MY COMPUTER IS FIXED! Once again thank you all for reviewing. Lovely lovely people... and you ALL WILL be happy to know I can produce chapters faster now so keep reviewing :) And I'll see if I can get the next chapter out as soon as possible! Enjoy!

"Lovely evening..."

Barbara hissed at the voice but stopped when she looked up and realized she came face to face with no other than the Batman himself.

"We need to talk... Cheetah..." he growled.

Barbara's eyes darted around, desperately looking for an avenue of escape.

"You've given me quite a run. Eighteen lab robberies in a week..."

Barbara cringed as he slowly laid his heavy boot onto her fingers. Loosening her grip on the window ledge...

"Why?"

Not wanting to stick around, Barbara released the window ledge completely and she felt herself plunge.

Bruce/Batman watched as Cheetah fell, fearing for her safety as she fell faster and faster but to his surprise, as she neared the ground, Cheetah had kicked the wall and back flipped onto the pavement, unscratched, unharmed...

"Impressive..." Bruce allowed before firing his bat grapple to give chase.

"Bloody hell..." Barbara thought terrified as two metal like objects missed her by millimeters.

"Argh!" she yelped as two more actually found their mark.

Grimacing, she pulled them out of her arm and in a weak attempt to fight back threw one of the bloodied weapons back at Batman only to have it ricochet off a wall.

"Who the hell throws bat shaped shurikens at people?" Barbara panted before screeching to a halt as realization dawned on her.

"Bloody hell, did he chase me into a populated area... to slow me down... and humiliate me? I ought to..." Two more bat shaped shurikens hit the wall next to her.

"Never mind..."

"Holy shit! It's the Cheetah!"

"Sorry...Excuse me... Pardon me... MOVE!" Barbara screamed as she like a madwoman pushed and shoved people aside. Ignoring occasional camera flashes snide remarks and screams. Barbara picked up pace as she raced through the streets. Paranoid, she glanced behind her shoulder only to see a large demonic like shadow behind. "What the hell is he?"

On all fours now, Barbara picked up even more pace. Striving to create some form of distance between them she took a risk and turned straight into Metropolis Park. Running like the wind and with each step, she prayed she had enough stamina to outrun the dark knight.

Bruce gritted his teeth. Keeping up with this woman was proving to be very challenging... and he resented it. There are first times to everything but in Batman's case, letting a villain escape his clutches... The very idea was...unbearable. However to give this woman credit... She was fast...she was very fast... In fact, she was running at 29 meters per second, which meant 112 km per hour. Not just that... She was actually intelligent... Choosing to cut through the park knowing the canopy of trees would block his visual trail of her since he was chasing her by air. Batman feared he was about to...

"Damn it..." he lost her...

Barbara heaved a mental sigh of relief as the terrifying nightmarish batman had seemingly disappeared. Recognizing the familiar landmarks of the place she now called home. Barbara summersaulted over the gate and threw herself through the doors and into the safety of her abandoned warehouse. Panting from the adrenaline rush, Barbara was surprised her heart didn't shoot from her chest. She lay crouched, tensed and ready, prepared to fight should Batman dream of entering.

Bruce cursed himself over and over back in the bat cave. He swore to God he had scanned the landscape. Every inch of it... Unfortunately reality hit him hard and he had to admit he lost track of his quarry.

"Stupid and careless..." he grumbled.

"Does that mean you'll have to start from scratch Master Bruce?" Alfred teased in amusement.

"I didn't even have much to start with Alfred..." Bruce admitted.

"So tonight's cat and mouse game was all for nothing?" Alfred asked curiously but raised an eyebrow in surprise as a small smile formed under the cowl.

"Not exactly..." Bruce mumbled pulling out a bloodied batarang before proceeding to scan it under the Batcomputer.

Unknown to both of them, in the more discreet parts of Metropolis... Two malevolent figures sat in a darkened room watching the late night news.

"This is Snapper Carr reporting live from downtown Metropolis where hysteria broke out not hours ago where Gotham's dark knight and justice league member Batman chased the feral murderer known as Cheetah down the busy main street.

Here we actually had a witness who was on the scene. Excuse me sir? Is it true that Cheetah actually attacked civilians just to get away?"

"Did she? Of course she did! She was snarling and growling... Throwing people around! An atrocity! Now tell me this what is the justice league doing to protect us from animals like that? Huh? That's what I'd like to know because that bat freak let the damn animal escape!"

Snapper Carr grinned nervously into the camera "Well there you have it folks... No surprise, as Cheetah is considered extremely dangerous... responsible for killing renowned Dr. Whitman and quite possibly his employee Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva and most impressively taking down Wonder Woman. Yes... Wonder Woman just a week ago in Cadmus labs... as shown here..."

Ultrahumanite and Lex Luthor watched scene after scene after scene of this Cheetah... The X rays of the deceased's bones, how his rib cage was thoroughly crushed... How she had managed to pin down the Amazonian princess in mere minutes...

"Impressive..." Luthor mumbled, his eyes gleaming in sadistic interest as his minds raced through all the... possibilities...

"What do you think Humanite? Should Cheetah be included in our little gathering?"

"I'd say why not... but frankly I'm wondering how much is truth and how much are figments of imagination coming from primitive human minds." Humanite retorted.

"True... But you can't deny the evidence..." Luther reasoned before pulling out his mobile.

"Mercy, it's Luthor...I want you to find this Cheetah and send her an invitation... From the Injustice League..."

"Aghh..." Barbara moaned as she got up from the cold hard floor. She had spent the whole of the previous night being extremely paranoid, and when she finally was reassured to go to sleep. Sleep was filled with horrible macabre imagery, demons and bullets that chased her around hellfire. She ran and ran until she collided into her parents. They glared steely-eyed daggers at her before shooting her in the head with a hunting riffle and the next thing Barbara knew, her pelt hung proudly in her father's trophy room. Surrounded by various hunting trophies...

"Last night... is a night I will gladly forget..." Barbara admitted as she started digging through the bins for breakfast but stopped dead when she saw the front page of a Daily Planet article.

"CHEETAH ATTACKS DOWNTOWN METRPOLIS!"

"I attacked Downtown Metropolis? I? What garbage is this? I think Downtown Metropolis attacks Cheetah would have been more appropriate..." Barbara mumbled in disbelief before tearing that page to shreds. With her appetite suddenly gone, she trudged back into the warehouse only to stop in surprise as she noticed a yellow envelope on one of the dusty tables.

"Funny... I never noticed you there..." she observed before picking it up and flipping it over. Her eyes went wide in disbelief as she saw it was addressed to her. Her hands trembling, she tore it open and read its contents... "50 000, 000 dollars to do a simple job..."