Angel Proctor woke up in a strange studio apartment on soft bedding. After the blinding headache subsided for a moment, she caught sight of the reason she had it.

"YOU!" She cried suddenly.

Eyeing Ira Billings in street clothes making toast and eggs, Angel pulled herself into a sitting position, kicking the blanket off from around her. Her state issued clothing was replaced with a silky Japanese kimono and nightgown beneath. Even her hair was washed and combed, the straightness back after she let it go wild behind bars. Ira turned around, a hint of a smile dancing on his pale features.

"Did you sleep well, love?" He turned the heat off on the stove to walk over to her.

She was in a fighting stance on the futon. "Back off, freak."

"Angel." He sighed, shaking his head as if to a disobedient child.

"Don't call me 'love'? What did you do to me? What did you give me?" Her questions were heated, fists balled up in hate.

Ira Billings laughed to himself, putting strands of red hair from her face. She resisted, turning her face.

He continued to speak, hand still suspended in the air. "Like I said: My costume would freak you out, so I drugged you to make it easier for us to escape. I only drugged you once. You were in and out of conscience most of the time until midnight when you sleep it off. I just helped get you cleaned up. . . . while being a perfect gentleman, of course."

A dizzy spell hit her hard enough to make her sit back down on the futon. Ira caught her in his arms, Angel still tried to fight him off.

"You didn't have to." She snapped, watching his hands the whole time.

"Trust me, sweetie, I did."

"What does that mean? And where am I? Why me? What did you do to the orderlies-?"

She felt a finger press against her lips. Ira tossed her words aside. She managed to push him away though weakly.

"Now, now Angel. Calm yourself. That stuff is still in your system."

Angel wanted to hit him, to gain her control back. But, but . . . her head started swimming again.Whatever drug he gave her was potent. It was like the stuff in her pills. . . . Angel wanted to freak out. She heard her brain tell her mouth to scream, but nothing came out of it. Her muscles wouldn't listen to her fight response.

Angel Proctor shook her head with her hands. She stumbled back on the futon.

Ira rushed to her side, "Heed my warnings, dear, you're not well."

She couldn't even stand to her feet. Fear crept into her eyes.'No, no. It's the sedate! The sedate's messing with your brain, Angel. You're still rationale. You're still rationale. You're still rationale.' The words kept repeating like a chant in her brain.

It couldn't be the same stuff could it? Using the pills on her?

Angel's world went black over her eyes.


Once back to, she decided to play his game and see where it could lead her. She ate his blank breakfast to give herself energy. Angel wanted some answers: "Tell me your plan, Ira. Every evil genius who escapes a mental ward has one."

"Clever one you are, Angel." Ira sat on the floor next the futon she was laying on. His back was resting against the wall. Eyes darkening, he spoke in a dramatic voice.

"I want revenge."

Angel found the urge to laugh, "Very original." She was glad her asked for coffee, it gave her hands something to hold. Something to keep her steady, her mind steady.

"It's not the same, my love." Ira became animated. "I spent over a year pretending to be crazy just to keep from going crazy in that nuthouse. I nursed my anger, my bitterness, my pain! Then you, you lovely creature, came along and showed me my mistakes from where you failed. There we were with the same problems, the same let downs, it was like fate!"

"Having stupid lackeys? Getting too greedy? Not taking smaller amounts?"

Ira dismissed them with a hand, "No, not having a drug powerful enough."

"And we all know how well drugs solve all of our problems." Her sarcasm came back to life.

He continued to ignore her witty remarks, eyes shining. "Think about it, with my technology and yours combined. We can cripple this very city. Give them a drug that makes them love stealing for us while forgetting all detail at the right moment-minus the love element of course. Then trap our victims in an illusion so powerful, they can't even fathom the reality of it being fake."

Angel sat there, both shaky hands on a coffee mug.'One nut to another. He wants me to work with him.'

"What makes you think this won't fail?"

"We have each other."

Angel's head snapped suddenly, eyes blazing. "What's with this 'we' business? Why do I need your help? What makes you think I want you?"

"Angel." Ira Billings said her name softly. After pulling himself from the floor, he took the mug from her hands to place it on the adjacent lamp table.The criminal took her hands into his softly, sitting by her on the futon. Their legs were touching, he pulled her closer. His stare cut deep into her, bringing more of her fears to the surface.

"You opened up to me back there. We have a connection. Look at us. We failed committing the same crime all because we were underappreciated while we were straight. But now–now we can't fail."

His breathing was tickling the back of her neck, her red hair started standing up. The way he smiled made her question sanity more–his and hers equally.

She kept forcing herself to ask the questions. She had to know her fate. "How do we know this is going to work before we try to make our fortune?"

Now he laughed loud and long in the apartment. "What better test subject then Pinky."

Angel turned to face him with a laugh of her own. "Good luck on that one, Ira. That girl will be under so much protection once they know we're gone. Remember what I said about her connections–some very rich and powerful people managed to put the lid on the case. No one but us and them even know who she is!"

"We won't have to find her–she'll come to us."

"Oh, and I'm sure that she'll just say yes to dinner if we ask her really, really nicely with a cherry on top." Angel mocked, "I decided to give up on the Pink Hair. I don't care."

"Patience. We just need time. Based on your description and my contacts, we'll lure her to us. You'll see, you'll believe me."

The way he was talking. . . One final question burned in Angel's mind.She demanded this answer in a low tone. She grabbed his hands suddenly, bending them back with as much force as she could muster grabbing his hands, making him stare in her emerald green eyes. She could've broken his hands with all of the anger circulating inside of her.

"You give me one of my own pill, didn't you?"

But her strength failed her. Ira Billings got his hands back, face not once twisting in pain. He slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her inmto his lap, pushing her face to his. Angel Proctor tried to fight his embrace but the drugs still left her weak and hazy.

"Your love doesn't need a pill from me."

Angel's protest was muted by his kiss.


The feeling that someone was following her unnerved her.

'I gotta hurry up and get to the shrink.' Gripping her book bag, Max started walking faster.

For three weeks, the feeling didn't leave. Now it was continuing into the fourth week.

Max couldn't tell Terry. He did exactly as he said: He stopped. For the first three days, she left several apologetic messages on his voice mail but gave up when day four came around. She then threw herself into the latest research project at Gotham Hospital to numb the hurt. She worked extra voluteer hours at the Bio Park twice and got through three trashy novels as mental junk food. She still did karate after research ended in the evenings and saw Dr. Layton again, marking this the third week of her sessions. She wanted to be so busy she didn't have time to think. Max would collapse into her bed nightly happily to exhausted to dream. No nightmares, no subject to hash at the sessions.

After her day in the lab at the hospital, she left for the hour long session then planned to head to the dojo. But, every few blocks though she found herself scanning the area around her in the middle of the busy afternoon streets. It was too packed on the sidewalks for someone to be staring at her, much less follow.

Max still kept her eyes on the surroundings as much as possible. Relaxation was a luxury.


Spellbinder kept himself masked in the crowd as a passing shadow.

He managed to locate Pinky weeks using Angel's information, a few bored Jokerz, and his own detective work. Attacking her at home proved too risky, he saw a few extra Gotham PD. cars pass by her complex during the week. Today he got lucky again. He saw her take the B train to the business district. Disguising himself as another student on the Downtown streets, he followed her all the way to Wayne-Powers Industries then waited for three minutes. He stepped on the same elevator as she did. Ira stood in the back as a group of people working through the night stepped on along with two janitors and a mother and child. He saw her step off the fifth floor, walking to the left to a medium-sized set of offices.

"Very good," He said to himself as the elevator went up.


A tiny voice reached Bruce Wayne's ears as he walked the elevator, weary of the long board meeting he had scheduled. Terry was on the ground level with the car waiting for him. All the 79-yr-old man wanted to do was eat, listen to the scanner and read a good popular junk fiction book like any other elderly person.

"Can I speak to you for a second?"

The older man turned to his left to find a petite Asian woman standing down the hall, "Dr. Layton?"

"Can you step into my office for a second?"

Bruce stepped into the therapist' office, it looked undisturbed and silence as always when they were no clients. He took a seat in front of her desk. They were the only two there. He took a piece of candy from the dish.

"What can I do for you?"

"Someone broke into my office, Mr. Wayne. It had to happen on my lunch break, I didn't have lunch in here today. I met up with a girlfriend." She answered matter-of-factly.

"I find that hard to believe with the level of security-" Smuggles in the glass table peaked Bruce Wayne's interest. "But then you're a therapist, nothing is hard to believe."

"I only regret they took some of my session tapes. Not money, not the fine china or electronics." Dr. Layton sighed.

Wayne's eyebrow raised. "Whose notes did they steal–if you can share that information?"

Dr. Layton lowered her voice, obvious of the cameras. "I can only say that some of the tapes belonging to the 'patients' you recommended went missing. No one else's tapes. Those are the only things missing. Wednesday marked three weeks worth of sessions with this person."

Bruce soon had a name in place in his head. They continued to discuss the break in hushed tones."Any idea who would want the tapes?"

"My guess is as good as yours."

"So–we have nothing."

"Well," She reached into her pocket, producing a strip of fabric. "I found it hooked to the desk, I think they got hindered by the door but didn't want the break in to be so obvious."

A piece of red and black cloth laid across the palm of the doctor's palm. The older man's eyes lit up with a detective's flare.

"May I have take this?"

The Asian woman shrugged, "Sure, it's not like I need it or anything.."

She watched Mr. Wayne examine and re-examine the cloth until he was satisfied.

"I'll try to find the owner of this. In the meantime, I'll have a better security system setup in place to protect you and your clients."


That Friday, the autumn breezes picked up more, blowing her pink locks around.

And her danger sense.

Leaving the karate class this late in the evening forced Max to be on her guard. She clutched her back tightly, ready to practice her moves on the next passerby. She kept walking. . . Three blocks down away from Japanese Square the feeling washed over her again.

She reached for anything that could be a weapon–no one was going to run her off. The katana diguised as an umbella would do nicely. (For practicing so hard, the sensei gave her the sword as a gift that day.) They were practiced with weapons today in a new lesson. Maxine forced herself to look normal, she knw she was drawing stares.

When Japanese Square ended and Old Town began, she stood at the empty corner studying her surroundings. The denizens of the Square were starting to turn in while Old Town stood menacing and mute.

She held the katana to her side.

Watching.

Waiting.

For a full ten minutes, Max was silent but ready.


Something moved in an alley way.

Ready to fight, she stood taunt.

The somthing-a figure it seemed, seemed to brush by her again.

Panic rose in her. Flight-or-fight kicked in.

I'm seeing things, she thought, I'm going crazy here.

The figure came out for a moment to smile at her.

Max darted off into Old Town, chasing the figure.