Fun With Time Anomalies

Chapter One

The first few days was dedicated entirely to experimenting. When she was absolutely convinced that this was no hallucination, she then had to ask the most basic question: where exactly was she? There was no sign of the Vatican or the Colleseum, so she ruled out Rome as being a possibility. After a few moments of scaling through the Tuscany villages and noticing the enormous dome of a cathedral in the distance, she discovered she was in Florence.

Good to know. Now, let's have some fun…

It was an ideal time to test her boundaries within this strange, ancient world. She broke into a sprint across the rooftops of the village and scaled across the walls and gates as fast as she could, running and leaping and flying for miles and miles. Her whip launched her over the tall, ancient buildings and propelled her through the air after diving down into the alleys, swinging her through the narrows streets and pathways. There was no limitation to where she could travel, nothing that kept her trapped or contained, nothing that was off limits to her exploring.

For her own purposes, she remained in the shadows and out of sight from the Italian people. From the look of their clothes and her prior knowledge of this time period's opinion of women, it wouldn't do to walk the streets in her skintight catsuit. Something told her the Renaissance was lacking in the "costumed superheroes and villains" department. And since she was keeping a low profile, asking for directions or any specific questions wouldn't do. Not yet, anyways. It didn't seem wise to snatch someone up in the shadows and start interrogating them. She soon discovered that when she whispered to herself, she understood the meaning of her words but they were immediately coming out in Italian. She understood a few words in her time doing work with the Falcone crime syndicate but never made the effort to speak fluently. Yet now she realized even her own inner thoughts were suddenly in another language. That proved to be remarkably convenient.

When she was feeling especially bold, she made an effort to lurk into the windows of the houses. If there was any doubt in her mind that she was dreaming, it was killed when she watched and observed the people of this time period interacting with their families in the safety of their homes. The smell of the meat cooking and the bread baking, the sound of the cracking and popping logs on the fireplace, the mothers reprimanding their naughty children (not only could she speak in Italian but could understand exactly what they were saying as well), as well as the gossip and discussion of marriage and possible suitors for their teenaged sons and daughters. It was more certainly a different time and an entirely different culture from that of Gotham City.

Her curiosity hadn't been fully sated, but her priorities began to kick back in. She had to find a means of getting back into Gotham City. When she arrived on the rooftops of Florence, she noticed the portal was no longer behind her. Yet some nagging feeling in the back of her mind told her that it simply hadn't vanished, but jumped. It was hard to describe how she just knew it to be true. Perhaps it was hopeless optimism; she had jumped into the portal without any real game plan or means of returning. But, if the League of Shadows were clever enough to find their way here and back again, it should prove no challenge for her.

So, if I were a time machine in Florence during the Italian Renaissance, where would I hide?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of cruel laughter from below. Selina moved to the edge of the rooftop and crouched down, peering over the edge and caught a glimpse of a beautiful young woman being followed by a man. The young lady was adorned in a modest but gorgeous gown of orange and gold which made her stand out in the dark like a treasure. The lecher following after her was tall, thin, and very pale with long greasy hair. He was dressed in a grey tunic and Selina couldn't help but be happy that such an outfit went out of style. The man moved ahead of the girl and stopped her as she was about to enter a building. To Selina's surprise, the girl wasn't nearly as horrified as she would have expected her to be.

"I told you. I'm not interested." the girl snapped, but it did little to deter the man.

"Si… but I am." was the man's response as he approached her.

"Then get in line." Selina almost chuckled at that as the girl shoved her stalker out of the way, only to be grabbed by the arm. With a frown, she slipped her goggles over her face and found herself scaling down the edge of the building, watching as the man shoved the the girl up against the wall of the building.

"I think not, amore mio," he snapped, pinning her body against his and reaching for the front of her bodice. "I've decided I'm tired of waiting for you to open your legs on your own-"

"That'll be enough of that."

Selina's voice prompted a gasp from both of them. The man was dumb enough to start looking around him, but the girl had looked straight up and found herself staring right into Selina's face. Selina's goggles caught the light and seemed to glow and she didn't realize just how much of a hellcat she must have looked, because the girl almost looked too afraid to start screaming. Just as she was about to make her move on the attacker, that was when she noticed he had released his hold on the girl and turned his attention to something else.

"I think you're disturbing this young lady's day, Vieri."

The voice was enough to make Selina freeze in place. The look of surprise must have registered on her face because the girl certainly noticed it. Turning her attention to the voice, Selina saw a young man approaching the scene and in a hurry decided to scale her way into the nearest shadowy part of the alley. She uncoiled her whip and with a few quick flicks of her wrist she found her way to a different rooftop. The young man who entered the scene was certainly more handsome than Vieri and better dressed, at that. It was too dark to make out his face but Selina could tell that his hair was long and tied back out of his face, and he wore a vest over a white shirt rather than the silly thing Vieri was wearing. It did not take long for the two to confront each other and within moments their fists were flying.

Hm. Maybe this world has a few superheroes of it's own. Selina thought to herself and lowered her head back down to the pretty lady in distress...

...Who was looking straight up at her. Even with her little disappearing act, the girl was still able to follow her and find her location again. And this time, there was more curiosity in her face rather than outright horror. As much as Selina wanted to stay and watch the brawl unfold, this girl suddenly made her uncomfortable. Not just anybody could track her like that, and as quickly as she had done. With some hesitation, she removed herself from her perch and made a hasty retreat into another alley.

"Wait!"

The voice undoubtedly came from her. Apparently the brawling men proved to be of no interest to the Florentine beauty. Selina glanced over her shoulder and saw the girl rushing through the alleys, keeping her eyes on the rooftops and doing her best to keep up. All things considered, Selina could've easily lost her. She wasn't entirely sure why she was slowing down and making it easy for her to keep up.

Curiouser and curiouser. Miss Alice traded in following white rabbits to following black cats.

Perhaps it was a bad idea for Selina to dive down into the alley. She landed on the cobblestone path several yards down from where the girl was and rose to her full height. The shadows of the dark city made her silhouette look intimidating enough to stop the girl in her tracks. In her heels, Selina stood a foot taller than the girl and the light of the moon shown off of the surface of her goggles, giving the illusion of two large eyes glowing in the dark. The girl on the other hand did not look so fearsome. She was absolutely beautiful, with a small heart-shaped face and long brown hair that was pinned up by gold hair clips and pearl bands. She was out of breath and her chest rose and dropped with every pant, but she didn't look nearly as scared as she did a few moments ago.

"Signorina, I…" she took a moment to breathe again and then stood up straight. "You were going to help me back there, weren't you?"

Selina tilted her head to the side. A handsome man came to her rescue, got into a brawl with her attacker, but she was more interested in the cat woman? That was certainly unexpected.

"I know you were," the girl continued when Selina did not respond. "What are you? I have," she hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "I have never seen anything like you before."

THe girl couldn't see it, but Selina couldn't help but smile. Still, maybe this had been a bad idea to get involved. If she would have noticed that man coming, she would have watched the entire thing play out from a distance. But it was a little too late for her to tell a stubborn woman to just forget about everything she saw.

"I am Catwoman."

Her response was enough to fill the young woman's eyes with light. For a moment she wondered if she had recognized the name, but surely the League of Shadows wouldn't just go around talking about her to the townsfolk. Selina stood there and watched as the girl moved her way to her. She stopped when she was only about three meters from her only because it looked like Selina was about to run. Immediately the girl's hands moved up to stop her.

"Please don't run, I… I just wanted to thank you." she leaned in, desperately trying to get a look at the face of the cat woman. Selina shook her head.

"That boy took care of your attacker for me. Really, you should probably thank him instead." as if on cue, Selina lifted her head and looked over the girl. "Speaking of which-"

As expected, the handsome man from before had won the fight, but Selina wondered if he was also chasing after the shadowy cat woman or if he was chasing down the beautiful girl. To her surprise, the girl didn't even bother to turn and look at him. Instead, she closed the space between herself and the thief, and Selina felt her take hold of her gloved hands. Surely at this close proximity, there was no way the girl couldn't make out that the "eyes" of the Catwoman were really a mask of sorts that hid all but Selina's small nose and full lips.

"My name is Cristina," the girl whispered to her. "I wanted to tell you before you run away from him… I will not forget what you were going to do for me."

"Che cazzo! What is that!?" the man's voice was enough to rip Cristina's attention away from Selina. In that moment, Selina turned away from her and leapt into the air, swinging her whip onto the nearest ledge of the building and sending her flying away from the two.

This time she fled the scene as quickly as possible, completely unaware that she had left her newly made friend in the loving hands of one of the greatest assassins in human history.