. (spacecowboys) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-09-27 16:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, door: dc comics |
Who: Selina
What: Narrative: Unlocking the Wonder City doors
Where: Arkham City
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: Nope
Selina couldn't remember the last time she was in this particular version of Wonder City. Oh, she remembered when, but she didn't have any real memory of that night seven years ago. She remembered fever, and she remembered the sick tang of illness on her tongue, and she remembered watching Dickie's body disappear beneath the green goop. But that was all she remembered and, really, the kitty cat could have happily done without ever coming back to this particular little maze.
But even without Eddie to guide her, she maneuvered the tunnels without difficulty. And she loved the locks. Regardless of everything else, cracking a good lock brought her the kind of calmness that nothing else in life did. It was control, pure and simple, just her and the sound of cylinders, and she adored the stillness of it. The hyper-concentration was something she never managed while doing anything else, and it was a that brief glimpse of peace. No one would understand but her, she was sure, but she didn't need anyone to understand. It had been this way since she was just a kitten, when she was busy finding a way to keep just a teensy bit of the take that the owners of the orphanage made her steal. It extended into her preteen years, when finding the perfect balance that let her fleece johns without them noticing that anything was missing was her sole focus. It was an art, and it carried her into adulthood, and here she was, cracking the last door's lock.
She knew there was trouble beyond. She could hear it.
She had no idea if this Wonder City was filled with the trouble that hers was, but she had no doubt that Hal Jordan would kill his way through all of it, not caring that monsters weren't born that way, and that even the things hiding in the darkness had something good about them once.
That was the thought that carried her back, and she didn't look at the Talons that Harley, Ollie and Jason had defeated as she stepped over them.
Or, rather, she tried not to.
Her history with Freeze's little killers went way, way back. Before this Gotham ever existed. Some of the Talons were too dead to reason with, but that wasn't the case with all of them. She remembered arguments with Damian, when she was just a kitten, about the Talons' humanity; they had never seen eye-to-eye on the subject. These Talons, they had been people once. The Court of the Owls, along with Freeze, had taken everything away from them, and they'd turned them into monsters. And when she looked at them, she saw everyone she knew, because any of them could have ended up here, like this.
She thought of Mary, the Talon that Babs helped her save in her Gotham all those years ago, and she thought of the house Mary still kept on the outskirts of her Gotham, a safe place for monsters that weren't really monsters.
And the kitty cat stopped.
She found five bodies, and she hunted down each and every one of their blades, knowing that being burned with their knives mattered in what the Talons believed came after this hell they existed in. And it was a risk, starting a fire in the tunnels, but she made sure she dragged the bodies far enough away from the doors she'd unlocked that it wouldn't lead anyone back to the entrance the Bat would be using. She kept the fire quiet and low, and she burned the bodies one by one, and she stayed until all five were bone and ash. It wasn't perfect, and the bodies had been wrapped in makeshift shrouds made of stolen curtains, but it was better than nothing. And the prisoners? Prisoners in Arkham didn't come anywhere near something that smelled of charred, burning flesh. And the walls of the tunnel turned black with sooted skin, and the fire burned out.
When night fell again, she was exhausted, but she was wound up tight, and she was angry. She was angry at this city that she loved, and she was angry at the government, and she was angry at heroes and rogues, reformed and good and bad.
She was angry, and there was only one thing Selina Kyle knew to do when she was angry. And if people got hurt? Well, after all, Gotham only issued clean slates to murderers.
The Steel Mill was Falcone-run. Arrested members of the gang had taken over the Mill within days of the prison opening, and no one in their right mind caused trouble there.
What better place to start?