Story [Birds of Prey] Episode 1 & 2: The Hunted -- Ep 1, Chapter 7 posted 11/30/13

Going back to updating and re-editing my Fan Fiction season of Birds of Prey. Most of the stories never were posted here. This is kind of like a test. If I get any reviews telling me that they're going to continue reading this, I will continue posting this story and the other stories of my season 2. I will post up to probably 3 chapters before I decide to stop because of a lack of readership. Not sure if there would be enough interest to start this kind of project. So, if you're enjoying this, please let me know.


THE FOLLOWING STORY IS NOT MEANT TO INFRINGE ON ANY COPYRIGHT LAW SET BY WARNER BROTHERS. THIS IS MEANT FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSE.THIS IS STORIES 1 AND 2 OF A 13 STORY SEGA CONTINUING WHERE DEVIL EYES LEFT OFF.

BIRD OF PREY
(Fan Fiction Season 2)

Starring
Ashley Scott as Huntress
Dina Meyer as Oracle/Barbara Gordon
Rachel Skarsten As Dinah
Shemar Moore As Jesse Reese
Ian Abercrombie As Alfred
With:
Mia Sara as Harley Quinn

Episodes 1 & 2
THE HUNTED

Episode 1: The Hunted (Part 1)

CHAPTER 1
The rain was pouring down unmercifully from the heavens onto the scum ridden city of New Gotham. Back in it’s hayday, the city could have been considered just as majestic as the mega-city of Metropolis... back when it was just plain Gotham City. Darkness had all but over run the city. Corruption was always an overwhelming threat to the city, but it had always been kept in check by the heroics of one man: Batman.

One day, the man, who had day-in and day-out dressed up as a bat to instill fear on those that would inflict it, had disappeared... never to be seen again. The city millionaire, Bruce Wayne, who used his money and his business to help keep this city alive, also disappeared without a trace. When they disappeared, the citizens of New Gotham feared that the city would go down once and for all; yet, somehow... it didn’t.

It was only recently when it was discovered why New Gotham remained afloat: The actions of one young woman, a meta-human by the name of The Huntress. She, with her even younger blond haired protégés, had kept evil at bay with Batman out of the picture. Rumors had long circulated that this protégés was the daughter of the late member of the Justice League: Black Canary; yet no one had ever seen her use that power.

In a recent attempt to destroy Gotham by a seemingly innocent Psychiatrist: Dr. Quinzel, these two young women had successfully foiled her. It was only then that the city realized that this psychiatrist was actually Harley Quinn, a former side-kick and lover to the greatest criminal threat that the city had ever known: the Joker. The two heroes were, from that point on, no longer just a whisper of a rumor. Despite their heroic deeds for the city, there city was a very uneasy acceptance between normal people and meta-humans. There had been those who had tried to start a war between the two fractions, but the Huntress and her partner had always managed to stop it.

Their recent battle with Harley Quinn was victorious; however, it came at a great cost. Just on the outskirt of New Gotham was Arkham Cemetery. There, a crowd of mourners dressed in black suits and dresses surrounding a coffin that was laid on a board over the hole which had been dug out for the coffin. On top of the coffin there were a bouquet of flowers and roses.

In the front of the crowd was Barbra Gordon, stricken lame in her wheel chair. While no one would expect it, she was the voice and intelligence behind the Huntress. Her code name was Oracle, and she was the one who trained and continued to mentor Helena Kyle, aka the Huntress, and Dinah. Training Helena was not easy; to say the young girl had anger issues would be an understatement. Her father was Bruce Wayne, known to a selected few as Batman. Her mother was Salina Kyle, the notorious cat burglar also known as the Catwoman.

Salina had tried to raise Helena right, keeping her from discovering her former life as Catwoman. However, in Joker’s last act before he disappeared, he hired Clay Face to not just try to kill Barbara, but Salina as well. While Barbara was fortunate enough to survive, despite being forced to live the rest of her life in the wheel chair, Salina was not so fortunate. Watching her mother being murdered, Helena had become quite angry and violent. With her meta-human strength, if Barbara had not taken her in and trained her, she probably would not be alive right now. Only adding to her anger, Bruce had suddenly vanished after hearing about Salina’s death. The young girl had been abandoned.

Over the years, the two of them had become very close. They even brought in Dinah Lance as a young, meta-human runaway (it was only afterwards until they discovered that her mother was Black Canary). As part of a prerequisite to be trained, Helena needed to have weekly sessions with the Psychiatrist, Dr. Quinzel... clearly a mistake in hind sight. It was that misplaced trust in the doctor that almost destroyed the relationship Barbara had with Helena, and was the sole reason why they were now here at Arkham Cemetery.

On Barbara’s right was Helena, also dressed in black, but unsurprisingly, that color suited her very well. On Barbra’s other side was Dinah. Both she and Helena stood by their mentor, their comrade, and their friend in her time of grief. There in the coffin was Wade, the man that she had only just begun to open her heart to before his life was taken by Harley Quinn. Helena still bore the shame and the self-inflicted guilt.

It was at one of Helena’s appointments with Dr. Quinzel which brought this chaos. She used her psychological hypnosis to pry the secret information from Helena before anyone could suspect who she really was. Among the information she obtained was the location of the hideout, in the clock tower. She used that information to break in while everyone out; unfortunately, Wade had been there at the time.

Having already learned about her secret life as leader of a vigilante crime fighting team, he had come to the tower in hopes to surprise Barbara. Instead, he found Harley Quinn who, with her own hand, stabbed him in the heart. She revealed herself to them after that, revealing that it was Helena who had betrayed her. As much as she might have wanted to put the blame on Helena, at that moment, she was not going to let Harley Quinn win.

The funeral service had come to an end and the people began to scatter except for Barbra, Helena, and Dinah. Jesse Reese had walked up besides Helena and put his arm around her shoulder. Detective Jesse Reese was a good man, and one of the few incorruptible officers at the NGPD. At first, he was an uneasy friend with her as much as Barbara’s father, Jim Gordon, was for Batman. However, that had come to a change rather quickly. On Helena’s end, there had always been that spark of attraction she had for him, but she always faithful to keep her identity a secret. His investigative skills, and a mission to Helena’s high school reunion forced Helena to reveal her identity to him. Since then, she had opened up to him, and the two of them were now an item. If it wasn’t for his help, they would have never been able to recapture the tower from Harley Quinn.

Helena placed a hand on Barbra’s shoulder. She looked up at her friends and smiled, thankful that she and Dinah were there to support her in her time of grief.

“Are you going to be alright?” Dinah asked, showing concern for Barbra. After being taken in as a runaway, she thought of Barbara as more than just a friend and partner... she was like a mother to her.

“I’ll be fine.” Barbra took a deep breath. She had wept for so long, she didn’t know if she had any more tears to shed. She had spent most of her time crying in private, hating to show emotions in front of Helena and Dinah. If she stayed there any longer, she very well might start crying again, and she had no desire to do that here and now. “There’s no point hanging around here getting nothing accomplished. We still have lots to do to get the clock tower back to the way it was.”

“Barbara?” Helena began to protest. She, knew better than anyone, that she needed more time to grieve. Trying to keep herself busy only delayed the inevitable.

“I said I’m FINE,” she replied with a slight snap and a little force to warn her to drop the issue.

Feeling the awkwardness of the moment, plus the stress of time working against him, he had no choice but to dismiss himself. “I wish I could help you girls out, but the new police commissioner arrives today, and he wants to meet with all of the precinct’s detectives.” Reese replied.

Helena brushed off his arm, and looked down to her feet. She acted like she didn’t hear anything he had just said as her focus was solely on Barbara. “I really screwed things up, and I’m sorry. I should have known who she was. Now, Wade is dead, the clock tower is a mess, and the police commissioner was just one of the hundred who were killed in the chaos. What a hero I’m turning out to be.”

It was at that moment she again realized that she wasn’t the only one hurting here. Helena continued to blame herself for something she could not have known. Barbara knew she shouldn’t have snapped at her like she did; sometimes her grief blinded her to everything around her. “Helena, I’m sorry. I know that was nothing you could have done. I don’t blame you. Dr. Quinzel—obviously had planned this whole thing for months. No one knew she was Harley Quinn; not without her normal face paint and annoying high squeaky voice. I though she perished along side with the Joker many years back. It’s as much my fault as it is yours.”

“That’s just it, It’s not. It is completely and totally all my fault!” Helena replied coldly. “A hundred innocent people died out there, all because I can’t keep my mouth shut. Man, if my father could see me now.”

“Helena…” Reese tries to console her but she pushed his arm away.

“Not now!” She turned and walked away. She walked abruptly past a mid-aged, attractive Burnett. She had been at the funeral service from the very beginning, sitting the Wade’s family members. She looked back at Helena who didn’t look back or give any form of acknowledgment of her existence. The young girl grinned as the skin on her face gently rippled like a stone dropping into a pond.

Dinah was about to pursue her, but Barbra grabbed her arm. “No, don’t go after her. She needs some time to herself. Let her blow off some steam and sort things out. She’ll pull out of it.”

“I have to get going. I’ll stop by the clock tower to help out a little later,” Reese said walking backwards a few steps to display the importance of his departure at that moment.

“I appreciate it,” Barbara replied, forcing a slight smile on her mostly-emotionless face.

* * * *

No sooner did Detective Reese sit down at his desk when a hefty, older male approached. He was the huskiest man he had ever seen, almost causing Reese to wonder how he could fit through any doorway. For the most part, his scalp was bald, and what little white hair he did have, he had pony-tied in the back. He was dressed in formal tan khakis with a white button down shirt with light blue vertical stripes. He sported a smooth, tan sports jacket on top. “Detective Reese?” He asked with slight tinge of a Spanish accent to it.

Startled to his feet, he accepted his offer of a hand shake. He wasn’t at all as he expected. “Commissioner O’Reiley?”

“That’s me. It’s nice to finally meet you. I wanted to talk to you in private before the meeting. I’ve heard that you ‘re the precincts top detective.”

“I don’t know about that; I’m just doing my job: to protect and serve.”

“Ah, you’re being modest. You helped stop one of the most dangerous villains that New Gotham has seen in many years. To me, that sounds like above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks to you, Harley Quinn is behind bars where she belongs. It just saddens me that I’ve gotten this job under these kinds of circumstances. Commissioner Donaldson was a good man.”

“Yes he was,” Reese agreed. The former Commissioner had specifically requested him to come to New Gotham. He was in desperate need of a straight police detective among all the crooked ones under him. So many of them there were working for the mob, that it made cleaning the streets of New Gotham impossible.

“I’ve brushed up on the city’s history before coming here... all the myths and legends including the one they call the Batman. So is it true, Detective Reese, that we have a new protector of Gotham? What was her name…The Huntress?”

At first, Reese was hesitant to respond. Was this some kind of test? Was he going to be one of those who would try to put the girls out of business when it was so apparent that the city needed them? Telling him that he was actually dating the Huntress was out... for now. From the look in his eyes, trying to lie about his knowledge of her was out. It’s pretty much well known now that he helped Huntress and her allies stop Harley Quinn. “That appears to be the case.”

“Again with the modesty, detective. Everyone here seems to know about your connection to the Huntress. Perhaps you can arrange a meeting with her?

Reese had to be cautious with his answer. He didn’t know this man at all. He could be by-the-book kind of guy, and if he was, he would not condone vigilante justice. He respected Helena and what she does, and he had promised to keep her and her friend’s identity a secret. If this man was trustworthy, he might—MIGHT—let him in if he proved to be helpful. “I can’t promise anything; it’s some kind of super hero code or something. They’re very particular in who they reveal themselves to.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he replied.

“Commissioner, the other detectives are awaiting in your office,” A scrawny, middle-aged man said walking up from behind. He had a detective’s badge attached to his belt, but this was someone he had never seen before.

Seeing the look on his face, the Commissioner commenced introducing him. “Detective Reese, let me introduce you to Detective John Boroughson. I brought him with me from Los Angeles.”

“Good to meet you!” Boroughson shook his hand but didn’t say anything, nor did he have an all-to-friendly look on his face. “Okay,”

“I’ll see you two in the office in a few,” Commissioner O’Reiley wobbled his way past his desk and back towards the hallway.

“Well, I suppose we shouldn’t keep him waiting,” Reese replied as he stood up from his chair.

“If you’re not too busy with your freak of a girl friend,” Boroughson said snidely before following after the commissioner.

“Excuse me?”

* * * *

It was late night and Helena was sitting on the ledge of an old five story building. She was not wearing her transmitter, because she knew that Barbra would be able to track her down. Who knows, Dinah may be able to do so anyway with all her growing mental powers anyway. All she wanted was to be alone to think things out.

She remembered her last appointment with Dr. Quinzel. She recalled everything she had said to her. How could she let her guard down and reveal everything about their hideout and friends. Even if Dr. Quinzel was sincere and innocent, revealing everything she had was very dangerous. How could she have been so stupid? What kind of hero would have taken such a reckless risk? Batman had never let his guard down, except to her mother. How could she not protect her thoughts and secrets from something as basic as hypnotism? Because of her, Wade was dead and so were a hundred innocent people. How many more people came close to dying in the riots that swept through New Gotham because of Quinn’s brainwashing?

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw an old woman walking with her cane, across the street. Coming out of an alleyway was a mugger, with a knife in hand, making his way for the old lady. “Great, it looks like I’ve found myself a punching bag.”

She jumped to her feet and jumped off the ledge. Falling one story, she landed on top of a metal emergency railing. She grabbed hold of the metal railing and swung herself under it and down towards the ground. The mugger was about to reach the old women until he turned to see Helena landing on her feet onto the asphalt. The old woman was also startled by her presence and fell to the ground.

“What do we have here? You’re a pretty one? How about you and I have some fun?” The mugger grinned, pulling out his pathetic switchblade knife.

“You must not be from around here,” she said with a wryly smile on her face. “ In that case, I promise to take it easy on you.”

The mugger smugly stepped towards her. When in a good mood, she would usually allow the perp to make the first move; unfortunately for him, she was extremely pissed off. Calling upon her meta powers, here pupils temporarily turned cat like before returning to normal. She did a basic spinning high kick to knock the knife out of his hand. As soon as her right foot touched the ground again, she instantly shifted her weight and kicked the mugger in the face with her other foot. The power of the kick sent him flying and twisting in mid air until he hit the ground on his back. Just like that, the mugger was out cold. “Well, that quite unsatisfying.”

She walked over to help the old lady to her feet. “Here, let me help you up.” The old lady did not look up. Helena reached down for her arm, but the next thing she knew, the old lady swung upward with super human strength, across Helena’s face. The impact sent her crashing into the side of a garbage dumpster, leaving a huge indentation in the center. Helena grimaced in pain as she looked up.

The old lady stood up perfectly without the cane. Suddenly, her whole body began to morph. Her face was becoming younger, her grey hair was turning black; even her clothes were morphing. In just seconds, the morph was complete and Helena was in shock. Standing there now was the splitting image of herself grinning towards her. “Great, a shape shifter.”

 

Oh, each episode I do will be about ten chapters, so each story is relatively short in comparison to what I usually do. So it's up to you all: I will post two more chapters at least, but should I continue this project? Is there going to be any interest out there for it?

 

Here's another chapter. Again, I just wanted to point out, This is a huge project that I am willing to do. This is a 13 episode story ark. While most of my fan fiction is about or above 60,000 words (about the size of a 300 page novel) each episode is about 20,000 words (about 2,000 words per chapter and ten chapter a piece) So these stories are only a third the size of my normal fan fiction. So the stories are very reasonable length making them easy to follow along. All the stories are done already, so updates will be frequent.

If you are enjoying this story and would enjoy reading this season, I will be glad to commit to posting the entire season, but I need to hear from you to see if there is enough interest, or whether I should just stick to HTTYD.



CHAPTER 2

Helena jumped to her feet and stared down the doppelganger who had an evil grin on her face. This meta was not the first shape shifter she had encountered; Clay Face could also morph his appearance in a similar fashion. She had no problems dealing with him, and she was certain this meta was going to regret crossing her. “I don’t know who you are, but you picked a very bad day to get up in my face.”

This shape shifter’s mannerisms were spot on as she (or he) circled around her just as she would do when confronting an advisory. She had her hands in her pockets and walked with overabundance of confidence and prowess. “So, this is what it’s like to be the Huntress? I like it.”

Helena shrugged, “Yeah, I know I’m awesome. Unfortunately for you, you’re not me, and the ass kicking you’re about to get will prove it.”

The shape shifter, responded to her threat just like she reacted to the threats. She did a fantastic job mimicking every aspect of her. She silently wondered if it was her meta-powers that attributed to that or if she had been studying her for quite some time. “There’s one thing you should know about me before you try to kick my ass?”

“Yeah, and what’s that?”

“That everything you can do, I can do better.” Just like Helena’s eyes did, the doppelganger’s eyes momentarily turned cat-like before returning to normal. She attacked with a swift high kick across Huntress’ face which came so fast, it caught Helena off guard. The speed and force behind the kick sent her somersaulting to her right. Huntress dropped her hands over her head, while she was upside down off the ground. She was close enough to the ground, however, that she was able to put both palms onto the asphalt and push. She pushed off the ground to convert her forced somersault into a controllable cartwheel to return back onto her feet. She was more than prepared when the doppelganger swung a fist at her face.

She quickly called upon her meta powers, which resulted in her eyes morphing into the cat-like appearance as they always did. Just as quickly, her eyes returned to normal as Huntress caught the swing with her left hand. She raised her left leg and wrapped it over their combined-arms and kicked her in the face in reply to her kick. Huntress released the mysterious shape shifter’s arm and brought her left leg down and stood there ready to defend any retaliating assaults.

The doppelganger went for another kick across the face but she blocked it by crossing her wrists in front of her face. As soon as the ankle of the doppelganger’s leg made contact, Huntress quickly grabbed hold of the ankle. Before she could deliver her attack that she had been setting up for, the shape shifter used her other leg to push herself up in the air and kick Helena across the face as she was twirled horizontally in mid air.

The kick sent Huntress twirling horizontally in air as well, but the difference was that the doppelganger landed on her feet while she hit the ground on her back. The shape shifting meta-human press forward with another attack, trying to stomp down on her forehead with the pointed heel of her high-heel shoes, but Huntress caught it just inches from being impaled by the heel, and twisted as hard as she could. This caused her adversary to flip and fall flat on her face. Using her meta-agility, she virtually flew up onto her feet almost as if she had flying powers. That was when Huntress realized that her powers directly mirrored her own. Not only could she borrow someone’s appearance, but their powers as well; it was like fighting herself.

The shape shifter pushed up as if doing in a push up but in the same way Huntress would have in that situation, that push up sent her flying up onto her feet. Even her fighting style was exactly the same as hers. The two women stared at each other, breathing heavily as they both took the moment to catch a breather. “As you can see, everything you can do, I can do just as well, if not better.”

“And as YOU can see, I can take just as much as I dish out!” Huntress replied, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth with her wrist.

“Well, that’s rather pathetic, when you think about it.” The meta shape shifter replied with a mocking look of pathetic sadness on her face. Suddenly she began to morph. Her ability to change shape was impressive, she could change more than just her looks, but her physical stature as well. The clothing she wore morphed just as naturally along with her. When her morphing was done, the person she had turned into brought a flash of rage out of her. She had taken the form of Dr. Quinzel or now better known as Harley Quinn. She had the exact same mannerism as the insane witch that now resided in Arkham. Her wide, psychotic eyes almost convinced Huntress that this was really her. “Maybe you like me in this form better. Perhaps I can get more of a challenge from you this way.”

The voice of the woman Helena had extreme hatred for caused an explosive rage in her. “B****!” She tried to kick the Quinzel doppelganger in the gut. However, with a timely back flip, she avoided the kick. She did a few more back flips to avoid the other kicks that Huntress followed up with. She stopped her back flips and ducked under the last kick. While she was still ducking, She used some fancy foot work to sweep Huntress off her one leg that she was standing on in the process of the final kick. That threw her back down onto her back.

The Shape Shifter stood up and approached the Huntress who appeared stunned on the ground. When she was close enough, however, she sprung her trap and rolled herself up onto a hand stand. In the process of rolling into a hand stand, her right foot kicked her ‘Quinn’ under the chin. Helena flipped back on to her feet.

As this late of an hour, the streets of New Gotham were empty; no one dared roam the streets after the sun went down. That was when the criminal element came alive. Fighting the middle of a street, there were no walls or railings to use defensively or offensively. This appeared that it was going to be a street fight until someone had lost. Huntress had no intentions of escaping, though she was still curious why this meta human had come at her the way she had done. She still had no clue who she really was and what her story was about. Somehow, she knew her well enough to get her angry. In her mind, she knew that there were answers that she should be looking for, but at that moment, all she was interested in was kicking her butt.

Needing a quick breather, she tried to distract her by trying to get one of those answers she needed. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“So, you want to know the real me, do you?” The grin on her face was exactly the same grin of Harley Quinn. “Not convinced that I actually may be Dr. Quinzel? Oh—very well.”

Once again, her whole body began to shift in height and form as did her clothes. By the time her transformation was done, she was a medium height, black haired woman. Her eyes were blacker than death. She was wearing a black leather coat that went all the way down to her ankles. “Well, this is plain ol’ me. If you must, you may call me Raven.”

Huntress wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not. If she was, this reveal did nothing to explain what was going on. She had no idea who she was or what she wanted. However, a part of her was reluctant to believe that this was her true identity. Usually, the bad guys weren’t so quick to reveal themselves. Usually, it took the great Oracle to do her technical voodoo to uncover the villain’s sinister plot of world domination. “Okay, I’ve never seen you before. What the hell is your problem, anyway?”

“Do you really want things spelled out for you, or do you want to fight!” Raven leaped high up and flipped three times in mid-air as she flew over Huntress and landed behind her. With lightning quick speed, she kicked Helena across the neck, which proved to be a devastating blow. It sent her stumbling sideways. She continued her assault and made a flying leap towards Huntress and planted the flat of her feet into her chest, sending her flying, back first, into a street light. The impact brought the street light crashing down to the ground.

Huntress refused to give up and fought against the pain and dizziness to continue this battle. Raven was laughing at her as she approached. “What’s the matter Huntress, you’re not done yet, are you? I’m just getting warmed up.”

Huntress charged at Huntress, throwing caution to the wind. Raven met her with a giant leap and kicked her with the flat of her foot into Helena’s gut. The impact proved devastating as she found herself crashing through the first floor window of a three story brick building. She hit the ground with sharp, jagged shrapnel of glass showering down around her.

With the Huntress on the ground, stunned, Raven climbed through the broken window into the brick building. She walked around until her feet were directly besides Huntress’ head. “Good night, Helena Kyle!”

* * * *

At the clock tower, Barbara was on the platform after several failed attempts to reach Helena through her transmitter receiver earrings. It’s been a long time since the funeral, and now she was worried. No one has seen or heard from her in all that time, and there was no way to get a hold of her. Dinah stood behind her wheel chair, also very concerned for not just Helena, but Barbara, as well. She wish there was something she could say to ease the situation.

The frustration that was bubbling up inside Barbara seemed to reach its limit as she shook her head. “Something is seriously wrong. She’s been gone far too long,” she said agitatedly.

“I’m sure she’s alright,” Dinah replied innocently, but she knew it was of no help. She couldn’t help but notice the role reversal. It was usually Dinah who was the one concerned and Barbara being the level-headed leader.

“I’ve searched almost everywhere for her, and found nothing,” Reese said, entering the base in a fast paced prance. Barbra had contacted him and asked him to help try to track her down, despite the odds. Trying to track down Helena when she didn’t want to be found was impossible, especially with her Meta-human powers. She can go places no normal person could go. “Do you really believe she’s in trouble?” He asked, walking up to Barbra on the steel platform which was the command center of the tower.

“I don’t know what to think. She’s run off before, but never for this long. With her secret out, there’s no doubt that our enemies can strike at any time. There’s no way for us to know where she is or get a hold of her unless she wants to be found.”

The elevator bell chime alerted them that the elevator had reached their level and was about to open its doors. All three of them looked over as the doors slid open and Helena staggered into the room. The moment she was out of the elevator, her legs gave out and she fell to her knees Her face was swollen and bruised with blood trickling form her mouth.

“Helena?”

 

great! This was a great show when it was on. I own the series on DVD. It was from the makers of Smallville. Sad to say, it tanked in ratings so they ended the series after thirteen episodes.

I've been watching the DVD's again, and I really wanted to redo these stories. The moment the show was canceled years back, I like many DC fans were furious. So I found a fan site of the Birds of Prey and I posted my very own second season to the series with thirteen episodes of this season. I've never posted them here, or I think I tried a few years ago, I don't remember. I'll be glad to continue this and continue going back and updating each chapter of all 13 episodes, this being the first two and the final three being a three-part season finally. Again, these were written years ago, probably even as old as ten years ago, so they are in desperate need of updating since my writing style back then is not quite up to snuff as it is today. Plus, I'm adding things around to make things make sense more; some of the episodes I might just completely rewrite from scratch.

I'll definitely continue this project then.

 

CHAPTER 3

Barabara and Dinah looked on as Alfred patched Helena up. He tried to soften the pain by slowly putting a band-aid over the cut on Helena’s right brow, but he still managed to fail. “Ouch!” she yelped as she flinched.

“Really, Miss Helena, I’d expect a budding vigilante hero, just as yourself, would have already learn to tolerate a small amount of pain. I’ve seen far worse battle-scars while tending to your father after his nightly crusades,” Alfred replied in his British accent as he gathered up all the bloody cloths that had accumulated with his latex-gloved hands.

“Yeah, well I’m not accustomed to being the one having her ass kicked. I’m usually the one dishing it out.”

“There’s no embarrassment from losing a fight a two. Your father lost his fair share. I say, any fight you can walk away from is a victory in of itself. Should I tell you about his battles with a monstrous villain who called himself, Bane?”

Helena was in no mood to listen to another one of his stories about her father’s life of being the Batman. While he always told them to point out some kind of life lesson, it often made her feel that she would never be able to live up to her father’s reputation. That only made her feel worse. “Not now, Alfred,” she said with a sigh.

With a pleasant and un-offended nod, he walked off to dispose of the garbage.

With her wound-tending out of the way, she could now focus on more serious matters at hand. “Did you find any information on this Raven character?”

Barbara shook her head, visibly distraught. “I’ve tried to find something, but I keep get keep hitting dead ends. I can’t even find anyone on our meta-database with those powers you described. Someone who has the powers of Clay Face and Morton... combined? It’s impossible for any two meta’s to have the same powers unless passed down through generations.” Barbara replied glancing back towards Dinah.

She showed no response to her final comment. When she first came to join the team, she was just a runaway from her foster parents. It was only later when they all learned that her real mother was the Black Canary who gave Dinah up for adoption to protect her from those that were trying to kill her. Dinah was just starting to get to know her real mother until she was killed in a warehouse explosion.

It was during this revelation that they learned that on top of Dinah’s telepathy and telekinesis, she might also have the Canary cry. However, that power had yet to manifest, which also made Barbara wonder why her powers were manifesting so late in her life. Most Meta’s start exhibiting their first signs at a very young age. Dinah’s, however, had only begin to grow a year or two ago. Maybe it had something to do wither her foster parent’s negative views of metahumans?

“Well, that’s great,” Helena replied. “What am I suppose to do, send out a blanket invitation for anyone who calls themselves Raven to come out and get her butt-kicking?”

“It’s not going to be easy, that much is certain,” Barbara replied as she entered her deep thought trance. “How, exactly, did she shape shift? Was it like clay molding like Clay Face?

Helena had to recall her memories of her fight with her. After a minute of replaying the scene in her mind, she responded with a better description. “No, it was more... I don’t know... artificial looking. It was almost like her skin was made of water or something.”

“Artificial looking? Interesting,” Barbara replied, processing that information in her head.

“I don’t know if I’m being the odd duckling of the group here, but why did she come after Helena in the first place,” Dinah asked.

A light went off in Barbara’s head as Dinah’s question sparked something that she should have thought of earlier. “She’s right. Whoever Raven is, she, or he, has some kind of grudge against you, and knows a lot your secrets.”

Helena was quickly losing her patience’s with all this detective work. Clearly, her father’s detective abilities did not pass to her. She found it to be tedious and interesting. Just point her to a bad guy, and she’ll be there and ready to kick some tail. In her particular state, she found it all the more aggravating. “I don’t care. I just want to give her a beating she won’t soon forget.”

“Helena, I understand you’re upset…”

“I’m beyond upset. I’m responsible for the deaths of a HUNDRED of innocent people. I ruined everything we’ve worked so hard to keep a secret and now to top of it, I got a crazy shape shifting metahuman on my case. Maybe I’m not cut out for this crime fighting business like my father was.”

“You don’t mean that? This is what we do; we all know the risk we take when we signed up for this?” Dinah replied.

“Well, maybe it’s a risk I’m not willing to take anymore; the cost is too d**n high. I quit!” Helena stormed for the elevator.


* * * *

An officer opened the steel gate and Helena walked into the stone cold room. The last time she came to Arkham Asylum, she had come to get answers from Clay Face. It was the beginning of all her troubles today. It was here where she learned that the Joker had hired him to kill her mother, Selena Kyle. It was then she allowed him to push all the right buttons to cause her to lose her temper. After beating the hell out of the plastic cell, he was able to escape from a crack in the cell. It was because of his escape, her identity was revealed to Harley Quinn, and thus beginning this nightmare.

Coming back here only brought back that rage she felt for herself and for the one who betrayed her. And the ironic thing was... that was the very inmate that she had come to visit. In the heart of the brick and cement room was the octagon shaped plastic cell, designed for the most dangerous of inmates there at Arkham. Inside of the cell sat Dr. Quinzel, or Harley Quinn as they recently discovered, dressed in her white straight jacket.

The crazy psychopath stood up and grinned with a devilish delight when she saw Helena approaching her. The officers had tried to give her special treated sunglasses so Harley Quinn could not hypnotize her with her new found meta-powers, but Helena had come prepared wearing her special contact lenses.

“So, if it isn’t little sweet Helena Kyle, here to pay a visit to her favorite psychiatrist. Still want to continue our little sessions?”

“If it isn’t the mega psycho b***h in a little plastic cell.” Helena replied, trying to hide the anger that she was already feeling in order to prevent her from getting any enjoyment from the pain that she had caused her.

“Awww, what’s the matter, still mad about being taken advantage of, are we? Perhaps you’re feeling guilty about how you could have spilled out all your dark little secrets to me and know that you’re responsible for the death of Barbra Gordon’s love of her life? Or perhaps she discarded you like unwanted trash; perhaps she couldn’t forgive you for your betrayal.”

Helena was ready to go ballistic, but was determined not to not give in and give her the response she wanted to see. “You know, if you weren’t in that cell, I’d kill you in an instant,”

“Would you now?” Harley Quinn’s eyes widen as to mock her. “That’s not very hero like. Perhaps I’ve opened your eyes to the wonders of being bad. Give in, Helena Kyle. Let your inner rage out; don’t keep it bottled up.”

“Shut up!” Helena kicked the plastic cell. That only caused Harley to laugh. Perhaps coming here had not been a good idea after all.

“Perhaps you never heard, but it’s that heated temper of your which got you into trouble last time. You’re really terrible at this hero thing, aren’t you? You know, you and I should be partners. Imagine it Helena, you and me... the queens of the criminal underworld.”

“I’m hero enough to bring you down. Because of me, you’re gonna rot in this tiny cell for the rest of your life.”

Harley laughed as if she had just told a bad joke. “You’re extremely naive, Helena Kyle. Do you really think you’re safe just because I’m temporarily held up in this plastic cell? You’re nightmare is only just beginning.”

* * * *

Dinah was standing outside on the small porch-like platform in front of the clock’s face. It was the one place that the three women enjoyed hanging out to enjoy the view of New Gotham’s skyline. They could see all the way to the end of the city. Today, however, she couldn’t enjoy the view. Her mind was on everything but the view.

Standing on the cement platform and lost in thought, she didn’t notice Alfred coming outside to join her near the ledge. “I must admit, I’ve never been quite fond of coming out onto this ledge; the downward view has always been more prevalent to me than the horizontal one.”

Dinah barely managed to flash a quick smile. There was no hiding the look of a frightened young woman. “I needed to come out here to think.”

“Ah,” Alfred replied, staying as close to the face of the clock as possible, yet looking confident as he always had. “You’re troubled over our current predicament.”

Alfred always did have a knack for getting people to open up and spill out their troubles to him. Perhaps he was a meta-human too? “Alfred, this is my family. Barabara... Helena... they’re my family, and I feel like we’re falling apart. Barbara is still overcome with grief from Wade’s death, and Helena just quit. I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes, things do seem to be a little precarious right now, don’t they?” Alfred replied. “Miss Barbara is in a season of mourning, while Miss Helena is in a season of regret and self-discovery. Of course, the key words of that are: season. The thing about seasons is that they are short lived and are always changing.”

“I’m glad your confident that things will get better,” Dinah chuckled. “You’re always sure and confident in us. What about Helena? You think she’ll be back.”

“I’ve found her to be very much a product of her parents. She has her father’s determination and stubbornness, and her mother’s temper and rash behavior. Yet, somehow, the two of them always managed to work things out. I’m confident Miss Helena will, eventually, conquer her demons... even with someone seemingly out to do her harm.”

A light went off in Dinah, as she was reminded about Raven. No one knew what she wanted with Huntress, all they knew was that she was still out there lurking through the shadows. Even more importantly, who was to say what kind of mind Huntress was in right now. She might try to do something that she would later regret. Someone had to keep an eye out on her.

“I have to go,” Dinah say, storming towards the door leading back into the clock tower. “Dear me, was it something I said?”

Dinah managed to hear his question before getting inside and turned around to respond. “I’m going to find her and keep an eye out on her to make sure she doesn’t do something foolish.” She ran inside the clock tower and made her way towards the elevator.

Alfred smiled and nodded in approval. His conversation had gone exactly how wanted to go, and produced the exact results he was looking for. He had a knack for implanting ideas and making it seem as if it was theirs. Sometimes the women just needed an objective mind to help them think through the process. “I think that’s a splendid idea; now, my nerves can be laid to rest.”

 

When I wrote this, it was before Teen Titans and before I learned that was a character named Raven. So no, this is not the same Raven in the DC comics. I did think about changing the name once I learned about this, but the TV series went pretty far from the original Birds of Prey comics, so I didn't worry about it all that much. Besides, not too many people knew there is a Raven in DC comics until Teen Titans came on television.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, I might be able to change the story and come up with something to correct the error.

 

CHAPTER 4

Dinah’s search was proving to be harder than she had anticipated. She stood in an alleyway, away from the views of most people who were still out and about as the sun started to set. She thought she knew all of Helena’s hangouts including her job at the Dark Horse Bar and her apartment on floor above. Her boss had said that she hadn’t seen her before he kicked her out for being underage. With a boss like that, no wonder why she was always pissed off. The only place she hadn’t looked was the one place Dinah knew she would never go: No Man’s Land. Dinah didn’t mind the atmosphere of the Meta-only hangout, it was the owner of the joint that she actively tried to avoid.

Gibson was a very... UNIQUE... meta-human with the world’s most annoying power. From the moment of his conception in his mother’s womb, he can never forget anything. On a few occasions, he tried telling them the gross story of how he could remember his days in his mother’s womb. There was nothing he ever forget except for the time Harley Quinn had hypnotized him and forced him to go insane.

Since that incident, they’ve heard very little from him. The fact that there was something he can’t remember had to be bothering him more than anyone had thought. Dinah could understand how he felt. To be able to remember everything he had ever seen; heard; touched; or tasted since conception, and then two have a twenty-four hour period that was a complete blank, had to be maddening.

Well, Helena would not be there; how many times did she have to refuse him for a date before he got the hint? Her feelings were for Jesse Reese. That hadn’t stopped him from trying. As much as he was a nice guy, he was just too much of a pesky nerd for Helena’s taste.

“Dinah, are you there?” Oracle’s voice came over her transmitter earrings. They were shaped as the logo that they’ve come to call ‘The Bird of Prey’. To anyone admiring them, they appeared to just plain ol’ earrings, but these babies were more expensive than a Porches.

“Loud and clear,” she replied, leaning back on the brick wall.

“Where are you?”

Dinah gave her surroundings a quick look around. “I’m in an alleyway in downtown New Gotham.”

Oracle was not pleased, and her stern voice made that abundantly clear. “Are you tracking Huntress?”

“Noooo, tracking Huntress requires actually knowing her actual and present location; neither of which I currently have.”

Dinah tried playing innocent, but she could tell that Barbara was in no mood for it. She was probably in another grumpy mood which had become more frequent as of late. “Listen to me Dinah, it’s not safe to patrol the streets alone right now; not when we have someone like ‘Raven’ prowling about.”

Before she could respond, the sound of a aluminum can being kicked had her on full alert. She looked to her right to see a middle-aged man, who had the unsightly appearance of being poor and homeless, slowly approaching her with a blade in his hand. “Hello pretty little lady! You look lonely; how about we have some play time.”

“Dinah, who was that?

Dinah raised an eyebrow and looked at the young hoodlum with disgust. “Ugh, just some scumbag who’s in desperate need of a lesson in the rules of etiquette.”

“Dinah, get out of there, now! You have no idea if that’s Raven or not?”

She looked over the hoodlemand laughed. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

“Dinah, don’t do this! I’m ordering you to back away!”

Ignoring her, Dinah turned to face her would-be attacker. She folder her arms in front of her and leaned slightly to the right. She finally addressed him with a smirk on her face. “If you think you can handle me, come and get me.”

The thug took one step too many towards her, and she quickly retaliated with a kick to the groin. The attacker groaned in agony as he fell to his knees in agony. Struggling to regain his breath, he was defenseless to stop the aggressive knockout blow to the face. Upon impact, he crumbled to the ground like a rag doll.

“Men, always coming up short right where it counts,” Dinah said, rubbing the knuckles on her right hand.

“Dinah!”

“What? I was referring to their brains!”

* * * *

Barbara was relieved that the thug was not Raven, but she was also steaming that Dinah had ignored her order to retreat. She had suspected that she had gone to find Huntress when she ran into Alfred. After asking him where she was, his ‘superior’ response told her everything she needed to know. She raced her wheel chair to the steel platform and to the heart of her work station. “You lucked out this time, but what if that thug had been Raven? It’s too dangerous for any one of us to be by ourselves.”

“It may be too dangerous for us, regardless,” Dinah voice replied over the intercom. “Someone needs to keep an eye on Helena.”

“Dinah, we’ll find her, but right now I need you to come back to the clock tower. I’ve contacted Reese and he should be here any second. You two can go out looking for her, together.”

Speaking of the devil, the elevator doors slid open and Detective Reese came storming into the clock tower. He made a beeline straight for Oracle on the platform. “Is Helena still missing?”

“Yes, and we still know very little about who Raven is and what she wants,” Barbara replied.

“Did you check Helena out for any forensic evidence? She got into a fist fight with this Raven character. Did you examine her for blood samples or skin particles... anything that could have resulted in acquiring the perpetrator’s DNA? ”

Barbara wanted to shrivel up and die at that very moment. How could she have been so negligent not to remember to do something that was like second nature to her? Normally, that would have been the first thing that crossed her mind to do. Had Wade’s death affected her that much? Was she that much off her game?

“No, I didn’t. I can’t believe it totally slipped my mind, “She replied in disgust.

“Oracle, are you there?” Dinah’s voice came over the intercom, sounding a little concerned over the abrupt ending of their conversation.

Barbara was about to respond when Reese continued his conversation with her. “That’s okay, we’ll find this Raven, you don’t have to beat yourself up. I take it that Dinah is out looking for her?”

Barbara shook her head to show her disapproval. “She went off on her own. I’m calling her back here so you two can work together to find Helena before Raven does. I don’t want her out there alone.”

“Perhaps that’s a good idea,” Reese replied as he placed his hand on the back of her head and shoved her head into the monitor. The screen cracked at the violent impact and several drops of blood were left behind as Barbara’s head fell on top of her keyboard.

Reese grinned devilishly as his whole body morphed. Now in her Raven form, she stood there admiring her work. “Now this is just pathetic. I expected much more of a challenge from the Birds of Prey.

* * * *

Dinah was still waiting for a reply from Oracle; and at that point, she was getting concerned. She has just vanished on her, which was not like her at all. Granted that she’s been off her game lately, but she still wouldn’t just vanish on her. “Oracle, are you there? If this is your way of making me feel guilty, it’s working.”

After a moment of silence, there was a crackle over the transmitter and a strange voice began to speak in her ear. “Hello, you must be the little Canary I’ve heard so much about.”

After shock of hearing a different voice, other than Oracles, wore off, anger quickly took its place. “Who is this? What did you do with Oracle?

“Oh, is that what Barbra Gordon is calling herself these days. To answer your question, young Dinah, my name is Raven; and as of now, the clock tower is under my control.”

“Not again,” she muttered under her breath. They were still reeling over the pain from Harley Quinn’s escapade in the Clock Tower, and now here they were again. They really needed to upgrade the security system. “Mark my words; your stay is going to be extremely short lived.” With a gentle squeeze of her earring medallion, she deactivated the transmitter.

The worst case scenario was playing out. It did, indeed, appear that Raven knew everything about them. She knew who all three of them were, and where their secret hideout was. Even worse, she knew how to get through their security system. How was she doing this? How did she know all of this stuff about them?

With this new development, she knew that her priority was now to get back to the Clock Tower and clean house. She had no way of contacting Reese, and going the police station to find him was not advisable for a meta-human vigilante, as herself. Right now, she was alone and without any form of help.

She was about to make her way back to the clock tower, when she noticed a shadow leaping across rooftops across the street. The shadow had a definite female figure and she did her trademark flips onto the next roof top before sneaking her way through an open window on the top floor. The way she stealthily moved definitely cried Huntress.

“Huntress!” She could not believe her luck. She had just been dreading having to go back to the Clock Tower into an unknown, and possibly dangerous, situation. Now, she had a chance to get Helena to come and help her take back their home. She may not be so willing to rejoin the team, but once she learned that Raven was there, she had no doubt she would come with her.

Trying to match Helena’s stealth-like maneuvers, she made her way up to the rooftops. It took her longer to get to the right building than it would have had she just run across the street and climb to the roof top; however, she did not want to take the chance of drawing attention to herself, to Helena, or to whatever it was that Helena was investigating. As much as it annoyed her to go out of her way to get where she wanted to go, she knew she couldn’t take any more chances. Moving in the shadows was part of her training, and that was the way she decided to go.

After finally reaching the right building, she made her way through the open window on the top floor. “Huntress?”

She found herself in an empty, dimly lit room. The floor was made up of rotting wooden boards which creaked with each step she took. There was no sign of life anywhere to be seen. The air was thick with dust; she could see the particles floating in the moon beam that shown through the window. She could feel the dust starting to tickle the back of her throat.

If she had to guest, this was probably the living room. The wooden door across the room probably led to the hallway to the other apartment doors. To the right, there was a doorway into the dining room and the kitchen. To the wall on the left, there was a door that was open just a crack. She could hear something rumbling in the room. She cautiously made her way for that door.

The floor continued to creek, making it even harder to sneak up on anyone that might be on the other side of the door. If there was, they had to know about her presence by now. Taking her chances, she slowly opened the door and steeped into the next room. The first thing she saw, entering the room, was the Huntress slouching in a wood chair. Her back was towards her, but there was no mistaking her hair and her clothing.

She started to rush over to check up on her but she wasn’t ready to find that there was a second chair in the room, and another Huntress sitting, with her arms and legs tied to the chair. She had to do a double take to make sure see wasn’t seeing things. There were two Huntresses tied to their chairs, both facing each other; the only difference was that one of them was beaten, bruised, and unconscious. The other Huntress was bruised, as well, but nowhere near to the extent of the unconscious one.

Raven was just at the Clock Tower, so this could not be her, yet here she was, face-to-face with two Helena Kyles. “What’s this?”

“Dinah, quick, untie me!”

“What’s going on?”

The conscious Huntress struggled against her restraints, causing the wooden chair to wobble slightly. “There’s no time to explain! Just get over here and free me.”

Dinah eyed her suspiciously. “How do I know that you’re not the imposter?”

“It’s me, Dinah! Come over here and touch my arm and use your powers to see for yourself.”

The unconscious Huntress started to revive. Before she could open her eyes, she managed to mutter her name. “Ungh, Dinah?”

Dinah was torn. One of them was clearly not the Huntress; if she chose the one wrong, she could wind up being dead. Her mind was reeling over the fact that Raven was at the Clock Tower, yet here she was looking at another possible shape shifter. Oracle had always said that it was impossible for two meta-humans to have the exact same powers; so what was she looking at right now?

Which Huntress was the real one? The more alert Huntress could be luring her closer to try to kill her, but the barley-awake Huntress could be faking and doing the same thing? And how did they both end up being tied to a chair? She had to use her powers to enter one of their minds, and only then would she know the truth; the only thing was... she had to have skin-to-skin contact.

She finally made a chose. She ignored the other Huntress and cautiously approached the groggy one. She figured that she was at least tied to the chair and even if she could physically snap the ropes, Dinah would have enough time to use her telekinesis to throw her into the wall and go untie the real Huntress. She slowly walked closer to the Huntress’ right wrist and reached out to touch her when the Huntress easily snapped the rope and grabbed hold of Dinah’s wrist. “Wrong choice, young one!”

The Huntress was out of her restraints faster than Dinah thought imaginable. The doppelganger grabbed hold of her and threw her into the wall. Dinah hit the wall, causing her head to snap forward and slam into it. She collapsed to the ground, already deep in unconsciousness.

Helena swore, fighting harder against her restraints to break free, but still to no avail.

“See you around, Huntress!” The shape shifter said before making her exit.

 

CHAPTER 5

Barbra felt a hand touching her shoulder. Startled awake, she quickly realized that she had been out cold for—who knows how long? She looked to her right to see Detective Reese standing there. “What happened?

“Get away from me!” She desperately tried to get away, but she could only go so fast with her motorized wheelchair, even as high tech as this one was. With a press of a button on the arm of her wheelchair, a baton launched upward, just high enough for her to grab the handle and get into position to strike if he got any closer.

“What’s wrong? It’s me?” Reese could not understand why she was acting like this. It was as if she didn’t remember who he was. He noticed the blood trickling down her face. Her blood was also smeared on the computer screen which was cracked. He knew that someone had rammed her head into the computer screen. “Listen to me, I don’t know who you think I am, but it’s really me!”

Barbra stopped for a minute and then rolled herself onto her back. “Prove it.”

Reese nearly laughed. “How am I supposed to do that? Will showing you my police badge help?”

* * * *

Raven, hidden in the shadows near the elevator watched the scenario unfolding with great intensity. It was hard to keep herself from bursting out in laughter. She had done her job perfectly. They could no longer trust themselves. Their distrust of one another was going to be their downfall, just as planned. It was now time for her to take this to the next level. Soon, their lives were going to be turned upside down, and there was no way they could stop it. She quietly snuck out of the clock tower.

* * * *

“You see the tablet on the station over there? Put your hand on it.”

Reese turned around and saw a black computer tablet with wires sticking out of it and scattered everywhere. It looked like Barbara had been working on a new device, which involved hacking and splicing a ten inch tablet. Reese didn’t know what he was doing, or why, but he figured he better do it before one of them got hurt. He put the palm of his right hand, and a white beam scanned his hand. On the wide computer screen above the damaged screen, his profile printed out onto the Delphi’s monitor with a picture of him.

Barbra seemed to be relaxed when she saw his profile come up onto the screen. She put away her baton away, and did not recoil when he approached to hand her his handkerchief. Reese. “What happened here?”

“It appears Raven had somehow gotten past the Clock Tower’s security and paid me a visit,” she replied as she applied the handkerchief to her forehead which was killing her.

“Did I miss something? Who’s Raven? I came here because I thought Helena was missing.”

This whole situation had the team so unwound, that she was losing track of who knows what, who Raven had pretended to be thus far, and who to trust with private information. Reese had just proven that he was not Raven, so she had to update him on recent events. After filling him in on the situation they were facing, his detective mode kicked into gear. “I’m no expert in meta-human abilities, but how would a hand print help you distinguish whether or not that I’m the shape shifter or not?”

Barbara checked the handkerchief to see if the bleeding to stop and then reapplied it for good measure. “Fair enough question. I’m coming to learn that there are different types of shape shift. You have the meta- humans who can only change their appearance or facial features like Clay Face. The way he shifts is more like as if his skin was made out of rubber or clay. Raven, however, I believe can change everything including her body stature, her height and her weight. Helena described her mutation as if her skin was more like liquid. The one thing that no human or meta-human can ever change is their hand and finger prints. There’re certain limitations to someone who can change shapes. They cannot change their height for one. If you cut your finger, when the skin grows back, the finger prints are still the same. It’s impossible, even for a shape shifter, to change that.”

“Fair enough,” Reese said. As she was talking, he was studying the wound on her head. “I’m gonna’ go get the first aid kit. It looks like you may need a few stitches.”

“I’ll be fine,” Barbara replied, waiving off his concern. “That tablet that took you’re hand print is going to be part of the new security system of the Clock Tower. I started dabbling with it after the recent events with Harley Quinn. I supposed I’ll have to do more than just dabble, now.” The truth was, she had been too distracted by her grief to do anything more than just dabble. She had only managed to put in his information into the system in the little time she had, and it was more of just a test file. She was extremely lucky that it was his file that she used as a test. She had enough wits about her to know to put in unofficial members of the team first. This time, it might have just saved her life.

Reese was impressed by the new security measures, for sure. He often had wondered where the money came for these women to have such exotic and high tech stuff. It was a secret Barbara would not share, even with Helena and Dinah. Alfred refused to address the matter at all. His detective instincts told him that this missing millionaire, Helena’s Father: Bruce Wayne, might not be so hands off as everyone thought. Without any confirmation, he would have to continue to ponder about it.

“Any word from Helena or Dinah?”

“I was trying to get Dinah back here so you two can go look for her when Raven Jumped me.” Barbra controlled her wheelchair back to her station. “Dinah, can you hear me? Please respond.”

There came no reply to her hail. A second attempt to hail her brought back the same results. “What does this mean?” Reese asked.

Barbara leaned back in her where chair as she seemed almost hesitant to reply. “It— means we’re in bigger trouble than I had first thought.”

* * * *

Commissioner O’Reiley and Detective Boroughson were exiting the Police headquarters, followed by two other officers. The two new members of the precinct were supposed to be joined by Detective Reese for a dinner meeting to talk about the future of the NGPD, but an emergency had called him away. Now, the meeting was going to be just the two of them, and if truth be told, despite the Commissioner being the one who brought Boroughson to New Gotham, he really didn’t care for the man. He just could not argue his results in the field. It was his results which had convinced him to put up with his idiosyncrasies and bring him to New Gotham. Of course, he took that has a ringing endorsement; he continually paraded through the building as if he was the teacher’s pet. The truth was, it took every inch of strength the Commissioner had not to punch the jerk in the nose.

They had just reached the bottom step when there was the quick sound of a flash gust of wind, but without the breeze. Out of nowhere, the Huntress was standing there with her hands in her shiny, black trench-coat-like jacket. She stood there with her chest held high as to show herself to be mysterious and superior to the two of them.

Detective Boroughson was quickly unnerved by her sudden appearance and made double sure that his gun was easily accessible. Her presences made him more fidgety than he already was. The two police officers behind them didn’t know what to make of the situation, so they too were prepared for the worst case scenario. They quickly, however, were waved down by the Commissioner. “That’s quite an entrance, young lady.”

“It’s a family trait,” She said with a shrug and a smile on her face.

“I was under the impression that you NEVER meet with anyone other than Detective Reese,” The Commissioner asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

“I might make a RARE exception when the situation calls for it,” She teased. “So, you must be the new Commish.”

“And you must be the meta-freak we’ve been hearing about?” the detective grunted snidely.

“That’s enough, Boroughson!” O’Reily snapped angrily.

The insult did not seem to faze the young vigilante. Her face said that perhaps she didn’t even hear the insult in the comment, but her response said otherwise. “Wow, listen to the tiny man trying to be a big boy. Maybe you should run home to Mama, and get your mouth washed out with soap.”

“You...” the detective stepped towards her as he reached for his gun.

O’Reiley stepped in front of him, almost pushing him to the ground. This was the meeting he had been wanting, and he wasn’t going to let him ruin it for him. He could only hope that he could get things back on track; there were things he wanted to know about this vigilante before he okayed his precinct to work with her. “Back off, detective!” He scolded, waving a finger in his face.

“Please forgive his manners, he may be a jerk on the outside, but on the inside... Well, I supposed he’s still a jerk. I hope we can still work together to clean the streets from the scum that plagues New Gotham.”

“Oh, I intend to do just that,” Helena replied as she kicked him across the face, sending the Commissioner crashing to the ground.

The two officer raced to draw their guns, but Helena surprised them all by leaping over the stunned Detective who was fumbling with his gun in his holder. “You boys and your little toys,” the Huntress laughed. She high kicked the gun out of one officer’s hand and immediately spun around to slap the gun out of the other. She continued to move swiftly in a race to finish the officers off before the detective could get his gun or the commissioner recover from her first attack. She returned her attention to the first officer and she pounced upon him until she had a good hold of his neck from behind him. With sudden jerk, his neck cracked, and the limp body collapsed to the ground. The last remaining officer charged at her in hopes to tackle her, but she took one step to the side and spun around, swinging her right arm right into his throat. The officer gasped, no longer able to breathe with her airflow now cut off. He dropped to his knees, doomed to die slowly in the remaining seconds he had left.

Detective Boroughson had his gun in hand and turned to point it at the Huntress, but she had vanished. “Where’d you go, you...”

The sound of swift breeze startled him and he looked to his right where she virtually standing in his face. “Tisk tisk, little man. It’s not polite to curse in front of a woman!”

She slapped the gun out of his hands from beneath, grabbed his arm and pulled it behind him. With a strong twist of his wrist, she felt the bone snap in her hands and he began to scream in agony. She released him, to allow the scumbag to roll on the ground, cradling his broken wrist.

Commissioner O’Reiley struggled to his feet just in time to see a devilish grin on the Huntress’ face. He was in utter shock. All the things he had learned about the Huntress, was thrown away with one act of viciousness. “You just made a bad mistake. I’m not going to rest until I see you in prison for this!”

“You know, for a fat guy, you’re cute when you’re angry. Just keep on wallowing in your deception. This city belongs to me, and I don’t need a fat, outta’ shape tub of lard to get in my way.” She ran around the Police headquarters, and disappeared in the shadows.

 

Sorry for the long wait! With Work and various projects that needed to be done before winter settles in, I had very little time to get to my writing.


CHAPTER 6

Dinah awoke to a splitting headache. It took a few minutes for her thoughts to become unscrambled. “Ow!” she moaned as she sat up. She remembered following Huntress into this abandoned hospital and then… and then… What happened after that?

“It’s about time you woke up! You want to come and untie me now?” Huntress said, tied to her wooden chair.

It all came flooding back to her when she saw Huntress tied up. She was tricked by another shape shifter. The fact that there could be a second shape shifter, like Raven, caused her to drop her guard just long enough to get her knocked out. Seeing the aggravated look on Huntress’ face, she decided to think about that later and go free her. She stood up and approached her partner, but then stepped back when another thought flashed across her mind. What if this is another trap?

“Well, what are you waiting for? Are you going to untie me or not?”

“How do I know you‘re for real?” Dinah said suspiciously.

“Did that blow knock a few screws loose or something? Get me out of this chair... NOW!”

That sure sounded like the real Huntress, but how was she to be certain that it was not another trap? These shape shifters have twisted their minds and sewed seeds of distrust in them. Logically speaking, why would another trap? What would be the benefit? They’ve already tricked her once; why push their luck a second time?

Deciding that she had no other choice but to risk it, she cautiously stepped toward The Huntress’ right wrist. She touched her bare, and instantly she was sucked into the Huntress’ mind. Watching everything in black and white, she saw all the events that transpired over the past year. She could also sense her disdain for Dinah’s tendency to borrow some of her clothes. There was more than enough here to confirm that this was the real Huntress.

When she released her wrist, it was like being sucked through a wormhole, out of a world of black-and-white and into a world of Technicolor. She was back in the old apartment, standing besides Huntress tied to her chair. She immediately commenced freeing her. “I’m so sorry, Huntress. Things haven’t been going very well for us since you disappeared.”

Huntress grunted. When she was finally free, she stood up and rubbed her wrists. “Well, I’m going to put an end to this right now!”

Huntress took a step for the window when Dinah nearly leaped in front of her, blocking her path out. “Hold on a minute. I think the situation is a little more complicated than you think. I believe there may be TWO shape shifters who’s been playing us.”

“What are you talking about?” Helena replied. “You know, as well as I do, that no two Meta’s can share the same power.”

Dinah shrugged. “I can’t explain it either, but I don’t think it was Raven who did this to us. Raven has taken over the Clock Tower.”

“What!” Huntress was taken aback by this news. The nightmarish memories of their ordeal with Harley Quinn came rushing back to her. How was it possible that it was all happening again? To make things worse, it was once again her fault. “And Oracle?”

“I don’t know. I came looking for you because we need to take back our home again!”

Huntress was not exactly thrilled to return to the Clock Tower, but neither was she thrilled that it had been taken over, especially when it was her fault. If she hadn’t quit the team the way she did, the Clock Tower would not have been attacked, or she could have responded quickly to stop it. If what Dinah said was true, then Barbara was especially in trouble. “Okay, let’s go get our home back!”


* * * *

Detective Reese was getting close to finding the area of New Gotham Dinah was last located until he got a call from Commissioner O’Reiley that it was imperative that he returned to headquarters, IMMEDEATLY. As much as he hated calling of his search for Dinah and Helena, he didn’t dare go against the new police commissioner; he could tell that his job depended on his compliance.

When he entered the building, it was much more lively then it was just a few hours ago. He was on his way to see the commissioner, and he noticed that other detectives were giving him the stink-eye. Each and every person he past gave him that look of disapproval.

By the time he reached the office, all the looks he had been given told him that this meeting was not going to be as pleasant as the first one. Entering the office, the look on the commissioner’s face, when he looked up at him, confirmed his fears. “Commissioner, what’s going on?”

“It’s taking every ounce of self control I have right now, just to keep myself from ordering you to hand over you badge and your gun. If you even think about playing games with me right now, I advise you not to. I demand to know the location of the Huntress’ hide out, immediately!”

“I don’t know where it is,” Reese responded, knowing that the time for being open with him about just how close he was to Helena and the others had already run its course. “They abandoned their old hide out and I’m not close enough to them for them to disclose the location of their new hideout. What’s going on here?”

“You expect me to believe that? Rumors are floating around this place that you’re dating her.”

“Yeah, if you listen to the gossip of an idiot like Boroughson, you might think that,” Reese growled. “Granted, I may be close to her, but there’s still things she doesn’t or won’t share with me. You tell me, does that sound like a healthy relationship to you? Now, will someone tell me what’s going on?”

“Do you know her current location? If you do, you need to tell me right now?”

“That’s a good question,” he replied. “She’s gone missing, and I have no idea where she is.” Reese was starting to get frustrated. He was being grilled as if he was an accomplice to a crime.

“Now that, I DO believe,” the Commissioner replied. “I’ve put out a warrant for the Huntress’ arrest. She killed two police officers, put Boroghson into the hospital and assaulted me.”

Reese was expecting something was amiss, but he wasn’t ready for anything like this. “That’s impossible! Huntress would never do that.”

“Believe it, detective Reese. The Huntress has gone rogue, and I’m not going to rest until I bring her in.”

Reese knew he had to tread lightly, but if there was a chance to get some heat off of Helena, he had to take it. Perhaps there was a chance he could by her time until Oracle could figure out what’s been going on. “Commissioner, I think you should be aware that before the Huntress disappeared, I was helping her investigate a meta-human criminal who appears to be a shape shifter. It may be possible that it was this shape shifter pretending to be the Huntress. As you know, this city is not your typical run-of-the mill city.”

“How very convenient for you,” he replied snidely. “Do you have any evidence, whatsoever, to prove that crazy theory of yours?”

Reese cringed. “Not yet, I’m working on it.”

The commissioner placed both palms onto his desk and leaned downward, bowing his head as he contemplated this new information he was receiving. From the look on his face, Reese suspected that he wasn’t completely sold on this idea. “Do you realize how crazy that sounds?”

“Sir, since I came to New Gotham, I’ve never seen anything else but the crazy! I was attacked by a man who can turn himself into water, and don’t get me started on the goon name Clay Face.”

After another minute of contemplating, the Commissioner stood up straight. “Until you can provide hard evidence proving what you say, the warrant for her arrest stands. If I, or anyone in this precinct finds her, she will be immediately incarcerated. Until you have proven her innocence, if you are contacted by her, you are to report it to me or you will face prison time yourself for harboring a fugitive. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Reese conceded. Life had just gotten much more complicated.

* * * *

The elevator door slid open and there was Barbra installing something near the entrance to the hide out. Dinah was overcome with relief to see her alive and well, and was ready to run and give her a hug around her neck. When Barbra saw both Dinah and Helena enter the Clock Tower, she stopped what she was doing. “Dinah, Helena, thank God you’re alright.”

“Wait, how do we know that it’s really you?” Dinah responded suspiciously. “Last I heard, the Clock Tower was under Raven’s control.”

Barbara took her glasses off and put them into a compartment in her wheelchair so they didn’t get damaged. She had no doubt that Dinah and Helena were real just by them coming in together. As far as she knew, it was impossible for any form of shape shifter to take the shape of two different people at the same time. After everything that’s happened, she couldn’t blame either one of them for being suspicious of her. Raven had done everything in her powers to try to sow distrust amongst them. That was why she rushed her production of her new security system.

Barbara reached out her bare are with her palm faced upward. “Go ahead and read my thoughts.”

After her recent experience, Dinah was very hesitant to hold her hand to read her thoughts. Last time, it got her knocked out. She wasn’t really all that interested in going through that again. She looked over at Helena with inquisitive, clearly asking for her opinion on what she should do. “Don’t worry; if she tries anything, I’ll be all over her.”

Assured that she had someone to watch her back, she reached for Barbara’s hand and grabbed hold. As she entered Barbara’s mind, Helena stood ready to attack at the first sign of trouble. A part of her hoped that this was Raven so should pounce on her. She was itching for another shot at Raven. After a minute of intense silence, Dinah released Barbara’s hand. “She’s for real.”

“Are you two alright?” Barbara asked, leaning back in her wheelchair. She was talking to both of them, but her eyes were focused on Helena. Helena was not much for emotional mush. She doubted that Helena was in the mood to talk about her quitting the team. Getting her to talk about it would only push her farther away.

“Yeah, we’ve been a little tied up,” Dinah replied.

She was about to tell Barbara about the current situation when Helena beat her with an off-topic question. “What are you working on now?”

“I’m making upgrades to the Clock Tower’s security system. In particular, I’m adding a biometric scanner that will recognize us by our hand prints. This should keep any unwanted guest, including Raven, out of here. As you probably can tell, I had a little encounter with Raven.” She referred to the bandage patch on her forehead.

“Uh, talking about which, I think the situation is more complicated than we first thought.” Dinah said. “At the exact same time Raven was here with you, another shape shifter, with the appearance of Raven, ambushed the both of us.”

Barbara was taken aback by the news. “That’s impossible, unless... there’s two of them.”

“That’s what I thought, but how can there be two of them?”

Before Barbara had time to speculate; the elevator doors re-opened and Detective Reese stood frozen inside the elevator. He saw Helena, and was momentarily stunned as well as relieved. He was so happy to see Helena that he was ready to run to her, but stopped when she saw all three women posed ready to strike. It was then he remembered about the situation they were in and the new security that was being placed.

He quickly stepped towards the makeshift touch screen that Barbara was working on and place a hand on the pad. The pad scanned his hand an automated voice echoed through the room. IDENTITY CONFIRMED: DETECTIVE JESSE REESE.

Dinah looked around to see where the computer animated voice came from, but could not see where the speakers were. “Well, that’s just plain creepy.”

Reese rushed right over to Helena, now that he had proven his identity. “Helena, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Helena said firmly, not looking at him. There was still plenty of anger inside of her, not to mention that she HATED being fussed with.

Feeling the sting of his rejected show of concern, he awkwardly tried to change course. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Not much, unless you count the discovery of a possible second crazed meta-human shape shifter running around New Gotham.”

“A second shape shifter? But I thought...”

Barbara raised a hand to stop him from asking the same thing they’ve already asked themselves once too many times. “That’s not confirmed yet, and if it’s true, there has to be some logical explanation behind it.”

“Well, I believe that there’s definitely some truth to there being more than one shape shifting meta-humans. One of them paid my boss a visit and killed two officers and put another detective into the hospital, pretending to be you,” Reese announced, looking towards Helena.

Helena’s first reaction was that of utter shock. After the announcement had time to sink in, she realized what it meant, and quickly grew angry. “She is really starting to tick me off.”

“The Commissioner has put out a warrant for your arrest. We need to find this Raven character before they find you and before I lose my job for aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

Everything continued to move at whirlwind pace, and Barbara couldn’t process everything at this pace. She knew that she was missing something vital, but she just couldn’t slow this information down to process it. “Alright, for now, we’ll have to go back to the way the things were; working at night in stealth mode and everything.” She looked over at Helena. “That is, if you’re planning on staying. All I’m asking is that you be patient and let me try to figure out her game plan, so we can plan a counter strike. We need to work together to stop this before it gets any worse.”

Helena was clearly not happy about waiting around, but even she had to see that going alone only made things worse for everyone. With a possibility of there being two shape shifters, she had no choice but to allow Barbara to do her job. “Fine. I’ll stick around, for now.”

 

The Next chapter is coming soon. It's taking a long time because it's a very long chapter, it's about 2 and half chapters worth. I could not shorten it without the chapter becoming too short.

 

CHAPTER 7

When Alfred entered the clock tower, he could not help but sense the tension in the air, at least, more than what was usual. Like always, Helena Kyle appeared to be climbing the walls as if she was in some kind of lock down. Dinah was lounging around, bored to tears. Detective Reese was not in the building; it appeared his job was only allowing him to make brief, periodical appearances. Barbara was so concentrated in her work that an earthquake could rattle the building and she probably wouldn’t even know it. It became even more apparent when he walked up to her wheelchair and she didn’t even acknowledge his presence.

He cleared his throat, to try to get her attention, but she didn’t respond. Her fingers were like a blur over the keyboard and her eyes were bobbing back and forth speed reading through hundreds of files. He grunted again, even louder. This time, even Helena and Dinah were made aware of his presence. Barbara flinched in her wheelchair and finally looked up at him. “Alfred, you startled me.”

“That is the point of trying to get your attention, however if you were any more entranced in your work, I might have had to resort to more drastic measures like blowing a trumpet in your ear.”

“Sorry about that. Did you need something?”

He pulled out a compact disk and handed it to her. “I think you would find this information very interesting.”

Barbara didn’t know what to expect, but she knew Alfred well enough to know that whatever was on the disk had to be important. It wasn’t often that he overstepped into her line of work, but when he did, the information he brought to her often opened her eyes to things she failed to see. She put the disk into her computer and went to work opening the digital files.

It didn’t take her long to recognize these files and where they came from. “These files... they’re from the Bat-computer! I may have the second most advanced computer system in the world, but that’s one system I can never hack into. I didn’t know you still had access to that content.”

“Indeed, Master Bruce has always been very protective of the information contained on the Bat-Computer. As for having access to it... well, Master Bruce had left the Mansion to me for care taking. That includes all things in the Mansion and below it.”

“You mean all these years, you’ve had access to the Bat-computer and you haven’t told me until now!”

“I do beg your indulgence, even I have very limited to access to the contents on that system. It took a lot of work just to get permission from Master Bruce to access these files just this once.”

Even more shocking than knowing Alfred had access to the Bat-Computer was that statement right there. He probably assumed that she was so focused on these files that she wouldn’t pick up on this last bit of thrown-in information. Barbara looked towards Helena whose interest peeked towards their direction, but Barbara was sure that she was still too far away to have heard Alfred. She had to lower her voice so Helena would not hear her. “Wait a minute... you know where Bruce is?”

“His location, even I don’t know, but I do have a constant line to him. He’s quite interested in knowing how his daughter is doing filling his shoes.”

As Helena, and now Dinah, continued to make their way towards them, they had no more time to discuss this here and now. This was definitely something she wanted to talk to him about further when they were alone. “I think it would be a good idea that we didn’t tell Helena this right now. “

“Agreed,” Alfred whispered back.

“Have you gotten something?” Helena asked as she and Dinah.

“Well, not a location, but a little more clarity on the situation,” Barbara responded, motioning everyone to gather around the monitor. “It appears our friend, Raven, wasn’t telling the truth when she gave you her name. These are records of a meta-human superhero named Raven. Very little is known about her history, and she disappeared just as quickly as she appeared on the scene. For a few years, she helped out of the Justice Leagues junior division who called themselves Teen Titans. After that she disappeared for awhile and reappeared when she was a young woman. She helped the Justice League twice before disappearing again, and has not been seen since. She had no powers of shape shifting.”

“So why give us a false alias anyway?” Dinah asked. “How does that help her or hurt us any?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” she replied, removing her plastic framed glasses from her face. “I think she’s playing a game with us. I suspected that she’s been toying with us because with each encounter, she’s been very free with information. She’s challenging us to find her, and everything she’s been saying is a clue, including throwing out the name Raven. She wants us to know that she knows who we are and everything about us. She wants us to know that she has access to all information about us dating back all the way back to the days of Batman.”

Upon hearing about her father, Helena’s posture shifted slightly. “She knows I’m his daughter.”

“I think that would be a safe bet, yes,” Barbara replied. “She’s been mocking us because she thinks we can’t touch her. She’s clearly making a statement that she thinks she knows everything about us, and based on how often she’s been able to get the jump on us, there may be some truth to it.”

“If there’s more than one shape shifter, we may be dealing with a shadowy organization or something,” Helena commented, trying to put the puzzle together in her mind. “Some kind of evil think tank. It’s the only way they could have this information on us.”

Barbara shook her head. “Not necessarily a think tank, but I’m beginning to think we didn’t deliver the death blow to organized crime in New Gotham like we thought.”

Dinah shook her head. “You don’t think Dr. Quinzel hired these shape shifters, do you?”

Upon hearing her name, she started screaming, wanting to kick herself. “I can’t believe how stupid I am!” Whether she wanted it or not, all the eyes in the room were quickly drawn towards her. After sulking in disgust of herself for a minute, she felt those eyes on her, and she knew that she had to explain. “She virtually admitted it when I visited her in Arkham.”

“Wait, you visited Harley Quinn?” Barbara gave her a look that clearly stated that she wasn’t happy about hearing this now.

“Yeah. She didn’t say anything that made me think that she knew about Raven, or whatever her name is, but did say that our nightmare was just starting.”
“It makes perfect sense! She had to have hired these two shape shifters. Who else knows this much about Batman, you, and this team!” Dinah replied.

“I wouldn’t put too much stock in what Harley Quinn says,” Barbara replied. “She’s as crazy as her boyfriend was, but we shouldn’t rule her out, completely. We now know for a fact that the criminal underworld is still thriving, so either Harley Quinn still has influence... or we have a new crime lord trying to stake a claim.”

“All that’s very bad and all that, but where do I find Raven, and how do I stop her?” Barbara’s silence was all the answer she needed; they were still no closer to finding Raven. “Okay, sticking around here is getting nothing accomplished. Let’s go.”

Helena tugged on Dinah to follow her. Barbara sighed, frustrated that they were back to this again. “Helena!”

“I’m not going to do something stupid! I’m going—we’re going—to No Man’s Land.”

Hearing that they were going there even surprised Dinah, who’s eyebrows raised. “Wow, she really is climbing the walls, isn’t she?”

* * * *

To anyone who walked by, No Man’s Land looked like nothing more than a simple antique shop. But if you were a Meta-Human, you would know of a secret elevator that would take you to the lower level. That was where the real No Man’s Land was. It was a small little nightclub for Meta-Humans only. It was a place where they could escape from the harshness of the real world, at least for a little while. With a pool table, a dart board, and a cute little bar that served alcoholic beverages to adults and elaborate specialty juices for the under-aged crowds.

As they rode the old wooden freight elevator down, Dinah could sense the uneasiness in Helena. It took everything she had not to laugh. Helena didn’t mind the club; it was the owner that made her uncomfortable. He was the outgoing and outspoken nerd that cramped a cool girl’s style. Dinah always enjoyed watching Helena squirm every time she and Gibson were in the same room. This was going to be no different.

As they reached the bottom, the outer door opened and Helena pulled up the inner gate. Gibson, who was drying a glass mug, noticed the two of them entering the club and there was no hiding the delight in his energetic eyes. He put the mug away and threw the towel onto the bar before running over to greet the two of them... well, mostly Helena. “If it isn’t my favorite protector of New Gotham: the delectable and gorgeous Helena Kyle! So what brings you to No Man’s Land, today? Perhaps, you’ve finally unlocked that door to your unbridled emotions to finally confess your love for me?”

Helena’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the human computer; how many times have you asked me out since we’ve known each other?”

“At last count: one thousands, nine hundred, and seventy-nine. This would make one thousand, nine hundred, and eighty.”

“And how many times have I accepted that invitation?”

Gibson’s eyes lit up brightly with hope. “Actually, there was this one time...”

“Not including the time we went undercover at my high school reunion to catch the stalker who was killing my former classmates who had crushes on me.”

That hope that was kindled was now completely extinguished. “None.”

“Wow, two thousand rejections... that has to be some kind of record,” Dinah grinned.

“A record that is never going to be broken,” Helena added. “You know I’m in a stable—ish—relationship with a police officer.”

Gibson shrugged. “And I’m determined to prove myself as more –compatible—alternative... one of these days.”

“Hey, Gibs, what’s the deal? You’re gonna’ leave me alone to run the bar? What if...” a young curly haired brunet started to scold him from across the counter, but she stopped when she saw Helena and Dinah. “O-M-G, it’s really you guys! I thought he was pulling my leg, but here you are, The Huntress and the daughter of the Black Canary!”

Helena and Dinah looked at each other in bewilderment and then looked over at the girl who was welcoming herself into the conversation. Neither of the girls knew if they should be concerned about being identified by someone who could be a crazed fan, or a threat. This strange girl, apparently a worker for Gibson, tossed her towel to the side to join the three of them as if they had invited her. Gibson let out a sigh, acting like a kid who had been caught swiping a cooking from the cookie jar. “Helena, Dinah, this is my cousin, Sister.”

“Sister!” Both women gasped simultaneously.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you two!” She said, little more serious than the bubbly outburst she expresses seconds ago.

After politely shaking her hand, Dinah put on a playful ‘annoyance’ look on her face as she stared Gibson down. “You never said you had a sister!”

Now, it was Danielle’s turn to give him an annoyed look. “You can remember your days in our mom’s womb! So you have no excuse for this!”

Gibson sighed. “Yet, another curse in having an eternal memory.”

“Eternal memory?” Helena raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, cut me some slack. You women have awesome powers. Super agility, telekinesis, telepathy, Canary Cry... Eternal memory at least makes my powers seem a little more interesting.”

“So you’re a meta, too?” Dinah asked Danielle. “What can you do?”

“I don’t think there’s a cool name for it like everything my brother just mentioned, but I guess you can say that I’m like a human lie detector. I can hear other people’s heart beats.” When Dinah showed a look of confusion, she further explained. “When someone lies, their heart beat flutters and speeds up for a split second. I can pretty much read any emotion on anybody by the speed of their heart beat.”

“Some Metas have all the good powers,” Gibson grumbled.
“That’s cool!” Dinah said excitedly. “How close does the person have to be?”

“I haven’t really tested my limits, but if I focus, I can sense the heartbeats in the next shop over.”

Helena had to admit that her powers were kind of impressive, but she was better at showing it than Dinah was. Besides, this small talk was starting to get on her nerves. She wanted to do what she came to do and then get out of there. Gibson also appeared to be more than interested in changing the subject. “So, what can we do for you guys?

“Have either of you two ran into a shape shifting meta-human who calls herself Raven?”

The look on Gibson’s face told Helena that he had something coming to his mind. Unfortunately, it was the same information that they already had. “There was a young heroine who called herself Raven years back. She had some kind of black magic powers, but she wasn’t a shape shifter, and she hasn’t been seen in many years either. The strange thing is: she never really thought of herself as a Meta-human.”

“Unfortunately, we already know all that. We have a pair of shape shifters terrorizing New Gotham. One of them is using Raven as an alias. They are responsible for killing police officers and for some reason, are targeting me. They have the police looking for me as the prime suspect for the murders of those officers.”

A middle aged Meta woman entered the bar and as she walked past Helena, she inadvertently bumped into her. She continued to walk on by as if she wasn’t even there. That only infuriated Helena even more. “Excuse me! I think...”

Before anyone knew what was going on, Helena received and spin kick in the face by this unusually limber middle aged woman. Before Dinah could react, she found herself being shoved violently into the billiards table, startling the two young men who were in the middle of a game. They were quick to drop their sticks and back away. Gibson and Danielle quickly backed away out of harm before the attacker could think about coming after them.

The middle aged Meta women began to take a different form, and within seconds, Raven was standing there in her place. “I’m seriously impressed; you’ve been doing your homework. I thought I was going to have to dumb things down a bit so your limited intellects could keep up.”

Helena returned to her feet, and wiped the blood from her lip. “You’ve just made a very bad mistake coming here. This time, you’ve got two of us to worry about this time.”

“You crack me up,” Raven laughed. “You think that the two of you are a match for me. Both of your skills are embarrassingly lacking. Me, I’ve been trained by the League of Shadows. Of course, they kicked me out because they found my skills and my methods... extreme.”

“League of what?” Dinah asked.

“Or perhaps they kicked you out because you‘re not as good as you think you are.” Huntress gave her no time to respond. Her pupils dilated into a cat-like, moon-slit shape before returning to normal. That was her call to her Meta powers to come to the foreground. There was no holding back with the likes of Raven as her adversary. She would need every ounce of power she had if she wanted to take her down.

Now in full Huntress form, she came charging in with a hard jab towards Raven’s nose. She blocked it with relative ease and the two women found themselves in a rapid sparring match, blocking the other’s punch or swing while trying to deliver one of their own.

From the corner of her eye, Raven saw young Dinah getting ready to join in the battle. Interrupting their little hand-to-hand sparring, Raven surprised her with a well placed kick and jab which caused her to flip in mid air before landing on her back.

“Try this on for size!” Dinah said, taking a step towards Raven. With a flick of her wrist, a blue haze shot towards Raven. She managed to dodge most of it, but it did manage to find her right shoulder, and an invisible force shoved her backwards as a result. Dinah continued throwing her telekinetic clouds in rapid sessions. Raven leaped, flipped, twirled nimbly around each haze with swift and graceful agility until she was in striking distance of Dinah. The fight continued in hand-to-hand combat now that she was too close for Dinah to hit her with her telekinesis.

Calling upon everything Helena had taught her during their training sessions, she stood her ground against everything Raven threw at her. Instead of blocking one of her swings, she dodged it. It was an easy enough attack to block, but it was calculated move to distract Raven from what she was about to do. As she dodged the swing, she reached behind her. One of the cue sticks lying on the billiards table flew into her hand. As she stood up straight, she brought up the rubber end of the cue stick and struck Raven across the face. While she was stunned, Dinah took the time to use her cue stick to shove Raven back a few step to give her some breathing room.

Raven stumbled backwards upon being shoved, and she glared at the young heroine for a few seconds before displaying a grin. Dinah could sense that Raven was getting ready to launch an even greater assault, so she twirled the cue stick in front of her for a several rotations before stopping it with her other hand so she held it horizontally across her chest. Raven didn’t hesitate to snap her right first forward; upon the impact of her knuckles, the cue stick snapped in two as it if was nothing more than a twig. Of course, the small trickle of blood on her knuckles proved otherwise.

Trained to ignore pain, Raven did just that and commenced attacking the stunned Dinah. With a kick to the gut, she knocked the wind out of her. When that forced her to keel forward, she attacked with a violent uppercut when sent her through a table and a couple of stools which all shattered.

“My bar!” Gibson cried. Danielle was quick to jab him in the shoulder for caring more about his bar at that moment.

Raven returned her focus back on Huntress just as she returned to the fight. They quickly found themselves back in another sparring session, but this time adding occasional kicks. Huntress was the first to break the rhythm and formation to try to surprise her with a kick to the back of her legs. However, she saw it coming and Raven back flipped over the kick to land on the table top of the billiards table. With a smile on her face, she clearly though she had found the high ground.

The Huntress was not willing to concede the high ground; all she had to do was bring her back down to her level. She ran towards the billiards table, and Raven was ready for her to join her on top to continue the fight... but that never happened. Instead, she slid beneath the table, as she neared the rear right leg of the table. Before sliding past it, she used as much of her Meta powers as she could and punched the leg, ripping it off the table. She slid past the table just in time to avoid it collapsing on top of her. Gravity quickly became Raven’s enemy and she found herself rolling off the table to land on her back.

“Oh man, my pool table!” Gibson moaned.

Huntress hoped to pin Raven to the ground by leaping on top of her, but she quickly rolled away to avoid her. With a strange maneuver, Raven had positioned herself and commenced sweeping Helena off her feet while still on the ground, herself. Raven quickly jumped to her feet, and in her right hand, she held half of the cue stick that had been snapped in half. On one side was the rubber handle, but at the snapped end, there was a long jagged and pointed splinter-spear.

She raised it above her head in order to stab the Huntress in the heart. With Dinah still staggering after going through a table, Raven had her best chance to bring an end to the main threat, and she was ready to take this opportunity.

“Hey!”

Before Raven could respond to see who was shouting at her, a foot came crashing into her wrist, forcing her to drop the broken cue stick to the ground. Raven growled as she turned to find Danielle standing in front of her. Gibson, realized at the same time that his sister had just jumped into the fight. He was just as surprised as Raven was; he had no idea she even learned to fight.

Raven didn’t know who she was, and frankly, she didn’t really care; the fact that she even touched her was grounds for an immediate and brutal response. She went right for the bridge of Danielle’s nose with a speedy jab, but she also showed great speed and leaned to the right to avoid the jab. At the same time, she grabbed her wrist so she could not pull it back. Putting her full weight on her left leg, she raised her right and kicked Raven across the face.

Danielle did not end her assault there. When she returned her leg back to the ground, she stomped on the rubber end of a whole cue stick, which shot up into her hands. She caught it as Raven lunged towards her with swipe of her first. She swatted her arm away with the swing of the cue stick. Raven let out a yelp as she cradled her arm which stung from the impact.

Danielle continued to take advantage of the distraction and knelt down as low as she could and swung the cue stick for the back of Raven’s left knee cap. The cue stick got hooked and she pulled as hard as she could to pull Raven off her feet. It worked as a charm as she fell, back first, to the ground. Danielle quickly returned to her feet and pointed the narrow end of the stick in front of her face.

Huntress and Dinah were now on their feet, and if their jaws were any lower, they would be dragging on the floor. They, as well as Gibson, were in utter shock, at the turn of events. Raven looked up at the end of the cue stick being stuck in face and grinned. “Wow, I must admit that I’m surprised, and slightly embarrassed: handled by a seemingly simple bartender. Girl, you just got yourself involved with something you don’t want to be involved in. “

Danielle shrugged. “I’m not the one looking up the end of a pool stick.”

Despite her situation, Raven appeared as calm as ever. It was as if she didn’t know that she was as good as pinned to the ground, with no way of escape. Danielle could also hear her heartbeat, and it was beating normally for someone who’s been in a fight. That is what concerned her the most; that was what told her that Raven was up to something.

Before she could do anything to make sure she didn’t escape, gray smoke shot up and engulfed the shape shifter. It was some kind of smoke pellet, and Danielle had failed to see it. She quickly swung the cue stick, hoping to get a part of her before she could vanish, but all she hit was air. When the smoke settled, she was gone and nowhere to be seen. Huntress and Dinah looked around for a second, and ended their search at the freight elevator which was still there. “That’s the only way out? How did she disappear like that?”

 

Yeah, we found out at the series finally that he did have contact with Bruce, because in the final few seconds, he was on the phone with him. From there, I figured Bruce was the type of guy to tell Alfred where he was, but would keep in touch. After all, he's curious to know how his daughter is doing. I figured this season should continue that.

 

I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to put this story on the back burner so I can focus on the Frozen fan fiction. That story is really burning in me to get out.