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"Each man's life touches so many other lives, and when he isn't around, he leaves an awful hole."
– Clarence, (It's a Wonderful Life)
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"You never told that you have a family Bruce. If I knew, I would have worn sothing better..., maybe even bring a housewarming gift or sothing." Nyssa said while lightly biting on her nails with a worried look.
"That's why I always tell you to read the file little sister. Background checks are always important even if you are just looking for a boyfriend." Talia snorted at her sister.
"Wait, you read a file on . That's borderline creepy. *Sigh* I guess, I should have expected this from a closet pervert like you." I teased Talia to which she just gave a cold look. "Also Nyssa, by family I only currently have my butler/guardian Alfred, and my best friend Selina whom Alfred adopted about a decade ago. Besides them, I also have so friends whom I consider family as well." I said, not ntioning that Selina might be a little more than just a friend.
All three of us were on our way to the Wayne Estate in a black Tesla Roadster, the first electric sports car released by Wayne Auto under the brand na Tesla.
It was declared the car of the year by a majority of magazines and car critics and almost had a cult-like following of loyal fanboys. Of course, the fact that it had a range of 1000 miles which charged from 0 to 100 percent in ten minutes with its out-of-the-world battery technology along with a host of other innovative features also contributed to why it was the highest-selling sports car in the country this year. In fact, it sold so much that I had to spend an additional 3 billion dollars to make new charging stations all over Arica to compensate for the huge number of Tesla cars on the road.
Anyway, I was originally supposed to return alone while Nyssa and Talia were supposed to stay back at the League's Nanda Parbat base to solidify the League's new power structure but they had both changed that decision at the last mont and taken so ti out to drop ho. The reason they gave of course had nothing to do with dropping ho. If one were to believe their words, they just wanted to visit the infamous city of Gotham.
"You have a girl as a best friend who is also living in your house?" Nyssa's voice sounded hollow for so reason.
Even Talia raised one of her eyebrows in my direction as if to ask if I had just broken her little sister's heart.
"... It's completely fine for a boy and a girl to be best friends. If you don't agree with it, then you are a sexist." I bullshitted through my teeth with a straight face as I did my best not to et her eyes. "Oh, look. We are here." I said with genuine joy at being able to divert the topic as I pointed at my mansion.
The estate had changed a lot over the years. From a classic dieval-era style mansion to a breathtakingly beautiful manor filled with cutting-edge technologies for both security and convenience.
The entire mansion had professional defense personnel in black full-body suits with high defense capabilities roaming all around the estate ready to take soone's life or give theirs in case of an invasion. Even their guns had been upgraded into electromagnetic variants that normal bulletproof vests wouldn't be able to stop.
After the car stopped in front of the front door of the main building, I got out of the car followed by both Nyssa and Talia, both of whom were looking everywhere around them in curiosity.
"Master Bruce! You are still alive. Even though Cortana told you were well, I could not help but at tis fear that sothing bad might have happened to you in one of your adventures." Alfred who was waiting for at the entrance half-joked in a voice filled with heavy emotions.
Despite having taken a peak body serum, he looked like he had aged about ten years due to worrying too much.
"Alfred, it's so wonderful to see that you are still walking and not in a wheelchair. Guess, my serum did knock off a hundred years from your age, didn't it?" I joked back with a chuckle as I hugged the person I trusted the most in the world.
Hell, I didn't even trust Selina as much as I trusted the old butler. Sothing about him just yelled loyalty. Even though I didn't know what went on in that disciplined mind of his, I knew it as a fact that he would much rather kill himself than ever betray or the Wayne family.
"It's good that you are back. Taking care of the companies was getting too much for my old bones even though I had Lucius' help. Now you can even take control of Wayne Enterprises just like your father would have wanted. I think I am going to stick to just taking care of the estate, you, Miss. Selina for now." Alfred remarked with a hearty laugh.
"Whatever you wish Alfred. And don't worry, I'll take back everything that belongs to or the family. I don't forget my grudges... Anyway, this is Talia Al Ghul and Nyssa Al Ghul. They are... the daughters of the man I trained under. They are here as tourists to see Gotham and therefore our guests." I introduced both the girls who were standing behind with blank faces looking like a pair of professional assassins scanning a target.
'I almost forgot about their anti-social upbringing. They could perhaps seduce even the most emotionless n but that doesn't change the fact that they have no experience on how to accurately display their real emotions in front of people... or just make themselves appear like normal human beings. I guess I'll have to pr train them in the future.' I thought to myself as I saw the girls awkwardly shake hands with Alfred while the butler just nodded with a small smile while giving an amazed look.
"Now, please co inside. We can continue all our conversations inside the house. I am sure that all of you are hungry after such a long trip." Alfred led us inside, walking in front of excitedly, probably just happy that I had finally co back.
"Woof woof WOOF WOOF" A familiar sound echoed as a dog ca running at like a mad tiger and jumped into my arms to lick in the face.
"Ace. You have grown big you handso dog. I guess you took after your master, didn't you?... By the way, why aren't you speaking? I thought that you would be a chatterbox by the ti I returned." I said while affectionately scratching his head and neck to which he only answered with a low howl.
"Ace stopped speaking in his human voice after a group of angry church mob chased him with torches in their hands trying to burn him on a stake after branding him as the Devil incarnate. I had to spend about a million dollars in church donations to make them forget the matter... I think he is still scarred from that event. He only uses his voice when he needs to inform us of sothing important, like the ti when he told us that he and Mr. Whiskers got dirty after they liberated the animal underworld of a cannibal rat mafia lord and his gang of rats." Alfred said with a straight face as he gave a disappointed look at the dog, obviously not believing him.
Even I found that hard to believe, provided that I had watched the DC Pets movie but I decided not to waste too many of my brain cells and just forget about the entire thing.
"Wait, you are saying that your dog can talk? Like, talk in a human language? But, that is impossible, right? Dogs can't talk." Nyssa voiced out what both the Al Ghul sisters were thinking in their minds.
"Of course, I can talk. I am not just any dog. I am Ace, the Dark Hound. I can do anything and everything that normal dogs can or can't do." Ace suddenly spoke up in his Kevin Hart voice which startled both Nyssa and Talia as they both looked at Ace like he was a monster. The only reason they hadn't scread yet was because of their ninja training although Talia looked like she was getting ready to kick Ace away with her hills to defend everyone from the talking 'monster'.
"You see this Bruce? This is why I don't talk. Everyone is racist nowadays. People see a dog talking and they pull the guns and torches on it. Well, sha on you. *WOOF*" Ace concluded as he again turned the human speech translation option to 'partial' in his collar. The mode let him understand human speech of all human dialects in his dog language but didn't translate his barks into human words.
"Ace, remind to give you a better-sounding and deeper voice next ti. Maybe you can use them in your future... 'quests' to hide your identity because your current voice sounds more annoying than scary." I said, not being fully sure if the animal underworld thing was true or not.
"Are you sure you should be that close to... it?" Nyssa asked with a gulp still not sure about Ace.
"Don't worry, he is harmless. Ace is just as normal... umm, I an, unique as any other non-speaking dog. The reason he can speak is because of the special collar I made for him. It is an animal translator of sorts. So, you don't have to worry, you can just treat him like any other dog and pamper the hell out of him. I an just look at his face, how can you not see how cute he is." I said as both I and Ace looked at the sisters, giving them a cute look while innocently batting our eyes.
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