74 Deborah Tiegel #74
Author's note: we're up by a few ranks, but it's not enough! I need a higher rank for self-validation! Feed my unhealthy addiction to power stones! I demand it!
...
Opening the door to Noonan's bar, Deborah Tiegel's expression couldn't be any weirder as the several guns pointed at her face was the first thing she saw upon entering the building.
Meeting Gotham city's latest vigilante, a man who had caused the GCPD's various precincts holding cells to be over capacity on more than one occasion in such a seedy bar, was already plenty weird.
Meeting the said vigilante and the city's most renowned thief, both in costume and in the company of a notorious killer for hire, didn't make the situation any less weird.
"Tommy? What's going on here?" Deborah asked, unphased by the two masked people's seeming readiness for violence as she turned to the hitman, giving him a confused look.
"That thing from the asylum is back," Monaghan replied with a frown as he turned to Catwoman and Wraith, awkwardly clearing his throat with an urging expression, and they shared a look before lowering their weapons.
"Now's not the time for explanations. The thing's goons are already here and heavily armed to boot," Wraith said as he walked past the former detective, taking cover next to the bar's door.
"We need to move. I know a place where we can take shelter for the meantime," Jason Blood urgently remarked as he got off his seat and beckoned for everyone to follow him.
"St. Joseph's cemetery. If we fortify the church there, we should be able to buy enough time for Etrigan to finish his business," Blood added as everyone moved towards him except for Wraith, who remained at the door.
"The holy ground should work to weaken the demon as well should it decide to make a personal appearance," the demonologist concluded as he turned to Wraith, giving him a confused look.
"You guys go ahead. I'll take care of the goons here and follow. It won't take long," Wraith replied with a shrug, and Jason nodded as he went for the bar's back exit.
"I'll get their attention. Wait for the first gunshot and make a run for it as fast as you can," Wraith concluded as he watched them leave, raising his guns and leaning on the wall, sounding all too calm.
Deborah gave the vigilante one last look as Monaghan took her hand and guided her towards the back exit, and she couldn't help but wonder how she got involved in this mess.
...
Deborah Tiegel was one of the few honest cops in Gotham, despite the constant struggle against the city's dark underbelly and her very own corrupt colleagues in the 52 precinct.
She soldiered through everything the god-forsaken city put her through to maintain her integrity and eventually rose to the rank of detective, though her rise was not uneventful.
During her years-long career as a law enforcement officer in the corrupt city of Gotham, she witnessed almost all the horrors and atrocities men were willing to inflict on their fellows for the pettiest and most unreasonable of reasons.
As if dealing with psychopaths on a daily basis wasn't enough, Deborah even had to deal with demons, wicked, twisted beings from hell whose cruelty and depravity would make even Victor Zsasz pale in comparison.
Deborah would never forget that night when she and several police officers answered a call to investigate an assault on the Arkham Asylum.
They arrived at the scene, and the horrid screams and pleas for help from inside the asylum caused her colleagues to freeze.
In the end, Deborah and Deborah alone mustered the courage to go inside and investigate all on her own.
Luckily for her, however, she encountered none other than Gotham's masked protector, who was there to investigate the incident halfway through.
The two detectives then made their way through the asylum, finding not but carnage and bloodshed at every corner, turn, and hallway until they happened upon a fierce fight in the asylum's center.
They saw one man fighting a many-armed, pale, thin demon, holding one gun in every one of its malformed, bony hands, as the two battled in a fierce display of gunmanship and ferociousness.
However, the demon had the overwhelming advantage, and the man was clearly close to his limits. The two detectives quickly joined the fray and managed to destroy the creature.
However, the man was a killer for hire, and as such, it was their duty to apprehend him. The man, Thomas Monaghan, insisted he was one of the good guys, despite his career choice, but that didn't deter Deborah or Batman.
The hitman eventually escaped, and she'd almost forgotten about him if not for recent events that saw the honest Deborah framed and suspended without pay for a mistake that wasn't her own due to the death of one corrupt cop in a bust gone south.
Furious, Deborah was about to storm into Burns' (her captain and the man responsible for her unjust suspension) office to quit when she overheard a shady deal between the captain and a government agent.
They intended to cover up for the dead corrupt cop by blaming Thomas Monaghan, the same hitman who was fighting the demon in the asylum, for the crooked officer's murder.
While having no love for the hitman, he was now the lesser of two evils. Deborah orchestrated his escape from the police and took him back to her apartment that she shared with her mother and grandfather.
The charismatic hitman charmed her mother, but Deborah was not so easily impressed. Nevertheless, she put her dislike for him aside to develop a plan to expose the corrupt officials.
Their plan eventually succeeded, and Deborah let Monaghan go on his way. After all, she wasn't technically a cop. Monaghan saw the tiniest chinks in her armor and gave her his phone number. Just in case.
When the review of her suspension came up, Deborah played ball. But with a board of corrupt cops, she was promptly fired.
With no one to confide in, she drowned her sorrows with Monaghan. In a drunken state, she revealed her attraction to him. His conscience getting the better of him, Monaghan turned down her inebriated advances and saw her in her bed before leaving.
The next day when she realized how she had lost control, Deborah went to talk with Tommy at Noonan's Bar. However, her timing couldn't be any worse.
...
"Deborah Tiegel, huh?" I muttered, grinning under my mask as I watched Selina and the others leave while looking up the former detective's file out of curiosity.
However, my curiosity quickly turned into something else as I formulated a plan to mess with Monaghan. Suffice to say, a mere 250k increase in my pay wouldn't be enough to compensate for trying to intrude into my mind, and now I finally had a way to even things out.
But enough of that; I had a bunch of goons to take care of, after all.
I thought of something clever to say, but nothing came to mind, so I merely shrugged and walked out of the bar, and the goons outside immediately opened fire.
"It's that damned Wraith. Quick, open fire before the bastard disappears or some shit!" One of the first goons to start shooting exclaimed, and I could do nothing but bitterly smile under my mask at the edgy moniker as I began sprinting.
There were too many bullets to dodge, but I started moving nonetheless and avoided the overwhelming majority of the projectiles, a few hitting me and bouncing off my trench coat.
"It's not working! The bullets are just bouncing off the freak!" Another one exclaimed, wildly gesturing as he was the first to land a shot on me, and I quickly returned the favor with an energy projectile to his forehead.
I somersaulted into the bar's wall, using my boots to stick them as I began putting my guns, steel wire, and acrobatics skills to good use, jumping from one building to the other while firing.
For every shot I took, a thug fell, and the tens of goons began to panic as their numbers thinned, and they began landing fewer and fewer shots on me as I confused them with my edgy spiderman impression until they were unable to land a single bullet.
However, they held their ground nonetheless, seemingly more afraid of the demon than me. I took that personally and activated my phantom belt, intending to put the fear of God in the thugs despite knowing my actions would only make my new nickname stick harder.
"Fuck! He really disappeared! What bastard was it that said he would?!" one of the goons who strategically placed himself on a rooftop opposite the bar exclaimed while hurriedly looking around.
"You'll have plenty of time to figure it out in Black Gate," I said with a chuckle as I deactivated my invisibility right behind the goon, and he flinched and quickly turned around.
I caught his head and headbutted him in the face, caving his nose with a sickening crunch of bones, only to disappear again and move on to the next goon.
In the end, it only took me about 20 minutes to finish the gathered thugs, and I quickly left the area after giving the GCPD an anonymous tip about the crowd of unconscious thugs I left behind.
...
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