As History Repeats

Hopefully this chapter and the next will be a bit longer due to metahuman action. This has more Hnutres/Batgirl interaction as well, for those who were waiting for it.

Chapter 8

[I thought you said she'd be here,] Gabby heard as she sat at the Delphi. Batgirl's harsh whisper cut in to her mental debate of whether she should wear a mask when she worked on the Delphi or if it would just be lame in the end. She had just opted for 'lame' when she heard her mentor.

"I called the payphone next to the Dark Horse Bar where she was last spotted. She answered. She said she'd be here." The teen exchanged a look with Alfred, who only shook his head and removed the mug in front of her (possibly stolen from an optomotrist, since it had one large eye on it and nothing else) and walked away.

"She's late," Barbara muttered, slightly annoyed. She stared at one of the creepy gargoyls of the New Gotham Clocktower, and then her eyes went to the ledge. She knew that Huntress could easily get up to where she was, as she'd chased her up that way only three nights ago. Barbara opted for the elevator this time around, thank you very much.

"You aren't worried about me, now are you, Baby Bat?" a new voice spoke up, and both Gabby and Barbara's shoulders tensed for different reasons upon hearing it. Huntress was crouched on the ledge, one hand in front of her holding on, and the other up, as if she was riding a bull. She looked down for a second while she gained more balance, and then hopped down easily. When she straightened up, she looked at Batgirl. "I had to get home and change. Didn't want you to see me looking like a drowned cat. So," Huntress said, sauntering towards Batgirl playfully, "to what do I owe the honor of your summon?"

[She's here- obviously. Switching to speaker only,] Batgirl reported seriously, her eyes never leaving the brunette's as she spoke. She brought a finger to her ear, but she didn't otherwise move until she got the okay from Oracle.

"Tell the voices I say hello and to not stay up so late on a school night," Huntress added in.

"Har har," Oracle said humorlessly, though she worried that the woman knew more about her than the blonde knew about the night hunter. "Speaker only. Confirmed," she added, and pressed a few buttons and switched it over so that she could hear the conversation and check Batgirl's vital signs, which had accelerated slightly since Huntress' appearance. This was normal, though, Gabby knew, so she wasn't worried. There was the beeping sound that alerted Oracle that her comments would be blocked out for a little while unless it was an emergency, in which case, the blonde knew how to override the command.

"Thank you for coming," Batgirl started off by saying, though she regretted her choice of words as soon as she saw the dark woman's face.

"Heh, give me a few minutes, and I'm sure this won't be the only time you say that tonight," Huntress remarked.

"You know what I meant. I called you here because I need to talk to you about the woman you fought last night, the one with the screeching power."

"Yeah? Is that all you wanted to talk about?" Huntress purred. Apperently, she wasn't in the mood for serious talk, and she'd rather it was some super secret booty call.

"Well, since you won't tell me what I want to know, then yes, that is the only thing we can talk about," Batgirl responded, taking a step back from the advancing woman. The superhero's voice was slightly colder, and even Oracle was surprised to hear it like that towards Catwoman's daughter.

"Sad," was all Huntress said in responce, but Gabby could hear the slight disappointment there, as if the dark woman was telling the truth of that statement.

There was a pause, and Gabby tried to listen hard for evidence that something was happening. She didn't have any security footage of the top of the Clocktower. "Can you tell us more about her?" Batgirl asked after a moment.

"What if I can?"

"What do you mean, 'what if you can'?"

"What will you give me if-"

"This isn't a game. The one you fought last night was a look out for the men who was involved in that hostage situation. That team was looking for something inside the building- something that I don't even think the hostages knew about, and if this girl is who I think she is, then we could be screwed if we don't find her, alright?"

"Alright, Red, I'll play nice. For now, but you owe me."

"I owe you nothing," Batgirl replied. There was a small laughter from Huntress, as if she didn't believe that to be true.

"Fine, be that way, Baby Bat." Another silence. "The chick I was fighting? She was tough, but not all that skilled. I mean, in a physical fight, I could take her without powers. But she could throw things with her mind, and then there was that mind melding screech she did. I mean, it shattered the glass and stuff," Huntress said. "Do you know who she is?"

"Kind of, I mean we have suspitions," Batgirl said.

"We?"

"The voice and I," Batgirl clarified with a slight smirk. Huntress grinned at this.

"So who is she?"

"I'll ask the questions, alright? We don't have much time tonight."

"Alright, give me your worst. Interrogate me." As Oracle heard this, she knew there was a sexual innuendo somewhere. She knew that Barbara was most likely getting leered at, and she wondered how Barbara could keep herself from either slapping or ravishing the Huntress. She wondered how someone could be so bold as to put it all out there like that. Then again, she also wondered why it could be so hard to simply say 'I want you' instead of playing games while dancing around a burning bush about it.

"Describe her to me," Batgirl said, even though both she and Gabby knew what she looked like.

"Well, she was tall. As tall as me- No, she is taller than me because I was in these cute as hell boots that have a little bit of a heel to them, and her boots had some heel, but not much, while mine were almost a full inch," the Huntress said. Gabby tucked this bit of informtaion in the back of her mind about Huntress as well. If they guessed the mystery woman to be 5'8 or 5'9, then the Huntress was between the hights of 5'6 and 5'8. It would help them try and identify who she really is later on if it came down to them needing to find her. "She had black hair- extensions, I'd guess, since it didn't really look all that real. She wore a mask. It was blank, expressionless. Creepy."

Gabby heard Batgirl laugh somewhat ironically at this. "Well, at least we can agree on something, Kitten," Gabby muttered as she continued to listen in on the conversation. She saw Alfred looking through a large key ring of keys, and she wondered what he was looking for and why he hadn't found it yet. Hadn't everything gotten a card key with ultra new technology advances to them by now, where the common key was obsolete in Wayne Manor?

"What about her fighting? Anything stand out to you?" Batgirl asked, bringing Gabby's mind back to the tasks at hand.

"No, just that she fought with her powers. We barely exchanged blows."

"Did you see any skin? Do you know what her nationality might be? What her eye color was?" Batgirl asked.

"I remember seeing the side of her face, and she's white. Like, almost pale. But I didn't see her eyes. There must have been some sort of cloth over where the eyes would be, like, behind the mask?"

"Damn," Batgirl said.

Gabby jumped when there was a sudden blaring sound on the Delphi, warning her that an alarm in the New Gotham prison was going off. Then, as Gabby was trying to figure out what was happening there in the prison, one of the larger buildings downtown had one of their alarms triggered. "Damn," she echoed. She started typing in the commands to pull up the information she needed. It wasn't a hostage situation, but from what she saw on the security cameras, it was the same three men who had escaped, and then over at the alarm of the fiancial building to see if she could alert police about that. She kicked off from the floor and had the chair glide over to the other components of the Delphi to override the speaker only option it had been on. [Batgirl to Oracle. Sorry to cut this short, but there has been another break-in. Not just that, but someone busted out of the New Gotham prison, and I think that might make it difficult for police to respond to the break-in. The same three men are the ones who broke free, and over at the building break-in, it is a different set of people- five of them. Carolyn's daughter might be there with these people.]

"Copy." Batgirl looked up at Huntress, who seemed to know what was coming next. The redhead didn't voice her concernes, which were mostly about the fact that the men who were taken into custody the night before had somehow escaped. Seeing as two of them had some sort of metalic metahuman ability, she shouldn't have been too surprised. She frowned. She should have been sure they put them in Arkham the night before, not jail.

"Where's the party?" Huntress asked.

"You're not coming with," the superhero said automatically, even though she was unsure what to do about the two places as once going off at the same time. It was apperent that the two groups were related, one side getting out of prison while the other side going to finish off whatever it was they had started before, only in a different building.

"Why not?" Huntress asked, somewhat wounded, "This chick sounds like a problem. This city is just as much mine as it is yours. You know, as the resident villain here, I got first dibs."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend?"

Huntress took a step closer, so close was she now that Batgirl could feel the other woman's breath on her. "I never thought of us as enemies, per se', Batgirl." The brunette nuzzled her nose into red hair, took in a deep breath, and let it out happily. When she leaned back, Batgirl saw how feral the other woman was, how much like her mother she was. "In fact, I always hoped that you and I could become very, very good... friends." Huntress leaned forward slowly, and stopped for the slightest moment before she took possession of the redhead's lips.

There was a pause before Batgirl backed away from the kiss, and yet another moment after that before she spoke again. "Stop it. If you want in, fine. I could use the help out here. At least until this settles down. But no funny buisness, and if you betray me out there, you ARE going down."

"Anything you want, Red," was all Huntress said in return. She winked.

"Let's go. Batgirl to Oracle, I need to know where to go."

[It is in the Fairview Financial building. Batgirl, these men escaped from jail last night. Be careful.]

"You know I will. Stand by," Batgirl said, putting the link so that it was in its normal mode.

[Oracle standing by.]

"Fairview Financial it is," Huntress said. When the redhead's look became somewhat shocked, Huntress continued, "Great hearing. Possibly the best part about being a mutant."

"We prefer the term 'metahuman'," Batgirl replied somewhat automatically.

"Prefer what you like, Red. The bottom line is that we're freaks."

When Gabby heard these words, she flinched, even though she was in the realm of normal. "I wouldn't say that," Barbara almost chided.

"You don't have to. We just know. Here Red, we'll take the shortcut down."

"The elevator-"

"Scared?"

"Of free falling close to a thousand feet to my death? What gave you that idea?" Barbara asked sarcastically.

"I won't let you get hurt. Think of this as our first trust excersise. Since I am in no mood to die tonight, you'll be safe, I promise." There was silence, and then the sound of moving leather.

"Don't like this too much," Barbara said.

"Right back 'atcha, Baby Bat."

The next thing Gabby heard were Batgirl's scream, the quicking beeps from Batgirl's vitals, and Huntress' whoop of laughter as the teen assumed they dropped. There was a thud, a small clump, and another laugh from Huntress. "Oh... God!" Gabby heard her mentor say. "I am not doing that again." The teen almost started laughing at this. She wished she knew where they were, so she could see the look on Barbara's face and flip her shit about it later. It wasn't every day that she saw Barbara less than calm and collected.

"I told you that you'd be alright," came Huntress' laughing voice. "Trust me now?"

"Yeah, I trust you. I have to after that. Okay, gimme a minute to recover from that..." Barbara said, and Gabby listened closely. "Oracle, I am at Clocktower base north," Batgirl reported after another moment of the redhead catching her breath. "I'll take the new building break-in while Huntress covers the prison break out."

"Yeah, I think I can handle the boys in blue," Huntress added.

[Aknowledged,] Gabby said at the same time, then she went to work bringing up the security cameras around each location, including where the two night hunters currently stood. When she saw her mentor, she was taking something out of her utility belt. She watched as Barbara used her cables, and Gabby did her best to keep up with her as Huntress followed after Batgirl, jumping the rooftops as easily as if she was playing with a jump rope. Gabby really could watch this figure all night. Though she didn't have the hots for Kitten Britches the way that Barbara denied, she still had to admit that this woman was sleek in her movements and definately worth watching.

Gabby flipped through and found the security cameras from buidings along the way, following Batgirl and Huntress' progress towards the Fairview Financial building, and then a little more Northeast as Huntress broke away from Batgirl and headed towards the prison. Then something else caught her attention. There was movements on the camera up on the screen for the credit union, since the glass was gone, and the security there was down after the Canary Cry had its way. So far there were police on guard around it, as they were sure that the trio who escaped would come back for it. Of couse, Oracle knew better now, but she wondered if the trio was going to the Financial building or if everything was a ruse to get Batgirl away from the credit union. "I should have seen that coming. We both should have," Gabby said to herself. She opened up the comm and said, [Oracle to Batgirl.]

"Yes Oracle," the redhead responded breathlessly after a moment.

[I've spotted movement on the camera at the credit union. All police outside are in their positions. I think this might be her.]

"I am right here at the Financial building," Barbara said, "I do not think I can get away now."

[I will attempt to call Gibson at No Man's Land to see if he can recuit someone to help with back up,] Gabby said.

Gabby began to do just that, but there was no answer on the phone at No Man's Land, both the collectables shop (which she knew she wouldn't get since it was after hours), the hidden portion's private phone, and she even called Gibson at home. She didn't get him at either of those places. She really needed to contact someone from the hideout of No Man's Land, especially the older worker there code named 'Frosty', if she couldn't get Cam the Chamelion. She then tried to call for a superhero who had helped Barbara once or twice while Gabby had known her named Darkstrike. She didn't know if she trusted him or not, and Batgirl was already forced to fight by the side of her enemy, even though she admitted to trusting Huntress. Gabby still wasn't sure. Though Huntress was often running off with something or another, she never actually hurt Batgirl when they fought. She knew that the dark woman was just playing with her mentor. Darkstrike, however, gave Gabby the heebie jeebies, and she would easily pick Huntress over him at Batgirl's side.

Gabby tried a couple of other superheroes who were once in the area, whether they were retired from crime fighting or not. Perhaps Batgirl had built up enough street cred that someone would be honor bound to come help her this time. No one was ever there, and Darkwing was too far away in Bludhaven to be of any use.

"What do I do?" Gabby asked herself.

"Perhaps I could be of some assistance, Miss Gabby?"

The voice right behind her and a little to her right made her jump practically out of her seat entirely. She made her chair swirve slightly so she could look at Alfred, but still keep her eye on the screens as well. It was no easy feat. Draped over his arms was a black material that at first glance was a copy of Batman's body suit. "Alfred?" she asked. "I wouldn't ask you to go out there-"

"You misunderstand, Gabby." The teen turned her body for a moment so she could look completely at Alfred, but kept glancing over her shoulder at the screens to make sure things were still okay out there. Then she looked back to Alfred, who had opened up the cloth to reveal that it was indeed another Bat body suit, almost identicle to Batgirl's, only slightly smaller. "We both know that I am too old to go out there now. When Miss Barbara informed me that she had a run in with a student, and then later used the same student's home for a place to hide, I knew that it was only a matter of time before you graced us with your presence here at Wayne Manor. I made this for you, assuming that Barbara would train you in the night to take her place as Batgirl while she took my place at the Delphi. Perhaps I could become Oracle again for a couple of hours...?" The butler trailed off as Gabby's eyes widened.

"No- I mean- I can't! I don't fight!"

"You know how each tool on the utility belt works. Let them guide you. Let me guide you."

"In theory, yes, I know how each tool on the utility belt works, but I have never been trained to use the batarang, or- or the cables- god no!" Gabby turned slightly to look back at the screens to keep an eye on Batgirl, who was taking her position as she slowly moved around the building. She saw that Huntress was on the roof of the prison building as she watched the uniformed people move about, and the feral woman had her eyes locked, waiting to pounce. Gabby looked back at Alfred, fear in her eyes, pleading with the old man to let her stay there.

"I promise you that I will be right there telling you everything you need to do. All we need is for the lurker to think that Batgirl is near. Perhaps that will scare them off."

"I doubt it- I mean, she fought with Huntress."

"Gabby," the butler said, slightly more stern now, "there is no one else."

This made Gabby freeze, her spine chilling in fear. She knew first hand how true that was, and she knew that if someone really was there at the credit union trying to get something out once more, then she was sure that they won't quit until they get what they are after, or until they died for it. Part of Gabby always knew there was going to be a night where she had to do something like this in order to help Batgirl, since she was the only one other than the redhead fit to do the job. With Huntress there, she was almost sure that she wouldn't have to, but she knew that was silly. The teen wished that she knew more about the tools on the utility belt.

"Gabby..." The teen looked up at the butler after he spoke, and their eyes locked. "I think I know what it is they want. It had been there for close to a decade now; I simply forgot about it. I am sure that Master Bruce had as well, or he would have relocated them by now. You need to retrieve it," the old man said. Gabby took in a deep breath and closed her eyes tightly as she fought her fear.

Slowly, she reached out, and she took the body suit.