Yo! This is Hamtaro! The chap came a bit late, but it is a solid 3300wordslong, might be the longest one so far. It's also been through many versions that have been scrapped and rebuilt just to get things right.
Had some some help from a dude named after a Microsoft Program to get it right, so shout out to him.
Make sure to join us on Discord to know when the next chaps will come, weight in on the future of the story (and future once) or just hang out.
Have a nice day!
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Vampire Rule N°31: How do you hide a secret from the world's greatest detective?
… … … … … … … … …
'Even the air tastes different,' She thought, enjoying a bit of sunlight for the first time in months.
She was finally back home, but the very second she crossed the Isle into the Narrows and found herself back in good old Brideshead, she realized that her home was no longer the same.
Sure, the same faces walked the streets, but they were no longer as haggard and stressed. Sulivan Joe was still standing on Monroe Street, but the old man was no longer shouting about this or that package in exchange for a couple vials. Stacy was still smoking too many packs by her staircase, but she was no longer dressed to impress fifteen bucks out of some disease ridden punk.
Kids were out there, laughing, and not the desperate "Our life is shit so we might as well laugh" kind of sound, the real kind.
Laughing like suburbs kids who have bikes and vaccines and a school night tomorrow with people who actually give a damn whether they get there or not.
The kind you just didn't hear in the East End, unless it came from Batman's boyfriend…or the clown's victims, depending on whether or not he got his hands on some chemicals.
'Yet here I am, sitting in a cafe of all things, eating muffins made by someone I swore I saw eat a rat back in the day after smoking a bad batch, and the place is so clean it might just pass the hygiene inspection without paying too many bribes,' She shook her head, sipping on a latte and once again being surprised by how good it tasted.
It was almost like people gave a fuck, but that was just not possible.
Maybe Nigma finally made that virtual reality headset he talked about, and this was his way of thanking her for saving his arse from a mean shanking back in Blackgate?
It was more reasonable than seeing a hardcore dopefiend running a respectable establishment, the streets not being covered in stepped on vials and used needles, or the fact that some of her fences somehow grew a conscience and decided that they were out of the game.
All this brought one obvious question.
'What the hell happened while I was gone?' She smiled nonetheless, ignoring the pit in her stomach, it was better to drown it in muffins than entertain those useless ideas.
She should be feeling happy.
Messed up as it was, Brideshead was still her home, the one she grew up in, the one she knew best. She cared about it, and on some level, cared about the people who lived there.
Not the bastards, but the orphans and junkies and homeless who just couldn't pick themselves up, but are now doing so well.
She should feel happy for them.
They were getting better.
Without her.
And back came the ideas, the useless, stinging thoughts.
Maybe I was part of the problem?
Now that was something even she couldn't take in stride, so she did what she always did, ignored those pesky feelings and emotions and focused on what really mattered.
The power, the thrill, the accomplishment of getting hers on all on her own.
Whether it was cash, expensive necklaces and fancy heirlooms, or just answers.
That was what fuelled Selina Kyle, not pointless brooding.
So when two black cars with blacked out windows stopped by, revealing men with expensive suits and cheap smiles, she was almost glad for the distraction—theopportunity, she was glad for the opportunity to do something useful.
Her first instinct was to run, blend in somewhere, disappear. She might be a work of art all on her own, but she knew she could lose them in minutes dressed in plain clothes as she was.
Then she realized who they were, noticed they didn't pull out guns, and understood that they might not be here to get back at her for something she stole—which in any case, would be their fault for not guarding it better.
So she paid what she owed, straightened her jacket, cocked her hip just so and walked out of the shop in a way that made thousands of men shout 'Darn' across the dimensions.
Why? Because she could.
As she exited the store, which had nothing to do with her desire to keep the owner out of trouble, they slid out of their polished shells, revealing the big and expensive watches that compensated for their smaller tools, the rings on their fingers, wallets in their pockets and stacks of bills clipped behind their ties.
All things she could collect in five minutes tops.
But more than that, it was the way they walked around that caught her eye, like they were important people doing important business.
Predators who thought they owned the food chain.
'Cute.'
It also meant they never had to deal with the more troublesome side of Gotham's criminal world, the one that wasn't afraid of crossing the big guy.
They didn't pull guns.
They didn't need to.
The thing they were holding out to her was a thousand times deadlier: an offer.
She could smell it from across the cracked sidewalk, an opportunity wrapped in poison, stitched together with the kind of promises that left blood stains you could never scrub out.
She should flip them off and leave, stay out of the mountain of trouble that would surely befall her if she listened, or worse, agreed to whatever sugar-coated nonsense they would serve.
Nonsense that involved a lot of money.
'Yeah, I'm not leaving.'
That was obvious to one of the friendly neighborhood crooks, the taller one with the broken nose and small beady eyes, who smirked so repulsively she was tempted to make him uglier still.
"Miss Kyle," he drawled, like they were old friends sharing a drink instead of a trap. "Heard you were back on the streets. Thought you might be interested in a little freelance work."
'And there it is, the trouble that will lead me straight back to the Asylum.'
Selina shifted her weight lazily, giving him the full, unimpressed sweep of her gaze.
"Opportunity's just Gotham's way of setting the hook," she said, voice dry as cracked ice, betraying nothing of the amusement she felt.
The heavy behind him — the muscle — chuckled low, a sound that suggested he was already picturing her with a knife in her back, if he was even capable of something as mentally taxing as imagination.
The talker just smiled wider, he should really stop, it was painful to look at.
"Depends who's doing the fishing," he said. Then, after a calculated pause, "Boss is willing to be generous. Wants a name. A face. That's all."
"Nothing's ever 'all' with your boss." Selina snorted softly.
She didn't need to say Thorne's name. It clung to them like cigarette smoke.
They were too blunt to be with Falcone, too stupid to be Cosa Nostra, and anyone else had the sense not to approach her in broad daylight.
Thorne's men, however, they would do it on live tv.
Their upstanding industrialist patron and his virtually limitless political connections would surely save them from the consequences.
"No tricks," the talker lied easily, "Just information. Quick payday for someone with your talents."
She let the silence stretch, enjoying the way he twitched under the weight of it. Finally, with a mock yawn, she ended his torture.
"Who's the mark?" She asked.
The talker leaned in slightly, lowering his voice like he was about to sell her a relic pulled from the deep.
"Brand new pest, this one is, his name's Alucard." He said, passing her an envelope.
Now that is new.
She tilted her head, let a slow smile curve her mouth.
A smile that didn't touch her eyes.
"Tell Thorne I'll think about it," she purred, and enjoyed watching them leave, still not noticing their lost watches.
Fair price for wasting her time.
The smart decision was obviously ignoring the offer and laying low for a few months, then getting back in the game with a few easy jobs.
But she already knew the truth.
She wasn't walking away from this.
After all, there was only one thing better than stealing from a sweet little vigilante.
Getting paid to do it.
. . .
Selina nearly melted when she read the offer Thorne's loverboys gave her, a job so attractive she was absolutely certain they would double cross her as soon as she got the little hero's safe cracked open and told them about his dirty little secrets.
She still accepted of course.
Wrangling brooding vigilantes was something of a speciality of hers, doing so in her own neighborhood? Now that's just child's play.
It might've changed a lot , Brideshead that is, less fiends and more work, less chances of getting randomly mugged too.
But the streets and alleys? The rooftops and hidden paths? Those didn't change, and for the sake of her craft, they hopefully never will.
How else would she track that feisty little guy down?
It took her the better part of a week to get a glimpse of him, a short blur of motion falling down the high rise buildings in a suicidal dive which he somehow managed to pull off.
He grabbed a steel rail, and used the momentum to cross five blocks in an instant, leaving behind bent metal and a very impressed cat burglar who almost dropped her binoculars.
This Alucard was fast, she'd give him that.
"But you're also predictable, sweetheart," She purred from her spot on somebody's windowsill, pocketing a silver necklace she just needed to have, it was also a great spot to watch her mark without being seen.
He might've been a vigilante but he didn't have much qualms about looting his targets, which she understood very well, she wouldn't give up the opportunity to tax her foes either.
Which is why she also understood that after a juicy run, you just had to go back home to stash your lovely spoils in a safe place.
In a safe house.
Alucard's safe house.
It was just a matter of finding some big game, getting a perch somewhere high and discreet and waiting for the big bad wolf to come and get his prize.
A couple high quality cameras to do what her eyes couldn't and follow his movement, if barely, and she could already feel his sizable cash reserves in her hands.
It was perfect…except for those poor dealers who sacrificed themselves for her greater good, but she was sure they'd understand.
His den didn't look like much from there, but she guessed it was the point, Selina always made sure to have a nice penthouse ready for her whenever she was comfortable enough to settle down for a while, she even kept a few dozens fake IDs for that purpose, but his kind were partial to more spartan accommodations from her experience.
Some kind of masochistic streak hidden behind a facade of seriousness and duty.
That would explain living in a vacant apartment complex that was closed down due to a gaspipe exploding and revealing enough asbestos to cover an elephant twice over and still have some left.
Really, "Safehouse" was a generous term. The exterior looked like a kicked-in anthill of broken bricks and sagging fire escapes. The front door was chained shut, the windows were all either boarded or cracked open just enough to invite tetanus. No one in their right mind would live here.
"It can't be good for your health," She tsked, shaking her head at those vigilantes and their questionable life choices.
So of course Selina was interested.
So she kept watching, switching vantage points every so often, leaving no marks he could use to track her.
She scoped it from a nearby rooftop, lying flat against a half-collapsed HVAC unit, watching through binoculars with infrared filters. No heat signatures on the upper floors. No lights either.
But the place felt watched, her instincts were screaming at her to be careful, or better yet get out of there fast and forget all about Alucard.
But then she wouldn't' be Catwoman.
She went down the side of the building like a whisper, grappling hook hooked to the lip of a bent billboard, descending with practiced grace. It was almost a pity nobody could see her, this was art worthy of Gotham's finest galleries, which she will probably end up relieving of their burden very soon.
Black boots kissed the crumbling fire escape with barely a creak. She tested a window. Locked, obviously.
Not a real lock though, this was military-grade magnetic seal tech disguised as rusted iron. She smiled. Clever. Most people wouldn't notice. She reached into her pouch, pulled out a coin-sized pulse scrambler, designed by Nigma in exchange for some harddrive he needed, and pressed it against the window frame.
The seal gave with a soft hiss. She was in.
Inside was worse than expected. Not visually, visually it was perfect: stained wallpaper, rotting carpet, the occasional dead rat.
But she wouldn't have made it so far if she didn't know that some healthy paranoia could never hurt, especially when troublesome people were involved, and this Alucard was nothing if not troublesome.
So she looked, and kept looking, searching for any inconsistency before deciding that their absence was a red flag in and of itself.
There was only one thing left to do, trust her instincts and throw every trick at the wall and see what sticks. If nothing works, it might be better to collect what information she can, leave and plan a proper heist.
Lucky for her, she had very good instincts.
Selina pulled out a small mist sprayer, which could be used to spread anything from pepper spray to mild acids, but was currently only set-up to project some harmless water; nothing that could alarm whatever problem her mark had left here.
With the press of a button, she could see it flow around the room to no effect, until the droplets clung to something that wasn't there.
A closer look revealed rows upon rows of tripping wire set up at every possible entrance and then some, doubtlessly linked to an alarm system, death trap or both.
Probably both.
"Crafty bastard," she muttered, and used some more water just to be sure, "But that much won't stop me."
She moved slower, crouched low, activating the low-light filter on her goggles, and made sure to avoid tripping the wires, smoked out some laser motion sensors that he really should try to hide better, and made sure not to step on the frankly amateurish pressure plates.
'You put these right alongside the lasers, in the exact places an intruder would have to step on to avoid the detectors, not after them,' She shook her head, this will at least teach him a good lesson.
'If Thorne's men don't get him with a car bomb, that is.' The troublesome part of her mind once more showed up to disapprove of her action, but she chased it off right away.
This was neither the time nor the place for moral quandaries, she took this job and so she'll do it properly.
'Right until they double-cross you,' The same voice added, much to her dismay.
Couldn't she engage in toxic self-destructive behaviour in peace?
After what was essentially a walk in the park, where the only difficulty was her own misgivings with sabotaging the recovery and peace of her home, because this violent deviant somehow managed to make vigilantism work, the traps were getting rarer and she started seeing some genuine signs of life.
Catwoman allowed herself a smile as she stepped into what looked like a normal home in the middle of a dump, somehow kept clean and livable, if a bit on the messy side of things.
But who was she to judge? Half her wardrobe was scattered around her floor, concealing everything from jewelry to knives and fake ids, and that was the case with nearly every house she kept.
Alucard, though, lived in a simple two room apartment with nice wallpaper, cozy furniture and just the right amount of chaos to know someone lived there.
She could see paintings on the walls, photos of a cute little boy with his dog, a faded family photo placed between two sets of ornamental swords and flintlock pistols carved out of ivory…she might steal those later, if his coffers are lacking.
But she didn't care too much about that for the moment, nor did she mind the modern kitchen, or the old brown leather sofa with the soft fluffy covers that would be comfortable as all hells and placed right in front of the tv.
No, her eyes zeroed-in on a specific painting of some old european castle, a large painting.
"Oh, baby…" She cooed, stretching her arms, "You really are too sweet for this game,"
Before she even realized, she moved it out of the way revealing the delicious, amazing sight of a huge safe that she just knew she could crack open in less than ten minutes, then everything inside would be hers for the taking.
This cute little monster had been terrorizing everyone and taking their money for himself, hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps even a million in bounty, not to mention whatever his obviously old and possibly loaded family left him.
It was all there, ripe for the picking.
"But first I need to know who you are, sweetie..." She sighed, her hand hovering over the safe and it's wonderful content.
It took all the willpower she had and then some to let it out of her sight and start scouring the house for more information about him, which ended up taking less than five minutes.
It was sitting on a shelf next to some old dusty books and a box containing what appeared to be his mother's silverware, a trophy for some junior fencing tournament if the inscription was correct.
Further down, a single name was etched on it.
"Adrian Hellsing," She read gleefully, "Now I know who you are…"
So she could get started on robbing him blind, telling Thorne boytoys about it and getting her money before being double-crossed.
But that just made things more fun.
She might even tip him off about Thorne, that should make the annoying feeling go away and keep any voice of reason and compassion she had left nice and quiet, as it should always be.
Not to mention that it would be a nice payback for when things go south with her current employer.
"It's nice to meet you, sweetheart," She said, patting the trophy and putting it back in its place.
"The pleasure is all mine, Catwoman." She heard a calm voice, almost amused, speaking out and felt her muscles freezing in place.
Her thoughts stopped, and so did her breathing, everything paused for a second while her brain tried to realize that he was standing there right next to her while she uncovered his identity.
That she didn't notice him.
That he let her search and find what she wanted.
That she was probably not walking out of this one.
"Shit." She cursed, trying to come up with a scenario where she could defeat someone known to take bullets without flinching.
Someone she saw moving at speeds that would make any ordinary human's neck break.
"Indeed," He nodded with a face that made it very clear that she was screwed beyond repair.
At least, she no longer felt had to feel guilty about screwing him over.
So she did what she always did when put in a bad situation, burdened with expectations or threatened with commitment and meaningful connections.
She ran away.