Brave... Part 1: How Things Work

Note: This is an alternate history kind of story. It's got all the same characters, it still happens in Manhattan at around the same time, but past events for the characters are fairly different, and a few other things are too. Elisa's still a detective for instance, and so is Matt Bluestone, but they aren't partners in this story. And Demona's been going by Dominique Destine and been able to become human when she wants for several years by the time the story begins (read on to find out how that happened). A few of the characters have different names too. Coldstone is Vercinix, Coldfire is Mendela (and yes, bonus points do go to those of you out there who recognized those names from Xena: Warrior Princess ^_^;), and Bronx is Aslan (because Leo and Una's daughter named him that).

Also note that this is mostly a F/F (femslash) story, but there are also some M/M and F/M couples featured at times. Some of the other couples you'll see in this story are Leo and Una, Griff and Vercinix [Coldstone], Fox and Banshee [who goes by Wen], and David Xanatos and Raven (one of the children of Oberon).

It was a Wednesday late in June, 1995. In Manhattan, New York, the night was mild and balmy with a clear sky above her. The moon was full, and Detective Elisa Maza, NYPD, had a lot on her mind as she drove home that night in her red 1957 Ford Fairlane convertible. She'd just come off investigating a murder in the uptown financial district. It was obvious the victim had been a money launderer, obvious to her at least that he'd also been working for Tony Dracon, a local mob boss who thought he was above the law. Trouble was, so far anyway, he was right about that. Unless she got very lucky, there was no way she'd be able to tie him to this, if he was even the one who called for the hit. For all she knew right now, Dracon might not have been her victim's only client, or it could even have been a rival of Dracon's trying to cripple his cash flow (if so, then there would probably be more crime scenes like this popping up before the week was out).

Regardless of who had bankrolled it though, whoever pulled the trigger had been a pro, no question. Single gunshot to the back, cameras caught nothing, no witnesses and no evidence except the bullet itself. She'd spent hours trying to find something—sent uniforms out to canvass the area, talked to everyone who she thought might have seen anything. Nothing. The ballistics would be back tomorrow, but that would probably be a dead end without the murder weapon to match it too. In short, she was feeling like she'd wasted an afternoon. She'd become a cop because she came from a family of cops, sure, but she'd also done it because she believed in what she was doing—in things like justice, a civil community, right and wrong, protecting people. The reality was though, you had to work hard for those things, and, from her perspective, it seemed like you only ever got them half the time.

All of which meant that she was definitely in the mood to go home, get something to eat (she was in the mood for pancakes for some reason, even though it was past dinner time), then curl up on the couch with her cat and watch TV or read a book for a while. Get a little lost in someone's imaginary world where the heroes always won in the end, the bad guys always ended up in jail, little boys didn't lose their dads, and happily ever after was just a clever plot twist away.

That's what was weighing on her most, really. The man who was shot? The money launderer? He'd also been a single father who'd lost his wife in a car accident two years ago. He had a five year old son. The man's girlfriend had brought him with her when she'd come down to the office building after getting the call from the police. The little boy had been quiet as a church mouse, wouldn't meet anyone's eyes for more than a second. Sure, his dad had all but certainly been a crook, but his son hadn't done anything and he'd had to live through losing both his mom and his dad. She wondered if Tony Dracon had even hesitated a little bit because of that, or if he'd even cared at all. He probably hadn't. People like that rarely did.

She was a little distracted with her thoughts, running the case over in her head again, when she stopped at a red light. It was a one lane road, a little after twelve o'clock at night. Her window was down and there weren't too many cars around at this hour. The moon was right straight ahead of her. She found herself looking at it while she waited, then she heard a crash and a body fell with crushing force onto a parked car across the street in her field of vision. "Holy..." She couldn't quite believe she'd seen that, but she got out of her car anyway. The light turned green and the one car behind her honked.

"Police!" She yelled at the driver of the car. "Knock it off!" She looked up at the building above where the body had fallen from. There weren't any lights on up there, but she heard sounds of a struggle and saw a flash of something through the window on the top floor. She hurried back into her car, shifted it into drive, and hit the gas hard, jerking the car forward and making an illegal turn to park by the curb in a red zone across the street by the building where the disturbance was happening. She checked her sidearm under her jacket, grabbed her assault rifle and a crowbar from her trunk, then headed for the building. The building had a coffee shop/bistro on the bottom floor, closed for the night. The top floors looked like offices. The door to the stairs was locked of course, so she had to use the crowbar to pop the lock. Luckily the door was weak enough to give from the crowbar and she wouldn't need to resort to more drastic means to gain entry. The department would get a bill for the repairs no doubt, but she had solid probable cause and extenuating circumstances on her side, not to mention it was also obviously the right thing to do if someone needed help up there, so it was an easy call to make.

She rushed up the stairs at a run until she got to the third floor and the offices of Kendrick and Associates—the placard on the wall by the door told her they were lawyers who handled estate planning. The door beside the placard was already broken down though, glass on the floor. She discarded her crowbar and went through, keeping to the shadows and staying quiet while still moving as fast as possible. She heard the sounds of struggle again and something that sounded like growling, but not from any wild animal she'd ever heard before. It kind of made her shiver a little, actually, but she kept going anyway, fleetingly wishing she'd called for backup and not all that sure why she hadn't thought to, other than that she was just tired and in need of sleep. It was a stupid mistake, really, but it was too late to go back now. If she did, whatever was going on in there might be over by the time she made it back, and that could mean someone might end up dead who she could have saved.

There was another crash and a man crying out in pain and more of that unearthly growling. She came to a room with desks and furniture and file cabinets, mostly all strewn about in a state of disarray and ruin. There were men garbed all in black and grays, state of the art body armor and night vision goggles. And there was... this woman, this... creature—human looking, but with wings like a dragon, claws, shadowy light blue skin, and glowing red eyes. Still though, definitely a woman—one dressed in a stylized and formfitting dark blue side-slitted skirt and tank top. The outfit looked sort of like a cross between an evening gown and runner's gear. They had an electrified net over her and were poking her with what looked like... electrified javelins.

It was such an unreal tableau, she couldn't even guess where to begin to reconcile it with reality, really, but whatever this woman was and whatever her attackers thought they were doing, Elisa knew one thing with perfect clarity: it was cruel and it turned her stomach to see it. She couldn't know for sure she was doing the right thing, of course. She knew from experience that things were very often not what they appeared, so the woman could somehow be the bad guy in all of this, she supposed—but really, as a cop, if you see someone getting attacked, you help them and deal with the rest later. You don't stop to ask if the person being beaten and abused started it. You just don't.

She stepped out of the shadows, leveled her assault rifle and shot at one of the javelins. Her shot hit the mark just above one of the black-clad men's hands. He jumped back as shrapnel and sparks came from the destroyed weapon. "NYPD! Drop your weapons, hands on your heads! Now!"

The scene before her seemed to freeze for a moment as everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and looked at her. It didn't last long though. The whatever she was in the net took the opportunity to charge at the man Elisa had disarmed, grab him, and throw him at the others.

Free of the javelins and with more room to move now, the mystery woman struggled with the net over her, trying to get it off.

"Switch to rubber bullets!" One of the armored men shouted the command, rallying the others.

Elisa took aim and shot one of them who was drawing a gun in the shoulder, reset her rifle, took aim and fired at another of the men who was aiming at her, hitting him in the shoulder as well. She ducked to the side and rolled, using her rifle as a club and hitting another of them in the belly with all the considerable force she could leverage behind it. It knocked the wind out of him and made him double over, so she knew she'd hit him at a good angle. She got up and hit him over the head with the butt of her rifle next—hopefully, he'd be out cold.

She looked over and saw the woman with the wings finally get free of the net. Two of the men with those electrified javelins of theirs were advancing on her while another was leveling a gun. Elisa didn't have time to use her own gun, so she charged him with it and used it like a battering ram. He fired just before she crashed into him. Her heart sank a little at the sound, knowing she might have failed and the woman with the wings could be hurt or even dead because she hadn't been fast enough. Even rubber bullets could kill if they hit you in the wrong place. She crashed to the debris-strewn floor on top of the man.

"What sort of crazy are you, lady?" He asked her in disbelief, getting leverage and pushing her off him.

She'd lost her rifle—Elisa heard the sound of it being reset and realized with dread that the man she'd just tackled had it now instead. She looked and saw him leveling the gun at her. Luckily, the way she'd landed, she was able to kick out with her left leg and knock off his aim. She made a desperate tackle for him next, knowing she was too far from cover to do anything else before he could aim the gun at her again. They landed on the floor together with a hard thud. He took the brunt of the impact, but, with that padded body armor of his, she knew she couldn't count on it giving her much of an advantage.

"Get off!" He commanded her in frustration as they struggled for possession of the riffle. He proved stronger than her though, and she didn't have good leverage or a good angle on her hold and he managed to pin her to the ground, the rifle like a crossbeam over her chest holding her down. "That thing's a monster! Can't you see that?" He railed.

"Yeah, well, you'll forgive me if I don't just take your word on that." She disputed. The way he had her pinned though, she knew she might be in real trouble.

"Whatever lady—boss said no witnesses anyway." He began to push the rifle up towards her neck. She had a hold of it too, but had no leverage, was at a bad angle, and he had more upper body strength. Sheer desperation was letting her hold out against him momentarily, but it would only be a second or two before her hold would give out, and she knew it. She'd consider going for the cheap shot and kneeing the guy's groin, much as she didn't like to do that kind of thing if she could help it, but she had to figure with all the body armor he was wearing, he'd have a cup. Plus, her legs weren't free enough for her to try that without him figuring out her intention and probably moving to counter. So there was really only one thing she could think to try. She spit in his eye.

He cursed and his hold faltered as he instinctively reached for his face to wipe the saliva away. She grabbed her wrist and pulled, bashing him in the head with her elbow, next hitting him in the neck with the side of her closed fist on the way back, and then clapping her hands over his ears as hard as she could.

He swore loudly.

She'd done some real damage with those hits, but he'd made it clear her life was in imminent danger from him, so that meant there was no way she was pulling any punches.

She rolled him off her and yanked her gun out of his hands then struck him with it in the head as she had one of the others.

She got up and looked over to see the woman with the wings break one of her attacker's necks and drop him on the floor—the knife she saw falling from the man's hand marking the death clearly as in self-defense, she was relieved to note. All of the armed men were down, though one was still conscious, and she counted one gone, which worried her. The winged woman turned on her, her eyes flashing red. She growled, faint but deeply resonantly from her chest. "Human." She spoke, her voice low and wary.

Her voice startled Elisa and made her shiver a little again. She did also relax a few degrees though, relieved that the woman could at least talk. The elegant yet practical way she was dressed aside, Elisa hadn't been completely sure until now that she hadn't been trying to rescue the equivalent of a wild animal who'd just as soon attack her as the armored mercenaries they'd just fought. By the look in the woman's eyes, she might do that anyway, but Elisa had the rifle still, and her hand gun holstered at her side. She was hoping she could reason with the woman rather than have to use either of her weapons, though. "That's me alright. Are, um, are you okay?" She asked. "Do you, I mean, are you hurt? Do you need... well, I'm not sure if a doctor could help you, but..."

The woman's eyes stopped glowing and she just sort of looked at her curiously. "You helped me... Why?" She asked guardedly, holding her shoulder as though it were wounded.

"You looked like you needed it?" Elisa ventured. "...Look, I'm not going to pretend I know what's going on here, who you are—you know, with the wings and everything—but you were being attacked, and it's my job to help. Your arm looks hurt..."

"It will heal." The woman told her. "...You are... strange, for a human." She offered, sinking down to the floor, apparently struggling to stay on her feet and failing.

Elisa dropped her rifle and went over to her. "Hey..." She came over next to her without even really thinking it through weather it was a good idea or not. "Hey... They really did a number on you, didn't they?" She asked, kneeling down next to her and touching her arm.

The woman hissed at her, her eyes glowing red again. "Stay away!" She warned, causing Elisa to fall onto her butt from where she'd been crouching.

She couldn't help it, it felt like her heart had leapt into her throat—her pulse sped up, she was scared. "Hey... I'm... I'm sorry, okay?"

The woman smiled just a little at that. "...I suppose I should thank you... for what you've just done for me." She apologized, not meeting Elisa's eyes.

"...Like I said, you looked like you needed it." Elisa repeated, sitting up, but keeping her distance this time.

"Perhaps. Most of your kind wouldn't see it that way, in my experience... What makes you different, I wonder?" She asked, halfway between curiosity and open suspicion.

"...Whether that's true or not, I couldn't give you an answer anyway." Elisa told her, yawning unexpectedly. "Sorry. Long night." She explained.

One of the men groaned and Elisa looked. It was the one she'd noted before as still conscious but out of it. He wasn't as out of it now, and he was getting up. "Excuse me a moment." She got up and went over to the guy, wrestled him to the floor and cuffed him to a support beam. "You're under arrest. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, one will be provided to you free of charge. Do you understand these rights as I've explained them to you?" She asked, mirandizing him. She always made dead sure she did that whenever she put cuffs on anyone—always made sure she followed the rules to the letter whenever she could, in fact. She absolutely loathed the idea of a violent criminal escaping justice and being given the opportunity to victimize more innocent people just because she didn't do her job right. It had happened once and she'd sworn to herself she'd never let it happen again. Ever.

"Yeah." He replied, not meeting her gaze and still looking a little out of it. "I understand."

That done, she turned back to the mystery woman she'd saved, who was watching her with open curiosity. Elisa had made sure to keep track of her in her peripheral vision while she'd cuffed the mercenary of course, and the lack of any further aggression from her was encouraging. "...So, I don't suppose you'd be in the mood to tell me what exactly this was all about, would you...?" She asked.

"Demona." The woman said. "My name is Demona." It wasn't entirely a lie. That had been her name, once.

( to be continued )

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