Catwoman: Claws of the Crescent Moon by JadeGretzAI on DeviantArt

***I really appreciate your likes and comments. Thank you so much for your support ***...for more supergirl, chun li, batgirl, tifa, lara croft, wonder woman, catwoman, rogue, samus aran, psylocke, power girl, poison ivy, she hulk, black widow, captain marvel, jean grey, storm, video game fan art, superheroes, comic art, anime and much more, please visit my page at www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai - Thanks for your support Catwoman: Claws of the Crescent Moon by Jade GretzSilken Blood, Neon Shadows The rain on Silken Alley wasn’t water; it was liquid neon, a steady drizzle of electric blue and poison green bleeding from the tangled signs above. Selina Kyle moved through it not as a woman, but as a sigh of shadow, a smoother darkness against the alley’s wet, glittering throat. The scent she followed was alien here, a thread of alpine frost and musk woven into the stench of garbage and ozone. The Lynx had come to Gotham. Her informant, a relic dealer with shaking hands, had called it a demon. A thief of a different caliber, one that didn’t just take jewels, but the essence of what they adorned. The “Ice-Fire Emerald,” a Mughal piece the size of a thumb, was gone from its laser-grid vault, and left behind was a single, perfect paw-print burned into tempered steel, smelling of cold stone and something strangely… sweet. Now, that scent led her deeper. The alley narrowed, the neon coalescing into a throbbing, pink-and-violet migraine: the sign for the Lapis Lazuli Lounge. The music that seeped out was a synthetic purr. Selina slipped inside, the warmth wrapping around her like a damp towel. The interior was a study in velvet gloom. On a low stage, a singer with a voice like smoke crooned to a sparse, entranced crowd. But Selina’s eyes, adjusted to the dark, went immediately to a booth in the rear. A man sat alone, impeccably dressed in a suit the color of charcoal. He was handsome in a severe, geometric way, all sharp cheekbones and a neatly trimmed beard. He was toying with something on the table, rolling it between long, elegant fingers. It caught the low light: a deep, furious green. The emerald. He looked up as she approached, his eyes meeting hers. They were a pale, uncanny gold, the pupils vertical slits that widened for an instant before settling. A smile touched his lips, devoid of warmth. “You’re far from your alleys, little bird,” he said. His voice was a low rumble, a vibration felt in the bones more than heard. “I’m no bird,” Selina replied, sliding into the booth opposite him without invitation. Her own smile was a sharp, scarlet thing. “And you’re far from your mountains… Lynx.” He chuckled, a dry sound. “So you have a name for me. I have one for you, too. Selina. The Cat Who Walks Alone. We are cousins, of a sort.” “Cousins don’t usually steal from the same city without saying hello.” She nodded at the emerald. “That’s a conversation piece, not a trophy. It doesn’t belong to you.” “Does it belong to you?” The Lynx leaned forward. The scent of him intensified—clean, wild, dangerous. “It is a beautiful thing. Cold fire. It reminds me of the heart of a glacier. It will look exquisite on my mantle, back home.” “You won’t be taking it home.” Selina’s whip was coiled at her hip, her muscles taut as tuned wires. “Violence? Here?” He glanced around the languid club. “So crude. And so unnecessary. We are predators, you and I. We understand the chase, the possession. Let us converse. I find you… fascinating. A creature of this rotten, brilliant city, playing at being both its parasite and its protector. Why?” “Why steal a rock you could just as easily buy?” she countered, playing his game, her senses screaming. The air around him wavered, like heat-haze off asphalt. “To taste the fear left in the vault. To savor the ingenuity of the hunt. You understand that, surely. The pleasure isn’t in the having, but in the taking.” He reached out, not for a weapon, but to trace a finger along the rim of her empty glass. The claw that briefly extended from his manicured fingertip was obsidian, retracting instantly. “You take from the rich, the corrupt. I take beauty, pure and simple. I am an aesthete.” “You’re a thief who leaves calling cards burned into steel. That’s not an aesthete; that’s a braggart.” His golden eyes flashed. “A signature. A claim. My nature cannot be fully subdued, even in this… pleasing shape.” He gestured to his human form. “It aches to be contained. Perhaps you feel it too? The cage of your own skin?” A strange lethargy was seeping into her, a heavy, sensual warmth radiating from him. His voice was a purr now, weaving through the thrum of the music. “What must it be like,” he mused, “to be always split? The socialite and the scourge. The woman and the cat. I am only one thing. I merely choose the form that best suits my appetites.” Seduction laced every word, but it was the seduction of the predator, offering not pleasure, but the terrifying freedom of shedding one’s humanity entirely. For a dizzying second, Selina imagined it—the unrestrained power, the purity of purpose. She shook her head, the neon spots swimming. “Your appetites are leaving a trail. My trail.” “Ah.” He leaned back, steepling his fingers. The emerald lay between them like a verdant eye. “You wish to catch me. To cage the wind. To put a bell on the lynx.” He smiled, and this time it showed too many teeth, each one needle-sharp. “Let us make it interesting. A wager. You have until the rain washes the neon from the streets tonight. Chase me. Catch me. Take the emerald back. If you fail… I take something of yours. Something precious. Not a trinket. A memory. The thrill of your first theft. The taste of your first true victory. I will drink it, and you will be less for it.” Terror, cold and sharp, cut through the warmth. This was no ordinary foe. He didn’t want her life; he wanted her essence. “And if I win?” she asked, her voice steady. “The gem is returned. And I will give you a gift. A secret about this city, buried so deep even the bats in your belfry haven’t sniffed it out.” He stood, fluid as rising smoke. “The chase begins,” he whispered. Then he simply… unfolded. It was not a shift, but a release. The human shape melted, stretched, and reformed in the space of a shuddering breath. Where the man stood was now a creature of myth—a great lynx, but wrought from living shadow and starlight, its fur a ripple of smoke over impossible muscle, its eyes two blazing gold suns. It winked one of those dreadful eyes, snatched the emerald in its teeth, and bounded toward a service exit, passing through the solid door like a ghost. Selina exploded into motion, the lethargy burned away by adrenaline. She was out the front door, hitting the rain-slicked fire escape in two fluid leaps. Above, a shadow flowed over the neon canyon, leaping gaps between buildings with impossible grace. She gave chase, a dark comet against the city’s glittering grid. Her world narrowed to the shifting shadow above, the scent of frost, the pounding of her own heart. He led her on a macabre tour of Gotham’s spine—across rooftops humming with satellite dishes, through the steaming labyrinth of the old clock-tower gears, down into the abandoned Cathedral of St. Ignatius, where his form flickered between the lynx and the man, laughing as he vanished behind the rotten altar. “You cling so tightly to your rules!” his voice echoed from the vaulted darkness. “The grapple, the whip, the stealthy tread. I am idea. I am instinct!” She was tiring, her breath ragged. He was playing with her. The terror was back, not of death, but of erasure. To lose the memory of that first, glorious leap from a penthouse balcony, the rush that made her who she was… that was a fate worse than any prison. Finally, he led her to the very edge of the city, the old Robinson’s Aviary, a skeletal dome of rusted iron and shattered glass. Inside, the rain fell unimpeded onto a jungle of dead vines and broken perches. He waited in the center, in his human form again, the emerald glowing in his hand. “Time is short, little cat. The dawn is coming. Have you enjoyed our game?” Selina landed silently before him, crouched, every sense screaming. “It’s over. Give it to me.” “Or what? You’ll fight me? You are magnificent, but I am ancient. I have walked the silent places of the world before this city was a marsh.” He stepped closer. “I will miss your spirit. The memory of it will be… exquisite.” He raised a hand, not to strike, but to touch her temple. The air grew thick, syrupy. She felt a pulling, a dizzying suction at the core of her mind. And she understood. He wasn’t just a predator of flesh or gems. He was a predator of self. He fed on identity. With the last of her will, she didn’t pull back. She leaned into his touch. She closed her eyes and didn’t think of a memory of victory. She focused on a memory of defeat. The time a simple guard’s lucky shot had broken two of her ribs. The taste of copper and failure. The helpless, crawling pain. She poured that into the psychic link. The Lynx demon recoiled with a shriek that was neither human nor animal, but the sound of rending metal. He stumbled back, clutching his head, his form flickering wildly. “What is this? This… bitterness! This frailty!” “You wanted a taste of me,” Selina gasped, swaying but standing. “That’s what I am, too. Not just the triumphs. The pain. The limits. The humanity you find so cage-like. It’s not a cage; it’s the thing that defines the hunt. You don’t understand value. You only understand consumption.” He was on his knees now, the elegant guise crumbling. Patches of smoky fur erupted on his skin, his face elongating into a snarl of confusion and agony. He had gorged on a poison of her own making: mortality. “Take it!” he hissed, hurling the emerald at her feet. It clattered on the wet stone, its fire undimmed. “Take your bauble!” The first grey light of true dawn began to bleach the neon from the sky. The Lynx, now a writhing, unstable mass of shadow and muscle, scrambled towards a broken wall. “This city is a festering wound!” he cried, his voice breaking. “But you… you are its most curious infection.” He coalesced one last time into the spectral lynx, gave her a look that held not malice, but a strange, terrible respect, and then dissolved into the retreating shadows, flowing up and over the dome and away into the waking world. Selina picked up the Ice-Fire Emerald. It was cold. Just a stone. Exhaustion hit her like a physical wave. She had won. She had kept her memories. But as she turned to leave the ruined aviary, a whisper, carried on the last of the night wind, curled into her ear—his promised secret, the gift for a game well-played. It was a single sentence, a location, and a name. She froze, the blood in her veins turning to ice-water. The terror she had felt before was nothing compared to the chilling, vast mystery now laid at her feet. The chase was over. The horror was just beginning. She pulled her cowl tight against the dawn, and melted into the dying shadows, the emerald a lead weight in her hand, and the demon’s secret a hook in her soul.

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