Chapter 50: Ugly #50
Author's note: donate power stones or you will be visited by the horse from Berserk manga when you're sleeping!
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Gotham
The Coventry
Near an abandoned shipyard
"That's the place," I gestured towards a moderately spacious shipyard with no visible trace of human presence and activity inside it unless you knew where to look.
'Looks like they haven't had time to place a cloaking device, or maybe they didn't bring another one...' I mused as I watched Harley squint her eyes while looking at the shipyard, trying and failing to find any sign of the Intergang members inside.
"Are ya sure? Place looks pretty darn empty to me..." Harley replied, tilting her head as she skeptically turned to me, having already given up on spotting anything.
"I'm sure. I tracked down the werewolf guy and his buddy here after they fled the hospital," I replied, firmly nodding my head. "Take a closer look," I added, throwing the crazy blonde a pair of binoculars I took out from my inventory.
"There are no locks on the shipyard's entrance, but there are lock-and-chain-shaped dust prints, meaning someone removed the locks not too long ago," I added with a shrug as I gestured toward the back entrance with my right.
"You can see that the windows are covered too, and the electricity box outside is still open..." I concluded, as I sent my pigeon drone to inspect the area and scout the Intergang's numbers and firepower.
"Oh! I see it now!" Harley said as she turned to look at the entrance through the binoculars, eagerly nodding her head. "Ya tryna rip off Batman with that detective shit, an' that edgy get up or something'?" she asked, throwing back the binoculars at me and grinning as she gestured at my black trench coat.
"Anyway, here's the plan; they only moved here recently, so they probably didn't have time to install cloaking and sensory devices..." I remarked, ignoring the crazy blonde's quip without dignifying it with an answer.
"You wait near the electric box for my signal. I'll sneak in there, take care of any lookouts, and find their bosses," I explained, gesturing towards the electricity box and the shipyard's slanted roof.
"Same as before. Once you hear the first gunshot, kill the lights and go wild. And no killing this time, so don't go too wild," I concluded as I equipped my steel wire and made for the edge of the roof.
"Yeah, yeah. I get it already, ya Bat-ass-kissin' sucker..." Harley said, rolling her eyes at me as she too started moving, and I only sighed as I began swinging my way to the shipyard.
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The Coventry
Inside abandoned shipyard
"As you can see, Black Mask isn't leaving us any room to breathe..." Whisper remarked, narrowing her slit, reptilian eyes as she stared at a hologram projection of her boss, Bruno Ugly Manheim.
"Gotham's vigilantes aren't making it easy either, with Nightwing and Robin constantly hunting down our operatives..." she added, gesturing to the side. She scowled at the memory of Batman's sidekicks and how many setbacks they had caused for Integang's expansion plan already.
"Not to mention the loss in equipment and men Catwoman and her associates caused when they attacked the hospital," she explained, shaking her head.
"Mike Gunn is out of commission because of his severed arm, and Abbot barely made a full recovery today," she stated, frowning at her boss's leisure expression as he listened with closed eyes as if none of this had anything to do with him.
"We're bleeding money and aren't gaining any ground here. It's time you called off this wild goose chase," she blankly concluded, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"I'll call off the operation whenever I think it's necessary, and I currently don't," Bruno Mannheim replied, opening his eyes and narrowing them at the serpentine redhead.
"It's only a matter of time before I get the Religion of Crime to support our invasion of Gotham fully..." he added, his expression blank as he put his hands behind his back.
"But—" Whisper said, trying to retort. However, Mannheim quickly cut her off with a raised hand and a glare, causing her to stop talking and grit her teeth in frustration.
"You are most useful, Whisper. But, don't assume you are irreplaceable..." Manheim casually remarked, returning his hand behind his back and taking a relaxed posture.
"You will do as you're told, or things will get ugly for you," he intently concluded, letting a slight smile out as he saw Whisper nod her head and hum in agreement through gritted teeth.
"And speaking of things turning ugly... Mike has already lived past his use, with his bone cannon prosthetic gone..." Manheim remarked after a second's pause used to study Whisper's expression or perhaps take pleasure in her frustration.
"He knows too much to be let loose. You understand?" He asked after another second, having found no sign of defiance in the serpentine woman's face.
"I understand," Whisper replied, nodding her head without hesitation, to which Manheim returned the gesture and ended the call without bothering to say anything else.
Whisper hissed in frustration as soon as the call ended with her mouth opened wide, displaying her sharp, long fangs as she activated her energy whip and slashed the wooden table next to her in half with a swing.
Not only did Manheim send them on an impossible, possibly suicidal mission to take over Gotham, he even had the gull to leave them to dry despite the rapidly worsening situation.
Whisper had been trying to contact Manheim for the past two days to no avail, as the latter was too busy dealing with Intergang business in Metropolis since Superman had been actively hunting down their members after their last failed operation.
She had no idea what the ugly motherfucker was thinking by sending them into Gotham with barely enough men and firepower to take over the most notoriously gang/supervillain-infested city, especially with the man of steel breathing down their necks in their own home turf.
"I told you Manheim is going crazy..." Whisper heard a solemn voice from behind, causing her to turn around and face the speaker, Kyle Abbot, who had already recovered from his injuries.
"It all started when he got his hands on a copy of the Crime Bible. Right now, things are no different from our time in the League Of Shadows, maybe worse..." Abbot calmly remarked, his expression Blank as he spoke, gesturing to the side.
"Maybe. But what do you expect me to do about it?" Whisper asked, frowning as she turned to face her bodyguard with a scowl. "We're already knee-deep in this shit..." she added, shaking her head to signal the end of the conversation.
"Come, we have work to do," the serpentine redhead remarked as she walked past the lycanthrope while walking to the room's exit, causing the latter to sigh and follow suit.
However, they were only halfway through their detention in the middle of the shipyard when the lights died out, and gunshots began echoing in the distance.
And before Whisper could even start barking orders, a figure veiled in shadows landed in front of her, staring into her eyes through two dark red lenses that were the only clearly visible parts of the intruder's body.
"You!" Abbot exclaimed, transforming into his werewolf form and lunging at the intruder before Whisper could make sense of the situation. And she quickly followed suit, brandishing her Apokoliptian energy whips with little hesitation.
The intruder, Gray, Didn't hesitate to strike back as he took a step back to dodge a swipe of Abbot's claws, only to duck as Whisper swung her energy whip at his head.
Gray whipped the steel wire at the werewolf's feet, causing the latter to jump. However, the wire stopped right beneath him and flew towards his ankles, binding them together.
Channeling electricity through the wire and into the wolf man, Gray turned his attention to Whisper only to see her swing down her whip at his head, forcing him to dodge by stepping aside.
He frowned under his mask, noticing the deep, scorched gash in the ground where the whip hit. He didn't hesitate to attack, charging at the serpentine woman and storing the wire into his inventory as the wolf man tried to yank it away, despite the electricity coursing through his body.
Whisper kept whipping at Gray to no avail as the latter didn't fail to dodge every single swing, causing her to frown as she began moving backward to maintain the distance between them.
Luckily for her, the wolf man quickly recovered thanks to his healing factor and charged at Gray, forcing the latter to dodge and stop advancing.
However, her luck didn't last as she missed another swing of her whip, and Gray took advantage of the time she needed to recover, moving behind the wolf-man, using the latter as a shield against the serpentine woman's whip.
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