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"I believe love is the most twisted curse of all."
- Satoru Gojo (Jujutsu Kaisen)
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<{Presidential Suite, Oriental International Hotel, Gotham}>
<(Omniscient POV)>
"Please... spare me! My father can pay you both a fortune. If you let me go now, he won't even come after you. He won't seek revenge, I promise. Just let me go, I'm begging you." A young Italian man in his early twenties was on his knees, tears streaming down his face as he pleaded. Blood covered his clothes and dripped down his swollen cheek. His desperation was so raw that almost anyone else might have felt pity for him. But unfortunately for him, this was Gotham, a city where mercy was a rare commodity. And the two Russians standing before him had none to give.
"Little boy, under different circumstances, we might have spared you," said KGBeast, his Russian accent thick under the mask. "After all, it is against our code to kill a boy whose balls haven't even dropped. But this is a test. To join BlackHood's crew, we must kill you and your parents.
And yes, I believe you—the Maronis would pay well for your life, even more than BlackHood offers as our annual starting... pay package. But that plan is useless now. Your father is already dead. He was the easiest target, locked away in prison, where we had friends waiting. So now, if we don't kill you, we make enemies of both the Maronis and BlackHood. That is not a position we can survive in Gotham." He calmly checked the ammunition in his newly rebuilt cybernetic arm, the faint gleam of hidden weaponry visible beneath its sleek design.
The upgrade was a gift from BlackHood himself—a pre-initiation reward that KGBeast valued greatly after Batman had crushed his last arm during the Arkham Asylum raid. After all, it was no ordinary prosthetic; it was loaded with cutting-edge military tech that no street-level crime family could ever get their hands on. That alone told KGBeast that BlackSkull's son was far more dangerous than he let on. And until KGBeast knew exactly what kind of man BlackHood was, he had no intention of crossing him. From what he'd gathered till now, despite having gotten his power through apparent nepotism, BlackHood treated his men very well—better than any Gotham bosses ever did.
"Besides," NKVDemon was the one who spoke up this time, cocking his head toward the bleeding heir, "you're no saint yourself. Stop acting like some innocent lamb." He shot a glance at his partner. "Honestly, if I didn't already know this punk had raped and murdered a minor while high on crack a couple of years ago, I might have almost believed his act. But then you look around." He waved at the half-empty bottles and a wide assortment of drugs scattered across the table. "He's not changing anytime soon. So I am not going to feel too bad about offing this piece of shit." With that, NKVDemon raised his new.500 S&W Magnum pistol, something that he had received from Black Hood quite recently as a gift, and quietly pulled the trigger.
Bang.
The bullet tore through Taj Maroni's skull, ending his life in an instant. The heir to the Maroni empire collapsed in a heap, lifeless. NKVDemon lowered the gun, then smirked after a pause. "...Actually, that felt kind of good," he said thoughtfully. "You know, maybe I'm something of a vigilante myself." He chuckled as he slid another round into the chamber. "By the way, did you send the text already? Or are we going to be sitting around, waiting for his mother to show up?"
"I sent it the second we stepped into this suite," KGBeast replied with a low hum, too absorbed in polishing the plating of his new cybernetic arm. "The Maroni mother hen is on her way to save her precious little spoiled son. And she's bringing whatever muscle she still has left."
"I just hope wiping out the Maronis is enough to earn us a spot in BlackHood's crew. I can't take another day on the run from the cops. There was a time when bribing Gotham's politicians and dirty cops used to be simple. Now, they're always looking over their shoulders, terrified of getting caught. They won't even take a bribe unless it's worth tens of millions. Makes me wonder—who exactly are they afraid of? It can't be Batman. He doesn't run around exposing corruption among Gotham's elite. He just breaks bones and drags criminals to Arkham." NKVDemon spoke while staring out at the glowing city skyline through the window. "It's someone else... someone more connected and influential."
"You are right, they're not afraid of Batman," KGBeast nodded, voice steady. "They're afraid of exposure. There have been whispers about someone new—someone blackmailing the top politicians and officials in Gotham. Every day, their grip on the city tightens. The dirtier the department, the easier it is for this ghost to take control. Whoever they are, they always have proof—documents, recordings, evidence no one can argue with. And when someone refuses to play along, they don't just leak it. They bury them alive in the press, drag in the feds, and make sure their careers are destroyed. A fifth of the city council went to prison last year because of this person. That's why no one dares to step out of line anymore."
"Well, whatever it is, it's bad for business. Every cartel in Gotham is bleeding dry because of the decreasing corruption among the officials. The only ones gaining ground are BlackHood's crew and the Falcones—and that's only because the Falcones have been absorbed by Black Hood. Word on the street says BlackHood has some sort of deal with people high up in the government, something that shields him from Gotham's changing political landscape." NKVDemon's voice dropped, as though sharing the most dangerous secret in Gotham.
"And if the rumors are true, BlackHood's working on some kind of in-house drug. Not just another product—something designed to wipe out the rest of the trade completely. A Ukrainian acquaintance of mine gave me some insider news that BlackHood doesn't just want to be the biggest crime family in Gotham. He wants to be the only one—or at least the only one that matters. He'll either slaughter the competition, like we're doing to the Maronis, or just straight up absorb them, as he did to the Falcones. In short... he wants to be Gotham's Kingpin with absolute control over its criminal underworld."
"...Where do you even hear this garbage? You don't have friends. Not even one. The only person who talks to you is Boris at the bar—and that's because he pities you since you have no friends." KGBeast's voice was flat, his expression unreadable behind the mask.
"...I hate you," NKVDemon spat, pulling his pistol and aiming it at his mentor. "You're the reason I don't have friends. You're the one who abducted me when I was a kid, cut me off from the world, to mold me into the perfect weapon for our motherland, you hypocrite. You destroyed my social life to make me into the KGB's perfect machine. And now you wonder why I can't stand you?" His finger squeezed the trigger.
Bang.
The shot rang out, but it wasn't KGBeast who fell. The bullet missed him by inches, tearing through the main door behind and straight into the newly arrived Mrs. Nadia Maroni, who had been ready to burst in with a dozen armed men at her back.
"Was that supposed to scare me, boy?" KGBeast asked, his tone more annoyed than startled as he watched his apprentice take down the Maroni matriarch. "If you want to frighten someone... make sure your gun's always bigger." His lips curled beneath the mask as he turned around, raised his cybernetic arm, and switched it into machine-gun mode.
Ratatatatatata!
The suite door was shredded into splinters as a storm of bullets ripped through the Maroni guards behind the closed door. They dropped before they even knew what was happening, blood spilling under the door and seeping across the suite's carpet. Then silence followed, broken only by the faint hum of KGBeast's weapon winding down.
"And that," KGBeast chuckled—something he rarely allowed himself—"is how you use a gun." He pressed his mask against his mechanical arm in mock reverence.
"Maybe I should just work alone," NKVDemon muttered, lowering his weapon. "Because this... this can't be good for my mental health." He sighed. "I wonder why Black Hood wants to hire us. Honestly, I don't think even I would hire us if I were in Black Hood's place."
***
<(Batman POV)>
"Goddamn, I still don't get how Ace and Miss Whiskers managed to find that thing. And how did they even capture it, let alone drag it into Gotham? That Weasel has the strength of a silverback gorilla, even though its muscle mass and bone structure don't look anywhere near that level." I muttered to myself as I moved silently through Gotham's sewers, clinging to the tunnel ceiling with my electrostatic adhesive gloves—much like how a certain spider-themed hero from another universe crawls around.
Maybe the Weasel's just too stupid to resist. Perhaps it followed Ace's lead the way a sheep follows a dog. I mean, I tried everything—every mode on the animal translator—to make sense of its sounds through the readings of its brain data. Still, all the data pointed to the same conclusion: it simply doesn't have the intelligence to qualify as... well, intelligent. And yet, for some reason, I can't shake the feeling that I'm wrong. I'll need to run more tests—it's biology, it's genetics. Maybe its origin will tell me more.
I just hope it's not another case of a brilliant scientist turned into a monster through a freak accident, because I've heard that story a thousand times across both Marvel and DC.
"Perhaps your pets are sharper than you give them credit for, sir. Even I underestimated them by a great deal. Maybe it's time we considered that animals might be more intelligent than humans realize." Cortana's voice echoed through my suit's speakers, though a slight doubt in her tone remained for obvious reasons—something that rarely happened.
"It's not impossible," I admitted. "Back with the League of Assassins, I heard legends about forces called The Red and The Green. The Red, a psychic web connecting all animals and microorganisms, while The Green binds every plant life on Earth. If those forces are real, then maybe plants and animals in this world are more aware than we ever imagined." I kept moving forward, eyes fixed on the energy signature tracking across my HUD.
"Also," Cortana cut in, her tone flat again, "KGBeast and NKVDemon have finished their work. The Maronis are finished. And before you ask—yes, I've already copied every piece of digital evidence and wiped the hotel and prison servers clean. They're competent killers, but they're hopeless with digital traces. We can use the files against them later if they turn on us... or if they outlive their usefulness." My HUD flashed with images of the Maroni family's corpses, catalogued neatly in Cortana's database. "Should I have Sofia Falcone begin taking their territories?"
"Yeah, put her on it. I'm grooming her to be second-in-command of BlackHood anyway, since Selina refuses to join the crime family directly. Sofia needs to learn how to do this without a safety net. As for KGBeast and NKVDemon, I doubt they'll cause trouble. They're simple men. No ambition or grand plans. They won't betray us unless we force them to. And even if they try... remember, I rigged KGBeast's arm with a miniature explosive and a kill switch with me having the master control of the device." I responded before suddenly stopping my crawling, eyes narrowing at what lay before me.
"Finally. Looks like I am on the right path." My voice echoed in the tunnel as I stared at the impossible sight ahead—evidence of what looked like the beginning of a forest blooming inside the most toxic sewers of Gotham.
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(A/N:Hey everyone, it's been a while. I owe you all an apology for the sudden disappearance. The past couple of weeks have been… rough, to say the least. ScribbleHub ended up deleting all my stories and every single chapter because I mentioned my Pat-reon in the contents, which apparently goes against their policies. Unfortunately, I had all my drafts and story notes saved there, thinking it was the safest and most accessible place to keep everything while writing. Stupid me😭.
So yeah… I lost it all. I had to go back, reread my own fanfics, and rebuild every draft and note from scratch. It was frustrating, exhausting, and honestly pretty discouraging. There was a point where I seriously considered quitting altogether. But at the end of the day, I genuinely love writing, and I want to see my stories through to the end. I'm just not the kind of person who can leave things unfinished.
So here I am—back again. Thank you to everyone who's been patient and stuck around. I'm really hoping things go smoother from here on out, and that I don't run into another situation like this again, where stuff gets deleted because I didn't bother to learn a platform's rules.
Let's keep going😀😁)
GIVE me POWAH-STONES💎💎💎.
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