Helena came home with a lot on her mind. What Lex offered tempted her, but she couldn't trust him. Trusting him was like trusting a predator when a rabbit is caught screaming because it's stuck in the fence. Before she left, Lex gave her a flash drive saying, "I know that daddy dearest, you, and I think similarly which is why I'm giving this to you…"

She looked at it carefully and said, "What is it? A kill code to something?"

Lex simply responded, "I'd like to call him Brainiac 5.0. He's an artificial intelligence, and he's better than his prototypes-trust me." He giggled thoughtfully. "It has information you'd kill for, but I have no doubt that you'll make plans around it…and you'll probably even insert it into your little supercomputer in that Batcave huh?" Lex looked at her with a smile that unsettled her, though she refused to show it.

"We'll see." Helena abruptly turned and walked out of the room with a flick of her skirt.

At home, she went immediately to the elevator after barging into the mansion. Alfred was most likely in bed and her father was God-knows-where. Descending into the lower levels, Helena put away the flashdrive, thinking over everything that had happened whilst in the lift. I wonder, she thought, if Bruce was in my position, would he let himself be played and used by Lex-or would he do the things that she was formulating on doing?

Who knows, she whispered in her head, after so much death in their lives, they lost some semblance of their innocence. When the doors opened, she stepped out into the low lighting, but the artificial yellow lights flicked on as she glided past with her proper upright posture, not missing a single step. She went over into her computer and inserted the drive, but as it was decrypting, she changed from her semi-formal attire into her work out gear. She kept a strict regimen so as to not let her body or mind fail her on missions. Helena knew that she wouldn't always succeed in a fight but it would be due to a simple mistake of complacency or mis-judgement of the environment. A wet floor doesn't seem like much, but it can make a huge difference when one is sporting a sprained ankle while brawling with assassins like Lady Shiva and Deathstroke. Helena knew she had to learn from failures but it was also easy to pinpoint what the failure was caused by rather than the fact that she was naturally a leaner smaller person than most hefty thugs.

Helena remembered one woman named Bertha and her twin Thomas were just hired muscle for Black Mask, and fighting both of them at the same time was no picnic. It was one of Helena's first field missions when she trained with her father. He always told her, "Your enemy may be physically bigger than you, use their weight and anger against them. The same principle can be applied to you as well, just because you're short and lean doesn't mean they can't unbalance you if you become emotionally involved in the situation." Her father was right, after all she blamed herself many a time when Harley and Joker easily overpowered her inexperienced self and ultimately led to the death of Selena.

When her father burst in and beat Joker and Harley to a bloody mess in front of her, Joker taunted to both Batman and Huntress, "Even with all your strength and intelligence I win 'cause she's not a-comin' back." He cackled a sickly uncomfortable chuckle. Those words haunted her since her mother's death. To the world Helena and Bruce were just rich folks who had no worries; but to her she was just a small student who failed, and her father in her eyes became half a man since his beloved equal died. Bruce, Jason, Helena, and all of the students of the Bat, lost and won many battles even with their varying lengths of experiences. Helena learned many things from Stephanie, Tim, and others even in the brief time she spent with them, and Helena felt she taught them something too. Still, Helena's insecurity always made her feel like the small young student of the Batman because of her failure to her mother, rather than the best protégé that he had-even if she was one of his actual children.

Both Bruce and Helena in spite of the difference in length of experience in field battles, Bruce was proud that Helena could stand up for herself just like her mother, brothers, boyfriend, and mentors like Barbra and even himself-though Helena didn't share his pride in her own accomplishments. He often told her that both he and Helena differed from the world in acting like both a sly fox and fearsome lion; or even as a rough tsunami and enduring river carving the canyons of stone. He often told her that perseverance, wisdom, strength, and balance were keys to success, and more often than not it worked for both of them since they both found the blend of those virtues.

In a way Helena identified with Jason who also once claimed to feel young, small, and child-like (especially back when he was), when he failed to save his father from gang members. It seemed that was the burden of the protégé-to be the small child while Bruce was the big father figure that kept all the bad boys and girls away from all of them.

Helena dressed in her armored body suit so she could get used to the heat in the battle. She thoughtfully analyzed her own psyche, maybe that's why she viewed herself as small, not just because she's short for her age (and Bruce even told her being five foot seven is normal for folks in their early twenties) but because she failed as a student and child, given that her parents were her teachers, both sets of them. Bruce would tell Helena that he felt if the timing was perfect that Helena, Selena, Damian, Terry, the others and even himself, were equally great at defeating evil forces lurking in the world; but it wasn't meant to be simply because fate had different part they needed to play.

Helena began with the automated and randomized system of mannequins that would pop up in the makeshift alley where she could practice her crossbow shooting. Perfecting each shot by precisely aiming it in a mere blink was an art in of itself, adding Helena's other skills of MMA styled fighting and you have one terrifying vigilante. Yet, she doesn't seem all that scary anymore now that other metahumans and demigods-as the newspapers are now calling Superman-possess abilities that rival even her own. The flashdrive blinked its completion from the code Helena entered in earlier to decrypt it, but she was more intently fixated on her practice. Her focus on this mock battle was more important at the moment, for she didn't want to become a complacent fat cat. Even though she was doing a phenomenal job at it, her mind wandered to a place where it was just Helena and her parents on the streets as a team. She imagined that she felt more confident that they had her back and she had theirs in the heat of war on criminality. This was probably another motivating drive for her to be a perfectionistic vigilante, but who really knew?

Helena kept fighting, but decided not to ponder over these blurry thoughts over her dead boyfriend and her dead mother or anything else. She fought on, clearing her mind and became even more agile and accurate with each swift kick, punch, shot, and take down on the lifeless foam androids. Helena was almost done until she heard shuffling of feet from the elevator, but without even looking she knew Alfred was awake. Smelling his coffee and aftershave, she continued fighting without rest.

"Good morning dear. I suppose you did not sleep last night?" He guessed by the way Helena was initially ignoring him in her self-training. The mug had a small picture of Helena as a ten year old hugging a younger Alfred in a cozy setting, Alfred always had his coffee and tea from it.

"What time is it?" Helena huffed, panting her way out of the mini maze of thin white drywall that lowered itself into the ground with the android. The timer buzzed as the setting automatically put itself away. Helena walked from the enclosed arena, hopping over the hip-high gate that separated the arena to the bridge that went to the workbench and computer area of the Batcave; and Helena strongly strolled to the computer past Alfred who was standing near the workbench by the stairs and suits in front of the elevator.

"Just like your father. You know sleep is a biological requirement even if you are immortal. It's half past six in the morning, since you asked." He took a sip, overlooking his thick brimmed glasses at her. She looked back at him, and then faced the computer, "I know I don't sleep long, but last night I couldn't sleep at all. So I trained." She typed away on the keyboard minding herself.

"I see you trained with the crossbow today." He stated. Helena looked back at him with her eyes that said 'I just said I trained.' He then inquired, "So what, pray tell, upset my darling girl, hmm?" she pulled up a chair beside her.

"You think you know me Alfred?" She asked with a smirk.

"I bloody well ought to, I diapered your bottom little miss. You and your father's." Alfred quipped. They both knew that of all offensive weapons she used, the crossbow was her final ultimate weapon of destruction since she modified her arrowheads to have poisoned edges that would hook itself in the muscle if it was pulled out the opposite way. It was meant to be torturous, because most of the time Helena just simply defeated her enemies with her fists and their own weapons against them. If she used her own weapon, it was a definite sign that she wasn't going to be merciful. Of course, these days it became a primary weapon rather than her former last resort like when she started out, but she practiced with it intermittently in comparison to her other training she does.

"I have a dilemma is all. It's not too difficult though." Helena tried to lie, but it was too transparent.

"Clearly." Alfred snorted, "Your father's not back from last night. He's probably at the glass lake house with some woman he picked up from the gala. Is that why you're angry?" Helena busted out, "Ha! As if. I've grown numb to his sexual exploits, it's if his heart gets taken that's when I'll be jealous, but that'll never happen. He loves mom too much. Just like the rest of us." She smiled to herself but then Alfred said, "What happened last night, Helena?"

"I met him last night. I was also given a choice to take him down, but it was the method in which to do it that's causing my dilemma." Helena responded. Alfred exhaled the sigh of a tired sad old man, "I really wish you and your father would realize that he is not our enemy."

Helena clenched her teeth, "Perhaps not today, we of all people know better. I think you are the only moral man I've known who hasn't had his hands tainted with blood, and I respect that. In another world I'd view him as the hope of the world like you and the rest of the populace does, but it doesn't guarantee that he'll be good forever-and trust me I'll know longer than anyone. Everyone has their good and bad qualities; one just has to know the trigger points. But the ticking time bomb and his motives doesn't concern me at the moment, a different threat does."

"Who?"

"I don't yet know, but I'm going to find out and why Lex Luthor is hiding him." Helena resolved.