Black Cat: Burglar Queen by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Black-Cat-Burglar-Queen-1211024003

Black Cat: Burglar Queen ANIMATION

The Falcon of Broken Time

The night over Grand Central Station shimmered with a false calm—like silk hiding the teeth of a blade. The clock tower struck eleven, its ancient gears grinding with the patience of eternity. Beneath its face, the city murmured in restless dreams. Streetlights flickered, painting long trembling shadows over the marble lions and brass arches.

Felicia Hardy—better known as the Black Cat—moved through that dream like a living whisper. Her suit shimmered in the sodium glow, a black mirage cut by silver zippers and eyes that saw too much. She perched on the lip of a shattered window, wind teasing strands of her pale hair into a wild halo.

Below her, the concourse was a cathedral of ghosts. Trains groaned on abandoned tracks. A janitor’s radio hissed static before dying entirely. Something electric lingered in the air—not quite thunder, but not peace either.

And then she heard it: a metallic shriek, slicing through the wind like the cry of a predator reborn.

Felicia smiled. “So, the bird finally comes to roost.”

She dropped from the window, landing silently on the station’s roof. Her hand brushed the handle of a compact taser-whip coiled at her belt—a little toy she’d designed after her last run-in with Oscorp’s drones.

The shriek came again, louder. The air rippled, and out of the mist of the city skyline descended a figure both magnificent and horrific: a falcon wrought of chrome and memory. Its wings spanned twenty feet, every feather a blade of interlocking circuitry. Eyes burned with cold blue fire. It circled her once, talons flexing, before speaking in a voice that was almost human—too human.

“Felicia Hardy.”

Her pulse quickened. She recognized that voice. “Dr. Lysander Vale,” she purred. “You always had a flair for dramatics, but you’ve outdone yourself. A talking metal bird? I’m flattered.”

“You stole from me,” the falcon hissed, voice laced with mechanical distortion. “You took my prototype, and my life burned for it.”

Felicia tilted her head, eyes glittering like mercury. “You mean the Chrono Core? That little time-dilation trinket? You shouldn’t have left it lying around your lab. You know I can’t resist shiny things.”

The falcon’s wings flared, scattering arcs of lightning across the station roof. “You stole more than tech. You stole my mind, my future. When Oscorp destroyed my lab, they blamed me. I died there, Felicia. Or rather, I was remade.”

It swooped, a blur of silver and fury. Felicia vaulted backward, whip crackling as it lashed through the air. Sparks met sparks. The blow deflected, but the falcon’s momentum carved a line of molten metal in the roof.

“Now, that’s impressive,” she said, panting slightly. “But you’re aiming at the wrong thief. I didn’t ruin you, Vale. The people funding your nightmares did.”

“They learned from you,” the falcon snarled, wings humming like engines of war. “Your tricks. Your seduction. Your lies. You made me believe in you.”

Felicia’s smile faltered. For just a moment, beneath the feline poise, there was something raw—remorse, perhaps. “That wasn’t a lie. Not all of it.”

The falcon hesitated mid-flight, talons clicking as though caught between vengeance and memory.

She took that moment, darting forward, whip wrapping around one gleaming leg. Electricity surged, but she gritted her teeth and yanked hard. The falcon fell, slamming into a skylight. Glass exploded. Both predator and thief tumbled through into the Grand Central concourse below.

They hit the marble floor with a sound like thunder. Dust rose in swirling specters.

Felicia rolled to her feet first. Her ribs screamed, but she masked it with a smirk. “I always wanted a bird’s-eye view of this place.”

The falcon rose, massive and terrible, framed by the shattered constellations of the ceiling mural. Its eyes dimmed briefly, flickering.

“The Core… you still have it.”

She slipped a small device from her belt—a crystalline sphere encased in golden filigree. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat trying to remember itself. “Oh, this old thing? I was thinking of selling it. Unless you’d rather I used it to stop time for a quick getaway.”

“You cannot control it. It binds to the mind. It warps desire.”

Felicia’s grin softened into something thoughtful. “So I’ve noticed. The last time I used it, I saw… echoes. Futures that shouldn’t exist.”

“It sho
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