CHAPTER 34: Part 1 "Reactions And Discoveries..."

*Penthouse Suite, Gotham Skyscraper

Since his release from prison to probation Carmine Falcone had enjoyed the pleasures of his penthouse suite on top of one of Gotham's tallest buildings.

A modest skyscraper that had been his headquarters for decades till his fall from ruling Gotham's underworld thanks to Batman.

The penthouse boasted a dozen exquisite rooms, artwork from the Renaissance era covered the walls, a nearly full-size movie theater, a fully staffed kitchen, a personal pool and Carmine's favorite piece, a fully stocked bar with some of the finest spirits money could buy. 

Yet all these worldly delights did not distract him or stop the growing frown on his face as he watched the evening news play.

"... several officers have been injured and a few bodies have been removed from the scene."

A young attractive female reporter stood in front of the Gotham City Mall which was swarming with police and emergency lights. She held an umbrella for protection from the rain which had started to come pounding down again.

Sitting on his sofa chair that cost more than some houses, Falcone could not enjoy the soft and therapeutic attributes. He felt uncomfortable and concerned that what he was seeing was true.

Earlier this evening while he was wrapping up a meeting with some of his capos he had been brought word that Riddler had launched a multi-prong attack against the GCPD.

At first, he had been annoyed. No one pulled a job like that in his city! At least not without paying the tribute he was owed. He snorted at his arrogance, the city was not quite his yet, and it would take time to return his empire to its glory. Besides, the attacks would only hurt and diminish his enemies and make bribes much easier for the pressured cops.

So besides the occasional update, he ignored the situation and took the evening off to enjoy being out of his cellblock.

Riddler was in his mind a genius engineer, but also a tactical moron. Batman or the cops would stop him before his plan, whatever it was would bare fruit. And that seemed to be the case with the GC News reporting the capture of both Riddler, Poison Ivy, Deathstroke, and an unknown assailant. It all seemed over and Falcone was about to change the channel to some sports-related show when something happened he did not expect.

"As of right now, the assailants have fled the scene in a stolen police helicopter. The Commissioner has refused to answer any questions only to say that the GCPD air patrols are in pursuit of the villains..."

The fourth assailant... The Hound... Krios... he had shown a greater display of power than ever before.

Falcone had been shocked to see some reporters' footage showing, from a distance, the young Meta taking control of the police weapons and holding essentially the GCPD and Batman hostage!

And credit where credit was due, the kid followed through with his threat. One cop lost his leg, three would be lucky to survive their surgeries, and one detective was executed point blank.

Footsteps alerted him of his guest he had requested to come immediately, after seeing the first bits of news cover Krios' escape.

The man came around the side of Falcone and sat down in a sofa chair opposite of him.

"So what has gotten you scared?" Mario Falcone, successful legitimate businessman and son of Carmine Falcone asked.

Falcone kept his eyes on the TV, drinking in what the reporters were saying and the few bits of footage captured of the event. All of the cameras in the mall had been disabled so everyone was relying on footage captured by the news cameramen.

"That kid has balls," Falcone muttered.

Staring at his father, Mario knew that what he was saying was both a comment and a statement of concern.

Mario quietly said, "Do you think he did it on Penguin's orders?"

"No, Oswald is keeping a low profile and trying to escape his cell through legal means. He would have never ordered his dog to help someone like the Riddler. No, this was definitely a side gig for the Hound." 

Falcone shook his head, "Or I should say 'Krios,' apparently it is his new name."

The two Falcones both went silent and watched the news, both thinking different thoughts about this new potential player.

Mario finally spoke, "I can double the bounty on him."

"No..." Falcone muttered before speaking up, "No, I want that bounty off him. Scrub any evidence that we put the order out. We avoid that kid at all costs."

Falcone stood up and walked over to the bar where he took two glass cups and poured an outrageously expensive whiskey into each.

Mario joined him, accepting the offered glass with a head bow of thanks, "You think he is a bigger threat than we can handle?"

Sipping his drink, Falcone said, "Whether or not we can is not what I worry about."

"That kid just showed up Gotham, hell the world. There will be many interested parties seeking to destroy him or employ him."

Falcone knocked back the rest of his drink. Pausing a moment to consider he decided to pour himself another drink.

"It is best for the Family as we are in this rebuilding stage that we don't involve ourselves with him."

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*Detective Rene Montoya, Gotham City Apartments

"... one source has confirmed that one of the officers shot did not survive his surgery..."

SMASH

A glass bottle exploded against the wall of the apartment right next to the TV which was playing the evening news.

Rene stood livid in her living room, with a few empty bottles around her as she listened. She would need to text Bullock to confirm if what they said was true about the officer.

Sitting back on her couch she felt her hands shake with fury.

'WE HAD HIM!'

Her mind was a flurry of thoughts of being pissed, sad, and everything in-between over what had happened in the last few hours.

When the hijacked helicopter had left Batman and the rest of the vigilantes jumped into action giving chase. The Commissioner was shortly behind them, jumping aboard another police helicopter. Rene had tried to join him but was ordered instead to help Bullock secure the mall.

She did not take that order well.

Bullock practically dragged her away from the helicopter, her yelling and kicking did little to encourage confidence in her current sanity. She was ordered back to the GCPD HQ and then to return home taking a mandatory day off. Luckily the kids were still with her great-aunt, otherwise, they would have seen a side of Rene she did not want to show them.

Returning home had led her to drink, read reports, watch the news, and wait for news on the pursuit of Krios and the others. The lack of any news from Bullock or the Commissioner for the last few hours told her what she knew, Krios had escaped.

Now with the news reporting the death of another one of the officers who Krios had shot, her hatred for him had increased tenfold!

Sitting down on her couch she looked down absently at her living room table, covered with the various files of the Penguin Mob's finances. She felt tears well up in her eyes as the combination of grief, exhaustion, anger, and frustration. Her pride and desire to see justice for Benny were finally taking a toll beyond her capabilities. What she really wanted was a moment to rest.

Shaking her head to clear her mind she reached over for another bottle of liquor. Popping the top she leaned back against the couch and watched the drenched reporters in the rain keep the news coverage going.

"... Police have confirmed that the suspect, Krios, will be put on the official GCPD blacklist."

She rolled her eyes at that. Being on the blacklist certainly put added resources on criminals who were listed. Like the GCPD wouldn't throw resources additional into capturing him? Of course, they would, but just adding him to the blacklist would give a stronger perception to the public of how seriously they were taking him.

'Mind you, Bane, Killer Croc, and Joker are on the blacklist yet it has done shit in helping stop them,' she sarcastically thought as she started to take another sip.

"The recent officer death will bring the total of murdered officers from the assailant to three with his first being Officer Benja..."

COUGH COUGH COUGH

Rene spluttered out her drink. What the reporter just said had clicked something in her mind, something that she was racing to connect.

"Benny wasn't his first murder though..." she whispered.

Dropping her drink she cleared the table of files, grabbed her notepad, and began flipping through the pages to the Eastside fires, when The Hound supposedly died.

Benny was not his first murder. Though she had been certain he had killed several times before, the evidence and eyewitness accounts all confirmed his brutal but non-fatal actions in the past. Months of research and questioning witnesses of his war against Penguin's enemies had given the GCPD a fair understanding of his typical M.O. 

Flipping through her notes she found the page she was looking for that confirmed her growing feeling. As far as the information they had, Krios, or The Hound as he was known committed his first murder the night of the fires, against the arsonists.

'Why did his M.O. change so suddenly?'

Opening her laptop which was to the side, she opened up the original case file of the arsonists. She remembered that Batman had provided what he had said right before slitting the arsonist's throats.

"They did this, all the fire, destruction... death..."

"So much suffering... so much pain..."

She read the lines aloud with a new thread of thought forming.

Most assumed he reacted the way he did either on orders from Penguin or was just revealing his true colors. But reading the reports now a different image was being created in Rene's mind.

Krios' first murders were not his typical M.O. at that point in time. His words and actions indicated a much higher emotional response. Sure it could have been because he was fairly injured, but if he was so injured why would he be in Eastside and not recovering?!?

In his war against rival gangs, he had been liberal in his brutal methods, even using fire occasionally to burn down their warehouses. Even attacks on Penguin properties had been reacted the same way. So why did Eastside warrant such a response? Because there were casualties?

'No,' she frowned thinking about it.

'Because there were casualties he knew!'

Krios was a young man, injured, tired, and had just lost someone in the fires! Someone he knew who lived in Eastside was targeted specifically because it was Penguin's territory.

What are the chances the person who died was also connected to the Penguin Mob?!?

For the first time in a while, she felt excited at a potential lead. If she was correct then she just needed to compare the financial statements of Penguin to the fatality list of the Eastside fires. If she can confirm a connection then it could very well be a link to Krios himself!

The detective who had moments before been preparing for a drunken sleep while bemoaning the news felt a renewed energy! She brought her laptop closer as she began searching the GCPD records of fatalities.

Excited as she was a small part of her mind was nagging her how thin her theory was. Even if she was right about Krios losing someone in the fires causing his breakdown, there was no guarantee that should could figure out who it was. Even connecting the individual to Penguin was more of a guess. She would need to be careful not to try to force that connection since the person could very well be someone unconnected to the Penguin.

'It is thin... but it's all I got.' 

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*Unknown Location

"The Light will not be pleased with the delay."

A meeting was being held in a conference room with 7 of the 14 chairs of the room being filled with men and women of varying ages. Each individual wore a simple but expensive black suit, the epitome of corporate businessmen.

The individuals were rather plain and prided themselves on being unremarkable purposely. It was easier to blend in and be forgotten as they worked to achieve their order's end goal.

One exception was a man at the end of the table. He did not sit at the head, no, that was reserved for the Commandant who rarely attended meetings. No, this man sat on the right side, a symbolic seat indicating his position in the order.

Wearing the same simple but expensive black suit as the rest, the man wore a set of thick sunglasses that covered his eyes. With a short but messy head of blond hair, his facial skin had random splotches of yellowish-grey color tones, like burns but their origins came not from flames. His left jaw also looked like it was missing as his mouth bent inward. Typically the man would put a prosthetic in his mouth to prop that side of his jaw though due to its discomfort, he had foregone it since with his colleagues he did not need to put a better 'public image' up.

"Who cares what the Light thinks, they need what we are supplying" huffed one of the women.

The man who had raised the point gave a nod of agreement, "Yes I agree, however..." 

He looked at the scarred man at the end pointedly, "Even for us, $300 million is a big paycheck to skip out on."

The rest of the table turned their attention to the scarred man, waiting for his response. The Commandant who nearly never came to meetings held the highest authority and no one dared question his orders. The scarred man as the right hand to the Commandant was held with the same level of respect.

It was partly why their order had survived the fall and decades of hiding. Their order was designed to be a perfect organization with the perfect members. The ideas of corruption, disobedience, and power grabs were literally impossible.

Their order had been designed to be so...

"Inform the Light that they will receive the shipment as soon as we deal with the Chinese," the scarred man said. 

Bringing his fingers together and tapping them rhythmically against each other he said, "The Chinese obviously are only causing problems because they want more money. Filthy animals they may be, but we need them to help fill the ships."

The rest of the table murmured their annoyance but agreement.

Standing up, everyone else rose up respectfully as the scarred man asked, "Is there anything else?"

"One last thing sir," this came from an older graying woman at the end who had been quiet during the meeting.

She was in charge of their operations in North America, a land that was great for their money laundering, but one where they had lost much of their political power. They had in part given it up as it was determined the high concentration of political enemies made it impractical for the order. Figures like Lex Luthor, the Light, Cadmus, the Justice League, and many others made it too costly. So the order decided that its security and resources were better spent on easier targets, like the United Nations.

Minus the scarred man she was the second longest-serving and had served the order faithfully for years as a reliable financial asset.

Clearing her throat, she tapped a device on her wrist which turned on a screen on a wall.

"A few hours ago our watchers alerted me of a curious situation in Gotham surrounding a supposedly new supervillain."

The screen began playing footage from news reports, police body cams, and security cameras near what looked like a mall.

"Normally a new villain would not really warrant our attention but..." 

She hesitated, "Sir, there were some similarities that triggered alerts."

The group stayed still as they watched the screen show a young, masked man using telekinetic powers to hold a city's police force hostage. Everyone stayed quiet and deadpan watching the footage, except for the scarred man whose eyes shown with elation.

The footage eventually came to an end with a blown-up tight shot of the new villain. Not much could be seen of his facial features save for his eyes, one which looked bloody from injuries but both black with power leaking out of them.

The scarred man walked around his associates and stood in front of the screen. He gently reached out and touched the black eyes on the screen as if confirming what he was seeing was not a glitch.

He spoke softly, "After all these years... the child of John and Sarah, could it really be?"

Snapping out of it he looked back at the rest of the associates, some he could tell were confused others seemed to recognize the significance of what this could mean.

The scarred man began to laugh, not a small chuckle, no it was a full belly laugh.

"It seems that after more than 16 years, my hunt for the progeny has begun again."