บท 262: Date #262
Gotham Outskirts
"I used to come here whenever I needed to clear my head..." I said as I sat down on the small cliff overlooking The Gotham River. "The city doesn't look like a hell hole when you look at it from this angle," I added, gesturing for Kara to sit down, and she obliged after a shrug.
I had already taken Kara to see everything that was worth seeing in Gotham, and we even had a nice dinner at a local pizza place, but we still had some time, so I decided to bring her here.
"It's quiet here, and the roads are always empty, so I went on bike rides here often I had some time to kill," I added, picking up a rock and throwing it at the water, watching it skip all the way to the other shore.
"Bike rides? You mean you don't just fly everywhere?" Kara asked, raising an eyebrow as she gave me a weird look.
"I wasn't always able to..." I replied with a shrug. "I wasn't this strong either when we first met, when, you know," I added, smiling as I gave Kara a sidle glance.
"I thought we agreed you'd never mention that again," Kara replied, rolling her eyes in annoyance at my words. "So how come you can suddenly give Super Boy a run for his money?" She asked, tilting her head.
"I didn't really mention it, did I?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "But to answer your questions, I suppose it's a lot of luck sweat, and blood," I added with a shrug.
"Not much of the latter lately," I concluded with a chuckle as I picked up another rock and sent it skipping to the other shore.
"I wish I knew what that's like..." Kara said with a sigh, shaking her head with a bitter expression. "I was just a little girl with no powers back on Krypton," She added as she turned to me.
"Then I got into the space pod, everything went dark, and when I woke up..." She added, shaking her head."Twenty-four years had passed, and I could suddenly bend steel, fly and fry people's brains with a glare..." Kara said with a sigh.
"That's why I had trouble controlling my powers. I still do sometimes," She concluded.
"I never had trouble controlling my powers. It was my temper causing trouble," I said with a sigh, putting on a bitter smile. "The worst part is that I didn't even know I had anger issues..." I added with a chuckle as I shook away the bitterness, causing Kara to raise an eyebrow.
"My teacher said I was so angry at everything for so long that it became the norm at some point..." I added, smiling carelessly. "Then the red ring happened, and I had to force myself to let go of the anger..." I concluded, shrugging my shoulders.
"Your teacher's Richard Dragon, right?... what's he like...?" Kara asked as she gave me a curious look. "I read about him in the league's database, but his entry just said he was extremely dangerous," She added.
"Extremely dangerous...? That sounds like something Batman would write down..." I said with a scoff, shaking my head. "Richard wouldn't hurt anyone unless they pissed him off really bad," I added with a chuckle.
"Or if he was in charge of training them, the old man suddenly turns into a demon.." I went on with a sigh. "I got my fair share of ass-whoopings from him in the name of sparring when I first started," I concluded with a chuckle.
"That still sounds pretty dangerous to me..."
...
Infinity Island
"We were a few, and he came with many who destroyed our lives, homes, and hopes. He was a heartless scourge, and we were the first to suffer his evil touch...." Said a man in a brown suit under a green ceremonial rope, faintly smiling as he paced around an empty cave while reading a tattered diary aloud.
"He had so much to offer, but all his offerings were evil. He held the secrets to life but preferred to deal in death," He went on, clearly amused, stepping over the bloody corpse of a man wearing strange primitive clothes as he headed for the sole throne standing proudly amidst the ruins of the cave.
"He was an immortal who had given his soul in exchange for his cursed immortality. His name was Ras Al Ghul, the demon head, and he was born in the fiery pits of hell..." The man said, chuckling as he read the last entry as he sat on the throne before throwing away the journal.
"May he return from whence he came..." He concluded.
"The aboriginals sure seem to have had a harsh opinion of you," Said another man, an elder with a grim visage, wearing red warrior ropes as he emerged from the shadows.
"It matters not. The island's inhabitants were a means to an end, too foolish to understand their limitations..." The demon head replied, shaking his head. "But we have other matters to attend to," He added, his tone turning solemn.
"The Batman is dead..." The Demon head stated. "It's a shame he could not be made to see reason in life, but now that he is gone, there's no one to stop us from taking over Gotham..." he added as he put his elbow on the throne's armrest and leaned on it.
"That cesspool of a city will be integral to our plans... call our warriors and prepare them to march," He concluded, and the man in red ropes bowed before disappearing back into the shadows.
"Quiet the shame indeed..." The demon head parroted, shaking his head as the towering figure of a man clad in black flashed in his mind.
...
Gotham
The Iceberg Loung
"What is it now, Scarface...?" The Penguin said, causally flicking his cigar as he looked at the Ventriloquist and his mobster puppet walking into his office after knocking on the door.
"We took care o' them two-bit gangsters from New York..." Scarface said as the Ventriloquist approached the Pnguin's office. "They won't be a problem, but someone else will..." The puppet added, causing the mob boss to frown.
Batman was both a blessing and a curse to the mobsters of Gotham as he hounded them restlessly but scared away most rival gangs from other cities, preventing all but the most capable and foolhardy from even thinking about expanding into the city.
When news of the caped crusader's demise spread, Gotham witnessed a never-before-seen rise in crime, which the GCPD instantly put down under Deborah Tiegel's leadership.
The Pneguin himself had a small role in suppressing the sudden crime spike. The mob boss provided the occasional anonymous tip and hunted down some of the more persistent mobsters, as chaos was no good for business, but that's neither here nor there.
The trouble did not end with the local mobs, as many gangs from far away and neighboring cities came pouring try their luck at taming the great beast that was the city of Gotham.
Most proved to be an annoyance as the Penguin's mob and GCPD took care of them fairly quickly, but there were those that took careful planning, and it seems that Scarface had encountered such a case.
"The League of Assasins are marching on Gotham..." Scarface solemnly said as the Ventriloquist nervously retrieved a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"The League, eh...?" The Penguin said as he inhaled a cloud of smoke from his cigar. "I've been itching to pay them back for toying with me anyway..." He added as he exhaled and slowly extinguished the cigar.
"So be it. If the League wants to mess with us on our own home turf, then let them," The mob boss said as he stood and headed for the window overlooking his club.
"We'll show them kung-fu bastards how we do things around here..."
...
"So this is the infamous Gray Cave," Kara jokingly said as she looked around my hideout, her gaze lingering on the numerous random posters and magical artifacts decorating the walls. "Do you always take girls back to your place after the second date?" She added, raising an eyebrow as she gave me a weird look.
"Please don't call it that," I replied with a sigh, rolling my eyes at her. "And you did show me yours. It's only fitting that I show you mine in return," I added with a shrug, earning a blank look from the blonde Kryptonian.
"Well, you're cetainly incourgiable..." She said with a chuckle, shaking her head.
"I have no idea what you're talking about..."
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