DC: DON'T UTTER A WORD - CHAPTER 228 (Patreon)

[David Lance POV]

Intrigued by the chain of unexpected developments, I talked for a couple of hours with the little robot, known as L-Ron, as the former gave me a tour of the ship, showing everything I had acquired by defeating Despero in single combat.

Despero, although considered a warlord across the universe, didn't have much to his name, but what he had was unimaginably valuable.

The technology alone that I had acquired, would solve many of the problems I had yet to tackle.

One of them being that I had originally wanted to build my own zeta tube system for obvious reasons.

Well, thanks to this unexpected turn of events, I didn't need to do that anymore.

Sure, I would still have to reverse engineer the technology in question and change a few things here and there to better fit into my plans, but still, this alone had saved me a lot of work. 

To say I was pleased with how things had turned out would be an understatement.

Smiling, I spun around, my gaze settling on the two-foot-tall robot, L-Ron. His eyes glowed a bright blue, and his thin metal arms were folded in front of him as he hovered in the air, waiting for a command of any kind. “L-Ron, teleport us to the following coordinates," I said, giving him the coordinates of where I wanted to go.

Not the ones of my base, of course.

I still needed to confirm a thing or two about his allegiances before considering such a thing. 

I would be a fool to take his word at face value, not because someone says they are not loyal to me, it means they aren't lying.

L-Ron bowed his head in acknowledgment before our bodies began to glow in a yellowish light. Then with a loud crack, the energy around us swept us away, and in an instant, we were standing on a hilltop overlooking a cave.

"Might I inquire why are we here, master?" L-Ron asked, looking around in confusion.

I shook my head before hoisting Despero's limp body onto my back as I made my way into the pitch-black cave in front of me. For most people, this cave was nothing more than another cave, a place to take a picture or maybe have some fun.

The thing was, no one but a few had dared to truly venture within the depths of this cave. And those that did, hadn't found the cave’s little secret. 

Ten miles deep, after a labyrinth of paths, each one more dangerous than the last, there was a cage, a jail, one that Batman had made for me, but never had the opportunity to use.

This was Batman's contingency plan for me.

The entire place had been made to contain me, or at the very least to contain the version of me he knew.

Today this place would be at much a minor inconvenience.

I had found this place a while back after my return and found its existence flattering.

Against what many might believe, I wasn't angry with little old Bat, how could I? It was in his nature to make plans, to prepare for anything, enemies or allies alike. 

In fact, if I had to take a stand about this, I would actually say that I approved of this kind of behavior.

But that's neither here nor there.

I hadn't come to this place to walk down memory lane.

I was here because I had something to do, something a few levels below my cage. 

You see, when I first discovered about this place, a small idea came to me. What if I use it?

If anything, it would be poetic. Wouldn't it?

With that mindset in place, I created a lab a few levels below the cage, with the help of Dex-Starr, of course. The power rings made the entire ordeal quite quick.

Now, what exactly was I trying to do here that I couldn't do in my main base? Nothing. 

Everything I could accomplish here would undoubtedly be easier to accomplish in my main base. The tools I had at my disposal there were infinitely better.

The reason I was here was rather simple. To leave a message.

Now that I had made my first real appearance, on the field at least. It was only a matter of time before someone managed to discover who I was.

It would take them a while, sure, but they would figure it out nonetheless. Eventually, they would. 

And once that happened, I was beyond certain that Batman would come here to contemplate, and when he did, I wanted him to have something to look at.

That was the main reason I had come here.

Sure, I would use the installations I had in place while I was still here to take a few samples from Despero, but I was mostly here to play mind games. 

"Don't touch a thing when we arrive," I said, before grasping a jagged rock and launching myself into the dark abyss. My fall felt like an eternity as I plummeted through the pitch-blackness. 

A few hundred meters or so of fall later, I landed on the ground in a crouch without a sound. 

Towering in front of me in a suspended manner, the elaborate cage designed to trap me gleamed in the light. A daunting piece of engineering, it was clearly designed by an expert with plenty of money and time to spare.

It was good I had hacked the cameras a long time ago, setting them in an endless loop of nothing.

"Time to work," I smiled.

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Having left my message clear on display in the form of a poem, hidden within the lab, one they would only understand when they had all the pieces, I began working on Despero.

With the equipment I had, there wasn't much I could do, but I did do a few things.

First, I did a complete analysis of his body and provided myself with a rudimentary blueprint of his brain's unique structure and composition, as well as several other things.

None of those tests went into too much depth. 

But they would give me a general idea of what I was dealing with. 

After that was done, I had L-Ron teleport us to a different location, one where Waller was waiting for me, in there, I handed her Despero, telling her I would be back for him, and that her orders for the time were to retain the alien for me until further notice.

This was a test.

I had already collected more than enough biosamples to study Despero without his body.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to see how Waller would react, and what exactly she would do.

"You recruited me to be a warehouse?" Waller asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"No, but right now that's what I need," I replied, before L-Ron teleported us to a different location, leaving Waller alone with her thoughts.