Chivalry of a Dark Knight [Batman x Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry]

CH13: The Dragon Breath (prt 1)

A battle waged in the dusk skies above between the hues of pink and the foreboding dark clouds. From it, Bruce concluded that it would to rain soon as it did yesterday; one of Tokyo's occasional spring storms that washed away the fallen sakura petals. Some saw it as a cleansing, others as an omen.

Poetic imagery aside, there was one major reason he fixed his eyes upwards and on cue a swarm of them began to show up, their black wings looking sharp enough to rip the skies to shreds.

Pipistrellus Abramus, otherwise known as the Japanese House Bat. There were apparently colonies of them strewn throughout the city and were now lured out by the sudden rise of flying insects brought by the rains. Insectivores, yes, but with teeth that were no less deadly.

"Let's see if this works." Bruce said and then tapped an icon on his phone app.

A small speaker-like mechanism he planted on one of the campus street lamps activated with a flashing red light, it emitted a high volume utrasound inaudible to human ears.

He had been working on this in his free time. Lucius Fox would've probably done a better job but here, Bruce had to write the program himself and build the emitter with whatever parts he was able to cobble together.

There was a result but not what he was expecting, the flight pattern of the bats were disturbed and they were flying more erratically. Two of them flew down and circled the street lamps, they were joined by a two others and then a fifth but no more. They seemed curious more than anything.

With thoughtful 'hmm', Bruce turned the gadget off which made the five bats disperse and allowed him to retrieve it.

"I'll probably need to adjust the frequency but it's a good step forward." he mused as he pocketed the contraption.

It's often been theorized that bats have a complex language that varies from species and regions. Bruce figured that Japanese bats communicated a little differently compared to their western counterparts but once he figured it out, he would have another useful tool in his arsenal.

With that experiment out of the way, he then checked the time and his brows furrowed.

"It's almost time for Koshiro is show up. I'd better suit up and get to the station."

But just as he was about to, a voice called out behind him.

"Bruce! Bruce Wayne!"

He spun around to see Stella standing a distance away from him, panting while hunched over and leaning on her knees. She looked like she ran a marathon and she probably did. Bruce honestly found himself surprised and wondered what could she possibly want from him.

From Bruce's perspective, the pink hues from the sky were layed up behind her and seemed to add more luster to her hair while dark clouds hovered over his side, drawing a boundary between them. More poetic imagery in action? He wasn't sure.

The Crimson Princess finally straightened herself, grinned and jabbed a thumb to her collarbone in a proud and haughty manner.

"Your troubles are over. I, Stella Vermillion, am gonna train you in magic!"

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Eight Years Ago...

Despite what the doctors and her parents told her, the little girl just wasn't able to stay in her bed.

It wasn't that the bed was uncomfortable, quite the contrary, it was a very luxurious four poster bed with soft sheets, pillows and arranged stuff dolls.