A/N: Hi everyone! This is my first story in English. It's not my native language, so I ask for your patience. This is about my OC, Alexia, a mysterious girl who lands in Gotham city for mysterious reasons. I have a bunch of stories for this series already, so, if you guys enjoy it, it'd be my pleasure to share. Thank you for reading!

CHAPTER 1

TO BE brutally truthful, Alexandra Blackburn couldn't remember her place of birth. Of her past life, there were a few things that she could recall, hazed like fog. A train wreck, explosions happening like fireworks, and a big wooden bathtub, placed in a room with little light. Those were the things she couldn't forget, even with the passing of days, the things she couldn't allow herself to let go.

The idea was that she moved to Vietnam when very young. The house she grew up was surrounded by mountains. There, in the summer afternoons, she sat on the floor with Roderick, while Lord Njord and Lord Belenos played Asian chess.

It wasn't her intent leaving. To exchange the tranquil days of the small village for the grey, closed between itself and forever pumping like a horrible machine, Gotham City. Although the days were long and alike, she had learned to like them. There, in the city, she always seemed bored, despite the amount of things to do, people to see, places to attend.

The life of a modern aristocrat was completely and dully empty.

Even so, it couldn't be helped. Belenos had said it was the best place for the business to thrive (something to do with slave pay). And Gladwin was absolutely ecstatic with the possibility of medical research (she suspected it could be only illegal). Mentioning her will to return would only sound selfish, and a bit pathetic.

"Why don't you try college?" Belenos advised, while busily reviewing a new contract with an obscure crime lord. "It will keep you occupied. Enrol in Arts – Dorian will find it thrilling."

The idea bothered her more than not, still, she accepted the counsel. After that summer, she enrolled in the University of Gotham, in Journalism. No reason for that. Perhaps… she couldn't handle Dorian being thrilled.

"That's mean for you to say" the young being, around twenty-five, black hair and dark eyes smiled. He smiled cutely, yet completely forged, something like a pop Asian-Idol. "Even more when I'm driving you to school."

"I said I would take the subway" Alexia shrugged, blankly staring the horizon. "I'm just pleasing you, as I always do."

Dorian hesitated before saying anything.

"Do you ever regret your decision? Do you resent us?"

Alexia shook her head negatively. She wondered if she was being honest.

Not that it mattered, she thought, collecting her things and getting out of the car. She was bored to death, every day. There wasn't a single thing that she wished to do. Socializing was the worst. She didn't even have the energy to pursue joy. If her feelings went on, her body and mind could simply die.

«Can't I just die», «Please let me die», those thoughts were quite common, recently.

I should just join a club or something.

Although it was decided, the act only made her sigh.

On the week she started college, Belenos convinced her and the other six to join in a grand party in the oldest building of the city. All the upper class of Gotham should be present and it would be the official presentation of the only female of the Seven Corp. It was very bothersome to Alexia because on that day when Dorian asked her what she wanted to do, her answer was «To see the sea».

"I'll take you tomorrow morning" he said as he brushed her long, black wavy hair, gently kissing the top of her head. "I promise."

Alexia didn't reply. For a lonely moment, she thought on how dependent she had become, on the past months. Dorian would dress her and brush her hair. He and Roderick would accompany her anywhere she wished to go, and they would spoil her in many ways. In the Vietnam, she felt freer. Although she chose to stay home most of the time, she always knew what to do with her day. And even if it was true that she felt the same emptiness of heart, she was a little bit better fighting against it.

Gotham was a damned city. She hated it to the core.

The people were even worse. They all had this rotten aura. The upper class, especially. Anytime circumstances dictated so, Alexia discovered she couldn't take the look on their appearances. They seemed made of porcelain to her, and when staring, she could never see anything else but a blank, round face instead of eyes, nose, mouth.

"That's because you're not used to socialize" Dorian whispered to her when she confessed to him, at the party. "And therefore, you're very sensitive to their souls."

"I still went to social gatherings in Vietnam, and I wasn't put under this impression."

"They don't seem so bad now, do they? People in there. But you'll get used to it. And when you do, your senses will be once more reduced to mere scents."

Alexia looked forward to it. Especially since, on the early days, when she experienced alike sensations, the pressure of it all put her in dark places she didn't wish to go back to.

She grabbed a drink, moving aside from Dorian. There was a young man stretching his hand to grab a drink at the same time. They went for the same drink. They looked up at each other as their fingers touched.

"I'm sorry" the young man said. Alexia took her time to answer. The young man should be around seventeen years old, but that was not what took her aback. He had a shiny aura around him, like he was made of sunshine. He had also sparkling blue eyes, contrasting with his dark hair.

Yes, she could see his face, among feeling a nice smell of Sunday mornings.

It seemed like a long time since she didn't feel a rotten smell coming from a human. On the street they lived, there were only a couple of old people. Every morning, the old man took out the trash on his boxers. His face wasn't either good or bad, and he didn't have any sort of strong or nice smell. That was the sort of things she was used to – this, or to people rotten to the core. But such a nice, shiny person… It surprised her more than she'd like to admit.

The lad blinked and smiled at her as to force a reaction and Alexia finally nodded her head in grace.

"It's alright."

"You can have it" the lad looked a bit ashamed. "I'm not old enough to drink, anyway. I was trying to sneak one, now my guardian wasn't looking" and inclining forward in secretive yet amusing manners, he added "Since this party is so boring, I mean."

Alexia smiled slightly in agreement.

"Were you trying to do the same?" he asked, now looking at her with more attention. The girl blinked in slight confusion, at what he explained, "You don't look much older than me."

Alexia thought hard. In truth, to anyone, it would be nearly impossible to distinguish in her an adult woman, for her appearance was quite young, in general. She could easily pass by a middle school girl, if that was her wish. She searched in her brain the age Belenos wrote in the last form he filled for college.

"I'm eighteen" finally, she remembered. The lad soon opened another smile.

"Then, you were also trying to sneak a drink!"

"Well, no, in truth. Back home, I was in legal age to drink. I suppose I'm not yet used to this country rules."

As she spoke, a strong smell of tobacco invaded her nostrils and someone grabbed the lad's shoulder. The person wasn't smoking – though he looked like he needed to grab a cigarette really fast.

"Trying to sneak alcoholic drinks, Richard, I see."

An electric shock seemed to pass through the lad's body. Alexia frowned. Although she could also see the man features – a strong, bold face, brown eyes hidden behind thick glasses, dense beard – she didn't enjoy it. The smell of Tabaco was like a fog going up to the ceiling of an intense large pile of paperwork. She could hear the phone ringing, nonstop. That was someone who couldn't go home often, despite of the fact of having a family.

"You shouldn't make stupid decisions only to impress pretty girls" the man said, now taking a good look at her. Her frown intensified.

"Gordon! It isn't like that!" Richard desperately tried to explain. "What happened was- I mean, I was trying to- she's-"

"My name is Alexandra Blackburn" she said, looking straight at the man's eyes. She took the glass she first went for, and took a sip.

"Miss Alexandra, yes, from the Seven's Corp, I see" the man didn't smile or tried to reach his hand. "Is your father alright with his underage daughter drinking?"

"As I was saying before your rude intromission, sir, I'm not underage, as well as from where I came from, it was legal and normal for me to drink. As for my father's hold on me, is not for you to concern."

"We do things different here, in Gotham."

"Pardon my honesty, but if I had the interest or needed help to understand Gotham's way of handling things, I'm quite certain I wouldn't go to you."

They faced each other for a minute. The man frowned so much he formed a little stair in his forehead. Alexia quietly and gracefully bowed.

"Now, if you'd excuse me."

Roderick roared with laughter when Alexia told him the episode. He had that air of loving to mock everything, as well of laughing at everything. Not to say that he was a particularly cheerful person: his laughs, just like his eyes, were that of a very sly being, one to be happy with disgrace.

He turned his head back when she asked him if she could do something about that man annoying existence.

"No way, I cannot do a thing about honest men! I dread them all!" he drank gin, still showing his perfect, white teeth. "And that should be the last honest man of his trade, here in the city. Look at him! Even his smell is disgusting. You could put his daughter's head on the plate; he wouldn't dodge in his principles to save her."

"Well, that only makes him even more repulsive!" Alexia, who found family one of the most precious things, exclaimed.

Roderick shrugged.

"Let this city have a tiny beam of hope, my queen" he said, now blinking at her. "Even if it's a fool's hope. After all, although an absent head-of-family is disgraceful, a good detective could be the salvation of many" he considered his own words for a bit and found them hilarious. "Look at me, being such a generous soul!"

"I didn't come to Gotham to save anyone" Alexia retorted, still a bit annoyed.

"What if there are more people beaming like sunshine, who could use your help?"

He was mocking her again. But Alexia turned back to look at him. Roderick had a well-built body, sparkling blue eyes and dark-chocolate hair. He looked bearing his thirties – and, like her, like Gladwin, like Dorian, he was astonishingly beautiful. She considered his words, although her heart felt cold.

"I'm not a queen anymore. It's not my business to care."