Cat trapped

The penthouse of Silas Vane smelled of cold marble and predatory intent, a sprawling glass cage suspended sixty stories above the rain-slicked streets of Gotham. Selina Kyle moved through the laser-grid security like a ghost in charcoal spandex, her movements a masterclass in silent grace. The target, the "Star of Gehenna," sat atop a pedestal of reinforced obsidian, pulsing with a deep, violet light that seemed to mock the sterile opulence of the room. Vane was a man who traded in human lives as easily as stocks, and Selina felt a sharp, righteous thrill at the prospect of relieving such an amoral titan of his most prized possession. The click of the glass casing being disengaged was the only sound in the room, but as her gloved fingers closed around the cold facets of the gem, the violet light didn't dim—it flared. Suddenly, the floor beneath her hissed, and the walls hummed with the activation of a localized dampening field that killed the signal to her extraction tech. Before she could leap for the shadows, a massive, gauntleted hand lunged from a concealed alcove, its grip closing around her windpipe with the force of a hydraulic press.