Attention: If you are a long term reader of this fic, this is NOT the new chapter. There is a new first chapter and significant changes have been made to other chapters in between.

He has a gun. They all have guns.

What struck Nora most was how calm Yukie was. Her right hand crept to the blunt table knife before her as she met the eyes of the man in the booth behind her. "Is this random or specific?" she asked.

"Specific. Your man is going to learn a lesson today. Leave that where it is," he commanded her. "Larry, get their purses and make sure you've got their phones. Get that waiter in here, too," he added to another man.

Larry was a very large man in a grimy old pea coat, and he pawed through the purses after he collected them. "Yeah, got'em," he confirmed.

"Good." Two thugs propelled a young man into the room, and the leader glanced his way, pointing at Yukie. "Is that the woman who was with Wilson last night?"

"Uh, if you mean the big guy with the white hair and the eye patch, then yes," the young man said.

"You're sure?"

"Well, he answered the door in a robe, and she was still in bed, so I guess so. They seemed pretty happy with each other."

"Okay, then." The leader nodded, and…and one of his men shot the young man in the head. Nora cried out as blood and matter splattered out over the floor.

"Funny," the leader sat down next to Nora, shoving her over so he could look Yukie in the face at close range. "Sure, he's old and scarred and fucked up, but still, with all the money he's got, you're not what I'd have expected he'd pick for fun and games. Hah," he shook his head. "That's why you've been so hard to find. Okay, make sure you don't mark her face or hands, and don't touch anything in her purse. Our client wants her IDed right away."

"Before you proceed with your plan to murder and defile me, I believe it is worth pointing out that my companion is Nora Fries," Yukie said, still calm and tranquil. She picked up her tea and drank a swallow, noisy in the quiet café. "That is to say, she is the wife of my employer, Dr. Fries, or Mr. Freeze as he is better known. He will pay you better for her life than whoever sent you will for my death. He will also pay you whatever they are paying you for me."

"Tempting," the leader said after a moment's thought, "but no. That's no way to build up a rep. She'll just have to be collateral damage. Now—."

Yukie interrupted. "You will have very little time to trade on that reputation, because you will not have long to live. I don't know if my murder will cause Slade Wilson even a moment's grief, but you will have injured him in his pride, and that he will not countenance. You may scoff all you please, but not one of you—not one—would dare face him. Instead you came after me. He will make it a point of finding out who killed me and who hired you, and he will not stop until all those responsible are dead. Is your client paying you enough money to make dying worth it?"

She still held her tea cup, and now she took another sip, her eyes going from one man to another. "Yes, I am unnervingly calm. Did you think you were the first to track me down? For that matter, did anyone tell you how I met him? We were both competing in a martial arts championship. I admit I am not the greatest hand-to-hand combat fighter in the world; that distinction belongs to Lady Shiva. I am not even in the top hundred, but I know, by sight and name, everyone who is and none of them are in this room right now."

Now Nora could practically smell the fear sweat on the men. Yukie continued. "I don't even bother telling Slade about incidents like this. I suggest that you walk away now. If you choose not to—there are eight of you to one of me and you have guns where I do not, so clearly this will be a case of self-defense and no jury will convict me."

"You do talk a good game," the leader admitted, "but like you said, we have guns, and then there's Mrs. Fries here. You won't—." He had laid both hands flat on the tabletop.

With that, Yukie put down her teacup, seized the knife, and stabbed it right through his hand into the table underneath. Blood spurted out, the man howled, and then things started happening very fast.

The men went for their guns, but when they tried to fire, nothing happened. Yukie was up. Her hands dove into her coat pockets and came out with… a pair of small wooden barbells? Then she began to dance. Her Huntingdon's like movements, for the first time, became something with flow and grace. A sidestep, a half-fouette devant—her arm flew out to elbow a man in the solar plexus and then her hand snapped up to jab him in the chin with the end of the barbell, twice. He went down. A leap en passant, to the next man…

That was how Nora saw it, with the eyes of a dancer and choreographer. She had only seen one martial arts movie in her life, when she and Victor had the power go out one humid August night, and that was Silent Rage, starring Chuck Norris. They only went to it because their apartment was unlivable without air conditioning and the movie theater was nice and cool. As movies went, it was, well, stupid, but she had been quite impressed with the choreography that went into the fight scene, and it was correct and appropriate to call it choreography. Dance was the basis of all good movement, after all.

Meanwhile: Rose Wilson, AKA Ravager, was sitting in the break room of Titans Tower playing Candy Crush Saga on her phone, because it was actually non-deterministic polynomial-time hard, and that was important when you could see several moves into the future and were hardly ever surprised. She had never spent a penny on extra lives and was currently up to level 523. She was so absorbed that when her phone actually rang, she jumped, causing Tim Drake AKA Red Robin to glance up from his book.

The caller's name was S. Wilson. That was…really unexpected. She stared at it for several rings, wondering if she should answer or not, wondering what would happen if she did. She had figured out that he had only tried to kill her in order to get the Titans to accept her. Since then, she hadn't heard from him.

If I answer this, I might regret it, but if I don't—I'll always wonder. Who am I kidding? If I don't and he really wants to get in contact with me, he'll find a way, and I'll like it even less. Bowing to the inevitable, she answered.

"H-Hello?" she asked, wishing her voice didn't quaver.

"Hi," came the curt reply. "How are you doing?"

"Okay, I guess," she said. He would never apologize for what he did to her. Never. "Better some days than others. So, since I'm sure you're paying somebody to keep tabs on me, why are you really calling?"

"I've been seeing someone for a while now. I thought it was time you knew about her."

"Seeing somebody? You mean a psychiatrist?" she asked. "Or…a girlfriend?"

"The second," he replied, "Her name is Yukie."

Rose wasn't sure how to take the news. She knew her father hadn't exactly been a monk since her parents split up, and everybody knew about him and Vigilante—the photo of them kissing in public had made the tabloids, and then of course her mom had tried to kill them. She decided to try and be open minded about Yukie. "So—I guess she's Japanese, right? What's she like?"

"She's an expert in Jian Wu, but primarily a noncombatant. That's how I met her. She has a degree in finance. In addition to Japanese and English, she speaks Mandarin and French."

"Da—," Remembering that Tim was right there, she converted Dad into "Dat's not what I meant. Those arefacts. What's she like?"

"She's not shy but she's quiet. She likes Shakespearian tragedies because of Kurosawa's films. She never drinks coffee. She's very private. After two years, I still don't know exactly how old she is…and I can sleep, with her."

"Well, that last part's kind of the whole point, isn't it?" she sniped at him, because, well,ewww.

Her father was silent for a moment. "This was a mistake. Forget it." He hung up.

"Well, fine!" she snarled at the phone.

Tim propped his chin in his hand and narrowed his eyes. "There's only one person I know of who you're thatangry at," he observed.

If there was anyone who understood what it was like to have a difficult father, (or father figure in his case), one who you loved, whose approval you needed but who you sometimes hated and often resented for helping make you who you were, it was Tim.

"Yeah, it was him. He has a girlfriend and wanted to boast about it."

She was ready to go back to Candy Crush, but Tim looked very thoughtful and sat up straight. "Really? How long has he been seeing her?"

"Um—at least two years, I think. Why?"

"Because the other day, I realized that, although he's been, uh, working steadily," by which he meant assassinating people, "he hasn't gone psychotic for at least a couple of years. Think back. He's been…who he is, but he's been on top of things. Clear-headed. No innocents, no collateral damage. It was after your brother Grant died that he first lost it, right? And then after he lost your mother,that was bad."

"You mean…you think that's the connection? That having somebody in his life sort of stabilizes him? Vigilante didn't." Rose made the wrong move by mistake and ran out of lives. "Damn it!"

"He didn't bother to call you about Vigilante, did he? Maybe she wasn't important enough to him."

"And that means Yukie is…Oh. Oh, damn it!" She'd made more than one wrong move. "I think—I think I misunderstood him. He said he could sleep with her, and I thought—. He wasn't boasting about his sex life. He meant he could sleep when he was with her. Damn it!" Quickly, she hit the redial, and waited. It went to voice mail, of course. He would answer only when he felt like it.

"Um. Hi, Dad. It's me. I—wanted to say I'm sorry. I misunderstood. I'd like to hear more about Yukie, and, uh, I'd like to meet her. If that's okay. I hope it's okay. Please call me back?" She hung up.

"I take it he had problems with insomnia?" Tim asked.

"Yes. He'd go days without sleeping. He practically needed a sensory deprivation chamber to get to sleep. Sometimes I wish I had one myself. It was… Grant was the only one of us who remembers him at all from before—hell, he was the only one of us conceived before they administered the serum to Dad. When the North Koreans invaded our house, Joey was only five, and Dad didn't know she was pregnant with me yet, so Mom faked our deaths, and I didn't even meet him until I was six or so. He and Mom were on and off for years…I don't remember them ever being happy together. She was always afraid—afraid of him, afraid for all of us, and angry, too. He was angry and not always in control and her being afraid just made him worse, I think.

"Now I'm trying to imagine him in a healthy relationship, and…I think it's going to break my brain. I—does she know what he does? If she does and she's still seeing him, what does that say about her? If she doesn't then is this even really a relationship, or just him deluding her? What if this is one of those Harley Quinn things?"

"Uh—I think you're freaking out a little?" Tim tried to intervene.

"Damn right I'm freaking out a little! This woman could wind up being my stepmother!"

"…aaand hyperventilating while jumping ahead of things. Can you, uh, dial it down a little? What do you actually know about her?"

"Well, her name is Yukie, she knows Jian Wu, she has a degree in finance, speaks four languages—which is pretty impressive but still miles behind him—and—how do Shakespeare's tragedies connect up with some director named Kurosawa, anyway?"

"Now that I can answer! Throne of Blood is based on Macbeth, while Ran is King Lear with sons instead of daughters. Both have samurai." Tim explained.

Rose's eyes grew wide. "Shakespeare…with samurai? This really exists, and you're not putting me on? It would make listening to all that iambic pentameter so worth it!"

"Well, they are in Japanese, so it's paraphrased, not word for word, and—."

"Why didn't anybody tell me about this before? Do you know how much easier that makes English class? I am streaming at least one of these tonight—I just—," She suddenly deflated. "I just hope this is for real, and that she's at least nice."

"Um-," Tim screwed his face up in thought. "Yukie-Do you know if she lives in Gotham City? A few days ago, I ran into a woman by the name of Yukime Kuwano. Yukie could be a nickname. She's Mr. Freeze's assistant."

Rose whirled to seize Tim by his collar, yanking him up off the chair. "Tell. Me. Everything."

"Ack," he choked, prying her hands loose. "It probably isn't the same woman. There has to be more than one woman named Yukie in the United States, let alone the world."

"You want to bet? If she works for Freeze, that ups the chance about a hundred times. Now talk!"

"Okay, you definitely need to cool it..."

Back in the café: "What—Why—How did—?" Nora tried, and paused to sort out which question to ask first. "Why didn't their guns work?"

Yukie wiped blood off one of her wooden barbells, and replied, "Because of this." Her hand went into her coat pocket and brought out a gadget. "It's a jammer which Doctor Fries invented. Unfortunately, it's short range and has to be pin-pointed on a particular device. A jammer which would emit a blanket field would also be too heavy to carry. That was why I kept talking for so long; I was using it on their guns. Do any of them seem dead?"

"Uh…" Nora knew how to check for a pulse, so she did. "No, they're all still breathing. Except for the man they shot."

"I wish I could have jammed that gun in time." She sounded as though she really regretted it.

"I've never seen someone die like that before," Nora looked down at his body. "It's so sudden and so final. One moment, a talking breathing person—the next—. We have to call the police."

"Yes. Given that the eight of them are all alive and that the Gotham police are quite used to scenes such as this, they won't even bother to take us down to the station. They'll just take our statements and take them away."

"You sound as though you have first-hand experience," Nora looked around at the wreckage of the café. Not so much wreckage as disorder, actually. Not much was broken.

"This is the…fourth time someone has come after me. However, before I call them—I would never encourage you to lie to the police, but it will be much easier if we…elect not to share why these bakabakashi chose us. They certainly will not want to explain why."

From the tone and context, Nora guessed that 'bakabakashi' was a Japanese insult. (Which it was. Yukie was not given to peppering Japanese throughout her English, but sometimes you simply have to say what you mean in your first language because saying it in another language is never as satisfactory.)

"You mean don't mention that they were after you because of that guy you're seeing."

"Yes." Yukie went over to the ice machine and took a handful, which she rubbed over her red, flushed face.

"What did he do that they're after you?"

"I don't know precisely why, but it should suffice to say that he is a professional assassin." She bent her neck to ice the back of it, letting the melt drip down under her collar.

"A—You're kidd-You're not kidding. How did you get involved with a hired killer?"

Yukie smiled. "As I told them, it was at a martial arts championship, and we were the last two left standing. First I nearly cut his ear off and then he nearly slit my throat. I won on a technicality, but subsequent events illuminated exactly why he let me win."

"You mean he did it to get into your pants?" Nora asked.

Yukie grinned this time. "As you say."

"That night?" Her friend nodded. "Yukie!" she half scolded, half teased.

"As I said before, I told myself, 'Just once'."

"It's all right. I, uh, kind of seduced Victor very suddenly myself, and at the time I didn't see us still being together at the end of the semester, let alone getting married. What are those wooden barbell things you were fighting with?"

"They're called yawara sticks, and they're why I don't have hands like a stevedore's. Very good for bone breaks and pressure point strikes. I prefer wood over metal or plastic. They don't set off metal detectors and they're not obviously weapons. Now—I think they must have shut the café staff in the freezer. Can you let them out while I call the police?"

"Of course," Nora said. This was like the time the lead set designer for the ballet had that accident with the nail gun, she decided. It made a horrible, gory mess, but panicking wouldn't have done any good and probably would have made things worse. Sometimes you had to suck it up and deal with it. Once you decided that, everything fell into place.

Something had fallen into place inside her as well. Watching Yukie in action— someone as disadvantaged as Nora herself was in her movement—had wakened in her a resolve. Even if I can't return to classical ballet, I can still dance. With time, with determination, I will make myself into something new.

A/N: Bakabakashi means 'idiot'. I know that originally Rose was the daughter Slade had with Lilian Worth, a Cambodian prostitute, but in the New 52 she is the youngest child he had with Adeline. That may simply have been an error on the part of DC. Anyhow, I'm going with it.

So, my pal Tev left a review last chapter that I thought made a good point, which resulted in the middle part of this chapter. It's a trial run. (I have her permission to quote this here.)

'While I like what you are doing with Nora here, it does seem as though this story is evolving away from the original concept. These things happen, but it does mean this is barely an Arkham fic at all at this point.

This is just a suggestion, and since I am hooked, I will keep reading whatever you do with it, but since Slade mentioned telling his daughter about Yukie, and IIRC, she is/was/who the hell knows now since the New 52 is making mincemeat of seventy-five years of canon/ a member of the Teen Titans, maybe you should throw them into the mix and move this over into one of the Titan archives? You might have to go back and work them into the story earlier, but it could be worth the time and effort to establish this in a category where it fits better.'

My other great pal, Swordstitcher, has also pointed out that I'm writing about villains/anti-heroes who are lesser known among Bat-fans, which translates to fewer readers, but I know those readers I have are very into it and go back to reread chapters several times. Is this a fair and reasonable change to make to this story? I might have to take it down and repost chapter by chapter after a rewrite. Any opinions and insights would be welcome.