Sorry for the delay… I was a bit full with work… enjoy and thanks….
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Barbara was checking some exams at her desk, it was one of those days where she could work peacefully without interruptions. It had been a week of exams and she needed to grade them so she could send the results in time for reports.
Without the redhead noticing it, the lock of the door moved. Slowly, it began to open.
Many of the students weren't good in English, she needed to work a bit more on it. She didn't understand why it was so hard for people to try to learn more about their own language. Helena had been a big headache on English, her mind was exceptional, she could learn fast, but she didn't like the classes; she never studied and her grades were low; only when she was in trouble did she surprise everybody with her knowledge.
She was so distracted that she didn't notice the woman walking slowly toward her.
"Hands up," the woman said.
Barbara raised her eyes in time to see an object flying toward her. She raised her hand and caught it easily. She looked at it.
"Bran cookies?" she asked.
"You're always saying you have to keep an eye on your weight." Helena sat on a chair and propped her legs up on Barbara's desk.
The redhead raised her brow. "Feet down."
The brunette rolled her eyes and crossed her legs, opening a package of cookies that she had in her hands.
"Bran cookies too?"
"Oreos." Helena put a cookie in her mouth. "I'm growing."
"Sure." The redhead smiled and opened her cookie bag, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm trying to socialize; you told me that I should be more friendly. I came to visit you."
"Sure, now tell me the truth. You don't like school."
"It's not that I don't like school, I'm allergic to it."
Barbara laughed, she was incorrigible.
Helena swallowed her cookie and looked at her mentor. "I remembered a woman that was at the bar last night. She was weird, she was all covered in clothes, she said it was because she had been burned. But she looked at the necklace I was wearing and she was very interested in it, she asked me many questions."
"What necklace?"
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She walked slowly toward the door and looked inside carefully through the small window. Well, now she was there too. Seemed as if they were twins, they always were together. Barbara would be easy, but the young woman, not so much. She fought her before. Bad timing.
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"The Egyptian one, one of my mom's favorites." Helena looked inside her pocket and took it out, "Could be a clue, I brought it to you, maybe you can check on it. The woman that attacked me said something about needing it and last night, after I finished my work, I left it inside the drawer of the bar. If she was looking for it my apartment, she never found it."
The redhead took in her hands. "Maybe you are right and this is the clue that we need to know what Cheetah is doing here."
"She broke some of mom's pictures, so it got me thinking that maybe they had some trouble. I don't know, it would be interesting to know."
Barbara noticed Helena's eyes changed suddenly and turned her head toward the door. She followed her protégé's gaze and moved her hands to take her batons. Helena's sixth sense never failed. Helena signaled to Barbara to stay quiet and she moved silently toward the door. Her senses were on.
She opened it abruptly and grabbed the neck of the person that was near it, raising her fist.
"Helena! What's wrong with you?"
"Dinah?" Disconcerted, the brunette blinked.
The teen pushed her hands away. "Let me go!"
"Dinah…" Barbara said surprised.
"Did you see someone here?" Helena looked around.
"Well… yes, a woman was standing here, but she went downstairs." The blonde pointed at the stairway that was next to the door.
Helena looked down and saw a woman running downstairs, two floors below. She jumped down easily. She landed on the floor below. At that moment, she heard the school bell.
"Damn," the brunette growled, running to get the woman before the students went outside their classrooms, but it was too late. In a second, the corridor was full of students blocking her way.
Unsuccessfully, she tried to follow the woman, but the students stopped her. Finally, she surrendered and, grumbling, she walked back upstairs.
"Who was it?" Barbara asked her protégée as she came upstairs. The brunette was visibly annoyed.
"I don't know, I couldn't get her. She escaped among all the students that came out of their classes." Helena paced in front of her friends in the hallway with her hands behind her back.
"Cheetah." Dinah mumbled, crossing her arms.
"She is following you," Barbara added.
"No one follows me."
"Well, she was here…"
Helena glared to Barbara, "Don't go there again."
"Well, she was here, we have just two options." Dinah sighed.
"What two options?" Helena frowned.
"She was following Helena or she was following you, Barbara."
"Me?" Green eyes opened, surprised.
"Well, she was here at school, right?"
"Why she would be following me?"
"I don't know, but if it was Cheetah, now she knows that Barbara is your friend and where she works. That is not good."
Barbara and Helena turned her head to look at Dinah and, after a few seconds, they looked ateach other.
"Point for her," Barbara said to Helena.
"I hate when she is right." The brunette raised her brow.
"Did you see her, Dinah?" the redhead asked.
"No, she walked downstairs, and she had a scarf over her head."
Helena growled in annoyance, she was playing a game she didn't like. The redhead wheeled back toward her classroom to pick up her briefcase. "We need to get back to work and check all the clues again." She raised her hand to show Helena's necklace. "This will help us a lot."
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Two days later…
"Come on Barbara," Helena pleaded, following the redhead around the platform. She was wearing a sleeveless, white blouse and red pants.
"I'm busy, I'm sorry, Helena." Barbara sighed; her protégée was obstinate and sometimes annoying. She was investigating Cheetah. She couldn't find any clues and Helena was worried about the groceries at the Clock Tower.
"You always are busy, why don't you take your time?
"I'm taking my time, but you want me to use my time to help you not lose your time, for me that is a waste of time."
"Taking time to buy food is not waste of time."
Barbara raised her brow and wheeled onto the platform. "Okay, you are right; I'll go shopping on Sunday."
"Sunday?" the brunette protested. "Today is Wednesday!"
"And tomorrow Thursday, you are smart."
"Not funny… Well, the kid can…"
The redhead turned. "'The Kid'" is busy, she has exams, and I don't want to see her distracted. Why don't you eat a sandwich? There is chicken too, and beef."
"Alfred's lasagna is much better. He said he can cook it, we just need to get him the stuff."
"Sunday." Long fingers pressed buttons on the keyboard, "I need to finish this."
The brunette crossed her arms. She didn't understand how Barbara could survive with frozen food and sandwiches. Alfred had promised to make her lasagna. She loved it, but he had postponed for almost two weeks because Barbara was busy working and Dinah was busy at school, it was the end of the year. "But I have been asking you for two weeks now."
"Helena, go by yourself. I'm busy. It seems as if your mother's necklace isn't unique, several exist."
"There are more?"
"I think it is part of a puzzle, maybe that's the reason Cheeta is looking for it."
The crime fighter cocked her head, "May I go?"
"You never ask me permission to go to any place, why…?" Barbara understood what she was looking for and turned to look at the brunette sternly. "No way."
"Please!"
"No, no, forget it."
"Just was a small accident," Helena protested.
"A small accidents?"
"I was chasing your bad guy."
"You could've gone around the fire hydrant. The repair of my Hummer was expensive."
"Barbara…"
"Helena..." The redhead rubbed her temple with her left hand, she knew that Helena would be annoying her all day with that.
Suddenly, the Delphi alarm sounded loudly. The redhead turned to her computer and typed at the keyboard.
"What is it?" Helena asked.
"I'm checking."
"It's Reese, a murder, Johanson building."
"We'll go there."
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"Here is the guy, did you know him?" Reese showed the pictures of the dead man to Huntress on top of the building. Dinah was standing next to them.
"No."
"The cuts were made with a knife?" the blonde asked.
"Looks like claws." Reese said.
"Your friend," Dinah said.
The brunette looked at her, raising her brows.
"Your friend?" Reese asked.
"Not my friend, I had a fight with a strange woman a few days ago, she looks like a Cheetah. Her body has black spots, she has cat eyes and big claws."
"Who is she?"
"Oracle says her name is Cheetah. Apparently she injected Cheetah DNA into herself and she turned into one."
"You know very strange people." The detective scratched his head.
"Tell me about it." Huntress looked at the pictures. "We are investigating her. What's the guy's name?"
A woman hid behind a rooftop a few blocks from where the three were talking. She observed them with her binoculars, attentively.
"Mathew McEnroe; he was fired from the Chemical Factory of New Jersey and then worked for criminals in the underworld."
--Chemicals? What was she looking for with chemicals.--
"No idea," Huntress answered, looking at the pictures.
"Hearing voices in your head again? You worry me." Reese smiled.
"I call it 'talking with myself.' " she winked.
"That's a relief. Well, I must go, I must finish this."
"I'm losing my charm," the brunette flirted with him, "Are you leaving?"
He smiled and placed his hand on the back of her head, pulling her gently toward him. He brushed her lips. "We are working."
--Right, you are working.-- Helena heard Oracles' voice in her ear. Dinah laughed.
The brunette rolled her eyes. "May I have a private moment for just one second?"
--Not when you are working.--
"See you later, baby." He gave her a fast kiss and walked toward the stairway, "Keep talking with the voices in your head."
"I don't see the humor in this," Helena glared at the blonde.
"You always tell me that being a superhero is not easy."
"Yea, yea, yea."
--Reese gave you something interesting?--
"A photographs of the dead man." The brunette put her hand over her ear, "I'm sure it's her, only she has nails so long."
"It won't be pleasant to fight with her." Dinah studied one of the pictures.
"Be sure of that. I would like to know what issue has she with my mom. Did you find anything Oracle?"
--Not yet. Now I'm trying to track down the story of your mom's necklace. It seems that the woman who talked with you at the bar was telling the truth. The piece is ancient. Do you remember who gave it to your mom.--
"She told me it was a friend, but I don't remember the name, just that she helped him to recover it, and, when he died, he gave it to her as a present."
--All right. Come back, you two, I want to see the pics Reese gave you.--
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"It's done," the man said to the woman covered in clothes, raising a small tube.
The woman took it and observed it carefully, "Are you sure this works?" They were inside a dark room, in downtown of New Gotham. The walls were dirty and in the kitchen she could see dishes that had gone weeks without being washed. The guy wasn't exactly the epitome of cleanliness.
"Yes. Perfectly." He put a drop of the liquid on a piece of bread and called a cat that was licking her paws in a corner. He leaned and showed the piece of bread to the animal "Come here, kitty."
The cat immediately moved and walked with fast steps toward his owner. He smelled it and licked it.
The animal took three licks when, suddenly, it growled and froze. He fell to his side.
Cheetah raised her brow in surprise, examining the unmoving form. "Is he dead?"
The man smiled, lifting the animal, "No, paralyzed. I used a virus that attacks meta human cells. The Virus is harmless for humans, but for a meta sometimes the virus induces unconsciousness quickly and paralyses the bigger muscle group, without compromising autonomic functions. It can kill a meta in 48 hours. Exactly what you need."
"Mmmm". the woman purred "I love it!"
"Well, I did my work, what about my payment?" He stood up and smiled at her.
She walked toward him and grinned, "Thanks so much, you were so nice."
The man felt a sharp of pain in his gut. Cheetah laughed, burying her claws deeper inside his chest. He held her hands and tried to catch his breath; "I hope this 'thanks' will be enough." Slowly, he slipped down and fell lifelessly to the floor.
She walked toward the table and took the tube. She examined it a few seconds and grinned. It was perfect. She put it inside her pocket and walked outside the room.