It was a normal Tuesday afternoon the sun shone through Elizabeth's windows waking her up slowly. Elizabeth stretched and yawned, after she had gotten home last night she had stripped and gone straight to bed. She hoped that Jacob kid had gotten home alright; it had been quite chilly out. Sleepily she blindly made her way into the bathroom it was just too early to open her eyes. She heard a steady stream of water running from the sink. Damn, she must have left it on all night. Reaching to turn it off Elizabeth's hand bumped into something warm and fleshy; she grabbed it, feeling it up. It was another hand. Elizabeth opened her eyes slowly and looked up.

"Hello child, are you done with my hand?"

"GAH!" Elizabeth dropped Jonathan's hand and in her surprise she took a swing at him. Luckily years of fighting Batman had given him pretty good reflexes and he ducked just in time to avoid being socked in the jaw.

"The hell Professor!?" She yelled once she had gotten over initial shock of finding yet another Rogue in her apartment.

"No need to be so surprise I did tell you I was going to drop by."

"Yes, I uh…I'll just let you finish you here." Elizabeth ducked back into her bedroom and shut the door quickly. She leaned against it letting out a long sigh. The rough wood hurt Elizabeth's bare back as she tried to collect her thoughts. Elizabeth blinked and looked down at her body slowly. She was naked. Blushed flew into Elizabeth's cheeks and she gasped. Quickly she hopped into a pair of pants and threw on a bra and t-shirt. She could hear Jonathan moving in the main room, picking things up and setting them down. Opening the door slightly she peeked out; Jonathan was crouched down looking at her movie collection. He was examining her horror section with a disgusted look on his face.

"Something wrong, Professor?"

"These fools think they know fear, they know nothing…" Jonathan stood and faced her, "and you might as well call me Jonathan or Scarecrow, I'm your employer now not your teacher."

"Okay, Jonathan, would you like anything to drink before we begin?"

"No, let's get straight to business as you sagely pointed out the other day, the smart Rogues are staying hidden, so I can't stay here long." Elizabeth nodded and sat in the chair across from where Jonathan had sat down. Jonathan picked up the manila folder he brought and took a few papers from it.

"These are the basic plans I've used for years." Elizabeth took them looking them over. The first one was a device for his wrist it was bulky and didn't hold much gas; the second was for a larger, timed device for wide range dispersal but it could definitely be improved.

"I see…well I can easily make this one less bulky and make it hold more gas but for the ranged device what were you thinking?"

"Get rid of the timer and make it radio activated some long range some short."

"Batman de-activate the timed ones?" Elizabeth asked jokingly. Jonathan's upper lip curled showing her that she was right but the joke wasn't funny. "So, a remote for each or a combined one?"

"Combined."

"Okay, can do it will take a bit longer though; do you have a time line for wanting these done?"

"A week before Halloween, but the first one I want as soon as possible."

"Can do, anything else?"

Yes," Jonathan reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, "at this address you can find everything you need. Just make sure nobody follows you."

"Of course. I suppose an important detail: how many do you want?"

"A minimum of twelve and a maximum of twenty."

"Will do, I kn—" There was a pounding on the door causing Elizabeth to stop immediately. She put a finger up to her lips and pushed Jonathan towards the bedroom door. There was another softer knock.

"Coming!" She shouted towards the door then turned back to Jonathan, "obviously be quiet." Elizabeth shut the bedroom door and rushed over peephole. She couldn't see out someone must have placed a flyer, as they often did, over the opening. Feigning a calm look she opened the door.

"Mr. Wayne!?"

"Miss Howard how are you, might I come in?"

"Sure, it's a bit cramped though, do you—"

"That's fine," Bruce interrupted, "I'm here on important business that should remain between the two of us."

"Okay…" Elizabeth stepped aside and gestured the billionaire inside. As he took an evaluation of her apartment Elizabeth quickly picked up Jonathan's schematics and threw them in an open box. Her eye flitted to the bedroom door hoping Jonathan would either sneak out the window or have enough sense to stay quiet. "Would you like anything to drink?"

"No, no, I can't stay long," Bruce said taking a seat and gesturing for Elizabeth to do the same. Elizabeth was a bit disgruntled at being told to sit in her own house but did so all the same.

Mr. Wayne was quiet for a second pretending to look around the room and then he spoke. "I hear you didn't apply at Wayne Industries at all, why?"

"You said you can't stay long, Mr. Wayne, and you know the reason why. What do you want?"

"Ah, yes…sorry," Wayne shifted in his seat uncharacteristically nervous. "Well you see our labs are still working on a serum to help you and I was—"

"No." Elizabeth said coldly cutting Wayne off, "as I said before I no longer care about changing back. Now unless you have any more business here I suggest you leave."

"I only want to help."

"And you only wanted to help before and look what happened. No, you've helped me enough am doing things for myself from here on out."

Wayne stood, "Very well if you insist Elizabeth, I will no longer contact you." He strode to the door and paused before leaving, "I will send your files around sometime this week." The door seemed to slam behind him and Elizabeth let out a sigh running her fingers through her hair. That could've gone better but at least she didn't need to worry about Wayne anymore.

"Okay Jonathan you can come out now," she called. Jonathan didn't respond. "Jonathan?" Elizabeth opened her door, slowly peeking her head inside. Jonathan was sitting on her bed reading a small, leather bound book.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, "that's my journal."

"It appears to be, yes," Jonathan said flipping the page. Elizabeth rushed over and tried to snatch the book from him; but years of having books stolen from him by bullies Jonathan simply stood and grabbed her still continuing to read while holding the book out of her reach. He flipped the page with his thumb still restraining Elizabeth.

"Let go!" She said stomping on his foot. Jonathan released her immediately but held on to the book. "Give it back Jonathan."

"But it's such an interesting glance into your psyche." Elizabeth held out her hand, Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Well asked politely then."

"Pretty please give me back my journal Jonathan," she said pouting her bottom lips and looking up at him like a puppy-dog. Jonathan closed the book and handed it to her. She set it down her bed and shooed Jonathan from the room. "I suppose you're not going to tell me what you read."

"Of course not, though I must say I do find it interesting that you were attacked by wolves yet you own a wolf skin blanket."

"It's warm besides I don't blame the wolves I blame the people."

"Reasonable, well I do believe that is all, I'll just be going." Jonathan stepped towards the door.

"Hang on there, mister, you promised 5000 dollars up front. Where's the money?"

"Nearly forgot," Jonathan said reaching into an inside pocket with a look that told Elizabeth that he hadn't in the slightest. "Here you go, 5000 dollars." Elizabeth took the cash frowning; they were all hundred dollars bills. She went over to her purse and pulled out a fraud pen blocking the door she checked all the bills for their authenticity. They all passed.

"Okay everything seems to be in order," Elizabeth stepped aside and opened the door for Jonathan. "It is a pleasure doing business with you." Jonathan inclined his head slightly as head passed Elizabeth but then stopped and leaned into her ear.

"You know, thinking about revenge isn't going to help, action is the only way to get something done." His twisted smirk and cold eyes loomed over her for a second when he pulled away but then he was gone. Elizabeth shut the door behind him and leaned against the cold mock-wood panels. Her body was shaking.

"I know."

"Good afternoon, Miss Howard," Dr. Grout said when Elizabeth stepped into his office.

"Afternoon, thanks for letting me re-arrange our session."

"Of course, it's important that you pick up your sister, Gotham is a dangerous place for those who do not know what they are doing."

"Yeah…" There was an awkward silence as both remembered that Gotham is dangerous no matter how long a person had lived here.

"Anyways, let's begin." Elizabeth nodded in agreement and sat in the chair opposite from Dr. Grout. "So last time you were here the Rogues had just broken out. How have you been since then?"

"Fine, fine."

"Are you sure you looked a bit stressed, last time."

"Well I was just a bit nervous, a consequence of being friendly to those psychopaths I suppose, nervous they were going to show up."

"And you haven't seen them?"

"No, of course not, I was just being paranoid."

"Well I'm glad you haven't seen them, you need to put the whole Arkham experience behind you…so last session we had finished talking about your high school years, so let's talk about college today; why did you choose Gotham U?"

"Well I knew I wanted to go to school with Alyssa and we talked about it and we decided to go to a public school. A good public school severely limited our choices. We looked at Metropolis, Minneapolis, Miami, lots of 'M's come to think of it. Anyways, my parents told me, well my dad that I wasn't allowed to go to Gotham, so of course I had to take a tour there. While we were touring I was nervous jumping at every back firing car. All the stories I heard were getting to me but then it just happened, a shoot-out. Cops were chasing this car of gang-bangers and the car crashed outside the building we were in. As luck would have it the gang came inside and took us hostage, or well, tried I should say. It seems those gang-bangers had never crossed two people trained in self-defense before. When the cops finally came into the building to "save us" Alyssa and I had already disabled three of the men and sent the other two running."

"And you decided that's where you wanted to go to school?" Dr. Grout asked amazed and slightly worried.

"What!? No, I would have to be mental choose a school for that. I went to Gotham U because lots of important businesses, Wayne Industries and the like where I could get a job as an engineer or chemist have their headquarters here. That was just an interesting story but you also didn't let me finish. After Alyssa and I sent the two running and the police came in I had a type of epiphany. I realized that I didn't have to worry about where I went, that I could take care of myself, I can apply my defense skills if need be and that opened up the world to me."

"I see…so in Gotham you found a logical motive for coming and an emotional one."

"Yes."

"How did your parents react to this?"

"They yelled at me, threatened to take away my privileges like using the jet-ski, but they knew there was nothing they could really do. So in the end my dad gave me a hand gun and allowed me to go with the stipulation that if I ever needed to use that gun I needed to leave Gotham. I agreed and so far I haven't had to use it. Until recently I haven't even taken it out."

"Because of where you live, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, why don't you tell me about your first year…" Elizabeth sighed and continued talking. She had been telling him her life from the ground up for over a month and the detail that Dr. Grout wanted was exhausting and if she didn't provided enough detail he'd make her re-tell the story again. He was worse than a middle school English teacher. It took about fifteen minutes for her to regale Dr. Grout with her life as a college freshman and answer all of his intimate questions like: "Did you have a crush on anyone?" and "What did you think of your professors?"

"I think that's time," Elizabeth said interrupting the doctor as he was jotting down notes. He startled slightly and looked at the clock.

"Oh, dear you're right. Time does fly doesn't it? Well I'll see you next Thursday then, and have fun with your sister tomorrow."

"Thank you," Elizabeth said already half way out the door. She left the building quickly, there was no point in staying. Last time she had hung around she had run into that awful Harvey Bullock who'd given her a piece of his mind on how her trial went and with no Montoya to jerk his chain Elizabeth was rather scared of his bark and bite. Bullock looked like the kind of cop who didn't care if he got his hands dirty…or greasy.

There was no one else on the bus when she got on and no one joined her until mid-town but left her before her stop. Elizabeth watched as her apartment passed by her and a pit formed in her stomach. Today she wasn't going home right away she was headed to the Narrows; more specifically the address that Jonathan had given her. Last night she had drawn out the plans for his wrist device and she was ready to test the first model.

She thanked the driver who shut the doors behind her quickly and drove off, nearly running into a trash bin. Several homeless men stirred in their corners determining whether she had any money or not. Apparently not. She glanced at the street sign. Right now she was on Fifth and she had to make it over to Twelfth. 'Well it could be worse…'

Elizabeth headed towards Twelfth and made it to Ninth with fairly little trouble but then, as things tend to do, something happened.