To Be a Bird of Prey
Origins
I. The Hunter and the Prey
Chapter Two
The boss did have the information she needed. And he'd given it up, after some persuasion and even more of his men lying face-first on the ground.
This time, the hunt would take her to Edge City.
Sometimes, Helena wondered if all these men were sending her on a wild goose chase. Fear was a powerful motivator for the truth, but there were those who were still loyal to her father. And then there were those who didn't take her seriously, who thought they were better than her. She killed them all anyway.
The fact remained that she had a new lead, and she would follow it through. She would chase the breadcrumbs until they led her to her father.
She was reluctant to leave Coast City yet, though. The woman she had seen the previous night – her presence held Helena back. Whoever she was, the woman was also a friend of Oliver's – she'd worked with him, at the very least. And that knowledge was not something Helena could simply let go.
So, she went on a different hunt this time.
The city's west side held a trail of beat-up rapists, attackers and even purse-snatchers, which was easy enough to follow if you knew your trade. When the sun went down again, Helena followed the trail, to a middle-class neighborhood on the west side; the pattern she had studied helped narrow it down to a ten-block radius. Somewhere in those buildings, there was something that had drawn the attention of the woman in black.
And Helena hoped that her standing on the rooftop of the tallest building would also draw the woman's attention.
She didn't disappoint.
There wasn't even a sound to make her presence known, only the prickle in her gut making Helena sense she wasn't alone. She smiled into the darkness, loaded her crossbow, and turned.
The woman stood before her as she had the night before, bo-staff slung over her shoulder. "You do live up to your name," she commented.
Helena cocked her head to the side. "You know who I am, then?"
"Few don't," the woman retorted.
That was true. In no small part thanks to the one acquaintance they shared.
"I know you, too," Helena said. "You've worked with the Hood" – she rolled her eyes – "or the Arrow, as he likes to call himself these days."
"So have you," the woman told her, nodding pointedly in the direction of her crossbow; Helena narrowed her eyes.
"We didn't exactly part on the best of terms," she spoke, adjusting her grip and her stance. "Which is why I don't like it when I run into one of his friends." She cast a casual glance to the surrounding buildings, bringing her eyes back to the woman with a smirk. "So, I'm curious," she began, "what it is in these buildings that brought you here? This is your comfort zone. There has to be something." She raised an eyebrow. "Someone?"
The woman shifted her stance at that, turning hostile. Helena's smile widened; she'd hit a nerve, then.
"That doesn't concern you," came the woman's warning, to which Helena merely adjusted her aim.
"I have an axe to grind with the Arrow," she said. "Any friend of his concerns me."
"So I've heard," the woman fired back, and Helena ground her teeth at the tone. "If you have a score to settle with the Arrow," she went on, "there are more honorable ways to go about it."
Helena had to chuckle at that one. Lowering her crossbow, she prompted, "Indulge me on this one: what did he tell you to lure you in? You see, I know him." She took a step closer. "He uses people. Manipulates them when it suits him. He did it to me. So, how did he go about it with you?"
She received no response, but Helena knew she was right; if the woman had ever met Oliver, then he had used her in some way. It was what he did. Especially to the women in his life. Her personal favorite was when he used women to manipulate other women. Like he had her with the memory of Laurel Lance's dead sister.
She had unfinished business with the Arrow, and this woman in black could be leverage. She could pay some attention to a different kind of hunt, Helena decided, if only for a while.
"The way I understand it, you already have your crusade, Huntress," the woman spoke then. "Stick to it."
Helena didn't bother raising her crossbow again as the woman retreated, and went out of sight.
The woman was right, Helena would give her that; she did have her crusade. But taking orders from vigilantes with a hypocrite's code of honor? She didn't think so.
Her arrangements in Coast City had definitely become more permanent.
And her run-ins with the woman in black more frequent.
Two weeks in, it almost became a game.
Helena trailed her wherever she went, and sometimes the woman noticed, and sometimes she didn't; of course, the latter was debatable. Helena had observed the woman, studied her, and somehow, she doubted anything escaped her notice; then again, maybe the challenge had improved her stealth.
Helena also had to admit, the woman was good. The way she fought, the way she used the shadows to her advantage; from what Helena had seen, very few could match on the woman on any playing field.
Of course, what she hadn't seen held the most interest to her. And that was the source of the woman's stay in Coast City; there was someone in the city the woman had come to see, Helena was sure of it, but as she had also exposed her intentions, the woman had taken precautions and had stayed away from the source of her visit.
Which had led this little cat-and-mouse game they played.
Some nights, it was just a glance. On others, they bypassed each other entirely. And on one particular occasion, Helena had given the woman a helping hand – she didn't care much for vigilantes or their business, but when the save involved taking down men who'd tried to threaten a teenager at knifepoint into blowing them in back alley of a club, she took exception. She'd stood on the club's roof, while the woman dealt the men blows with her staff, and traded her crossbow for one of the guns she carried at her belt. Some people didn't deserve an arrow to the heart. They only deserved a bullet to the head.
The gunshot – and subsequent blood spatter – had scared the other men, and when the woman broke their necks, Helena knew they had died in fear. The woman, whom Helena still didn't really know what to call, had looked up at her then, and nodded.
And then they went back to their routine.
Helena wasn't sure what her primary goal was after a while, whether it was gaining leverage on the woman and therefore Oliver, or just playing this little game of theirs. Either way, she was having fun.
Another week in, and the fun seemed to be at an end.
Coast City, much like her hometown, was full of abandoned, decaying buildings on its outskirts; Helena had followed the woman to one such place tonight, keeping to the shadows of a nearby rooftop that offered a good vantage point. And then just like that, the woman wasn't alone anymore. Three other figures were in her path now, and they made her pull her bo-staff into fighting stance immediately. Helena counted two men and woman among the new arrivals; their posture and the blackness of their clothes reminded her of the woman's own, but the details on their hoods and masks – those reminded her of the Dark Archer.
Helena crouched low, keeping a careful eye on the party below over the rooftop's edge. They all stood still facing each other, until the man in the middle spoke.
"The daughter of Ra's al Ghul still waits on your return, beloved," he said.
Hearing the words made Helena still. Ra's al Ghul? Ra's al Ghul and his League of Assassins were only a myth – one she'd heard many times in many forms while she circled the world. Unless…
She bit down on her lip. That certainly put a new spin on things.
"You know I'm not going back," the woman retorted, much to the others' displeasure, it seemed.
"You will," the other man said, "or we shall take what is precious to you in this city."
Helena narrowed her eyes at the words; so, these three knew who it was the woman had come to see in Coast City. And evidently, their threats weren't appreciated.
"I won't let you," the woman warned.
"You may be stronger than any one of us, aletyewr alesfera'," the man spoke again, "but not three of us."
Three against one? Helena thought. Well, that would just not do.
She loaded her crossbow carefully, propping her elbows on the parapet as she took her aim. She pulled the trigger and the arrow whizzed through the air, embedding itself in one of the men's throat as it sliced through his hood. Now it was going to be two against two. Those were the kind of odds she liked.
Helena leaped to her feet, using the ledge to gain momentum as she jumped down. She landed on one knee, scraping the leather of her glove against the ground. Looking up to the three left standing, she smirked before rising to her feet.
"What are you doing?" the woman hissed at her, to which Helena only took a step closer.
"I like a good fight," she said, aiming at the second man.
He seemed to take her cue.
Stepping to the side, he left his better half to fight the woman, who engaged her quickly, while he went for Helena, drawing a katana.
That was new.
Helena loaded and fired arrow after arrow, which were all met with a slice of the katana; the man twirled it in his hand, made it cut both the air and her arrows as they came at him. She needed a different approach, then. Throwing her crossbow to the ground, Helena backed up a few steps, waiting for the man to come to her.
She ducked under his blade when he swung at her, sidestepping him and hooking a foot around his ankle to try and trip him; he tripped her instead. She pushed her legs over head to keep herself from ending on her back and landed on the balls of her feet; her hands scraped the ground again.
Rising quickly, she ran at him as he did at her, avoiding impact by leaping for a dumpster to the side; she bounced off the metal and threw herself at the man from above. They both went to the ground, his katana sliding out of reach, and when the man used his shoulder to roll them over, Helena wound her legs around his neck. She tried to twist and break his spine, but he hooked an arm around her leg and pulled. She growled in pain when he threw her off; she rolled over and braced herself on her hands and swung her leg in a circle, hitting him at his ankles. He flew back but flipped, landing on his hands before he was on his feet once more. Helena growled again.
She rose, too, resorting to hand-to-hand combat. She met his blows and deflated his kicks, but he was faster than her – and as loath as she was to admit it, better.
A punch to her jaw and kick to her stomach had her flying backwards, and her entire body hit the ground this time. She propped herself on her elbows, tasting blood on her lip. She licked it away from the corner of her mouth, narrowing her eyes. Fun over, then. Time to end this.
She rolled to the side and on one knee before rising fully. She reached through the slits up the sides of her coat, to where her guns were holstered against her lower back. She grabbed both, swung them around until they aimed forward; she flicked the safety off with her thumbs and pulled both triggers.
The man went down without another word.
Helena pulled in deep breaths to calm her heartbeat again, and as she looked to the side while she holstered her weapons again and moved to pick up her crossbow, she saw the woman had won her fight, too, and had the last remaining visitor in a headlock with her bo-staff.
"Repeat my message to Ra's al Ghul," Helena heard her tell the woman she had in her hold. "My family is off limits, and his quarrel is with me. And make sure his daughter hears it, too."
She waited for the woman to nod before letting her go, and soon, it was just the two of them left again.
There was silence for a moment, before Helena decided to break it. "Family?" she echoed. "So, that's why you're in Coast City."
The woman's hair whipped at her cheeks as she turned sharply; her anger was still written all over her posture and the features of her face Helena could vaguely make out in the dark. "We need to talk," the woman told her. "But not here. Come with me." She moved then, to scale one of the dank brick walls surrounding them.
Good, Helena thought, and followed suit.