AN: Elyse wasn't meant to turn out like this in the first chapter … but she decided that being a little darling and then turning evil and insane was boring and that she'd much rather just start off torturing things right from the beginning. Please forgive me.

Chapter 1

I know a little girl,
She is very dear to me,
She is just as sweet as honey
When she chooses so to be,

Elyse Tailor was weird. Everyone said so. There was something slight … off about her, as if something had gone wrong in her brain when she was little girl and it had never been fixed. Her eyes, which were as black as Batman's cowl, were always either completely blank or fiercely malicious. But somehow her parents and her boss never seemed to notice a thing. It was most disconcerting.

Elyse Tailor was not as pretty as most nineteen year old girls. She was tiny, skinny as a rake and there was something very pointy about her. But she was smart; she was very very smart. And so, around her family and at her work place, she acted like the perfect angel, obeying every instruction to the letter. But when left on her own … she was malevolent to the extreme, going out of her way to kick puppies and steal candy from babies. Actually, she'd never kicked a puppy or stolen a piece of candy from a baby in her life - but the concept is the same.

When she was eight, Elyse began taking road kill home and dissecting it in her back garden - she knew that doing this in her room would result in her mother finding out straight away and putting Elyse into therapy until she had a daughter of her own. Which would be an unlikely occurrence as Elyse knew she would make an absolutely dreadful mother and, more to the point, children would get in the way of her plans. Besides, it would take a miracle to find a man who would ask her out after watching the creepy smile that would spread across her face every time someone new talked to her. It always looked as though she was imagining what they'd look like in a shroud.1.

When she was ten, Elyse had the bright idea of putting all the bugs she could find into one big jar and then spending the rest of the day watching them eat each other. She liked the way spiders moved and she had giggled as the ants ran frantically around the glass bottom. She would have had the idea sooner but she was too interested in pheasant guts.

When she was twelve, Elyse got bored of creatures that had been killed by cars or bugs and began killing things herself. Her first victim was Mrs. Next-Door's dog which she threw stones at until it become too weak to fight back ... and then she approached it with a large rock and bashed its brains out. Elyse didn't like dogs at all. She quite liked cats - which tells you far more about her than any amount of descriptions about her love for torment will.

By the time she was fourteen, she was completely isolated. Elyse had never had any friends but now the other schoolchildren were going out of their way to avoid her. Considering that she attended a school in Gotham, this was a fairly large achievement.

When she was sixteen, Elyse got a small part-time job in a rather badly-run restaurant. Despite creeping out the other employees, Elyse was the paradigm of hard-work and her boss adored her. When her wages came through - and it wasn't that much - Elyse put every cent she earned into a small tin box which had a slot for the coins but no way of getting them out. She was saving up for something very special … although she wasn't sure what. Not yet.

When she was eighteen, Elyse moved out of her parents house and found a flat of her own. To be more accurate, she found two rooms of her own, a bathroom and living room - she slept on the couch. It wasn't very comfortable but it meant she had her privacy. She didn't get at all homesick and it didn't give her a nice proud feeling because she was becoming more independent. Elyse had always been extremely independent and it was practically impossible for her to be more so. Her parents had always got the feeling that they weren't feeding her because she was their daughter ... and that instead they were feeding her because she wanted them too. No wonder Elyse liked cats.

She had taken her collection of little tin cans with her. She had started a new one every time the last one was filled up and now she had over a dozen. She had acquired a much better-paying job and, now that she had a rent to pay, was only putting half of her wages into the can.

And now she was nineteen. Elyse wasn't entirely sure where her life was going but one thing she knew was that, when she got there, it was going to be exceedingly interesting.

And she was right.

1. This wasn't true. She was imagining what they'd look like blown up, or with a dagger through their chest, or with a bullet impeded in their brain. Shrouds were boring.

AN: I'm not too sure about how this turned out - thoughts please? And I'm not too sure about where this is going so any suggestions or requests would be very much appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read a poor English girl's first attempt at decent fan fiction!

And, oh yes, Elyse is going to be a Rogue. Eventually.