Catspaw wanted to hurt. She wanted to cry and feel that deep chasm that opened up within one at a great loss, threatening to swallow you whole in a pit of grief - any of those normal, human things.

Yet reaching down into those hidden places within her where she’d trained herself over a life of loss and a past career as a costumed criminal to sequester the complicated feelings - loss, grief, regret, and found only rage - primal and somehow both alien and familiar. It was…exhausting, in a way that didn’t allow her to mercifully sink into herself and her grief but called for action. Instead, she would focus on the task at hand - two scumbags in need of hitting, something she was more than up for.

Her head spun with so many thoughts she felt her train of thinking constantly derailed - the conflicting desires for blood, which would satiate her urges, and the need to live up to an expectation that felt all but obligatory with his death, and the body…

It lingered with her in more ways than one as she and, Kid Rocket - Darkstar’s final ward - moved for their destination. He raced through streets and cut through alleys atop the ‘Rocket Bike’ as it had been dubbed, a red and white bike reminiscent of the sort she’d seen on those extreme sports shows, with a few upgrades courtesy of Anthony’s brilliance. 

He’d offered her a ride, which she had rejected, wanting - needing to remain on foot, partially convinced the storm of thoughts in her head might threaten to tear her apart if not for the act of movement, darting across rooftops and making death-defying leaps over alleyways allowing herself to fall into the familiar instincts that seemed second nature with the abilities her amulet granted.

Usually, it was a freeing exercise, physically and mentally, allowing her to soar above her problems if only momentarily, but now…

She’d seen him. 

It was one thing to hear it, to hear that the man who she had hated, then loved, and hated, and loved again was dead at the hands of his greatest rival, a creature lower than scum in her estimation. But she had seen him now, stood in the room where his body lay cold, and in that, there was no escape from the reality. In a world full of shapeshifters, magic, and powers beyond understanding there’d been the opportunity for denial until then. But she had seen him and looked upon a face that she knew as well as her own - her abilities allowing her to pick up on his familiar scent even then, through the faint miasma of the earliest stages of decay.

Below her the Rocket Bike roared as Kid Rocket made a skidding turn out of an alley, and onto a nearly empty street save for a few straggling homeless folks.

“So how - are you doing?” She hated how foreign the words sounded and felt to her.

She was awful with kids, hardly having had reason to interact with them in her previous line of work, but she felt a responsibility to Nathan that she knew was likely an effect of her love for his mentor and father-figure.

His response was hesitant as it came over the earpiece he’d given her.

“I’m - I’ll be okay eventually,” he offered, “I’ve lost parents before, when I was young but- yeah. Seeing him was tough but I’ve seen bodies before.”

Putting on a brave face, she thought. He’s taught you more than just combat.

“Your parents, I’m aware. I’m sorry,” the words felt like a weak offering to the boy who’d just lost a father figure for the second time in his short life, the first falling victim to an overdose when he’d been just a child, his mother lost when a villain attacked her place of work.

“You’re strong for surviving all you’ve been through.” But it’s okay to let your guard down. She wished she could say it, but in the wake of all that had happened, all that was to come she knew it was a lie.

“Strong for -?” he sighed, “I’m starting to feel like he’s told you more about me than I’d be comfortable with, and I’m not sure whether to be pissed or flattered. I’m choosing the latter.”

She laughed, despite it all.

She was glad the boy was with her in those moments and upon considering - was glad to be there for him as well. She recalled the way his body had stiffened at the sight of Anthony on that table, his heartbeat quickening to an unnatural pace.  

He was a good kid, if a little naive, but someone who genuinely seemed to care—a rare trait, in a place like Kingsport. 

He reminded her so much of Anthony.

Beyond just that, there was a part of Catspaw that knew that if it wasn’t for his presence, she’d have already tried to sneak across the bay to Fox Island, and likely would have made it. She’d have tried to find a way into the prison, and she would have killed him - she would have killed The Dancer.

Or died trying. She thought, and with it, that weight seemed to return.

Another leap, longer than she’d usually chance, across the street Kid Rocket was tearing through. 

Her stomach flipped, only partially due to the drop. There was another feeling now, in that endless well from which the rage seemed to stem, her own bleeding in with that of her amulet's past wearers, their grievances seeming to multiply hers. Fear, a small, but blood-curdling tendril of fear at the thought of confronting the man who’d killed the greatest hero she’d ever known, and the only stock human to best her in combat multiple times. 

A snarl rumbled past her lips at the thought, her fingers buzzing with the threat of her claws as that dreaded scene replayed in her mind. Anthony rolling forward, moving along a few feet of metal with an admiral balance as he planted a kick into the masked maniac's bare chest.

He’d moved quickly to catch him by the lapel of his tattered suit jacket before the Dancer could plummet to his demise as they scuffled over the massive explosive, all stray wires and tightly packed bundles of whatever explosive he’d intended to collapse the bridge with. 

Mercy. The maniac had almost leveled the city, and still, he showed mercy.

Catspaw caught herself in the open window of one of a series of multi-story brick homes that looked to have been nice - once, but now stood as a testament to the Lower Ends abandonment, using her claws to scale the side of it. 

She was glad they were on the way to hit something. 

She inhaled deeply, her mind flooded by an awareness of the world around her in the pictures painted by the scents. Smoke - accrid and oppressive somewhere nearby - mixing with the stench of human sweat and waste and something more metallic…blood. 

Her pace quickened as she sprung from the side of her current perch, landing with a forward tumble before breaking into a run just behind the Rocket Bike. 

“The Star-Scanner is telling me we should be a block, maybe two away,” The boy's voice buzzed.

“A block,” she corrected.

He can’t hear it - smell it. The thought wasn’t a surprise, but the sort of lingering, recurring reminder she often found herself dealing with after years of her abilites, a reminder of the things others weren’t aware of.

It smelled - it sounded like chaos.

“Be ready. Expect at least a dozen or so civilians lingering in the area," she said.

As if in response, the Rocket Bike’s engine roared with exertion shooting forward with a dizzying speed. Kid Rocket leaned forward as though adding his momentum and willing it forward, cape fluttering angrily behind him. 

It was a reaction she’d expected, the instinct to barrel headfirst into danger at the mention of possible civilian harm. She knew that was what Darkstar would do - what he had done until it cost him his life. 

Watching him, even behind the white motorcycle helmet he wore, red over the visor obscuring his face - she knew the look of determination he wore. She’d seen it before on another. The thought seemed like it ought to have been comforting - but in the wake of the conversation she knew she would have to have with him, the burden she now charged herself with seeing he carry - it felt only foreboding.

Catspaw dropped to all fours, something she elected to do rarely out of the indignity of it - and the way it made it so easy to…let loose sometimes, giving into that third-party instinct that was ever present and threatened to make it so easy to let go. People got hurt when she did that, and she had promises to keep.

Still, it was necessary to keep up as she pulled alongside him, slowing once she’d reached him to keep pace.

There was a crash, and the sound of crumbling drywall, then a thud, heavy and metallic.

KRA-KOOM

She didn’t need to check if he’d heard that, the sudden explosion busting out what few windows remained intact on their current block. A thin plume of black smoke rose from behind a building off to the right - close, and the two veered down the nearest alleyway in its direction.

The cacophony grew as they approached, until she was certain it wasn’t just a result of enhanced hearing - a din of voices, most pleading, pained, or simply crying out - while two stood out amongst them.

Turning out of the alley, Catspaw is the first to arrive standing at the edge of an alley between two of the abandoned brownstones - Kid Rocket pulling to a halt beside her. Smoke billows from one of the old homes, pouring out from windowless frames in plumes that disappear into the night sky.

They aren’t alone. In the street across from them, a small crowd has gathered. She can tell immediately that most of them are homeless, or addicts simply far too lost in their own haze to find where home is, the sort of folks who found shelter and community in the Lower Ends, the place it seemed Kingsport had all but turned its gaze away from. She knew these houses were used by many of them for shelter, being the only place in the city they knew they would be left alone and now…

Most wore similar expressions; horror, anger, indignity, and some combination of the three as they watch the growing flames, a few in tears as others attempted to offer some comfort.

“Assholes,” Kid Rocket muttered, helmet removed, his voice wavering though she could hear the attempted confidence.

“This is…Boa has always been a prick, Gridiron too, I guess. But they’re thieves and mercs. why this? Why these people?”

She shook her head. 

“The Darkstar is dead. Without the threat of his presence, it seems the vermin think the rules have changed...”

She felt her heart catch for a moment, trying with her senses to gather every available detail. If there were people inside, they had to be the priority. 

Fire. Smoke. Blood. Smoke. Sweat. Smoke. She shook her head, the accrid stench overwhelming, making it all but impossible to hone in on anything specific. 

It was no matter, she had others. 

A hiss of motion from somewhere…above…a faint hail of scattering rock and cement hardly visible even with her sight.

“We need to check the building for -” Kid Rocket was cut off, as she dove into him, practically tackling the boy several feet forward until they were directly beside the smoldering building.

The earth shook, a spray of dust and hail of pebbles and other detritus kicked in all directions as something - someone landed from atop one of the buildings they’d stood beneath.

Stupid. I’m distracted. She chided herself, immediately noticing the oddly spaced divots in the facade of the nearest building. Scars where someone with enhanced strength had scaled it, boring into its face with impossible grip.

“Whoo - hoo - hoo - holy FUCK,” a nasal voice echoed from the clearing haze of dust.

“I mean - here we set out to make a name for ourselves tonight, Gridiron, ol’ pal, make sure that dancing fruitcake doesn’t get ALL the press for offing the ‘Star.”

“A little wanton property destruction, and fuck it - if you’ve got propane lying around, and a few homeless hovels, eh, when in Rome,”

She could see them now, even as the dust partially cleared, the massive frame of the silent Gridiron visible.

 He was a hulking mass of a man if he still technically qualified as such. His head resembled some sort of mechanical football helmet, the top half covered with a black display that glowed yellow where his eyes should be, and the bottom exposing a fleshy jaw - stuck in a skinless, permanent rictus grimace.

Beneath his shirt, a blue and yellow jersey which seemed affixed to his skin, steel, or whatever sat beneath, arms the size of her entire body, and about as long hung, covered in corded steel. On his back, arms wrapped around the beast of a man's neck at impossible angles, was Boa, a shit-eating grin visible beneath his purple mask. 

“And now we may get to make headline news ourselves by killing his little sidekick and his bitch,” he spat the word, lips curling into a snarl beneath the mask.

Her claws manifested as she watched the man's arms unravel, like twin snakes uncoiling, as he drops to his feet. He cracked his neck once, then twice, taking a slow stride forward.

He smiled sliding a foot back, and raised his hands in a clear challenge stance. 

“Is it fucking Christmas?”

                                                                                                 . . .