…now is she without, now in the streets,
and lieth in wait at every corner.
---
The second time she sees him, it's as the predator, not the prey.
Granted, she had fun facing off against the Bat. But she doesn't like being known. She doesn't like her work being interrupted or threatened, no matter how enjoyable the interruption might be. She's not stupid or obsessive; the Bat is bad for her profit margin and life would be easier without him sleuthing around after her.
So she decides to find out more about him.
Not his true identity. It's all the papers and the people on the street can talk about, but she could hardly care less; knowing who's under the mask is not as important as knowing how to keep him out of her hair.
No, she wants to learn how he operates, his patterns, his blind spots, the same way she learns about any on-the-job hazard.
As far as she's concerned, he's just a guard dog in body armor and a cape. Just a frighteningly efficient security system.
And she can disarm any security system that she damn well wants to.
She spends a few nights roaming the rooftops, trying to determine where in the concrete canyons of Gotham he might be. She listens to the police band and compares what she heard to the next day's reports of Batman sightings, looking for a pattern of response.
In the end, matters are simplified for her when the LoBoys and Street Demonz go to war. Suddenly ninety percent of the Bat sightings are coming from within the same sixteen square blocks, and all she has to do is find a vantage point where she's at minimal risk of taking a stray gang bullet.
It's fun in its own way – waiting, following, watching him pummel gangbangers. Enough to keep her entertained for a few nights. Before she can get bored, the war starts dying down almost as fast as it blew up, thanks to Bat pressure. Tonight will probably be the last night for easy stalking.
Tonight she doesn't wait long. After an hour he glides through the neighborhood, right past her observation post, intent on some unknown goal.
She takes off after him, running across the roofs in his wake, leaping, jumping, darkly thrilled as always at the idea of hunting the hunter. She can't stay even with him, of course – he's flying, she's not – but she wants to hang back anyway, to avoid being noticed.
He drops out of sight and she stops, trying to figure out where he's gone. A flicker of shadow against shadow on the roof of a building further down the block. That looks like him.
Gunfire starts.
A satisfied grin flits over her face. And that sounds like him.
By the time she crosses the distance and finds a safe spot, curled up in the lee of an air-conditioner unit, the fight has spilled out into the alley beside the residential apartment where it began.
She watches the Batman dismantle the cadre of bodyguards attempting – futilely – to prevent him from dragging off their leader.
It's not much of a challenge for him and she admires that. Admires the strength and skill and, yes, the grace, although "grace" is an odd word to apply to someone brutally subduing gangbangers. She remembers the rumor floated by GCN, that he dismantled an entire SWAT team along with Joker's thugs. She believes it. Watching him, it's impossible not to.
Then more LoBoys show up. A lot more, spilling out of the apartment building and running in from the street. Twenty at least.
They're all armed and suddenly the thundering staccato of gunfire picks up again. Suddenly Batman has his hands full.
She has to hold herself in place. He's got body armor, he's got weapons. During her nights stalking, she's watched him take out larger swarms than this.
Why am I so worried? she wonders briefly, but doesn't like where that train of thought leads and stops.
Movement on the fire escape directly below her makes her refocus her attention away from the main fight.
One of the LoBoys – a skinny kid in an oversized hoodie – has had a brilliant idea: Instead of rushing the alley with all of his friends, he's climbed out onto the fire escape with his handgun, where he'll have an unobstructed line-of-sight to Batman's head.
And Batman is so distracted by the fifteen other people trying to kill him that this junior rocket scientist may just succeed.
She considers letting him pull the trigger. That would get the Bat out of her business, permanently. Logically, she should help the kid aim and give him a hearty "attaboy!" when he's done.
He checks the magazine – this kid's pretty sharp – and then gets ready to take his shot.
She hops over the edge of the roof, lands on the fire escape beside him, and knocks the gun out of his hand. Brings her elbow against the side of his head. Brings her knee up sharply between his legs. He makes a strangled noise and hunches over. She grabs a handful of hoodie, forces him up, and hisses, "Sorry, junior - I like him better breathing."
It's the truth – vendetta for Holly or not.
She likes the Batman alive.
She likes him alive and interfering.
She wants him alive and interfering.
It's inexplicable and contradictory... but she let Holly sew those cat ears onto her costume for a reason.
The kid groans. She lets him drop, tired of it already, and returns to her post on the roof. How Batman can do this every night is another mystery.
The noise suddenly slackens. She looks down in the alley and sees that fifteen-to-one have proven to be lousy odds for the LoBoys. She doesn't think three-to-one will work any better, but the last few LoBoys are giving it their best try.
She watches from the shadows of the rooftop as the fight ends exactly the way she predicted.
The news announces the end of the gang war the next morning, with several LoBoy leaders under arrest – courtesy, no one will say, of the Bat, who is now burdened with an inactive underworld.
She starts planning her next job.