143 Ugly #143

East End

Empty parking lot

"So? I'm here. What do you want?" I asked as I stood before Abbot, unmindful of Whisper's lack of presence as I knew she was hiding in the construction site overlooking the parking lot.

Though we were in a usually heavy traffic area, it was late at night, and the regular people who weren't part of the city's underbelly were hiding in the relative safety of their homes, leaving the area empty.

"Indeed you are..." Abbot said, nodding his head. "What we want is by no means complicated... a cooperation against a common enemy," he added, trailing off at the end of his sentence, and I had to fight off a chuckle at how he said; we.

The first time might have been a coincidence, but now I was sure the werewolf exposed Whisper's presence purposely, but it didn't really matter to me, so I didn't bother to comment on it.

"Oh? You two and Ugly got a bone to pick with Waller?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion at the wolf man's words. It wouldn't be strange if they did, but I imagined people like them would be content to watch from the sidelines.

"Anyone with an excess of power should be wary of Amanda Waller... but she is not the enemy I speak of..." Abbot calmly replied, shaking his head, to which my confusion grew.

"The enemy I speak of is Bruno 'Ugly' Manheim himself," the werewolf added, giving me pause, and he quickly continued before I could even question it.

"He must be stopped before it's too late for us and everyone else..." he concluded, going quiet as he let me process his words, and it didn't take me long to do so.

"Don't you two work for Manheim?-- You know what, don't answer that I don't really care..." I remarked with a scoff. "Ugly is all the way in Metropolis, and I kicked his people out of Gotham myself," I added, gesturing to the side, giving Abbot an unimpressed look.

"We might not be best buddies, but I'm not worried about him right now," I replied, making my lack of interest in getting involved (the story of my life, which never had a happy ending) abundantly clear.

"You should be... you and everyone in this city..." Abbot calmly said, having waited for me to finish talking patiently, his tone seemingly self-assured, which wasn't a good sign.

"Do you know why Manheim sent us to Gotham?" The werewolf asked, and I remained silent. He took my silence as a sign to keep going, which he happily did.

"Manheim wanted us to establish a base of operation in the city with two purposes in mind..." Abbot explained as he raised a clenched fist in front of his face.

"To eventually take over Gotham..." the werewolf went on, raising a finger in the air. "And more importantly... to find the twice named daughter of Cain..." he concluded as he lifted a second.

"Daughter of Cain... you say...?" I remarked as an image of a young girl innocently smiling as she held a backpack full of snacks close to her chest flashed in my mind.

"What exactly does Manheim want with this... daughter of Cain...?" I blankly asked, narrowing my eyes as I stared directly into the wolfman's eyes, to which he stilled for a second.

"Manheim has found a copy of the Crime Bible... the central teaching for The Religion Of Crime... or The Dark Faith as some call it..." Abbot replied after a second, which he used to gather his bearings.

"There are four different versions of the book... the one in Manheim's hands depicts a prophecy... and a blasphemous rite to attain unimaginable power..." the wolf man explained.

"The rite requires the blood and soul of the twice named daughter of Cain, and the prophecy foretells her arrival where crime takes root, the city most corrupt of all..." he solemnly concluded, and I didn't need to be a genius to realize he was talking about Gotham.

"So you came here to look for the daughter of Cain to sacrifice her for some bloody ritual...? And now you have a disagreement with Ugly and come to me for help...?" I blankly asked, my tone eerily calm even to my own ears, and the werewolf seemed to have picked up on it as well.

"You must really wanna die..." I added, my anger rising as I retrieved the steel wire from my inventory and gripped it tightly, giving the wolf man a blank death stare.

"Attacking me now will not be in your best interest--" the wolf man hastily said, trying to diffuse the situation, but I quickly cut him off before he could finish.

"Why? Because the snake bitch is in that building recording us?" I interjected, cutting Abbot off mid-sentence as I gestured towards the construction site.

"How long do you think she'd last if I go after her first? Would it be enough time for you to escape?" I asked, smiling at the wolf man despite my anger, and he unconsciously took a step back.

I was seething, barely keeping my emotions in check. But I couldn't be overcome by it, not again, or I'd risk doing something stupid. Taunting the wolf man was my way of staying in control.

I also needed to know what cards they had before acting. I was using my impossible-to-hide urge to tear the wolf man apart to force him into revealing them post haste or risk turning into minced meat.

It had already happened twice before. Once at the hospital and once at the docks. I was counting on Abbot having common sense as it dictated he starts speaking immediately, and as it turned out, he did.

"Whisper is as you say in the other building... but she is merely there because she would not survive your wrath, not for any underhanded purposes..." Abbot replied, and I only scoffed at the ridiculous reasoning as I knew she had a recording device on her for a fact.

I wasn't dumb enough to come here without scouting the area to make sure the meeting wasn't an ambush, even if I was the one to choose the time and place. It pays to be paranoid sometimes, you know?

"Conflict with us would not be in your best interest because you don't understand how complicated the situation is... we do..." Abbot calmly added as he finally calmed himself and put on a blank expression, but I could still sense his fear with apathy.

"Manheim has enlisted a sect of The Dark Faith to help him..." The wolfman explained. "The Religion Of Crime is not a simple religion. It's a criminal organization as old as history itself..." he added.

"Unlike Intergang, they have rooted themselves in Gotham long ago, and you would not be able to find them without our help..." the wolf man went on, gaining more confidence as he went on.

"Even if you do... it will be too late. Manheim would have completed the ritual and brought ruin to Gotham and the daughter of Cain..." Abbot concluded, and I had to admit there was some sense in his words if they were true.

If this so-called Religion Of Crime did exist in Gotham, I wouldn't be able to find it any time soon because if it were easy, then I'd know about them already.

I knew about every criminal organization, corrupt politician, company, and shady individual in Gotham that incorporated electronics in their operation thanks to my Computers skill and a shit ton of digging.

The Religion Of Crime existing in Gotham without me knowing it means they never use electronics and likely rely on more traditional methods to communicate and store data.

In other words, they had no digital trace for me to follow, and I was ill-equipped to investigate these sorts of organizations.

"We've had our differences, but now that we've fallen out with Manheim, there is no reason for us to be enemies anymore..." Abbot quickly added as he noticed my expression gradually relax as I contemplated the situation and calmed myself with logic.

"It was nothing personal, to begin with..." he added, and I finally sighed as I forcefully suppressed my anger for now, at least. I needed more information, and lashing out right now would fuck everything up.

"I need proof of this so-called Dark Faith and its presence in Gotham..." I said as I closed my eyes briefly and opened them, letting out a drawn breath.

"If you can't give me that, then there's only one way this ends...." I matter-of-factly concluded, and the wolf man merely nodded in understanding.

...

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