Capítulo 99: Lair
I had only two explanations for what was happening: a very pissed off Harley started pulling energy from Delirum, or the Eternal had invaded my favorite, furious that someone dared to hurt one awesome hero.
Hmm, it's nice to have two adorable cuties worrying about you. But I'm not satisfied with the fact that the blonde is letting a lot of energy through her seventh beginning. Such a thing, as well as the sudden emptying of the source, has a very negative effect on the magician, gradually turning his aura into shreds.
"Sunshine," I gently took the beauty by her slightly chubby cheeks, catching her gaze.
It's like an angry hamster *-*. True, with the power of an archmage, and if Madness is fully connected, with the powers of a meta-universe-level goddess.
"The bastard who did this is already dead, Frankie chewed his head off.
"But he must suffer," her voice was strangely double.
"Don't worry, he'll definitely suffer. You've read his file, right? Killing people will definitely keep him out of heaven.
The reincarnation wheel is probably already stripping him shell by shell, cleansing his soul, and I doubt it's a pleasant procedure, given the way I felt when I healed Gordon. And that was just regular bajillion spent. Hmm... Or is he really going to Hell first, which is a real place in this universe?
"I'll take care of it," Harley's serious voice brought me back to reality from my fantasies of the bastard's hellish torment.
For a moment, my body felt a sickening chill that penetrated to my bones. It was as if Death himself had visited this mortal world for a second, which was possible, given who Delirum was and who her older sister was.
With a sigh, I pressed the overly worried girl against me, stroking her head gently and trying to ignore the heavy weight on my shoulders, which evoked associations with the pressure of water at great depths.
"Bats showed me a few tricks, so don't worry too much. The wounds will heal soon, and there won't even be any scars. You'll be fine.
"Mr. J..." she hugged me back, relaxing a little.
The mana concentration around her was still higher than normal, but the weight off her shoulders was gone once the blonde calmed down a bit. Was it really the famous Yaki, or "killing intent" in normal language. Quite an interesting effect, capable of paralyzing the weak of spirit.
Ah, more experiments are needed. And where would I find the time to do them? I still haven't tested the material illusions, and given the temporary difficulties with magic, I doubt I'll be able to do them in the next couple of days.
"Jay, Harley, is everything okay?" the young heroine came to us, descending from the ceiling on a rope.
"Oh, hello, Mousey! What are you doing here?" I turned to the redhead, smiling happily.
"Do you think Harley's skills would be enough to hack into Rejdel's phone, find the last contact, and then hack the local carrier's towers to find the location of the outgoing call?" The pretty girl in the bat suit said with a sniff of her nose. Then she took a closer look at my face, shrugging her shoulders. - It was a terrible illusion. The scars look real.
I hold a slightly tense Harley tighter against me, never stopping stroking her.
"It's not an illusion. Regdel took a shit before he died. Huh, don't worry, I'll get rid of it soon enough.
Mousey stepped closer and silently hugged us both.
We stood like that for about five minutes, sharing the warmth of our hearts, before we were distracted by a delicate cough.
"Are you done?" Standing next to the pool was a slightly shabby-looking Gloomy Mouse himself.
"Uh... Sort of, yeah.
I let go of Harley and stepped aside, giving myself room to maneuver.
"There it is... Michael got half of his body bitten off by a shark... I had nothing to do with it... Well, maybe indirectly," I answered, preparing to draw my revolver.
I don't feel like getting into Arkham right now, especially on the lower levels. And two "accidental" deaths in a row sounds too unbelievable, and that's without taking into account the soon-to-be-dead Zsasz, whose death I'm also suspected of by the greatest detective of all. Hopefully, Abby will agree to make my place in the woods up to code, and Alan's remaining dirty money will be enough to provide my new home with all the amenities of civilization. But first I have to disarm Bats, and it's unlikely that the fight even against a weakened hero will be easy.
"I saw it on the cameras. Phone," he held out his hand demandingly.
"Ah, just a second," I rummage through my usual pockets and hand over the tech, relaxing my buns a bit.
"There's a group of fifteen bandits at the north entrance. We need to apprehend them," the man said sternly, hooking a button to his wristband.
"What about you?
"I want to do a quick sweep of the place. According to the data we've gotten, there's a lab nearby where Nicholson was creating an enhanced toxin using Titan stolen from the evidence locker," the superhero explained.
Hmm, I guess he'd been roughed up again for being so outspoken. Or is it a residual effect from the labyrinth?
"Understood, everything will be at its best. Ladies.
"Let's fuck them all up!" Harley was the first to head for the exit, clutching her bat belligerently.
"Batgirl, stay," said Gloomy Mouse suddenly, making our magnificent trio falter. - You don't want to be seen as the Joker's accomplice, do you?
No, he's definitely been fucked up again.
"Don't worry, Mouse. We'll hang out again tonight," I patted the girl's shoulder encouragingly. - I have a cool thing that you'll like," I wiggled my eyebrows playfully, then realized that the gesture hardly looked attractive with my new appearance.
Contrary to my fears, Jim's daughter shot her eyes up, blushing slightly.
"Okay, I'll take your word for it.
"Huh, great! Oh, by the way, Bats, who was the big boss?
"You've met him," Bruce answered, keeping his eyes on the screen embedded in his wristband. - It had been Henry Addams all along, who had managed to hide the effects of the infected blood. Hurry, the criminals will be loading the equipment soon, and then we'll have to catch them all over the city.
"Okay, ha ha ha ha, you can count on us! Harley, keep up!" I sprinted forward.
Wow, that bald old man who ate his wife turned out to be the main villain. Well, purely by the laws of the comic book, such a twist was to be expected. But at the same time I didn't even think about him, because he was locked up in a special cell under the movie theater, which Bats couldn't help but leave without security systems. Hmm, Henry had something in his file about programming, and he was hardly lacking in intelligence if he'd managed to become principal of one of the most prestigious high schools in the United States. He must have somehow managed to hack into the shelter's systems, disguising himself and his buddies.
As we ran through the corridors, I had time to tell the girl about my epic confrontation against the crazy clown, as well as the acid I'd gotten, which the blonde was eager to investigate.
Soon Harley and I ran to the right exit and saw a bunch of criminal elements, who had already managed to get rid of their not the most elegant red-and-black uniforms and were now hurriedly loading stolen equipment from the oceanarium into several cars.
"Come on, boys!" the figther was pushing them, standing on a pickup truck and waving a gun at them. - I heard a police siren nearby.
"If you're so smart, then help me," one of the bandits snapped at him, holding up two large systems.
I didn't see any point in announcing my arrival, so I dashed into the crowd with my cane. Harley galloped along, laughing happily, doing dizzying somersaults and adding to the chaos.
In just two minutes, there were fourteen bodies on the ground, moaning in pain. The only one left standing was their "leader," who was now aiming his gun at me with shaking hands.
A shadow flashed, there was a thud, and the perpetrator collapsed inside the back of the truck like a hamstring.
"Hooray! Eight-seven in my favor - turning sideways and putting the bat on her shoulder, my favorite threw a playful look at me, which looked in her performance just unrealistically cute.
"Ha ha ha, congratulations. That definitely deserves an award.
"Yes!" Harley jumped down from the truck, hugging me with all her limbs and kissing me gently on the cheek, so as not to touch the shitty stitched wound. - What's the reward?
"How about a date? Like tomorrow at eight-thirty on the roof of Finnegan's Bar?" I whispered quietly, so no one would overhear.
"Is that what I think it is?
"Yeah. We'll have the best seats.
"Great, Mr. J!" I got another gentle kiss.
After making sure the criminals weren't going anywhere anytime soon, we headed for a nearby parked Aston, repainted with a rune spell to an inconspicuous black color. I plugged in my earpiece and contacted Bats on the way, letting him know that the bandits weren't going anywhere now.
"All right. Batgirl will be here soon, and you can go home. I can take it from here," the superhero replied, and then he immediately passed out.
A simple "thank you" seemed to be the last thing I'd ever get from him. Though he didn't even mention returning the monocle, so I'll consider it a kind of gratitude. Gratitude, from which I still have to forge tracking devices and modify the firmware, removing backdoors and various bookmarks, which the device has a hundred percent, and because of which I preferred to keep the monocle in a spatial pocket, because there is no cellular signal there.
A couple minutes later, a pleased Barbara came running in, boasting that Gloomy Mouse had agreed to resume training, after which we quickly dropped the girl off at her apartment and went to the manor to get some rest before the night watch and sort out the trophies.
The mansion greeted us with partially non-functioning lights and a broken automatic system, so we had to open the gates by hand. The building was just as dreary, quiet, and empty. Abby had her hands full right now, and she wasn't hired to keep an eye on the house, and we had a good security guard. He's not very smart at the moment, though, and he's pretty passive. The toothed plant only had enough activity to wiggle its leaves a little as a greeting when we came to check on it, after which it continued to snooze surrounded by flowers.
During my enforced absence, there were small changes: in the garage was found parked gray sedan Cliff, which the industrious Harley "grabbed" even without my wise advice, and in the greenhouse in the eye was the absence of any traces of blood, as well as the headless dead freak, which, according to the satisfied blonde, the dryad successfully processed for fertilizer, buried the remains in the garden at a depth of twenty meters.
It was still more than two hours before darkness fell. My faithful assistant, realizing that nobody was going to do a full-fledged repair right now, started to analyze the acid, sincerely admiring its unusual properties, and, at the same time, the test tubes Leroy had gotten, with which the girl had not had time to finish because of the suddenly appeared clown. It was a good thing that the reagents didn't care about EMP, like most of the chemical equipment, including the refrigerator, or the blond cutie would have found a way to revive Rezhdel to kill him with special cruelty ten or twenty times.
Without disturbing Harley, I contacted Natalie and asked her to send a repair crew. After clarifying the nature of the damage, we agreed to meet early tomorrow morning so that the manager could assess the scope of the work and discuss partial modifications to the systems to avoid a repeat of such mishaps. With the conversation over, I got to work on Zee's gift, starting by completely disassembling and sanding down the individual elements of the revolver. The rest was relatively easy: airbrush with two-component paint to the teeth and go. The result was an eye-pleasing beautiful red color with pink veins, which made the weapon look even more like a toy gun. In addition to this, while the paint was hardening, I managed to equip twenty spare drums with regular cartridges, as well as to create fifteen cartridges with different effects, for which I had to partially gut my stocks. Now all that was left was to write a letter, but it would be better to do it together with my beloved, who knew a lot about psychology.
I glanced at my pocket watch, realizing that I was an hour away from the X hour, which meant it was time to get some magic or at least regen, since prana didn't seem to be working, or I'd done something wrong. Visually, the scars were still as ugly and sore as ever.
So, now I have three ways to go. The first was to pound like a sheep at a new gate, trying to activate the weave head-on and suffering terrible pain. The second is to try to control the "inner power" by channeling it into healing, like Bats showed me. And the third, to try to use the ba-hion for healing, which I now have a small stockpile of, slightly increased thanks to the unexpected victory over Michael. Unfortunately, the system didn't give me anything for Cliff or Henry, since it hadn't had time to form a request to the universe at that moment.
But let's get back to healing. The most fun and interesting, of course, looked like the last option, besides, I need to learn to control this mysterious power anyway, but there is a tiny problem: the sensation when using ba-hion is terrible, and the level of pain is quite comparable to a red-hot crowbar in the belly, and if you take into account that to create a "vector" before using the divine power must be fully formed spell, the task seems impossible at all. The first option, I did not even consider, because I have already tried several times to apply it in the oceanarium, and I did not work out, although I really tried. The only thing left is to work with prana, trying to find the right way.
The sixty minutes allotted for the experiments flew by too quickly, and I can't say that during that time I was able to make much progress in controlling my inner power. It was too unaccustomed to subtle manipulations.
If mana can be compared to a thin wire, from which theoretically it is realistic to mold any figure, only if you have enough will, concentration, imagination, and faith, then prana was a viscous oil, and as a container for carrying it is a spoon with a lot of holes.
Still, Bats was right about self-discipline and iron will: without them, the "spoon" was always twitching, spilling its contents, which in the process still had to be somehow "programmed" to do the right thing. At least, that's the feeling I got. I have no idea how I managed to scoop up this ephemeral slurry in the guard room, though I suspect it's all down to a fun memory that clearly shouldn't be used unnecessarily often. They put too much pressure on my consciousness, but they're also unnoticeable for the time being, making me too light-headed.
While not the most effective, using prana is an interesting new way to develop. And maybe it had a lot of downsides now, but even so, I was able to reduce the tugging pain in my stomach a little and tighten the edges of the wounds left by the painted bastard a bit.
"Mr. J!" an overjoyed Harley burst into the workshop, completely throwing off my concentration. "I've completed the analysis!"
In a few minutes, I was standing in the lab with the blond cutie, who was enthusiastically sharing the results of her research. Her story made it clear that the mysterious scarlet liquid Leroy had extracted was eighty percent the same composition as Hugo's liquid hypnosis, which meant we could brainwash someone once. Only once, because the second vial was completely emptied during the experiments, and besides, we had only one Amnesiac, and it was impossible for us to create a new one because of its semi-magical nature. And to be honest, it is unlikely that Harley will be able to repeat the liquid hypnosis, because she has no initial components, as well as the mythical atomic printer, capable of creating anything if there were materials.
As for the "blood of the Alien," it was not good at all. My faithful companion could not understand its composition, except that the basis is incredibly strong sulfuric acid, completely inert to some plastics. Sadly, of course, but this in no way prevented me from pouring the corrosive substance into small sachets for the purpose of their further use against too strong enemies or unrealistically strong doors.
When the chores were done, we changed our clothes and went into town to meet Mousey. Naturally, the Knight's image had undergone some changes, acquiring a motorcycle helmet with tinted glass. The gorgeous scars from ear to ear, even with a small mask over my eyes, would hardly allow me to remain anonymous.
Barbara was already waiting for us at Martha's house, happily reporting that the last line of virtual defense had fallen, and now we could get inside the fortress and take a good look around.
After an hour of careful inspection of the rooms, which didn't stand out as anything special, except for a pile of rather expensive equipment and cold weapons hidden everywhere, our trio came across a disguised hatch with a serious code lock in the master bedroom. I had no time to waste again, so I used a bag of acid, which quickly corroded the complex device under Mouse's enthusiastic gaze. I had to share it, having previously conducted a briefing. I promised to show the redhead a cool thing, and what bright green slurry, capable of dissolving almost everything in the world, does not fit this definition?
Downstairs our magnificent trio was met by a classic villain's lair: a wildly contrived computer with a huge holographic screen, a lot of deadly weapons hung on the walls, high-tech Claws armor in a special transparent vertical rack, and a lot of Court of Owls paraphernalia, including a huge bas-relief of a bird of prey spreading its wings on the ceiling.
Suddenly the hatch above our heads slammed shut and the countdown numbers appeared on the screen. 14:59, 14:58...
"Mr. J, I don't think you should have rushed the penetration," Sailor said weightily, glancing lazily around the room. "You know very well that without foreplay, it's a mess..."
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