Brightest Lights Cast The Darkest Shadows
Though infested with vice and crime, Gotham has never been lacking for a good nightlife, and the 3rd Avenue Nite Club is just one of the dozens of nightclubs and cabarets that litter the streets. One of the oldest, its history goes back at least fifty years, although it has spent the past fifteen years vacant and forbidding. In the three short months it has been open again, it has more than made up for lost time.
The man who enters through the doors alone does not draw any particular attention. Nice suit, nice shoes, upscale without being too pretentious, he could be any corporate drone looking for a good time. A modest fedora, worn at a jaunty angle, does wonders for hiding the man's distinctive white hair, the only feature that might set him apart.
He considered dyeing the hair. Figured it wasn't worth the trouble.
Prometheus, incognito and on business, does a quick scan of the nightclub. It's little more than a confirmation of the research he conducted for the past 48 hours. Pretty diverse clientele, sharply dressed employees in stark red suits, a throbbing dancefloor run by a mannequin-faced DJ. No sign of anyone who looks he might be in charge.
He doesn't have much to go on. No photo, no records, not even any eyewitness description aside from 'guy wearing red hood and red robes.' Prometheus figures the Monk has acquired more sensible tastes in clothing since then.
No, all Prometheus had to go on, all he found in two days of searching, is a faded old business card, a memento liberated from the effects of one Julie Madison.
Niccolai Tepes. No records exist for such a person, of course, but this is no surprise to Prometheus. It's almost certainly an alias. He knows all about aliases. In Niccolai Tepes he senses a touch of the familiar, a trace of himself - this man too has long since discarded his original name.
There's no conspicuous VIP area, but a pair of burly bouncers are standing guard over a nondescript door. No one else seems to notice or care about two thugs guarding what looks like the entrance to a broom closet.
Prometheus idly considers his options. He could take both men down in a second apiece, but the Monk might take umbrage to playing rough with the hired help. Maybe it's better to play by the rules, announce himself and wait to be summoned.
.. shyeah, right. Expecting Prometheus to play by the rules is like expecting Superman to stand idle while candy is taken from a baby - it goes against their basic natures.
One of the bouncers raises his hand palm-up in response to Prometheus's approach, while the other tries to look intimidating. Without missing a beat, Prometheus clasps the first bouncer's outstretched hand, thousands of volts of electricity pumping into the hapless man's body through his hidden gauntlet, and smoothly brings up his other arm, firing a dart from the other gauntlet into the man's neck. The electrocuted man falls to the floor silent and blackened, while the second bouncer crumples to the ground, writhing silently.
Prometheus gives himself twenty seconds to admire his handiwork. The virus rotting the bouncer from the inside out is of his own creation. Toxicology is a little hobby of his.
Hired help attended to, Prometheus slips through the door, dragging the dead bodies behind him, and proceeds guardedly down a narrow winding staircase.
The man who enters through the doors alone does not draw any particular attention. Nice suit, nice shoes, upscale without being too pretentious, he could be any corporate drone looking for a good time. A modest fedora, worn at a jaunty angle, does wonders for hiding the man's distinctive white hair, the only feature that might set him apart.
He considered dyeing the hair. Figured it wasn't worth the trouble.
Prometheus, incognito and on business, does a quick scan of the nightclub. It's little more than a confirmation of the research he conducted for the past 48 hours. Pretty diverse clientele, sharply dressed employees in stark red suits, a throbbing dancefloor run by a mannequin-faced DJ. No sign of anyone who looks he might be in charge.
He doesn't have much to go on. No photo, no records, not even any eyewitness description aside from 'guy wearing red hood and red robes.' Prometheus figures the Monk has acquired more sensible tastes in clothing since then.
No, all Prometheus had to go on, all he found in two days of searching, is a faded old business card, a memento liberated from the effects of one Julie Madison.
Niccolai Tepes. No records exist for such a person, of course, but this is no surprise to Prometheus. It's almost certainly an alias. He knows all about aliases. In Niccolai Tepes he senses a touch of the familiar, a trace of himself - this man too has long since discarded his original name.
There's no conspicuous VIP area, but a pair of burly bouncers are standing guard over a nondescript door. No one else seems to notice or care about two thugs guarding what looks like the entrance to a broom closet.
Prometheus idly considers his options. He could take both men down in a second apiece, but the Monk might take umbrage to playing rough with the hired help. Maybe it's better to play by the rules, announce himself and wait to be summoned.
.. shyeah, right. Expecting Prometheus to play by the rules is like expecting Superman to stand idle while candy is taken from a baby - it goes against their basic natures.
One of the bouncers raises his hand palm-up in response to Prometheus's approach, while the other tries to look intimidating. Without missing a beat, Prometheus clasps the first bouncer's outstretched hand, thousands of volts of electricity pumping into the hapless man's body through his hidden gauntlet, and smoothly brings up his other arm, firing a dart from the other gauntlet into the man's neck. The electrocuted man falls to the floor silent and blackened, while the second bouncer crumples to the ground, writhing silently.
Prometheus gives himself twenty seconds to admire his handiwork. The virus rotting the bouncer from the inside out is of his own creation. Toxicology is a little hobby of his.
Hired help attended to, Prometheus slips through the door, dragging the dead bodies behind him, and proceeds guardedly down a narrow winding staircase.