11:51PM

I parked at the corner of Merrimac Street and 174th Avenue staking-out the Aegean through my windshield. The intersection was a one-lane both side thoroughfare with a two-way stop-sign and was moderately lit by an orange-yellow hue reflecting off the otherwise black and gray of the dark Gotham streets. The now-closed family operated shops and convenience stores that dotted Merrimac barely added any extra light. By day, this portion of Gotham was fairly charming with its sporadic umbrella shaped trees and its cobblestones avenues. At night though, the street felt haunted. It was any wonder why anybody wanted to be here after dark.

Robin said the gloominess of Gotham provided a great backdrop to launch attacks against the underworld. I intended to use that aspect in this attack. I just needed to get psyched up; I was really anxious and really uncomfortable. I'm sure the fact that I had just started my period had something to do with that.

The flak vest wasn't helping the situation either. It was squeezing my chest more so than normal, so I shifted constantly trying to ease the discomfort. I was inclined to not wear it knowing that my breast were going to be sore but uncomfortable woman-parts were better than a bullet hole any day of the week. To top it off, my pants felt tighter than usual. I took some medicine to relieve some of the discomfort but it wasn't doing a good job. Ugh, why did Mother Nature have to be so diligent?

I thought for moment about trying to see if this undertaking could have been handled the following week but I assumed that such a request would fall on deaf ears. If I was intending to continue this partnership, I should perhaps consider regulation. Note to self.

Adding to the discomfort, the newest additions to my outfit—two dull-gray colored bracers that ran the length of my forearm with three one-inch hooked blades jutting from the base of each—were extremely uncomfortable but for different reasons. They were heavy, not well balanced, and pinched my wrists if I bent my hands further back than the bracers appreciated. At least I was used to the vest; these things, not so much. Robin said they'd grow on me after I realized how useful they were. That had yet to be seen.

Thorne's lieutenants were sitting at a small table near the window which made watching them easy. I decided that when they got up to leave, I'd strike. I'd have to be quick, though. According to their records, two of them had done some hard-time for violent crime while the third apparently served in the Army two decades ago and was discharged for habitual domestic violence. I had to anticipate that their background made them capable fighters and that I needed to take them by surprise. I couldn't do this like a Marine; I had to do this like Robin had been teaching me. I had to be elemental just like he said, sweeping through and laying waste.

The things he had been teaching me over the past six or so months were incredible: Man-hunting, surveillance, stealth, philosophy, and combat. Combat is an understatement, really. I already knew how to fight, learning Taekwondo as kid and Kempo, Ishin Ryuu, and Marine Corps Mixed Martial Arts while I was still enlisted. But in comparison to what Robin had been teaching me, all those styles just seemed like they were for show—like cheerleading.

Robin taught me to be aggressive and calculating, lethal and controlled, focused and aware; to strike with precision and to use all my styles together like carefully designed choreography.

I really wondered where he learned all of it, he wasn't a day over twenty-one. Surely, Batman taught him but that didn't answer the question: Where did Batman learn it all?

I watched Thorne's men pay, get up from their table, and trickle to the door. I wanted them all together. I didn't want to take the chance of one or two of them getting away if I attacked them separately.

I grabbed my backpack from the backseat, unzipped it, and pulled Robin's gift from it. It was a round, full-faced Asian mask resembling a bat, sporting pointed ears; a stubby, turned-up nose; a fanged grimace; and empty eyeholes. Robin called it the Mask of Tengu. I called it twisted.

Why did he want me to wear this ridiculous thing? Was he trying to humiliate me? Was this some sort of initiation?

I situated the mask over my head. It was unsurprisingly stuffy and hindered my peripheral vision; nothing I couldn't deal with. Getting down the street unnoticed, though, was going to be the real problem but I had a plan to deal with that.

I brought along a dark-gray wool blanket to cover myself with. While it wouldn't be inconspicuous, I would look like just any normal bum trying to stay warm in the frigid Gotham November. It would allow me enough cover to close-in before I was noticed.

I stowed my discomfort and climbed out of the car, covering myself with the blanket and shutting the door with my foot simultaneously. Then I shuffled across the rain-soaked street passing an unsuspecting couple as I hopped the curb of the adjacent sidewalk. They looked at me but I didn't pay them any attention; the anxiety was so heavy that I had to focus hard to keep myself from puking and drowning myself inside the mask.

Once on the sidewalk, I made a straight line to the gangsters trying to move diligently enough so as to time the attack properly without alerting them as they exited the restaurant to their vehicles.

The valet pulled-up in a champagne Mercedes, hopped out, and scurried around to open the passenger door. One of the gangsters moved inside the door, paying the valet and turning to talk to the other one…two…three?

Okay. There were four total. One must've been a bodyguard. Robin had mentioned that there may be more than three. My anxiety increased considerably and I began to self-chastise for not bringing my gun. Why did I let Robin convince me to not carry it? What if they were armed? What did I mean 'What if they were armed'? Of course they were armed. These were some of Rupert Thorne's most trusted wiseguys. I must've been out of my mind for agreeing to this—Mask of Tengu notwithstanding. There was still time to turn back. I didn't have to do this, especially if my chances of survival were dangerously low. Besides, I had to work in the morning. How would I explain not being able to show up because I was seriously injured by local Mafiosi while attempting to take the law in to my own hands? For goodness sake, my father was the Commissioner of Police. I would bury his career if I wound up in the hospital.

No!

Stop it, Babs!

Babs? Really? I've never called myself Babs a day in my life. What the hell was happening to me? All this time with Robin was messing with my head.

I slowed my breathing trying to untie the knots in my stomach realizing that in the time I spent second-guessing myself, I had closed within about ten yards of Thorne's crew. They were arrayed in a line from left to right between the car and the restaurant entrance. One was standing inside the passenger side's open door, another was just a foot or so away, with a third just another foot from the second, and the fourth was standing perpendicular with his back to the restaurant. The valet was between me and them.

I tightened my gait and picked up a little speed.

Lord, be with me…

I shot past the valet into the group of men. They all froze when they saw the big gray odd-shape closing in. I rushed the one just to the right of the car door, slinging the blanket over his head and revealing the mask. The man to his immediate right reached into his leather jacket and pulled his gun free.

At that moment, everything blurred and passed in an instant.

I attacked him and slung him over my hip onto the concrete. I kicked the man standing inside the car door and then struck the last guy. Then I hit my first victim with the first object I could get my hands on. Once he went down, I leapt into the car and mauled the man who had fallen in.

Omigod! I couldn't waste too much time! How much time had passed? What if more people showed up? I had to get out of there before someone came after me!

I jumped from the car forgetting how big the mask was and hitting it against the door frame nearly unmasking myself. I dodged around the door righting the mask on my head so it didn't fall off and high-stepped through the pile of bleeding and whimpering gangsters over to the blanket. I scooped it up without slowing, slung it over my head again, and sprinted down the sidewalk towards the nearest alley, ducking into it as soon as I cleared the corner.

I couldn't believe that I had just done that. I couldn't believe that I just attacked four gangsters without so much of a thought. Once the attacked started, it was like I wasn't even in my own body.

The adrenaline bade me to keep my pace up even though my lungs wouldn't have it. I neared the end of the alley were it dog-legged to the left at a bluff that let-down a sixty-foot relief standing above the next street. The upper westside was built along stair-like bluffs which caused the alleys to abruptly change direction. Additionally, most upper westside alleys were level with the roofs of buildings on the street below; a perfect get away if you were a bit daring according to Robin.

I wouldn't have known until I tried.

I wasn't quite at top speed as I neared the wall, not with the blanket restricting my arm-movement like it was. I let go of it, allowing it to flutter to the ground as I pulled away accelerating. I came up to the knee-high stone wall, bounded up, and gave the jump everything I had to clear the four- or five-foot wide chasm between the bluff and the side of the building on the next street. I landed a little harder than I would have wished and it caused me to collapse. I gave in to gravity, tucked my arms in tightly, and rolled over my shoulder and back onto my feet struggling to keep the mask on my head. I continued running—albeit not as quickly—towards the service door and went through, ducking around the corner into the shadows inside the building's upper landing.

I crouched in a corner just above the stairs. It was pitch black and smelled like the inside of…the Mask of Tengu. Realizing that I was still on my head, I pulled it off.

Sweat was pouring down my face and I could feel steam rising from my sweat-soaked hair. I was starting to come off the adrenaline and suddenly the whole scene came rushing in. The things I hadn't noticed during the attack became suddenly recognizable: Their clothes, their cries, the few witnesses, even the backpack slapping as I ran.

I closed my eyes and I could see the fray with an impossible clarity that I lacked earlier:

I shot past the valet and into the group of the four men. They all froze and I rushed the one wearing a slate gray jacket just to the right of the car door, slinging the blanket over his head. The man to his immediate right who was wearing the brown hat—clearly startled but still moving—reached into his brown leather jacket and pulled his gun free.

I reacted quickly going underneath his gun-arm with two calculated steps, getting a hold of his wrist, and driving my bracer up through his elbow changing it from a chevron-shape into a tent-shape with a ghastly snap. To be honest, I didn't know I had that kind of power.

I pivoted, driving my shoulder into the armpit of his injured arm and then, using my body as a fulcrum, I yanked him off of his feet with my hips, heaved him over my body and slung him to the ground; he hit the pavement like a ragdoll. I used the momentum of the arc that his body drew to multiply the kinetic energy of a sidekick that I shot-out and planted just beneath the ribcage of the man inside the car door, who had come forward in those initial seconds, and drove him into the passenger side. He spilled onto the seat clawing the air unable to breathe.

The last man, who was wearing a blue suit, was initially startled backwards but found his steel and came at me as I finished attacking the other two. He swung out wide to his right and I slipped beneath the blow and sprung my next attack. I snatched both sides of his head at the ears and yanked it towards me as I leapt off the ground and drove my left knee into his face. His nose gave out with a terrible crunch and an instant stream of blood that splattered all over my leg.

The man I had covered with the blanket had managed to uncover himself by that time but stood hamstrung by the sight of his colleagues succumbing to the unholy-visage of the Mask of Tengu.

I didn't give him time to recover, I grabbed up one of the portable, waist-high, bronze posts standing vigilantly outside the restaurant and leveled it against his waist, he staggered; then mid-arm, he teetered; then shoulder, he buckled; and, then I clipped the front of his face right before he hit the hood of the car and then rolled onto the street. I don't think I knocked out any of his teeth, though I had tried.

With an obnoxious CLANG, I tossed the post onto the ground next to him and pounced on the man prostrate in the passenger seat. I set upon him bodily pinning him to the center console with my weight—even though I was only half his size—and holding him in place by pressing the blades of my right bracer against his jugular. He struggled initially, grasping at my kevlar and BDUs so I slammed my left fist into his cheek twice; that took most of the fight out of him. Then, I grabbed a handful of his executive jacket and pulled him close. He stared fearfully into the mask with tear-filled, swelling eyes.

"Tell Thorne the Batman is watching him!" I growled trying to disguise the femininity of my voice.

Then I was back in my own body in the shadows with the mask in my hand. I took a deep breathe, my lungs burned.

I did it.

I couldn't believe it.

I really did it.

I felt so empowered.

I felt alive.

Most women got that feeling from marriage and child-birth but here I was huddled in the darkness reeling from assaulting four criminals. And, not just any criminals, foot-soldiers for none other than Rupert Thorne, the rival war-chief to the Marrone crime family.

They were all injured and were going to be out-of-commission for an undetermined amount of time. During that time Gotham would be free of their criminality. That was four less criminals to stalk the streets—four less. Moreover, they'd always remember what happened here tonight and, with any luck, they'd reconsidered their job choices.

I still couldn't believe it. And, best of all, I didn't feel the conflict of being a police officer and being a vigilante.

Then I heard the service door open, iridescent moonlight poured into the landing but there wasn't a shadow cast by someone in the doorway. The wind must have blown the door open—creepy.

I looked around the corner anyway; I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't being followed. My eyes squinted involuntarily as they were bombarded with moonlight and I focused downrange scanning the roof and what I could see of the alley.

Just then something grabbed me from behind!

I screamed.

I struggled.

Its grip was like a vice, its arms felt like steel, and I felt clawed digits pressing into my throat.

I bucked wildly slinging rapid fire elbows and trying to drive the sole of my shoe into its knee. But it overpowered me and shrugged off my blows. The harder I fought, the hard its grip became.

Something covered my face.

I thrashed like a marlin caught in a fisherman's net but couldn't break free.

The light was fading.

Everything went black.