Black Cat: Starlit Stalker by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Black-Cat-Starlit-Stalker-1302177665?file=1

Black Cat: Starlit Stalker ANIMATION

The Taxidermy of Luck

The velvet of a moonless sky is often mistaken for peace, but Felicia Hardy knew better; she knew that the dark was merely a shroud for the things that breathed when the world forgot how to watch. High above the slumbering grid of Manhattan, she perched upon the gargoyle of the Chrysler Building, her silver hair whipping like a ghost’s banner in the freezing gale. She wasn’t there for the view. She was there for the pulse—the rhythmic, electric thrum of a city that was currently hiding a monster.

Luck, Felicia often mused, was a fickle mistress who enjoyed the company of thieves, but tonight the air tasted of copper and ozone, a sensory cocktail that suggested her luck had finally curdled. Beneath the skintight leather of her suit, her skin crawled. It wasn’t the cold. It was the sensation of being observed by something that didn't use eyes to see.

"I know you're there," she whispered, her voice a sultry purr that carried a razor's edge. "And while I appreciate a man who can stay quiet, I find the silent treatment a bit droll for a first date. Don't you?"

From the hollowed-out darkness of the maintenance hatch behind her, a voice emerged. It didn't sound human. It sounded like the grinding of tectonic plates muffled by wet silk. "The Black Cat. A trophy that even Kraven found too slippery to mount. He was a man of tradition, Felicia. I am a man of evolution."

A figure stepped into the pale shimmer of the city’s distant neon. He was a walking nightmare, a patchwork of legacies stitched together with surgical precision. He wore a heavy, tactical duster lined with what looked like the scorched feathers of a vulture. Around his waist was a belt of pulsing, emerald vials, and his gauntlets hummed with a low, thrumming yellow current. But it was his face that stole the breath from Felicia’s lungs. It was a mask of translucent porcelain, behind which shifted the swirling, hallucinogenic mists of a familiar chemical nightmare.

"You've been shopping in the bargain bins of the Sinister Six," Felicia said, standing slowly, her claws extending with a sharp, metallic shlick. She shifted her weight, the grace of a predator manifesting in her every movement. "It’s a bit derivative, darling. Plagiarism is such a tacky way to make an entrance. Who are you supposed to be? The Bargain Bin Butcher?"

"I am the Hexagon," the figure replied, the mists behind his mask turning a violent shade of violet. "I am the culmination of their failures. Octavius had the intellect but lacked the stomach. Beck had the theater but lacked the soul. I am the heir to the legacy Spider-Man failed to end. To truly kill the Spider, one must first skin his favorites."

"Skin? My, you skip right over the appetizers," Felicia said, beginning a slow, seductive circle around the perimeter of the ledge. She kept her eyes locked on his, or where his eyes should have been. "Usually, people try to buy me a drink before they discuss my pelt. You’re missing out on the best parts of me, Hexy. I’m much more fun when I’m still inside my skin."

The Hexagon didn't flinch. Instead, he raised a hand, and the air around Felicia suddenly thickened. The smell of wet sand filled her nostrils, and the very concrete beneath her boots began to liquefy, turning into a treacherous, shifting trap. She leaped, a blur of black and silver, catching a flag pole three stories down, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

"The Sandman’s grit," the Hexagon’s voice boomed from above, seemingly coming from the air itself. "A magnificent way to ground a cat who thinks she can fly."

Felicia swung herself onto a narrow ledge, her lungs burning. The horror of it wasn't just the power; it was the calculated, cold-blooded efficiency. This wasn't a supervillain monologue; it was a dissection. She looked up and saw him descending, not falling, but hovering on a localized magnetic field that hummed with the malevolence of Otto Octavius’s genius.

"You think you’re a hunter?" Felicia yelled, her voice echoing off the glass towers. "You’re just a scavenger, picking through the graves of better men! You’re a ghost story told by losers!"

The Hexagon landed softly on the ledge twenty feet away. He didn't attack immediately. He stood there, the yellow electricity from his gauntlets licking at the air like the tongues of hungry snakes.

"Terror is a refined taste, Felicia," he said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly intimate crawl. "Spider-Man fights out of guilt. The Six fought ou
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