped perform alongside Bruce, hours earlier.
This new Talon - or would it be an older Talon? - was already recovering from the fall - 'Non-lethal, obviously!' - and trying to tear his cell apart with his superior strength. "Now that won't do", he lamented, pressing a button on the screen. There was a loud screech and the killer dropped to the floor of the cage, momentarily knocked out by the sudden high voltage coursing through walls, floor, ceiling and bars of his containment unit.
Normally, Ted Kord would avoid using such drastic measures over a captured foe, but after seeing Bruce's state after he had fished the other hero out of Gotham Bay, Ted had been much less inclined on being friendly. Finding out, along with the genius detective, about the modifications done to Talon's body only reinforced his resolve.
'Regenerative abilities, super strength and pain resistance in a half-alive state', he thought about it, before setting the system to repeat and increase the shock treatment every time the assassin started moving again. 'Great idea, unless your completely-saturated-with-a-highly-conductive-metal-element assassin gets electrocuted.'
Setting the screen aside for another one, Ted was surprised by the incoming emergency transmission coming from the Bat-Cave, the caller id identified as 'Penny One'.
'I have a bad feeling about this', Ted surmised, as he connected the call.
To Be Continued!
Author's Notes:
So! Hm... I have nothing to say, really.
Except Happy Easter! And April's Fool too, I suppose!
Honest talk, here, I'm a little exhausted. No, not from the story, the next real chapter will be big, it's just that I've been dealing with my moving out from my house and I'm just so tired, this month was my own challenge to myself, to update every week of March, to celebrate my birthday's month, so I almost burned through my buffer of ready-to-post chapters.
I had almost nothing ready, except the next chapter and this intermission, which is more like a page I wrote down and had no place to put it on the story, and decided, what the heck, since I wanted to keep a self-imposed schedule, this ridiculously short chapter will be this week's update.
Hope you enjoyed it!
(But April, yeah, April I'm back to the biweekly updates, sorry everyone!)
