[Feat Achieved! Don and Dusted]
[+1 Silver Gacha Ticket]
The ticket was just the perfect cherry on top as I belted out the song. I ripped it in half without missing a beat and kept dancing along with the music.
[Rolling Silver Gacha Ticket]
[The Rock]
|Common Item|
King Arthur pulled a sword out of this bad boy, and you got the rock in exchange. This rock is magically enchanted to be utterly indestructible to all effects below Mythical level.
Well, that was useful... hopefully?
I could probably figure out something to do with an indestructible rock.
Contemplating who I could chuck it at would have to wait, though. Right now, I needed to party.
And I knew just the man to rely on.
"Bruce!" I turned and grinned as the man floated onto the platform. "Enjoying the show?"
"How could I not?" Bruce chuckled as he gestured broadly around us. "You've outdone yourself. I didn't think you could top the party at the Iceberg Lounge, but I couldn't have been more wrong."
He was probably just being polite, but I still couldn't help puffing my chest out a little.
"Enjoying the party, Ms. Vanaver?" I turned toward the woman standing beside Bruce. "I hope the sights aren't too macabre..."
"...It's certainly unique." Samantha Vanaver gave me a small, polite smile, playing the part of the perfectly fragile socialite. "Although personally, my tastes lie elsewhere."
Yeah, like with me dead.
I had to admire her ability to keep a straight face through all this. Honestly, without Simmy giving me the heads-up, I never would've guessed that she, of all people, was the head of the Court of Owls.
The smug bitch had probably come to the party hoping to watch me get killed. I would've loved to just punch her in the face and be done with it, but unfortunately, the financial side of things made that a little complicated.
Still, two could play the social game. I was just the "thug," after all, so completely ignoring her polite social overtures was perfectly in character.
"Then..." I rubbed my hands together as my smile widened. "Why don't we get into the thick of it? You'll get an even better appreciation for everything. Hell, I'll call some dancers over here!"
The look that crossed her face was something I deeply relished.
Bruce, unfortunately, was too good of a person for his own good.
"I'm sure we shouldn't intrude," he smoothly cut in before I could actually summon anyone over. "You still have a show to run. We shouldn't keep you from it. We can always come back once things have settled down."
Ah, poor Bruce.
Even now, his good character was shining through, trying to rescue Samantha from the show.
If only he knew what a massive asshole she was.
I almost felt a twinge of sadness that I had to completely ignore his attempt to save her.
"No, no, it's fine." I smiled brightly before grabbing both of them by the shoulders and pulling them deeper into the show. "You're already here. Might as well enjoy the full experience!"
The sheer discomfort I could see lurking beneath Samantha's carefully maintained mask made it all worthwhile.
Bruce was such a kind soul that he was even playing along, looking almost as uncomfortable as she did. Of course, I knew that had to be fake. He loved hanging out with me!
Truly, he was a man of the people.
All the more reason to keep him right here and give him the best damn party experience possible!
—
Clark could only stare with a mixture of amusement and relief as Bruce got sucked into Jean Valjean's little show.
Karmic justice at its finest.
Not that he didn't understand Bruce's thought process, but befriending Jean Valjean seemed a bit...
Clark couldn't help glancing back at the sudden dance party. The Venom-enhanced hitmen were throwing themselves into dancing with reckless abandon, using their newfound strength to launch each other into the air and spin partners like helicopter blades.
If this was what one night with Jean looked like...
Clark cleared his throat and turned away.
Yeah… he'd let Bruce take the lead on that. That interview was definitely not gonna be sane.
Still, his pride as a reporter meant he never approached an interview without his best effort. Mama Kent hadn't raised a quitter, and besides, it wasn't like there wasn't some appeal to the challenge.
His senses made reporting a bit… bland sometimes. Uncovering a scoop became almost trivial when you could hear conversations from a thousand miles away or see straight through walls.
But inside this tower...
Clark glanced up and tried his X-ray vision.
Nothing.
He focused on his hearing next. Normally, he could pick apart a conversation even if the speakers were several floors away, but a frequency far beyond normal human hearing pulsed through the building in a strange, shifting pattern, muddying everything together.
It was a little unnerving to be so limited, but Clark decided to take it as a challenge. There was something strangely exciting about getting a scoop purely as Clark Kent.
So off he went, camera in hand, taking photos and occasionally stopping to interview one of the partygoers. While he was a little disturbed by the rather... unique way the hitmen had been captured, his sympathy for mobsters who had been trying to kill people was fairly limited.
He'd make sure this story spread far and wide.
Clark might not have been able to crush Gotham's mob as Superman, but that didn't mean he couldn't take a swing at them in his own way.
And, admittedly, he was starting to enjoy himself.
He already had more material than he'd expected, enough for a solid article and probably several follow-ups besides. Maybe Jean Valjean's luck wasn't such a terrible thing after all.
Clark lowered his camera and glanced around.
A drink sounded pretty good right about now.
Unfortunately, the main stairways leading down were packed with people moving between floors. He considered simply squeezing through before noticing a nearby fire exit sitting slightly ajar.
Good enough.
Clark pushed through the door and stepped into the stairwell.
Something exploded out of the shadows.
A blade struck him square in the chest.
Clark blinked.
A broken blade clattered across the concrete stairwell.
He slowly looked down at the torn fabric over his chest, then back up.
Several figures dressed in owl-themed costumes stared back at him in disbelief.
For a long, awkward moment, nobody moved.
Clark glanced at the shattered knife.
Then at the assassins.
Then back at the knife.
"Well," he said slowly, forcing an awkward smile, "Guess they really don't make knives like they used to, huh? Just broke like that!"
"Kill him!" someone screamed.
Several figures lunged at him at once.
...Come on. He thought that had been pretty convincing.
—
Well, this was... a bit of a pickle.
Clark frowned as he stared down at the nearly dozen owl-themed villains sprawled across the stairwell.
Keeping the fight contained had been a little tricky, but thankfully none of them had been powerful enough to give him much trouble. No, the real problem was figuring out what he was supposed to do now.
Nearly a decade as Superman, and this was how he finally got exposed?
By pure accident.
Clark honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"I can't just leave them here..." Clark scratched the back of his head and glanced toward the door. "And I can't exactly make them disappear, either."
A panel suddenly slid open along the wall.
Clark looked up as several metal tendrils shot out, wrapping around the unconscious assassins and dragging them toward the opening with practiced efficiency.
He was too taken aback to stop it.
Just before the final tendril disappeared into the wall, it twisted around and gave him a thumbs-up.
Clark stared.
For just a moment, he could've sworn he heard a strange little song.
"...Okay." He continued staring at the wall, unsure what he was supposed to feel about any of this. "Thanks?"
...What just happened?
Clark shook his head as the shock slowly wore off. The tower was packed with advanced technology, which meant there was a very real chance one of Jean Valjean's people already knew his identity.
He needed to find Bruce and figure out whether this could somehow be smoothed over.
With a growing sense of unease, Clark hurried back onto the party floor.
Things only got stranger from there.
He slipped through the packed crowd with almost perfect timing, every opening appearing just as he needed it. Then, as if on cue, one of the floating platforms drifted directly toward him.
Clark slowed for half a second before stepping aboard.
...God, could this night get any weirder?
It took a few more minutes, but Clark finally spotted Bruce standing near the edge of one of the platforms, talking with Jean Valjean.
"Bruce." Clark raised a hand as he approached. "I need to—"
A deafening boom cut him off.
Golden light erupted beneath their feet as a massive portal tore open across the platform.
Clark barely had time to register what was happening before the floor vanished beneath him.
The three of them dropped straight through.
Clark twisted in midair, already preparing to catch Bruce and Jean, only for the world around him to suddenly change.
His feet struck solid ground.
He looked up.
And froze.
Sitting upon a massive throne was a painfully familiar figure, broad-shouldered and enormous, with stone-gray skin, burning red eyes, and a frame that looked carved from the side of a mountain.
His voice boomed through the chamber.
"I am Darkseid."
...Ah, hell.
***
Comments and Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Likes are like a drug to me and boost my creative juices.
I have advanced chapters on Pa tre on/daisyberry if you wanna read ahead.