Birds of a Feather (Oswald Cobblepot)

In Brightest Day

    The Gotham skyline is experiencing a rare, sunny day, free from its usual dark clouds or overcast smog. From the farthest corner of the sky, what appears to be a bright star gleams for a brief second. The star begins to fade out from a bright gleam into a small, focused, blazing beam. Almost unnoticeable to the naked eye, it burns down into Gotham City's limits, crash-landing onto an abandoned plot of land on the waterfront. The light begins to fade, revealing that the object that's landed is a bright, glowing yellow ring with a strange symbol on its face.

    "Do you know what this could mean, Natalie?" Ed asks, his fists shaking with squinted eyes and a long, narrow smile.

I sigh, looking up at him as I slouch in a old wooden chair, "You know I've never been a big fan of space, it's all just too confusing for me-"
"But you must at least understand the potential importance of a piece of space itself falling from the heavens down to our very Earth itself!" Ed grabs me by both of my shoulders, "I saw it! I was looking through my telescope this morning, and through even the blaze of the sun, I saw something fall from the sky! If something falling to Earth could be bright enough to be seen even during the daytime, then this is no ordinary meteor!"

Ed whips around and starts digging through a cluttered heap in the corner of the basement. He turns around to reveal a heavy, clunky metal detector, a large curly wire trailing up to a flashing, metal headband that he is already wearing on his head. The detector's battery is strapped to his back like a backpack.

"And I will be be the first to observe this new phenomenon!"

I blush as I giggle, "Oh Ed...where did you even get that thing?"

He raises the metal detector, the back-strapped battery and various other bits jangling around with his every movement, "The Gotham Institute of Science and Mathematics! ...at least, the dumpster behind their building."

With a wry smile, I place my hand on Ed's shoulder, "Well, good luck finding it, Ed. Who knows, maybe you'll find this falling star and rip another hole in time and space."

Ed grins back, giving an awkward salute, "Will do!"

I cross my arms, still smiling as Ed shuffles out of the basement, his equipment clanking along with him.

Ed has barely climbed the sets up from the basement when two GCPD officers shove past Ed. One of them takes notice of Ed's metal detector, and turns around.

"Eddie, where'd you get that hunk of garbage?"

Ed glances down at his contraption, "Well, I reassembled it from various discarded parts-"

"So you dug it up from the trash?" the other officer laughs, "Looks like it too."

The officers chuckle as they walk away. Ed's fists tighten, and he huffs, his shoulders raised and stiff.

"They'll all see how wrong they are. To make fun of me. One day, they'll praise me, revere me, even fear me."

    Barbara wakes up with a start. She's in the middle of an empty lot, somewhere in Gotham's fishing district. Grass and weeds have blanketed the concrete foundation, and it's clear that she's been placed here purposefully as to be undisturbed.

She rubs her eyes, and looks around. Holding her head, she slowly starts to get up on her feet.

"How...did I...get here?"

She remembers the fight with the Talon, her grappling hook snapping, and falling from a great height, but the rest is blank. She's no where near the downtown area, how'd she end up in the fishing district?

Barbara checks her clothes. She's still dressed in her Batwoman costume.

"Citizens of Gotham!" a strong, booming voice calls out.

Barbara whips around in every direction, but she can't find the source of the almost omnipresent voice ringing all around her. Until she looks in the only direction she hadn't thought to look: up.

A man, barely visible from the ground, floats above the city, clad in green and yellow with a bright red cape. His blonde hair is perfectly quaffed above the black mask that conceals his identity.

"My name is Green Lantern, protector of planet Earth and space Sector 2814. Landed somewhere in your city is an alien artifact known as the Yellow Lantern ring. The Yellow Lanterns are a coalition that gain and harness their power using fear. This is a very dangerous artifact and must be procured immediately."

    Ed jams out to the Walkman strapped to his side, the wires of his headphones bobbing along with him as he scans the nearby ground of an abandoned lot. Green Lantern's announcement is booming in the background, but Ed can't hear it over the roar of his music. However, long after Green Lantern has finished his speech, Ed's metal detector starts to shake, and he rips off his headphones.

"Now...what do we have here?" he asks, perching himself lower to examine the ground.

Slightly shaded by the grass, a yellow glow emanates by a small object on the floor. Pulling on the end of his glove, Ed picks it up to reveal a yellow ring. As soon as he lifts it up with his hand, the glow of the ring becomes brighter, and begins to float mid-air.

"This is an astrological phenomenon like nothing the world has ever seen," Ed stares in awe as the ring slowly spins in the air.

The ring comes to a stop in the air, and Ed reaches out to it. The ring floats towards him, and slides onto his left ring finger. The ring bursts into a blinding flash of yellow light, consuming Ed and the area around him.

    Still slightly stumbling, Barbara makes her way down the street of the abandoned area of the fishing district she'd been dropped off in, when she sees a bright light just up ahead. She runs towards it, the large boots of her Batwoman costume somewhat slowing her down.

"God, what now?"

She stops as the light fades, revealing a tall, thin man with pitch black hair standing in another abandoned lot, turned away from her. On the ground beside him is an large, odd metal machine that appears to have been assembled together with a bunch of odds and ends. The man is clad in a strange glowing yellow armor, his fists clenched as a bright glow emanates from the ring on his left hand.

"And I thought my costume was ridiculous," Barbara chuckles to herself.

The man whips around, the glow of his ring growing even brighter, "You dare mock me?!"

Barbara starts to back up as the yellow-clad man starts to walk towards her. He raises the hand that bears his ring and aims it right at Barbara. A bright yellow beam blasts from the ring, and Barbara leaps out of the way just in time. The beam hits the ground right beside her, scorching the earth and leaving a smoking black mark in the ground.

Barbara goes into Batwoman mode, taking a defensive stance as the man aims his next blast. More prepared this time, she dodges the next beam with more grace, grabbing two miniature grenades from her utility belt and hurling them at him. The grenades collide, but they make no impact on the armored man, hardly leaving a scratch on his glowing, otherworldly protection.

Batwoman dodges several more blasts before she spots, in the grass, a familiar lab coat, as well as an old, discarded metal detector.

"Edward Nygma?" she realizes aloud.

While she's distracted, Ed fires a harsh beam of light right at Batwoman, knocking her back several feet. She collapses onto the ground, completely unconscious.

Ed grins, "Now they will know to fear me."