Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of BtVS, Angel, or the Batman movies. No infringement intended. This is just for fun.
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Harold Furlough worked for the mob. He was a grunt. A nobody. He barely even had the privilege of carrying a gun.
But he had high hopes. He was making his way up the ladder and eventually he would really make something of himself. Now, if only he could find himself a girl. Harold had extremely bad luck when it came to women. He wasn't a bad looking guy, he thought. He just couldn't seem to hack getting a girl's attention. He would freeze up whenever he tried to talk to a pretty girl, or he would say something completely inappropriate. His friends had decided to take him to a bar get him trashed and find a girl, even if it was only for one night.
It had been a bust. The only thing they'd been successful at was getting him drunk. The only girl he had managed to talk to wound up slapping him. He'd hobbled out the back exit to the alleyway behind the bar so he could have a smoke and wallow in his sorrows.
Harold took a long hard drag and leant against the wall. He shut his eyes with a sigh.
"Can I bum a cigarette?"
Harry nearly jumped out of his skin. He hadn't heard the woman approach. When he turned to look at her, his vision blurred a little. He must have been even drunker than he realized. Why was she wearing all white?
"Oh, don't worry about that." She must have seen that he was looking at her clothing.
"I like your jacket." The brunette sauntered up to him and touched his black leather coat softly and then she pulled the cigarette right out of his mouth.
"Hey that's-" she shushed and put a finger over his lips. She took a drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke in his face. He didn't care. He was too busy staring.
Maybe his luck with girls was about to change.
"You're cute." He slurred.
She took the cigarette out of her mouth and smiled at him. "I know."
The woman started to unbutton her shirt slowly…or was it a jumpsuit? It didn't matter. She slid up to him and the fabric fell away from her body. His breath caught in this throat.
There was a beautiful half-naked woman in an alleyway in the Narrows practically throwing herself at him! If he wasn't so busy thinking with his penis, he might have seen the absurdity of it all.
"Oh, god."
She traced her finger along his neckline and brought her face up close to him. Her mouth crashed into his and he pulled her roughly to him in his own excitement. She broke away moments later and moved to bite at his ear. She whispered huskily, "Take off your clothes…"
"Whatever you want…" Harold replied and quickly started to tear off his leather jacket and shirt. She watched on silently and the look in her eyes made him ache. He went to kiss her again.
"Give me your wallet."
He paused and looked at her in surprise. His buzz and adrenaline high were starting to dissipate, "What?"
"You heard me, killer."
The woman grabbed him by the neck and put the lit cigarette out on his cheek, causing him to scream in pain.
"You fucking bitch!" He hit her across the face and she stumbled slightly.
He grabbed at his waist for his gun only to find it wasn't there. His stomach sank when he heard a gun click. His head turned and he found himself face to face with his own pistol.
"Looking for this?"
When he saw who it was Harold Furlough nearly wet himself. He wasn't sure for a second that it was actually the Joker without his makeup on, but he recognized the voice well enough from the news reports. He held his hands up in alarm.
"Please don't kill me!"
The girl laughed, "Please, don't kill me! And you called me the bitch. And didn't your momma ever teach you not to hit girls?"
The Joker's head tilted and he watched the girl grinning like a fool. The woman, clad now only in her black bra and underwear, jumped on Harold knocking him to the ground, "It's not nice!"
She slammed his head against the cement and his vision swimmed. He attempted to take a swing at her, but she grabbed his arm and twisted it. Harold felt it snap and he cried out in pain. As she sat on top of him pummeling him into the ground…all he could think was that when it came to girls... he really and truly was cursed.
He felt his consciousness start to slip. The woman finally stopped her vicious beating when the Joker's hands slipped around her waist and he pulled her off of him. Harold's swollen eyes didn't see much but he could make out shapes moving against the brick wall of the alley right next to him.
And he heard noises, that likely meant one thing.
Apparently even the Joker could get laid, while he couldn't even get a pretty girl to acknowledge his existence. And just when he thought his luck might have been changing and a hot chick might actually like him...she'd wound up breaking what felt like every bone in his body. Then she started doing god-knows what with a crazed psychotic over his broken and bleeding body.
Harry whimpered in pain and attempted to drag himself out of the alley away from his attackers. He made it about ten feet when he heard a shot ring out.
Then Harold Furlough didn't hear, think, or feel anything ever again.
"How the hell did this happen?"
Commissioner Gordon was on the verge of a coronary. The Joker had escaped. He was still trying to convince himself that it was all just a nightmare, his mind playing tricks on him. Yet, no matter how many times he pinched himself nothing changed.
Detective Stephens looked just about as cheerful as he looked up from the body of Dr. Monica Turay. The forensic team was just finishing up its investigation.
He sighed, "It shouldn't have. After the break-out last year, security at Arkham has increased seven-fold. Better than most prisons in regards to how they watch the more dangerous patients. All the guards are trained extensively in self-defense…although you wouldn't guess it when you see the security footage."
Gordon looked down at Turay's body and grimaced, "And still the Joker managed to do all this?"
Stephens shook his head, "That's the strangest part of it, Gordon. He didn't do anything."
The Commissioner did a double-take, "Then who did?"
The detective handed him a folder. Gordon opened it up to see a photo of a young woman paper clipped to an evidence file.
"It was a girl?" James Gordon sifted through the file in disbelief.
"Hope Lee Hanes. Caught torturing one Mickey Russo, a two-bit pimp from the Narrows. She did a real number on him. She also assaulted several of Russo's hookers. Here's the odd thing though, before that…she had no police record anywhere. Not even a god-damn speeding ticket." He told the Commissioner as one of the forensic team handed the detective an evidence bag.
Gordon frowned, "Well, how did she manage to take out eight trained guards and kill Dr. Turay? Shouldn't they have stopped her? And how did she get the bars off the window?"
"Various testimonies from her trial indicate that Hope knew how to fight. No records of where she learned how to, however. And you're right. Those guards should have stopped her. She was just one girl. I don't know, maybe it was dumb luck." Stephens shrugged, "The bars are a different story. The nurses said that ever since Hanes had been allowed to have time outside her cell she would spend it looking out the windows in here. They didn't think anything of it at the time…but Thomas from forensics suspects she was looking for weaknesses in the bars. Arkham is a pretty old place. And let's say that time and the Narrows haven't been especially kind."
"And that was enough that she could just rip off the bars?" Gordon looked at the broken window skeptically.
Stephens lifted up the evidence bag that held the shank that had killed Dr. Turay, "Near as we can figure, she had been using this knife, fashioned from an iron slat from her bed frame, to carve at the deteriorated cement around the bars at the bottom so she could pull them out. The bars were already loose in the cement," He rattled one of the bars on another window, "and so they fell right out."
The Commissioner rubbed his temple; his headache was increasing by the moment.
"This is unacceptable. We have to find them and get them off the streets before they kill anyone else. I won't have the Joker causing another panic. We haven't even begun to recover from everything he did before. The city isn't ready for any more of his games."
"Right there with you, Commissioner."
Bruce Wayne played the video over and over so many times he had it near memorized. It was all too unbelievable. He'd hoped if he kept watching it something might finally make sense. Bruce looked behind him to see Alfred coming down the lift carrying a tray of food.
"Hello, Alfred."
"Master Bruce." He set the tray down on the table. "Is that the security footage Gordon gave you?"
Bruce nodded, "Yeah. Take a look at this."
He rewound the tape pressed play. The woman spun midair and took out two guards, her foot hit the first man in the chest on her upwards strike and then knocked the other man in the head as she came back down, "That looked like a modified Tae Kwon Do form."
She ran at another guard and grabbed him by the head as she leapt upward to knee him in the face, "Muay Thai."
The woman blocked the fist of a muscular guard several times and responded with a series of quick punches ending with an elbow to his face knocking him to the ground. "That's some derivation of Wing Chun. I think. It's a close-range combat form, using mainly the hands."
She grabbed a man's arm, twisting and flipping him on his back, "Ninjitsu."
He pointed at the screen at various intervals as they watched her dance circles around the guards, "Karate. Possibly Judo. Frankly, I have no idea what that was. And Muay Thai again."
He paused the video and the girl was twisted mid-air in order to dodge a taser shot, "And that… well… I didn't even think the human body could do that."
Alfred frowned, "And now the Joker is loose with this woman?"
Bruce sighed, "So it would seem. It doesn't make sense Alfred. This woman's record before Gotham doesn't mesh with what I am seeing here. There's no evidence showing that Hope Hanes ever learned any martial arts at all. No records of formal training. She would have had to have been trained for years to master even one of the forms she used in that tape. The only extracurricular I can find her ever having was a high school choir when she was sixteen. I know I may not have any record of my training with the League, but it says that Hope never even left her home town until eight months ago and she was in Arkham for four of those. Not to mention that she had no history of mental instability before she tortured that man in the Narrows..."
Alfred looked at the screen carefully, "Perhaps Master Bruce, the solution to your problem is also the simplest one."
"And what is that Alfred?" He leant back in his chair.
"She is not Hope Hanes." Alfred stated plainly, "It's a false identity."
Bruce shook his head, "It's all there though, Alfred. Right down to photo IDs and fingerprints. Hope Hanes has to be her."
"All the same Master Bruce, it wouldn't hurt to look for information on other young women fitting her description. Perhaps one whose history is a bit more congruent with the mental state and physical abilities of the woman that escaped from Arkham." Alfred reasoned.
"Alright, Alfred. While I'm out looking for clues on the Joker's whereabouts, you can do that."
The butler sighed, "I just had to open my mouth didn't I?"
Angel nearly spit out his morning cup of blood when he turned on the television that morning. It was her.
Faith.
The news report said her name was Hope, but then they showed her mug shot. She wasn't sporting her usual dark red lipstick and black eyeliner, but it was her.
It had been about five years since he had last seen her back in Sunnydale before her coma. After she'd woken up four years ago, he hadn't heard a peep from Faith…Buffy had told him about what happened in Cleveland when she'd found her there last year. A lot had changed. Angel feared Faith might be beyond saving. That didn't mean he wasn't going to try. He was aware that it was a different thing entirely to what he'd gone through...to become so dark and twisted as she had, but still have one's soul through all of it. If Angel couldn't save her, at least he could stop her from killing anyone else.
The reporter said that she had escaped a mental institution in Gotham City with the terrorist that had been all over the news weeks back; the Joker. That was the only reason they were announcing the story on the national news. If it had been just her, it probably wouldn't have even made it to the news ticker at the bottom of the screen sandwiched between some minor political scandal and the latest antics of Britney Spears.
Angel made it to Wolfram & Hart as quickly as inhumanly possible. Once he'd made it there Harmony tried to talk to him about something, but he tuned her out and walked into his office to find Wesley already there waiting for him.
"You saw the news, I take it?" Angel said simply. He walked around his desk to pull various pieces of weaponry out of the desk drawers and a sword off the wall into the duffel bag he'd brought with him.
Wesley nodded solemnly, "So you're going to Gotham, then?"
Angel said nothing to that and continued packing. Then he headed toward the door. Wesley was on his heels.
"Harmony!" Angel yelled. The blonde vampire nearly stabbed herself with her nail file in surprise. She leapt to her feet and straightened out her dress, "Yes, Angel?"
"Get me a plane ticket for a non-stop flight to Gotham." Angel said firmly and then continued walking down the hall.
"I can do that Angel, but you see…" Harmony stopped talking when Angel stared daggers in her direction.
"Angel, I'm coming with you." Wesley said as he ran after him.
"No." Angel spun around, "You're not."
Wesley scowled, "I have as much to do with what that girl has become as anyone, more even because I…"
"Stopped me the one time I actually had a chance at saving her?" Angel supplied scathingly, "That's precisely the reason you're not coming, Wes! I have to do this alone."
Harmony was still standing next to them, "Harmony, what are you doing? Plane ticket, now!"
Harmony sputtered, "But, it's just…we…"
Wesley got in Angel's face, "I am coming whether you want me to or not, Angel. I was her Watcher, damn it! I'm going to Gotham if I have to walk there!"
"Fine, Wes! Fine! Alright!?" Angel relented.
"Oy, what's this about then?" Spike sauntered over to them. Gunn, Fred, and Lorne were close behind. "You two love-birds finally decide to come out as a couple?"
The ex-Watcher sighed and rubbed his temple, "Faith. The Rogue Slayer. We found out where she is. She escaped from a mental facility yesterday in Gotham City."
"A psychotic Slayer escaped from a mental institution?" Gunn asked skeptically, "I feel like we've already been through this…"
"Faith is nothing like Dana." Angel frowned.
"So you want me to come too? I have a pretty good record when it comes to killing Slayers." Spike crossed his arms smugly.
"No one is killing anybody, Spike. And you most definitely are not coming."
"Probably for the best. My last encounter with a psycho Slayer didn't end particularly well." Spike flexed his hands and shuddered.
Angel looked back to Harmony who was on the phone, "Harmony, make it two plane tickets, for me and Wes."
She hung up the phone and smiled, "But…"
"What, Harmony? Just get the tickets!"
Harmony sighed, "I've been trying to tell you, Angel! Geez! First of all, I would have to buy tickets for nighttime flight, so you would have to wait anyways! A plane has windows! You wouldn't want to burst into flames and totally ruin that nice Armani jacket of yours, would you? But, that doesn't matter because what I was trying to tell you is that Wolfram & Hart has a private jet, dummy. I just called and they are going to have it ready and fueled by the time you arrive…"
The blonde crossed her arms expectantly.
Angel was sort of impressed, if not a little put out by being called dumb by Harmony of all people, "Uh, thank you… Harmony. Really. Um…err…maybe when we get back we can discuss getting you a raise?"
Harmony squealed and ran up to hug him, "Oh! Thank you, Angel! Thank you!"
"Keep hugging me and I may change my mind."
She quickly untangled herself. She was still smiling as she walked off, "Oh, just wait until Jane in Accounting hears about this! That dumb witch!"
"So should somebody contact the Watcher's Council like last time? Tell them about her, in case they didn't already know?" Gunn looked around at the group.
"No." Both Angel and Wesley said simultaneously.
Angel scowled, "I don't want them there. They'll just do something stupid like they did with Faith last time. Especially now that Buffy is…"
He didn't even want to say it. It just made it harder.
"…I don't trust the Council, whether there are new people running it now or not. They may already know, but I don't want to help them out if they don't. I need a head start to get to Faith first. I need to see if it's still possible to get through to her."
He had to believe there was still a chance.
"Well good luck, Peaches. Try not to get staked. Or go ahead if you like, but I was sort of hoping I could do the honors one day." Spike smirked, lighting a cigarette as he left.
Wesley came up next to him. "I'll get everything I need and meet you downstairs."
Angel started to head toward the elevator and a very irritating gentleman stopped his advance. He really didn't want to talk to him right now.
"Hamilton."
The clean-cut man looked on as Angel's team dispersed, "I couldn't help but overhear."
"Good for you. Now get out of my way." The vampire snarled.
"Of course, Angel. I have no intention of stopping you. That Faith Lehane. She's a real piece of work. The Senior Partners would have loved to have her as a part of their team. But they understand that her fate is in your hands. They wouldn't dream of keeping you from her." Marcus Hamilton stated calmly.
"Good." He made to leave.
"Not so fast, Angel. The Partners want you to understand that this relationship is not a one-way street. You do not simply take our money and resources and make no attempt at providing services for the company in return. Now, if you have changed your mind about that agreement the Partners would be more than willing to end your contract and retract any and all deals made. Including the one made about your son…"
Angel stiffened.
"Ah." Hamilton smiled, "So do we have an understanding?"
"What do you want?" Angel asked brusquely.
"Gotham City is one of the few major metropolises where we do not have a branch office. And, since you are already heading there… we have a potential client we would like you to speak with, and do try to be hospitable, won't you?" Hamilton handed him a suitcase, "You'll find all the information you need in here."
Angel opened the suitcase to see who the client was, but was distracted by a large medallion seated on top of the pile of papers. He lifted the necklace out of the suitcase examining it carefully, "What is this?"
Hamilton leaned in, "I suggest you wear it during the duration of your stay in Gotham City."
Angel didn't sense anything special about the pendant, "Why?"
"Need to know basis only, Mr. Angel. You are more than welcome not to wear it, but I think you may find the experience most… unpleasant." He smiled knowingly and walked away.
Angel shook his head, placing the necklace back in the suitcase. Angel already knew that stopping Faith was going to be a challenge, but the fact that the Senior Partners seemed so interested left him unsettled.
He had a very bad feeling about all of this.
