Novella had come to the orphanage to represent her considerable place in Gotham, but now she was regretting that decision more an more. She was also repeatedly cursing her parents inside her head. Ever since that insane pig-man had shown up at the orphanage benefit she'd had the distinct feeling that everything was going to go even further to hell than it already was, especially since Victor was on one of his jobs and wouldn't be able to save her. She'd have to save herself.
"Ladies and gentlemen, as you by now have surmised, there's been a change in the program." Novella looked up to the pig-like man who was now beginning to get into his performance.
"Tonight, we are proud to present the six merry Gothamites of Squatter's Row, and Martin, from the Falcone Home and School for Orphans, in our rendition of the 'Meat Pie Tango.'" Novella looked around the dark room as music began to play around them. Her eyes followed the man responsible before locking on who she assumed was Martin. To her, he looked like a miniature Penguin that was much more adorable, but he also looked scared no matter if he was trying to hide it.
"Bob Fricks Trish Nunuh Cyrano Vincent," the pig-man droned on before Martin tapped the triangle in his hand. The pig started singing and freakishly dancing at that sound. "You have it coming, you have it coming. You only have yourself to blame. If you'd have been fair - if you'd have been keen, I betcha these pies wouldn't taste the same!"
"Enough!" Novella's head snapped to Sofia, sitting just down the table beside Oswald. The lilac-haired girl tried to plead with her blue eyes for the other young woman to shut up, but she wouldn't. "Where are the other children? If you hurt them, I swear."
Novella heard metal on wood followed by an earsplitting scream and immediately knew what took place without having to look at the kitchen tool that was now stuck in Sofia's hand. She looked in front of her where Oswald was now screaming along with Sofia.
"Rude," Pyg said when Oswald made eye contact with him and the screams were more controlled. "I'm not finished. Sit down."
Novella watched as Oswald disregarded the order so that he could help the female Falcone, but Novie knew that was a mistake. If she'd learned one thing from Victor, as well as her ridiculous parents, it was to stay out of sight when everything hit the fan. Watch and observe, then plan your next move. Obviously, Oswald had never learned that lesson.
"Pull it out, and the next one's in her eye," the man's overly-bored voice said. Novella couldn't say that a little part of her didn't want to see that, but she didn't pay that part any mind. That was the part of her that had been born inside her parent's mansion back in Georgia, and sometimes came out to play when she needed an extra layer of protection - like tonight.
"Oswald, no," Sofia said while still letting out a few pained pants. This obviously eased Penguin enough to sit down, but he still kept a murderous glare fixed on Pyg.
"Now, to answer your question, my dear, the other children and your staff are safely locked in the kitchen. Despite appearances, I'm not an animal." He gave an ironically animalistic laugh before opening his mouth again "Martin, may we continue? You have all fed upon the poor of Gotham for years. Now you're going to know what they taste like. Please, open your envelopes and look at the photographs inside."
Novella stared at the little square of white in front of her plate and got a sickening feeling in her core. She didn't move to grab it though - no one did. That seemed to irritate the Pyg more than anything.
"Oh, come on. - Open them!"
People let out little-terrified sounds, except for Novie who kept her mouth shut. Even as others were letting out confused little huffs of breath. Novie stayed silent as the dead.
"Who is Trish?" Penguin asked more to himself than Pyg, but he was still answered.
"Well, I thought you should see who you're eating." There it was. Novella had known that it was going to be something to that effect, all Gotham psychopaths were utterly predictable.
She looked around the table as people placed hands over mouths and turned varying shades of green, but still, she didn't let it show on her face. She'd been through worse and she'd get through this. What was a little cannibalism in the grand scheme of things anyway? She tried to convince herself of all this, but deep down she was just as horrified as the rest of the people at the table.
"Bob, Fricks, Trish, Nunuh, Cyrano and Vincent all deserve our gratitude." Now Novella felt herself getting to be unpredictable, which made her predictable. She could feel the knife that she'd tucked into her bodice before she'd left - the one that Victor always insisted she carry - and the gun that was wrapped around her thigh. With her aim, she might stand a chance if she could figure out how to get Martin out of harm's way.
"So these pies are People," Oswald said more than asked.
"Yep. They're people pies."
"People." Oswald drew the word out in a whisper as he just nodded his head. Novella had no doubt that with the right motivation he would eat that pie. Hell, she probably would too, especially if that curly-headed little boy were threatened. Or any child for that matter.
"And you're all going to eat them."
She stared down at her "people pie", as the pig-man had so insensitively deemed it, and felt bile rise in her throat. A little picture rested beside the heart-shaped entree making the feeling that much worse. This was a person - or at least had been a person. Now, however, this was a pie that she must eat so that more people wouldn't die. Oh, the irony.
"Absolutely not," Oswald spoke up once again. It was an effort to hold back the eye roll she was wanting to give him. He just didn't know when to stop.
"Okay." Pyg walked back towards Martin and Novella felt that horrible sense of foreboding that had been with her all night intensify. Pyg grabbed the boy and held his butcher's knife to the small boy's throat. "Let's try this again."
This time Novella let out a small gasp which was inaudible over the loud cries of all the other hostages - especially Oswald. Novella had only ever seen that look on one other person -Victor. She'd seen that look when she was bleeding out in his arms and neither of them knew if she would live or die. It was the look of an angry, desperate, man. A man who would do anything to prevent the worst from happening.
"Eat, or I kill the boy."
"But he's just an orphan," an old man at the table said. His pompous voice reminded Novella of her father when he was with his work associates. Those were the nights she most dreaded being at home.
She could feel herself itching to grab the blade in her bodice, not to kill Pyg, but to ram it into the old man's jugular that had now somehow become her father.
"What did you say?" Oswald was shaking with anger at this point, and Novella knew that she wouldn't have to be the one to teach the old man just how much of a moron he was. Oswald would handle it.
"Well, these are made of people. For God's sake, you can't expect us," the man chuckled a bit and tried to appeal to his other first-class citizens, "I mean, so they kill some urchin, hmm?"
Oswald moved faster than Novella believed possible. One second the sharp tool was stuck in Sofia's hand, the next it was sticking straight up from the obnoxious nobility's silver-haired head.
"What a waste of a good pie," Pyg said once after the man fell face-first into his 'people-pie'. Novella could distantly hear Sofia's pained screams and the other hostages terrified screams, but she was stuck in a trance.
She wanted her uncle. Uncle Jim who could make everything better and get rid of all the monsters her parents never could. Not Victor - who she loved more than the expanse of the universe, but her uncle who was more of a parent than either of her's had ever been.
"-and Miss Gordon, are the reasons I'm here." Novella hadn't realized she'd zoned out until the calling of her uncle's surname pulled her attention to Pyg. She assumed he meant to address her, but got confused on her last name. After all, people got families mixed up all the time.
She narrowed her eyes and fixed Pyg with the very look that always got her sent to her room when she was fifteen.
"Me? Why?" Oswald asked, but Novella cut him off. For the first time that night she addressed the man that was the source of her now budding headache.
"I'm terribly sorry, but can you clarify what the hell I did to you? I'm nearly positive that I've never met you, although there was a weekend back in high school when I broke into my parent's liquor stash and blacked out." Novella paused and gave the man a smirk, ignoring the fear that was now growing inside her for the boy that had a knife to his neck. She pulled at that courage she'd had when she first met Victor, the courage of a lion. "Tell me, were you in Georgia about five years ago?"
She saw the man's eyes flash with something undetectable under his pig mask, and she smiled. She'd gotten to him and even though she could die within the next few minutes, she could die with the knowledge that she'd been a little brat to a little dick.
"Oh, I could've chosen any gathering of wealthy Gothamites who've gotten fat upon the poor. But you, with your Pax Penguina, you are the biggest glutton of them all. You have gorged yourself on this city's heart, its lungs, its liver." Novella stared from her straight-backed position in her chair at Penguin. His fingers were becoming stark white with how hard he was gripping onto the table and she believed his face would permanently stick as a frown.
"And you the blackened Gordon." She turned to the Pyg and smiled at him. Any trace of her earlier fear buried like Victor's victims.
"Ah, you sound like my mother," Novella folded her legs under her and propped her elbow on her thigh so she could better rest her head on her hand, "You aren't going to call me a disappointment next are you? With this table setting I'd feel right at home - just like Georgia."
She had hoped to get a rise out of him, to get him to release the boy and take her instead. She needed a clear shot at his neck to ram her blade into it, but the Pyg only chuckled.
"You should have followed in your father's footsteps. Instead, you're just as bad as your murdering boyfriend." She let the Pyg's words sink in. She was following in her father's footsteps, wasn't she?
"It may have escaped your notice but I'm Novella Owens," she emphasized her last name and continued, "and I am following in my father's footsteps. Family business and all. You might have noticed the big purple sign that says 'Owens & Company'. Or maybe the stuffed mountain lion that greets you on your way in."
"You poor dear, you don't have a clue who you are." Novella's eyes narrowed at the man and her grip tightened on the dagger that she'd pulled from her bodice and was now hiding under her leg.
"Unless you want to be the next stuffed trophy I put in my store window," she let out a breath and gave Pyg a deadly look that even made Victor uncomfortable, "then I suggest you tell me what the hell you think you're on about."
"All in good time little Gordon," Pyg said in his disgusting voice. It had been pounding against her headache for an hour now, and she was done.
Her grip became vice-like on her dagger and her vision went red. Another little chortle from the Pyg man sent Novella over the edge. She lifted from her seat and launched at Professor Pyg.
She could vaguely here Oswald laughing at the violence of the spectacle, but she was more focused on feeling the Pyg's blood coating her hands. She got one stab through his arm before she was knocked out by a silver platter.
The last thing she heard was Pyg's voice saying, "Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you yet, little Gordon."
•*•*•*•
James Gordon pressed against the door and tried everything imaginable to escape his prison. Eventually, he was able to use his knife to pry off the hinges and move the door to the side. All the people in that dining hall needed him, children and rich folk alike, but also his niece. His nice was being tormented by the Pyg and he was just now getting out of that room.
He raced down the hallway and got to where the henchmen were stationed. Hand - to - gun combat set the place on alert that a one-man army was coming to help and his next moves showed everyone that he was that one man army.
He made his way inside the dining room and killed the remaining henchmen before lining up a shot at Pyg. His perfect shot was interrupted by Penguin, though.
"NO! He'll kill the kid!"
"Get off of me!" Jim yelled back, grabbing hold of Oswald to throw him off.
"Martin!" Oswald called to his protegee who quickly ran towards him. The two then followed the rest of the Gothamites out of the orphanage.
Jim saw Sofia run towards him with a clutched hand as she called his name, but he couldn't respond as he ducked from the thrown knife sent by the Pyg. More knives followed the first, leaving Jim to act in response to Pyg and to eventually pick up the same platter that had knocked Novella unconscious, much to his unknowing.
Their fight continued until Pyg had Jim flat on the table with a cleaver to his neck. "Come on, Jim. Don't give up. You will ruin everything." Pyg pressed harder on the cleaver, unaware of the plan that Jim had formulated. "What will your daughter think of your failure, hmm?"
That spurred Jim into action. He hadn't seen Novella when he entered meaning that either she hadn't come or something had gone wrong. Knowing Novie, it was probably the latter. So he grabbed the sharp tool that had been used twice that evening already and rammed it into the Pyg. Using his upper hand, Jim took a cleaver and hit the other man with the blunt side before shoving him off of the table.
It was only when all his other senses where freed up from focusing on the Pyg, that he noticed the unconscious girl with unmistakable lilac hair. Novella. He jumped off the table and rushed to her, taking note of the small knife that was held loosely in her hand and was still coated in blood. The only sign of injury to her was a cut near her hairline, which Jim assumed was from whatever had caused her to become unconscious. He had no doubt that she would put up a fight and he knew that with her smart mouth, she'd get hurt.
This was Gotham and she was a pure light. A steel tongue, but a pure light nonetheless. It was one of the many reasons why he never told her about her true parentage. Besides the promise he'd made to his sister, which he'd happily break, he couldn't let anyone know about the child he'd had as a teenager. One of his many weaknesses that was now shared knowledge of the Gotham elite.
Something no one could know was now about to be the morning gossip.
•*•*•*•
A/N : Hey everybody! Its been a while I know and I'm awfully sorry. If anyone has family issues then you know that sometimes its hard to find time to write when dealing with all that. Anyways that's my little apology/excuse. I hope you all enjoyed this little part and I've been excited about this reveal for a while now. I was struggling with how to do it and finally decided on this.
Please give me feedback on this because y'all's NICE comments make my day! I know there wasn't any Victor in this part, but don't worry the next part will have him.
Bye Loves.