New Gotham was nothing like I remembered or imagined it to be. In my subconscious the lights of the city were spread across the night sky like thousands of tiny stars, burning brightly against a black void. A canvas that had been imprinted upon by the Gods of the city and marked by the age of the superhero that had passed long before my childhood had met its bitter and brutal ending. Before the wandering child had been forced to find somewhere to ground herself and settle. My head would have never chosen Gotham. But that fatal Havana night had decided that for me: my heart had to follow the finite expression of the feline fatale. This was a temporary arrangement until I was sure I was no longer being followed by the shadows of my parents past. No matter what shape they took, every one of them was as dangerous and ravenous for revenge as the other. Gotham could hide me in her blundering brightness for a while. Cancel out the shape of the vampire that haunted and hunted me alike. The sound of the monorail slicing through the air at an unnatural speed drove through my conscious state. Pondering upon the recent past had left me to let my guard down. Vulnerable to the vicious needs for vandalism and violence and not to mention the stupidity of the occupants of the carriage. To them, like many before them, I was a little girl. Alone and scared and unprotected. Easy pickings. Ready to be mugged or fought or in some cases much worse. Not one of them was aware of my secret.
Impressions of the past were scarred all over the city and its subdivisions. Some ran deep into the culture of children who had no idea what it was they were trying to remember. The lunacy that their ludicrous minds clung to in the search for meaning in their lives was sad in a way, downright pathetic in many others. Just on lone asshole clambered into the metal container. The crass black and red of his contrasting costume and overzealous face paint made me smirk from underneath the purple baseball cap on my head. I continued to read the words on the page in front of me. Perhaps the adventures of Cathy and Heathcliff would make sure I was lost in the world of the distant moors and eras of time gone by. Part of me wanted him to sit down and make himself known to me and he did. Big, maybe too big and I always could remember that old saying that would often pass mothers lips.
"I saw that little smirk..." his voice was indeed irritating and uncalled for in the solitude I had found in those pages before me. "Pay up kid, or it will get ugly." His arm draped over that leather clad shoulder of mine and I took a moment to count to ten. Count to ten and not lose my temper or maim him just for his inability to breathe through his nose.
"I somehow don't think so." The words trailed from my tongue, the purr was just an instantaneous habit that occurred when I felt threatened or cornered, it would soon change. When one set of parental skills didn't work the other usually crept in behind them to back the other up. Like I said, history left scars. Not just on the city but also on its occupants. "I think you should most probably leave, like, ten seconds ago dreg."
"Dreg? I'm a joker you little brat. The highest clown in Gotham." There it was, the rise of annoyance when a person is bettered by one of its superiors. "Now pay up princess!" he was on his all to clumsy feet as fast as his doughy figure would allow. Again, those eyes rolled, I couldn't help myself. Taking a fast grip onto the bar above my head and the strength of those little girl arms, swinging, those feet of my connected with his face. Knocking him hard and backward across the carriage with a force that only a few people in the world could match.
"You know what they say..." oh the original parent was ready to play and nothing would hold her back on any occasion, not matter how hard the second nature tried to force her into his cage. "The bigger they are..." My body was looming over his, the fine dark hair on the back of my slender neck stood up under that blonde wig. "...the more noise they make when they fall..." elongated nails grew, only to have a little fun with a tic tack toe his cartoon like face, leaving him with nice wounds to clean when he ran home to mommy. The doors sprung open, those feline shaped eyes couldn't have reacted quicker. As the BPD came in one door, I was out of the other, book and backpack in hand, calmly walking through the crowds of the Dixon station, many making their way from Bludhaven to Gotham on their daily commute. Mine had been cut short. So Plan D would have to make do to the Plan B I had set in mind.
'Always have prep time, or just prepare to fail.' The voice from my past whispered as I caught sight of blue eyes and the blood on my face in the polluted mirror before me. That wasn't me back there. I should never use the monster to take care of business. But at the age of fifteen, I had no idea what on earth I was doing. How to control something I had come to rely upon when I was afraid or just wanted to fool around with the victim. Either way, it wasn't always as stable as I wanted it to be. Nor should she be. I got extremely lucky this time. Mostly, up until now, I managed to get away with it. The older I grew the stronger the urge became. The purple cap and the wig were discarded within a nanotech disposal bag, scrubbing them of DNA and forensic material enough for it to be safe to be left in the waste bin of a public bathroom. The last thing that the city needed was to know that this girl was back in her home town. I had to keep a low profile, for now. Those dark waves were let down and the outfit was replaced to blend into the generic and cold style of the once eclectic and vibrant home I had been forced to abandon so many years ago. Still, that leather jacket would never leave my side as long as I lived. It was mine to keep. One of the last parts of a legacy that ended so brutally with my childhood in Cuba.