Saving Bluebird
"Will he come back? Will he think I've done too badly?" After bidding farewell to Dick, Baia couldn't suppress her anxious heart, even though she tried. Nevertheless, a hint of a smile lingered on her lips. Baia rarely initiated conversations with the system. Sometimes she felt like the system was an imaginary friend she conjured up, while other times she believed it harbored undisclosed plans. But now, she couldn't help but poke at the system in her mind.
"If only I had a brother like him," Baia rambled on, concluding after a while.
The system, already shifting from patient cooperation to automatic responses, chimed in again: "Hmm, you're right."
After tidying up the house, Baia headed upstairs.
Since Selina stopped hiding her alter ego from Baia, she didn't have to tiptoe around while going upstairs to find Holly. Baia enticed the black cat, Kelly, sunbathing in the garden with a can of cat food. She lifted its right front paw and pressed it against the hidden fingerprint lock at the door, and click, the door opened.
Yes, the footsteps of death were slowly approaching, Holly thought, and she burrowed deeper into her blankets.
Come to think of it, Holly had never seen Baia angry. Perhaps she wouldn't be this time either, but didn't that make it even more unsettling?
"Holly?" Baia called out calmly, arms crossed, watching the girl lying in bed pretending to be dead, looking both annoyed and amused.
A little annoyed and a little amused in her heart.
"Holly, give me some time to prepare, okay?" Holly weakly pleaded.
Baia joked, "What are you afraid of? Should I dismember you first and then wrap you in plastic to hide you in the attic?"
The suddenly awakened system: Wait a minute, why so detailed!
Holly speculated about Baia's motives and said, "So Grayson Officer might come to arrest you himself?"
It was well-known that Gotham and the neighboring metropolis, as well as the slightly more distant central city villains, were no strangers to crimes committed with the ultimate goal of "attracting superhero attention." Thinking about how this city would soon have another member of the Arkham Club, Holly jumped out of bed and tried to divert Baia's attention with other things: "That won't do, when do you plan to open the clinic? How about we start renovating the ground floor today?" Rainbow comb far
"But Dick is an officer at the Blüdhaven Police Department," Baia, once reminded by Holly, fell into deep thought immediately. "Unless I commit a cross-city crime... wait, has the ground floor already been rented out?"
That's right, it's Blüdhaven's cops. Holly breathed a sigh of relief and snuggled back into bed. "It was rented out by Selina and given to you as a gift, after all, you love the kitchen on the ground floor so much."
Baia worried, "From what you said, it seems like we're more suited to opening a restaurant."
Baia was still calculating the costs. She didn't want to keep spending Selina's money, and she needed to plan for the future. Therefore, her clinic had to be profitable. When she became successful, she would donate a large sum to the Blüdhaven Police Department and give Dick a big banner, with "A Good Servant of the People" written on it—
The system: Wake up. This is America, we don't do banners.
Baia:!
It seemed like she had to reconsider her plan of gratitude.
At this moment, Holly was already dressed and had miraculously found a pair of glasses from somewhere. She also picked up paper and pen, dragging Baia downstairs to start planning the layout of the clinic.
"We need a reception desk, a lounge area, a examination room, and maybe even a dessert counter," Baia commented.
"Are you sure we should have a dessert counter in the clinic?"
"Of course!"
"Now that I think about it, it seems like the ground floor isn't big enough..."
Just as the two girls were discussing with great enthusiasm, Selina returned.
She took off her cool sister sunglasses, messed up Holly and Baia's hair, and said, "Your lifesaver left?"
Baia nodded.
Holly quickly showed Selina the drawings she had made, but unfortunately, because they were too abstract, Selina couldn't make sense of them even after looking at them for a long time. Just as she was thinking about how not to undermine their confidence, there was a crisp sound of a vase falling upstairs.
Baia silently complained to the system about her bad luck today as she dashed upstairs, leading the way.
Detective sat elegantly on the bookshelf, occupying the spot where Baia had carefully placed the vase, which was now shattered on the carpet.
"I've been so good to you!" Baia tiptoed up and picked up Detective, messing up its fur. "And this is how you repay me! Ah!"
Selina had sharp eyes.
She saw a faint red light flashing among the shattered pieces of the porcelain vase: a bug.
"Tsk, speaking of which," she picked up the bug, playing with it with her beautiful fingers, and casually said to herself, "Sweetheart, you'd better be careful, men are not good things."
Hiss.
On the other side, Tim's hair stood on end, and he swiftly took off his headphones and closed his laptop.
"Huh?"
The topic changed a bit quickly, and Baia was still reveling in the joy of the Detective's mischievous behavior. The Detective remained indifferent, allowing her to hold it up with both front paws.
Selina casually tossed the bug out of the window, saying, "Hmph, it's nothing."
By evening, Selina hurriedly left the apartment again, this time through the window.
Sometimes Baia couldn't fathom Selina's thoughts and emotions, nor could she understand her plans. She simply made sure to lock the doors and windows again. Sometimes Baia felt like this dangerous city had even assimilated her.
The Detective sat grumpily on the windowsill, with a bright and large full moon outside, outlining a peculiar beauty. Baia never knew the moon could feel so close to her.
But all of these things made her feel a strange sense of unreality, as if she were on the moon, looking at a world that didn't belong to her through thousands of kilometers. Seeing Dick again made her lose the only goal she could call her own.
Ignoring the Detective's reluctance, she picked up her big black cat again and hugged it under the blanket, regardless of its struggles, seeking a bit of warmth. Although after they became familiar with each other, the big cat would be careful not to hurt her with its sharp claws, it didn't mean she could restrain a ten-kilogram cat for several minutes.
The Detective somehow floated to the top of the cabinet like a cloud and started licking its paws. Baia suddenly suspected that this cat had been pretending to limp all this time just to deceive her.
Baia sat up, and it was very quiet around her.
"Give me a task," she said.
The system hesitated, "Well, there actually is one, but..."
Baia cut it off, saying, "No 'buts'."
The system made a "ding" sound.
[Sudden Task] Rescue the distressed Bluebird. Task Reward: 5 Skill Points. Time Limit: 30 minutes.
Baia looked at her pajamas, then at the clock, and then at the Detective. "In the middle of the night, is this the best task you can come up with?"
The system said, "To be fair, you asked me to assign a task, but then you're picky. But actually, even if you didn't ask, I would have suggested it myself..."
With that said, a holographic map appeared in Baia's mind. The golden dots on the map represented the location of the task objective.
It wasn't too far, just a few blocks away, about a fifteen-minute walk.
The system comforted her, "It's okay, don't be afraid, you probably won't die."
Baia sighed sorrowfully, "Is that supposed to be comforting..."
It's hard to say Baia wasn't a cautious person; her survival instinct told her she should lie down immediately and pretend nothing had happened, not recklessly venture into Gotham's night.
But she thought, "Very well."
It was a good time to try out the cat's footsteps.
Considering Selina's shared stealth talent, it seemed reliable (even though Selina herself was not).
She checked her skill points again. Only Nightingale and Moonlight were lit up, but it should be enough. If the other person was bleeding heavily or had suffered damage to vital organs, it might not be enough.
Like that day in Chinatown.
She still couldn't save that person.
But she was just one task away from unlocking Angel's Song.
Baia took a deep breath.
She put on her thick coat, wore her small leather boots, checked the small tools Holly had given her, made sure they were in their proper places along with the apartment keys, and finally kissed her black cat, who had come to sniff her.
"I'll be back soon, Detective."
The black-clad slender girl moved with the stealth and grace of a cat.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone