NO CELESTIAL / dick grayson

eighteen, home

HONG KONG WAS a city of the night. It had that much in common with Gotham, but darkness in Hong Kong was not something to be feared. Not when the entire city was lit up with bright, fluorescent lights, not with the images and lights flickering on the side of the International Commerce Centre—the tallest building in the city.

No. Night never truly existed in Hong Kong. Everywhere you looked, there was chattering of people, men and women stumbling out of bars, laughing with their friends, and with none of the terror and alertness that existed in similar bar-goers in Gotham City. For the most part, Hong Kong's crime rate was, well, low. Especially in comparison to Gotham, which had an unnaturally high crime rate for any area. Supervillains in the same build existed, but the damage wrought was usually lesser than. The real dark underbelly of this city was one that rarely affected the ordinary person. It was the Triads, operating in places of relative quiet like Yuen Long, or the most crowded, where they could be undetected, like Mong Kok.

That was where she'd chosen to settle down. Mong Kok. She'd moved out of the old apartment she was renting and instead chosen one of the newly built apartments in Mong Kok, as well as buying a whole floor of a nearby refurbished old factory to use as a base.

The base was where she was at. And she was not alone.

In the past year, Remiel had found friends. She wasn't the only vigilante operating in the city, and she'd become well-acquainted with one of them. Which was how she'd met Owl. He'd been working for another pre-established vigilante, Fox, but Fox had recently gotten married and didn't want to continue on in this line of work. Thus, Owl—real name Daniel Yeung, fresh out of university and anxious to do something good for the city, came under her service instead.

Remiel had asked Bruce to help her do a background check on Daniel just in case. Clean. Perfectly clean. Middle-class background, educated in one of the best local boys' schools in the city, almost always at the top of the class, and one of the top scorers for the DSE exam during his year. He'd chosen to continue his education in Hong Kong rather than heading abroad, which was when he'd met Fox, a few years older, trying to get her vigilante career started and lacking someone to keep track of intel.

He wasn't doing this for nothing, of course. Remiel kept him supplied with a comfortable salary. No clue how he explained his line of work to his parents.

And right now he sat in front of the computers lining a side of the room. They'd blocked out the windows of the base a long time ago, reinforcing all the walls as well. They'd gotten to the top floor, so there was an easy way to the roof for an easy entry and exit. Besides, this building was atrociously guarded. Most of these buildings had a security guard at the ground floor keeping track of everything, but somehow, this building didn't. And that was what made her decide to acquire this place rather than anywhere else.

"Boring day," he remarked, leaning backwards. "The police seem to have most stuff covered tonight."

"That's good," Remiel replied, giving a faint nod. "We can call it an early day if nothing's happening."

"I'm fine. Don't have much to do anyways. Can't be bothered to go back home right now." Daniel didn't live that far away, but it was still a bit of a walk. She'd fitted him with a motorcycle for convenience's sake. There was also a large sofa that could be turned into a sofa bed in one of the other rooms, in case they needed to stay here the entire day. It was less convenient than Wayne Manor and the Batcave, but in a place like Hong Kong, unless she wanted to move into the countryside, this was the best she could manage.

One year since she'd left Gotham. She stayed in contact this time around, but they were all busy. Cecily was working as Barbara's assistant now, and apparently she was doing a fairly good job at it. Damian was still with Bruce. Dick... funnily enough, it was Dick she knew the least about. He hadn't contacted her in two months. She'd assumed some kind of undercover mission, because the Gotham newspapers hadn't been reporting on his presence either.