"Mr. Fisher?" Max asked knocking on the principal's door once we arrived to the office.

"Enter," a voice said.

I hung my head so that my hair covered my face as Max firmly let me into the room.

"Hello Max and Ridley," Mr. Fisher said, "how may I help you?"

"There's a problem involving Ridley and a group of guys," Max said, "I believe that they are harassing her."

"That's a pretty big thing to claim," Mr. Fisher said raising an eyebrow. "Do you have any proof?"

"No," Max said shaking his head, "but they did rip off your sweater, didn't they Ridley?"

I nodded my head. Damn I was near tears again, and all we were doing was talking! Maybe it was because someone else wants to help me. That was the most confusing part; Max never made a move to talk to me outside of the classes we had together. Jeez, right now I was an emotional confused mess.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Fisher said not sounding very sorry at all. "But I can't take anything you say into account unless I have a witness to prove what happened," he looked at me.

"But it was harassment!" Max said getting angry. "Shouldn't you take that into account?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Knight," Mr. Fisher said, "But have you considered that Ridley is just doing it to get attention?"

I stared at Mr. Fisher in shock. Had he really just said what I thought he said? I glanced at Max and by his facial expression I knew that I hadn't heard wrong.

"Excuse me?" Max said in barely controlled anger.

"You heard me," Mr. Fisher said with a wave of his hand. "You've heard what they say about Ridley all the time don't you?'

So that is what this is about. He's not willing to help me because he's a news believer.

"So what does it matter?" Max snapped.

"She's looking for attention," Mr. Fisher said. "That's probably why she doesn't speak. It's so that she'll get special treatment."

I stood up abruptly.

"Ridley...?" Max asked.

I shook my head and then before I lost it, I ran out of the room.

"Ridley!" Max yelled as I ran.

I wiped at a tear that had fallen and ran out of the building. I didn't care where I was going as long as it was away from that horrible place. If I could run away from Gotham I would. I collapsed on a bench and started sobbing. Why did people treat me they way they did? All I wanted was to be accepted for who I was and be as normal as a girl that won't talk could be. I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Max walking up to me. His face fell when he saw me.

"I'm sorry Ridley," Max said sitting down next to me. He put his arm around me and I stiffened before relaxing. Turning my head to the side I buried my head into his side and started crying harder.

"It's ok," Max whispered to me, stroking my back. "I should've listened to you. Had I known how much of a jerk Mr. Fisher was, I would've never brought you into talk to him."

I sniffed and pulled away from him. Sorry. I gave him an apoplectic look.

"It's not your fault," Max said, "and I don't mind this," he gestured to his tear stained shirt. "I think that our math class will be starting soon. Do you want to go?"

How could he ask a question like that now? I shook my head.

"So you just want to sit here until, school's over?" Max asked.

I want to leave now. I nodded.

"Ok then," Max said. "Do you want me to go and grab your things from your locker?"

Sure. I shrugged.

"I'll got get it then," Max said standing up. "You stay here."

I rolled my eyes and watched him head back into the school. Like I'd go anywhere. A few minutes later Max came back lugging my backpack behind him.

"What do you have in here?" he asked. "Bricks?"

I grinned and shook my head. I actually just had several textbooks that I was using for my classes, but Max probably knew that. It only occurred to me later that Max would've had to know what my locker combination was to get into it.

We sat in silence until school was out, which was fine by me although I thought that Max wanted to say some things at one point. I was wondering why Max had tried to help me; he never had done it before. Yeah, he said that he cared about me, but caring about me and liking me where two different things. Max had never shown any sort of feelings towards me that I knew of, I was kind of dense when it came to that kind of stuff so it was very possible that I hadn't noticed it.

"That your ride?" Max asked pulling me out of my thoughts. He was pointing over to where Richard had parked a few feet away.

I nodded and stood up, slinging my backpack over my shoulder.

"Hey Ridley," Max said causing me to turn around. "I forgot about it until now, but I wanted to give this to you." He handed me a sea foam green envelope.

"It's your birthday tomorrow, right?" he looked slightly nervous.

I nodded. To be honest, I had so much going on that I had completely forgotten about it.

"Well happy early birthday then," Max said. "I won't be here tomorrow casuse I got some things going on so I wanted to give it to you now. Don't open it until you're alone," he added.

I gave him a questioning look. Why?

It's something that I want you to see when you're by yourself," Max said. "Don't worry, it's nothing bad," he added, seeing my expression.

Richard honked the car horn and yelled at me to hurry up. I rolled my eyes and slipped the envelope into my backpack. Waving goodbye to Max I walked over to the car and got in.

"Who was that guy you were with?" Richard asked as soon as I got into the car.

Nobody. I shrugged.

"You friends with him?"

I shrugged again. I suppose he was a friend.

"You looking forward to your birthday?" Richard asked. "You're going to be 18!" he ruffled my hair and I poked him in the shoulder to get his attention back on the road. Richard was an ok driver, when he was actually paying attention.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this," Richard began and I rolled my eyes. He was horrible with keeping secrets. "But Bruce is planning on having a small party tomorrow night; if nothing bad happens."

I tensed when he said that. He did know that I didn't like being around large groups of people, right?

"But don't worry about it," Richard said. "We both know that you don't really like being around other people so it's just going to be me, Bruce and Alfred."

I relaxed when I heard him say that. Thank God; I didn't think that i'd be able to handle a big huge birthday party, even if it was for my 18th.

"Here we are!" Richard said cheerfully pulling into the driveway. I got out once the car stopped and headed into the manor.

"How was your day Ridley?" Bruce asked when I entered the living room.

Could've been better. I shrugged.

"I got a call from the school today," Bruce said slowly. "They said that you claimed that you were harassed. Is this true?"

I looked down at the ground and didn't meet his gaze.

"Ridley," Bruce said again. "Is this true?"

I slowly nodded and Bruce cursed.

"What the Hell!?" Richard said from behind me. I jumped in surprise and turned around. I hadn't notice him come into the room.

"You were harassed!?" he exclaimed, looking very angry. "I'm gonna beat up the punks that did it to you."

Bruce dragged a hand across his face and let out a sigh. "The principal seems to think that you're saying these thing to get attention."

Richard let out a surprised/disgusted sound.

"I know that you'd never say something like that to gain attention," Bruce said.

I nodded. Of course I wouldn't. I wasn't the type of person to do anything for attention. In fact, I hated it.

"Aren't you going to do anything about this?" Richard asked.

"I wish I could," Bruce said.

"So you're not going to do anything?" Richard said in disbelief. "Can't you like get the principal fired or something?"

"You don't understand Richard," Bruce said getting impatient. "If I went and found a way to get the principal fired, it'd be all over the news that Bruce Wayne fired the principal of Gotham High. It'd just be one more thing that the press would have against Ridley. I probably will have to deal with them later today or tomorrow because of what happened today."

I nodded, confirming what he was wondering about.

Bruce let out another sigh, "Why don't you go put your things in your room and then go with Richard down to the Batcave for training?"

I shrugged and then headed upstairs to my room. Bruce had wanted me to start learning how to defend myself, but whenever I panicked I forgot my training. I was really good at hand to hand combat and ok with weapons. However for some reason I didn't like modern weapons like guns or knives. Bruce didn't really like me learning to how to use weapons so he was fine with that.

Richard however insisted that I had to learn how to use weapons in case I ever needed to use them so we sometimes trained with weapons. I remembered the first time that Bruce had caught us doing that; he was really mad. He told Richard to not to teach me how to fight because when would I ever use it? Richard had then argued that I should learn how to defend myself if Bruce ever wanted me to join him and Richard on their nighttime excursions. Bruce relented after that and I was allowed to practice with weapons if I was careful not to get hurt. Five years later I still hadn't gone on with them. Hopefully Bruce would let me once my birthday had passed.

Dumping my stuff on my bed I quickly changed into something that would be easier to move around in and headed back downstairs. Pressing my hand against a panel in the living room I entered the stairway that led to the Batcave and made my way down.

"About time!" Richard said as I entered the training room. It was large and had the most recent and modern training equipment. I made my way into the middle of the room where Richard was.

"You want to work on hand to hand combat or with weapons?" Richard asked.

I walked over to the weapons rack and picked out my regular weapon I used. Since I didn't like using modern weapons Richard had managed to find some medieval weapons like swords and spears. The weapon that I had picked out was one that Richard had gotten custom made for me.

It was his brilliant idea that I needed a long range weapon in case I got attacked by gunmen or something so he wanted to get me a whip. I hadn't liked the idea because it made me feel a little too much like Catwoman. I wanted to learn how to use a sword, so we compromised and I ended up getting a custom made sword whip.

The blade was shaped like a regular katana and had a blade of almost two feet. Embedded in the handle was a button that I could push to activate the whip which extended to about four feet.

"Alright then," Richard said grabbing his own, regular sword. "Let's only practice with the sword part. I don't feel like getting flayed today."

I grinned and nodded before taking up my stance.

Entering my room I collapsed onto my bed in exhaustion. Richard and I had practiced up until dinner time with only one break, so needless to say I was tired, sore and cranky. I frowned when Richard entered a few seconds later. What did he want now?

"You forgot this," Richard said tossing my sword at me. I caught it in surprise and looked up at him.

"You need to clean it," Richard said. "You do have the cleaner up here don't you?"

I nodded.

"Ok well bring it back down when you're done," Richard said. "Or don't, it's your choice. Just make sure that Bruce doesn't know it has it up here ok?"

I nodded again. I'll stick it in my closet.

"You joining us for dinner?" Richard asked.

I shook my head no and walked over to my desk where I kept the cleaner.

"Alright," Richard said waking it the door. "See you later."

Taking the blade slowly out of the scabbard, I ran my finger along the flat of the blade feeling the near seamless edges of where the pieces fit together. When in whip mode the pieces where roughly a few inches apart. Getting out the oiling cloth I slowly started to run it up and down the length of the blade, careful not to cut myself. Once I was done cleaning it I put the oiling cloth away and put the scabbard with the sword in it, in the closet.

Flopping back down onto my bed I suddenly remembered the card that Max had given me earlier today. Opening my backpack I grabbed the envelope and opened it. Pulling out the card I was surprised to find that it didn't really look like a birthday card at all. It was shaped like a regular card, but the front was unadorned and was a plain white. It was rather heavy and thick though, probably was one of those cards that had a recording audio things.

Opening the card I slammed it shut almost immediately when I heard maniacal laughter emit from it, like Joker maniacal. I threw the card back onto my bed and stared at it. Why would Max give this to me? Was he working with them? He didn't seem like that type of person, but then again, I barely knew him. Cautiously, I picked the card back up and opened it slowly. I was met with the same laughter again before I actually heard the rest of the audio.

"Hello Ridley Wayne!" A voice cackled, and I assumed it was Joker. "We heard that it was your birthday tomorrow so we wanted to wish you well and hope that it'll be extra special!" He laughed again. "Don't worry about little Maxie, he didn't know what this was! We merely dropped it off at his house with a note telling him to give this to you. By the way, Eddie wanted to tell me to give you another riddle! So here it is: 'I never was, am always to be. No one ever saw me, nor ever will, and yet I am the confidence of all to live and breathe on this terrestrial ball.' Well that was dull. Tootaloo!" The recording abruptly cut off.

Ok. What. The. Fuck. Was that. I was confused. A million questions crowded my mind. Like how did they know it was my birthday tomorrow? And what did they mean the hoped that it'd be special? And what was with that other riddle? Obviously I was going to end up in some deep, deep, deep shit.