"I received a video from Cobblepot. Those beast-men have gotten stronger!" Gordon exclaimed.
Hearing this, Harvey breathed a sigh of relief and waved his hand dismissively.
"Don't worry too much. Those two vigilantes who recently appeared in Gotham—they can handle these beast-men who've lost their humanity."
Everyone in Gotham knew about the two agile vigilantes who appeared in the night like black cats. They rescued the weak and defeated the powerful beast-men wherever they went.
In Harvey's eyes, there wasn't much difference between vigilantes and beast-men—both operated outside the law.
If he had to distinguish between them, these vigilantes at least looked like normal humans. The beast-men, by contrast, had unnaturally strong bodies and twisted appearances.
Gordon didn't share Harvey's optimism. While the vigilantes had made Gotham more stable, their presence highlighted the divided views on the Gotham Police Department's effectiveness.
As a police officer, Gordon refused to entrust public safety to masked strangers. That would be an abdication of his responsibility.
"Maybe we should request some special equipment," Harvey suggested, sensing his partner's concerns. "The weapons recently developed by Wayne Enterprises' defense division might meet our needs."
If all officers in the Gotham PD received new weapons and equipment, they might stand a chance against these increasingly powerful beast-men.
Meanwhile, Bruce and Selina, emboldened by their new weapons, continued their vigilante activities with renewed confidence.
From a distance, perched in a treetop where they couldn't see him, Marcus watched the two disappear into the night.
"Beast-men?" he mused, recalling the information Alfred had provided. "Perhaps the appearance of these beast-man killers is related to the Court of Owls hidden in Gotham's shadows. I wonder how much metal they have in their arsenal..."
As the words left his lips, Marcus vanished in a swirl of gray mist.
Arkham Asylum
Dr. Hugo Strange had just completed a lobotomy procedure on a patient. Now he stood before several enormous glass containers filled with green mist. Beside him, an assassin dressed as an owl—a Talon—lurked among the frozen corpses in the cold storage room, observing Strange's actions from a distance.
"My experiments are nearing completion. They will be my finest work to date," Dr. Strange announced proudly.
The Talon remained unmoved, his gaze fixed on the glass containers shrouded in toxic green gas.
Inside those containers was Strange's "work"—warriors modeled after the beast-men but rebuilt with improved toxic gas enhancements.
Moments later, the poisonous gas in the containers gradually dissipated, revealing their contents.
The tanks held powerfully built beast-men who appeared more resistant to the toxic gas, allowing them to withstand greater enhancement.
These particular specimens were the elite survivors of Dr. Strange's numerous experiments. Stronger than ordinary beast-men and possessing higher resistance to the poisonous gas, they could endure far more intensive enhancement.
"It seems I've succeeded," Strange said with satisfaction. "You may take them for a field test. Let's see what power they can demonstrate!"
He pressed a button, and the glass containers opened one after another. The beast-men stepped out, their massive forms imposing and dangerous.
Strange smiled faintly at the sight of his creations.
He had waited too long for this moment. Once this experiment proved successful, he would become a true partner to the Talon's masters and receive more generous research funding.
The Talon gathered the enhanced beast-men killers and led them away through a secret passage out of Arkham Asylum.
Dr. Strange gazed out the window, a smile playing on his lips.
"Soon, I'll have all the research funding I need."
He felt supremely confident about these latest beast-men. Though few in number, each could easily eliminate multiple ordinary beast-men.
Most importantly, these new specimens had devices implanted in their bodies that could release the toxic gas internally. This allowed for continuous enhancement without external equipment.
Unlike the previous beast-men killers, they no longer needed special gas masks. Nevertheless, Strange had preserved the gas mask designs in his records.
He planned to find a particularly strong ordinary human and perform special modifications to help them withstand even more potent gas enhancement.
The gas mask would become a custom device for this subject, providing an uninterrupted flow of the enhancement gas—turning them into an unstoppable force.
Shortly after the Talon departed with the enhanced beast-men killers, Bruce and Selina began their nightly patrol of Gotham.
As the city's vigilantes, they weren't concerned with personal gain. Their focus remained on the beast-men killers who had seemingly vanished.
"It's strange—why have the beast-men disappeared?" Bruce wondered aloud.
Though the beast-men had been elusive before, careful observation had always revealed their presence.
Now, after patrolling more than a dozen blocks, they hadn't found any trace of these creatures.
The beast-men seemed to have vanished completely. Bruce still remembered the three they had encountered—all wearing gas masks dispensing toxins, their bodies swelling wildly after overabsorption until they exploded into puddles of gore.
Just as they were pondering this, both detected the faint sound of breathing behind them. Ordinary people might have dismissed it, but both Bruce and Selina had been trained by Marcus to remain vigilant, especially in dangerous situations.
They instantly drew the daggers from their waists and spun around. As they suspected, the beast-men killers hadn't disappeared—they had simply become more cunning.
These particular beast-men appeared more powerful than their predecessors. Though they lacked gas masks, the strength they exhibited was clearly beyond human capabilities.
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