Avi2112
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Chapter 229
🕑 Added 2025-06-07 13:14:00 +0000 UTC“I know you can hear me, D.A.I.S.Y.,” Felicia said into her black bracelet—a dual-purpose forcefield generator and advanced communicator. “Put the tenth-floor security cameras on a loop for me, please?”
A second later, a calm, female voice responded:
“Alright.”
“Thanks,” Felicia grinned, swinging off the bike with practiced ease.
She popped open a compartment on her belt—Luke insisted on calling it a Utility Belt, which she still thought sounded ridiculously lame—and pulled out a compact gadget: a mini grappling hook gun, sleek and gunmetal gray, with a super powerful magnetized tip.
Raising it toward the sky, she took aim.
Pfft.
The hook launched upward with precision. As it neared the eleventh floor, she pressed a button. The magnetic tip snapped onto a steel band just beneath a window with a satisfying clank.
“First try,” she smirked. In VR training, this shot had taken her dozens of attempts. But with NZT coursing through her system, she was dialed in. Everything felt effortless.
Felicia blinked, and in a flash, black cat ears sprouted from her head. A slender, feline tail flicked out behind her.
She and Sybil had hit it off quickly, thanks in part to Luke letting slip that both women had powers. Sybil had shown off her fabric-manipulating abilities with pride, and in return, Felicia had revealed her own transformation. Sybil had been delighted—so much so that when she designed Felicia’s suit, she had cleverly stitched a hidden opening for her tail. Stylish and practical. She loved that.
Grabbing the wire, she began scaling the wall with supernatural ease, as though gravity no longer applied.
“It would be easier with those magnetic boots or wall-crawling gloves Luke keeps talking about,” she muttered, feet tapping against the glass as she ascended. “But this isn’t half bad.”
Ironically, this part had seemed the most annoying during prep. The other alley—on the opposite side of Oscorp—had a popular restaurant and foot traffic even on Sunday nights. This one was perfect: just a four-story warehouse on this alley, totally dead on weekends, giving her uninterrupted privacy to scale the building without risk.
Her target was on the tenth floor—an easy climb for her tonight.
Felicia reached the window in under a minute. It was locked, of course, but that didn’t even make her blink.
“This cat’s got claws,” she purred with a sly smile.
With a soft snikt, razor-sharp claws slid from her gloves. She carved a neat, square cutout in the glass, just beside the window’s stopper and gently pushed the cutout inward. One delicate finger slid through the gap, flicked the latch, and—click—the window creaked open.
“I’m in,” she said with a grin, gracefully pouncing into the dark room. She deactivated the hook, reeled it back, and stashed it away.
What she didn’t notice was the lone girl in glasses who had just wandered into the alley below—and caught a fleeting glimpse of silver hair disappearing into the building.
Felicia quickly got out of what looked like a staff lounge and proceeded towards her target. The floor schematic was already burned into her mind—the lab she wanted was just across the corridor.
The hallway was bathed in low ambient light, the kind that remained on after-hours in buildings like Oscorp Tower. Thin ceiling panels glowed with a soft white hue, keeping the space dim but walkable. Shadows pooled at the edges, but it wasn’t pitch black.
Unfortunately, her Cat Powers didn’t come with night vision, but it didn’t matter—she could see well enough.
She silently walked down the corridor, tail swishing behind her, until she reached the door to the lab. But instead of heading straight in, she made her way to a row of decorative flower pots lining the opposite wall.
With a subtle tap on her belt, a sleek, white mini-drone rose up from behind the largest pot and floated toward her before docking back into its compartment at her hip.
“Good work, cutie,” she cooed with a smirk, patting the belt.
This was one of the miniaturized drones Luke had designed—an upgraded version of the Bioprobes, great for medium-range surveillance, though the battery life was a bit short. Still, for what she needed, it did the trick.
Of course, the real question was: How did it get there?
Well this wasn’t her first time inside Oscorp Tower.
A week ago, she had taken a little field trip—that time through the front door. She had lifted an employee ID card off a poor intern during the morning rush, slipped on her anti-cognitive mask, and breezed right through security.
Once she made it to this hallway, she dropped the drone behind the flower pot, then calmly walked out and vanished into the crowd.
That day’s footage? Delivered straight to her phone as she sipped coffee two blocks away.
“Let’s see if all that prep work bears fruit,” Felicia murmured, pulling out a sleek keycard—an exact replica of the one Dr. Conrad Marcus used to access this very lab.
Well, not his card exactly.
“This baby’s a perfect copy of Dr. Eric Schwinner’s,” she smirked.
Getting it hadn’t been easy. Dr. Schwinner had a nightly habit of drowning work stress at a nearby bar, which made him an easy mark. One ‘accidental’ drink spill, a little flirtatious distraction, and the card slipped right out of his jacket pocket. She scanned it with a portable encoder right there in the restroom, then casually dropped it by his foot on her way out—just obvious enough for him to find it and think he had simply fumbled it himself.
D.A.I.S.Y. did the rest.
“If only you could hack into Oscorp’s internal system and just unlock this door for me,” she muttered as she swiped the card. The light blinked green. “But nooo, you would rather lecture me again about how bypassing surveillance systems is way easier than cracking isolated lab locks.”
She rolled her eyes, smiling at the silence.“If you even answer me, that is.”
Next came the eye scanner.
Felicia tapped her anti-cognitive mask, cycling it to match Dr. Schwinner’s iris pattern—thanks to the clear drone footage she had captured earlier.
Although she didn’t really need to plant the Bioprobe in this hallway since D.A.I.S.Y. could already hijack the security feeds, but she had wanted to test herself. If she was going to do this, she would do it her way.
A soft chime confirmed the scan’s success. She quickly switched the mask back to default and typed in the password—an easy feat after watching Schwinner enter it in the drone recording.
“And voilà,” she whispered with a grin, as the door unlocked and the lab lights flickered to life.
She stepped inside, stretching her arms above her head in satisfaction. There were no cameras in this lab—thankfully. D.A.I.S.Y. had already simulated the entire space in VR, so she didn’t even flinch at the dozens of display cases lining the walls.
“Alright, kitty, let’s make this quick,” she said to herself, striding deeper into the lab.
If there was one lesson the VR training had drilled into her head, it was this: The longer a heist takes, the more things can go wrong.
She found the server room tucked behind reinforced glass and slipped inside. High-tech computers hummed quietly, waiting. She powered up the main terminal and inserted a thumb drive—small, sleek, and custom-built.
A virus, handcrafted by D.A.I.S.Y.
It would clone everything stored inside, wipe the system clean, and leave no trace behind.
Since this lab’s network was entirely offline, there was no remote way to access the data. Everything had to be done the old-fashioned way—with hands-on infiltration.
A small LED on the side of the drive blinked steadily, tracking its progress. Just a little visual reassurance that everything was going according to plan.
Honestly, Felicia thought, the only hard part was getting in. Once she was inside?
Child’s play.
“While this is running, I should get started on stealing the spiders,” Felicia muttered, slinging her bag forward and pulling out a sleek, insulated cuboid container.
POP.
The seal hissed softly as she cracked it open. With a fluid motion, she moved into the adjacent hallway lined with display cases—targeting the far-left wall.
“Stealing spiders,” she said under her breath with a sigh. “Who would have thought this would be my first real heist? When I first heard about the job’s details, I regretted not picking the gem heist. At least that sounded fun.”
She walked in front of the first display, opening it carefully. “But nooo, radioactive spiders and lab data are apparently more important to Luke. Isn't that right, D.A.I.S.Y.?”
No answer.
Felicia gently coaxed the spider—Number 88, according to the label—into the containment box, taking great care not to make contact. Her gloves were fully reinforced against radiation and punctures, but she wasn’t about to test that on one of these creepy crawlers. She had practiced this exact motion over and over in VR, to the point the revulsion was dulled to muscle memory.
Still, the spiders were ugly as hell.
And worse, they were eager to bite.
“D.A.I.S.Y.?” she said again, sealing the container and writing 88 on it with a black Sharpie to match the original tag. “You ignoring me again? Or just can’t talk at all?”
Still silence.
She slid the spider into her bag and grabbed another container, already eyeing the next spider in line.
“I have a theory,” she continued, voice low but focused. “You’re using your full processing power somewhere else. That’s why you can’t even respond to me. Which means... it must be because of him, right?”
She paused.
“Luke. Is he okay? Is he missing? Are you searching for him?”
The NZT buzzed through her bloodstream like cold fire, sharpening her thoughts and pushing her emotions down into a box. No distractions. Just logic. Just the mission.
Then, finally—D.A.I.S.Y.’s female voice crackled through her bracelet.
“I am busy. Don’t disturb me.”
Emotionless. Robotic.
Felicia sighed and nodded. “...So you are searching. Got it. I won’t interrupt you again. Just… tell me the second you find him.”
She continued the process—container after container. There weren’t many spiders here, just a handful across the display wall. She double-checked the left side after collecting them all, ensuring she missed nothing, then made her way back to the computer room.
“Oooh—it’s done!” she grinned, spotting the solid green light on the thumb drive and pulling it out.
With the data secured, she began rummaging through the room, scanning for anything else of value. Scattered across the counters and shelves were notebooks, complex formulas, and stacks of printed research—evidence of years of obsession.
“Eh, it’ll all be taken care of with a nice kaboom,” she smirked, pulling a sleek rectangular container from her bag and placing it carefully under the main computer. “Hmm… fifteen minutes should be more than enough.”
She flicked the timer switch, and the silent countdown began.
Yes, it was a bomb—compact, clean, and powerful enough to reduce the entire lab to smoking rubble. Most of the data would be incinerated, and whatever traces were left would appear as the result of an electrical and mechanical overload. A plausible accident.
“See? I’m the kinder soul here,” Felicia murmured as she resumed collecting spiders from the right wall. “I’m saving you little guys from a dreadful explosion. And hey, no one’s gonna suspect this way that you were all stolen. So—perfect first heist, right?”
She smirked to herself, but she still couldn’t shake her surprise at the level of firepower Luke had designed already. If she didn’t know better, she would assume he was some kind of lunatic terrorist. This bomb? It was practically adorable compared to the stuff locked up in the Watson Tower vaults.
Her fingers moved with practiced ease now—container open, spider transferred, lid sealed, number labeled with the Sharpie. Soon she reached the final ones.
“And you are the second last one,” she said, finishing writing No. 1 on the container. Then she turned to the last container. “And now for the last Number 0…”
The spider inside skittered with unusual speed, darting from her fingers, but it had nowhere to go. She caught it gently but firmly.
“Heh, quite the active one, aren’t you?” she said, managing to trap it gently. She sealed the lid with a snap and took out her Sharpie.
“...And job complete,” she said with a grin, writing 00 in bold black strokes on the container’s side.
With everything secured, she turned to the lab’s exit and swiped the card.
Beep.
The door hissed open.
“Freeze. Hands above your head...”
A sudden, muffled voice echoed from the darkness just outside the lab door, cutting through the quiet making Felicia flinch.
On instinct, she quickly stashed the container back into her bag and slung it over her shoulder, hurriedly zipping the chain shut. Her head turned toward the sound, eyes narrowing.
“Oh? Who do we have here?” she asked with a slow, knowing smirk. “Aren’t you the little girl I saw walking around downstairs a few minutes ago?” Her body shifted into a relaxed stance, her expression transforming into something playful.
She was small and young, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Both of her hands were encased in strange metal gloves. Her glasses gleamed in the dim light, as a weird red half-mask covered the lower half of her face.
***
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Comments
Orvious
So first Black Cat battle sequence next time?👍
