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"Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?"
- Mr. Blonde (Reservoir Dogs)
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<(Omniscient POV)>
"What the hell are you talking about? Where are my guys? If the three of you plan to betray me, I suggest that you should only try to do so if you are ready to die in the worst possible ways you can imagine." Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask, tried his best to intimidate the girls while keeping his composure, hoping to bring the situation back under his control.
He was confident that taking care of so many of his men wasn't easy for a declining gang like the Falcones, no matter how many resources they suddenly had access to. So, they must be using some kind of method to soundproof the room and prevent his voice from leaking outside the VIP booth. However, this wasn't enough to scare the Gotham crime lord. After all, he still had an ace up his sleeve in the form of his adopted "daughter".
"Oh my, what a hypocrite! You were planning to get rid of us, and yet you are now blaming us for trying to defend ourselves. You are even worse than those protagonists in Wuxia and Xinxia novels." Selina let out a disgusted snort before noticing Helena giving her a weird look. "What? I have also read some of those Chinese novels that "Tiger" used to read in his free time..., regardless of how utterly stupid and toxic they were."
"Hey, what the hell are you two going on about? Don't forget we still have work to do and a plan to follow. Getting rid of Blackmask is just going to be the start of our long night, remember?" Sofia Falcone interrupted their conversation before narrowing her eyes at the masked crime lord, who seemed to be more annoyed at her words than terrified.
Not being able to control his displeasure anymore, Sionis quickly took out a small cell phone from inside his suit's pocket and tried to call his subordinates, going so far as to even send an emergency SOS message to his most important lackeys, something that was reserved only for the direst of emergencies. However, contrary to his beliefs, there was still no response from the other side. Unlike what he had expected, none of his subordinates came inside in a hurry to help him, nor was there any other sound outside the booth.
"But the message went through, so why?" He wondered aloud while looking at his phone's screen before an unsettling feeling suddenly began to emerge from inside him, a thought that, although highly unlikely, could still possibly mean disaster for him if it turned out to be true.
Without wasting a single second more, Blackmask quickly drew out a small gun that was carefully concealed inside his suit and aimed it at Sofia Falcone, since he considered her to be the most dangerous one out of the bunch. "Ready yourself, Dinah," He warned the young woman sitting beside him before dashing towards the door in a hurry. But the moment he opened the door, he felt an unexpected weakness in his legs as he gazed upon the scene before him, a scene that seemed to have emerged directly from one of his worst nightmares.
"You... you killed them all?" He blurted out as he saw almost all the gang members he had brought here with him, lying on the ground in a puddle of their own blood, their throats slashed so cleanly that he had trouble believing that they were even able to put up much of a fight against their killers.
"Not all. We gave everyone a choice: submit or die. The ones lying dead there must have chosen the latter. But I have to give it to you, Blackmask. It seems like most of your men have chosen to die rather than submit. I wonder if it is because of their loyalty towards you or just simply because of the fear of what you will do to them if they betray you." Sofia Falcone responded from behind him, her face filled with calm confidence despite the gun that Sionis still had pointed toward her.
"Impossible! I brought more than four dozen men, armed to the teeth with guns, explosives, and various other melee weapons. They were also all professional criminals. Your measly gang could not have taken down all of them without making a sound. I didn't even hear a single gunshot. This must be a trick of some kind. No, there must be traitors inside my gang who fed you information about what I intended to do and then helped you take the rest of my men down. Yes, that's what must have happened. It's the only way all this makes sense." Blackmask incomprehensibly muttered to himself like a crazy person as he struggled to make sense of the absurd situation he had now found himself in.
However, he then observed something different. The entire nightclub had become too eerily quiet, which felt ominously unsettling for some reason. While heavy music still played in the background, all the other loud noises had ceased. There was no shouting, no sound of people dancing or conversing. It seemed as though there was no other living soul in the nightclub besides them. Even the members of the Falcone crime family that Sofia had brought with her were no longer visible.
"Where are your men? Why did you empty this place?... Are you planning to pin the murders on me and hand me over to the cops or something?" Blackmask asked, anger creeping into his voice as he corked his gun while keeping it aimed straight at Sofia.
Blackmask knew that attributing the deaths of his gang members to him would be foolish, as someone with his connections would not remain in jail for long for such an accusation. Moreover, proving that he had murdered his own people would be extremely difficult, even for the best lawyers in Gotham. But his rational mind couldn't find any other reason why Sofia Falcone was going to the extent of vacating the nightclub before sending her men, who had murdered his gang members, away without caring for her own safety first.
"You think too small, Sionis. No wonder you were always a third-rate criminal. Why would we hand you over to the authorities when we have our own revenge to take from you?" Helena, who had been quiet up until now, finally spoke up with a small smirk hanging from the side of her lips as she stood up and cracked her shoulders.
"Huh? I see. So, you do want to kill me. But do you think killing me would be that easy? Too many people have tried to kill me before, but as you can see, none have ever succeeded." He chuckled coldly, shrugging away the sinking feeling that was previously settling inside his stomach. "Dinah, take care of the little Falcone and the other girl. I will handle this bitch myself. It's time I finish what I started and bury the last Bertinelli as I should have done long ago." He issued the command, making sure not to give Dinah a chance to refuse.
"... Fine... I will help you... one last time." She unwillingly blurted out through her gritted teeth. "But after this, we are square, and you will never ask me for another favor." She asserted firmly before focusing her attention on Sofia and Selina, "I am sorry. I would have liked to avoid fighting you two for no reason, but since you two are part of the underworld and I also owe Blackmask a favor, I would have to help him in this power struggle." She sighed, making it clear that she was merely blocking their path to honor her deal with Blackmask, not because she was a criminal herself.
"Oh? So, it seems we are at an impasse, huh? I guess we have no other choice but to duke it out." Selina shrugged and then positioned herself in front of Sofia as if to shield her from the impending conflict.
On the other hand, Blackmask didn't waste any time and trained his gun on Helena's head. But before he could pull the trigger, Helena pointed a small bracer she was wearing on her right hand at him before releasing a small arrowhead from it. The arrowhead flew straight through the air toward Blackmask's hand with a short-lived light trail behind it and struck his wrist with the full force of a bullet.
Roman Sionis had endured a lot of physical pain throughout his crime-filled life, but the agony he experienced that day was beyond what he could describe in mere words. The arrowhead struck him with the force of a bullet, yet the excruciating pain he felt was as if a thousand bullet ants were biting his hand at the same time. It was at about this time that Blackmask realized he would never be able to use his hand again after that fateful day.
"AAAAHHHHH!"
Of course, the usage of his hand would only matter to him if he could actually survive the night.
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