VQuintessence
patreon
The Darkest Of Roses I
🕑 Added 2022-04-06 15:58:48 +0000 UTC.................
Chapter 59: The Darkest Of Roses I
.................
"What a headache," Ian murmured while shaking his head, 'All I need is the last piece, yet I can't acquire it.
There is definitely something supernatural about the location, stopping me from even laying eyes on the piece of the paper, not unexpected considering its value.'
It has been just a week since the start of the war, well, one can not really call it a war since all the work was done by Batman with Ian feeding him information.
He was already giving him information about any illegal deals happening around, anything that can throw someone in jail, but now the crime families are targetting him, basically handing him free evidence, and they're no match for Batman unless they take some extreme measures.
They're however still putting a lot of pressure upon the Roses as the latter have to keep the peace of their territory, yet Ian was thinking about something else entirely.
He collected almost all of the pieces of the dead hell scrolls after Beelzebub's charitable deed. All that's left is one piece of paper which lies in the middle of the desert of Egypt.
It's just not that simple. He couldn't personally go, but he did send a few of his underlings with a few tools yet they found nothing. They even used a gound-penetrating radar, but it showed absolutely nothing underground.
The only conclusion Ian came up with was that something magical is involved, but he knows nothing about magic, 'I can't hire anyone either lest they betray me, I am still kind of weak against magic.'
"What are you thinking?" Selina questioned as she took a seat next to him and rested her head on his shoulders. They were seated right on the edge of the roof.
"I am just thinking that we can't let this go on for much longer. We can't stay on the defensive side because it'll only get worse."
"Everything is going to be alright. You'll think of a suicidal plan and we'll end up just fine... I trust you." She softly spoke without a hint of worry in her tone.
"I do have a plan, but I can't implement it just yet," Ian spoke though there wasn't much worry in his tone also.
Selina noticed as she responded, "If you aren't worried then I am not, but what's the problem? Why can't you do that?"
"There is someone, or something conspiring against us. They don't want us around, there is no other explanation as to why things would accelerate to such an extent. Someone had given information to the crime families about us, information that should be quite secretive yet...
They know a lot more information than they should, and I don't understand how they got any of it. Some are deducible while shouldn't be known at all."
Yet even with all of that, he didn't seem to be worried and neither was Selina, "Just tell me what needs to be done." She had way too much trust in him.
They remained like that in silence just watching the streets of Gotham in the middle of the night until Ian brought out his phone to check on something.
'As I thought, it's happening. Tiny Meteors falling on the earth, this should be what's keeping Batman busy. That and the Joker who started messing with him. I wanted the joker to keep Batman off my back but now I want Batman protecting my back, what an annoyance.'
Ian let out a sigh before just resting there with Selina. It was like a date, they spent a few hours just chatting, eating sweets from time to time until it happened, a deafening blast seemingly heard in every corner of Gotham.
Ian and Selina turned their attention to the closest explosion to them. It was actually quite close to them just one building away.
Ian looked carefully at the explosion site, noticing two destroyed cars, one more devastated than the other.
He noticed brake trails that led him to believe that one of the cars was driving in opposite lines, specifically in the coffee's direction. However, it collided with another car that erupted the explosion.
'They wanted to destroy the coffee huh, it's not the first time they tried that except that in the previous times, the bomb just didn't go off while now...'
It was but an instant before the little Roses surrounded the Cat's rest, protecting it with their lives while others started investigating the scene before the police arrive.
Selina frowned, getting an understanding of the situation, "I guess the only reason the place is still intact is because of you. The other explosion sites shouldn't be so lucky."
"Yeah, this is I wanted to stay here the entire time, but..." Ian shrugged his shoulders and pulled Selina into his embrace.
They hugged for quite a while before he gently whispered something in her ears while caressing her hair. It seems that he whispered a lot of things because it took a while.
Her lips quivered for a second before she wrapped her arms around his neck and sealed his lips in a passionate kiss as if it was the end of the world. She didn't want to let him go at all and Ian reciprocated her passion.
"It's alright. It will be just a nice fun show, and we'll come out on top. It will take some time, but things should work out. If they don't I will just go with some extreme means and everything will be fine."
Ian disappeared that very same day from the face of Gotham and so did the Roses' executives. The Cat's rest was abandoned, leaving no one within, even the chambers beneath it were cleaned out.
In fact, it was like the entire Rose family has disappeared and ceased all their activities in but a few hours, leaving every other crime family in Gotham confused, and even the ones behind the scene were left perplexed.
Yet despite that, the east end remained peaceful because by this point, the Rose family wasn't needed to keep it, they planted the seeds and the trees were growing, acting on their own to protect their home.
"What should we do? Should we interfere know?" Talia asked the middle-aged man standing next to her.
"No, we were too late. He must've escaped, our primary goal is getting rid of the Roses' head and things should work out perfectly, but he disappeared... He's smart." The man was her father, Ra's al Ghul.
"Have we found out why the crime families turned against them yet?" Talia questioned further with curiosity.
"No, but it's not hard to deduce. The crime families must've found out something about the Roses, and from how most crime deals have been failing for the past two months, one can safely assume that the Roses are feeding information to the police, or perhaps even... Batman."
Ra's shook his head before starting to head somewhere, "It's too bad, I wanted to meet with the Rose head, but if we find him, just get rid of him and let the chaos start."
Talia heard his instructions loud and clear as she narrowed her eyes while licking her lips, "You've made way too many enemies. I told you that you'll regret it though be grateful, we'll also get rid of your enemies after your passing and perhaps all of Gotham."
The league of shadows' goal or specifically Ra's al Ghul's goal is to save the Earth from ecological devastation by destroying most of its population, so their goal was not just Ian and the Roses, but also Gotham.
They didn't have as much information as the dark force of Gotham, so they weren't as confused.
They'll however get more confused as time went on, as things got weirder and weirder until nothing made any sense anymore.
Comments
Gilgamos
Thanks for the chapter
