Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.

Disclaimer: I want to depict the reality of inner city life, and have tried both not to ignore social problems but not to glorify them either. Human trafficking, domestic violence, gangs, and racial relations are important issues in our society and need to be talked about if we're ever going to make headway on combating them. Any and all racial, religious, or sexual prejudices depicted by characters of Ernestina are THEIR OWN, and have no reflection on the author's personal beliefs.

Warning: This chapter rated M for violence, sexual references and racially offensive language.

Tuesday, September 3rd

19:47 EST

Candidly Cameras

It's nearly dark when Karl and Ji Yeon leave. They're both shaken, but still standing. His slate-grey eyes are swollen shut, and he's got blood dripping from his nose into her hair as he leans on her pathetically. Yet his head is high, and that more than anything tells me he's kept his pride. No man could hold himself like that if his woman just took a beating—or worse. I let out a bated breath. It's good to know he got the brunt of it.

Karl and Ji Yeon round the corner. Still I sit. The sky grows darker. The streetlamp behind me casts a long shadow down the spray-painted pavement. Come out and play, boys, I will them. Come out and die.

But these pricks aren't careless. They wait a full fifteen minutes before trudging out, enough time that any passersby who may have noticed Karl's condition would be long gone. Not careless, but they are naïve. Their tricks might be enough to fool the casual observer, but not someone who knows what they're looking for. With the Legacy the cops have been busy with far greater and more important things than simple extortion, and the crooks of Gotham are growing lax in their surveillance. They all spotted me going in, even made eye contact…but already they've forgotten me.

To them, I'm just a woman on a park bench, an anonymous part of the backdrop of Gotham…but not for long. Smile for the camera, boys. The faintest series of clicks that emits from my newest set of eyes doesn't carry more than a few feet, but the flash is bright enough to catch their attention even half a block away.

They shout something unintelligible. Point. They start the chase, and I begin to run. I sprint down a side street, and dart behind the Opera-house into Crime fucking Alley. At the Thomas and Martha Wayne memorial I kick off my heels and stand bare-foot where their bright-red blood once soaked the ground—and the sheer memory of its heady aroma is intoxicating. That stain is gone but this stone memorial is proof that once a man named Thomas Wayne once lived—and died—to stop thugs like these from casting a threat of fear over my city. History's about to repeat itself, boys, I whisper as I set the camera down gently, only this time the good guys win. With pounding footsteps they round the corner and with a sharp cry I'm spotted. I stand. Force a delicious sneer from my face and turn to face my assailants. I'm exhausted, boys. I give up. You can have the camera…

…And hell if the I'msofuckingfrightenedpleasedon'thurtme routine doesn't work every single goddamn time.

Crime Alley

Dark abandoned alley, six against one…

The Korean Killers don't disappoint. They don't fan out, don't move to surround me…they're cocksure. Unsuspecting. Unprepared, and unable to escape. Never follow a cobra down it's den, boys. You never know when the tunnels might widen and she'll turn to strike…

But the den has widened, and they won't know it until they taste my teeth.

Closer now, closer, every heaving heartbeat an agony I will them to come to me. They have me outnumbered. Trapped. Seemingly helpless…they'll never know what hit them.

Come and fight, boys, that monster leers, come and die.

They charge me, heedless. I'm a sick woman, alone, afraid and unarmed. They trust their eyes, trust their experience, trust the strength of the their manhood and muscles against mine.

They are deceived.

It's been nineteen years since Mortalis, and six since the sandpits of Underworld but my muscles have never forgotten they were once part of a well-oiled killing machine that needed no weapon but hate. No restraints, no remorse, and no mercy. My lungs let out a lusty shriek and I fucking laughed. I fucking fought. I fucking killed.

Two take fists to the throat, the third, a foot. The fourth takes a punch to the solar plexus so hard I feel his ribs shatter one by one against my metacarpals and the sound is goddamn magic…

The last two have some precious seconds. Time to adapt. Adjust their tactics. The fifth adopts a defensive pose, yells a string of nasally curses like he's Jackie fucking Chan. He's seen my size, my speed…thinks I got the better of his companions by getting the drop on them.

He knows their skills, their strengths, their weaknesses. And Five here thinks himself a better fighter. Four men lay dead or dying, and he charges me anyways.

He's used to the dojo, where rules and tradition matter. I'm used to beating up GCPD's finest, teaching them the hard way that just because they think they've got a nine inch cock doesn't mean a girl can't take them down. I've spent the last six years fighting where the only rule is try not to kill or permanently cripple your opponent. This is a bare-knuckles fist-fight. No ring, no referee, and no holds barred. I've been spoiling for this showdown my entire life.

His foot flies within an inch of my face. I drop. Lunge. Grab. Catch his arm on the rebound, feel the bone break as his elbow explodes in a meaty mess, slam his head into the brick with all my weight.

I hear his skull crush like a melon-rind against the clay. Red-grey fruit dribbles to the pavement in chunks and smears.

But that siren isn't sated. She's vengeful and lusty for more.

The sixth is the hardest—the last always is. He's had the most time to think, to plan, to pray...and you never know if he's going to do something stupid and noble or if he's smart enough to run away. His cronies are gone, he won't lose face, no one will ever know but him all he has to do is make it out alive—! You can see the thought churning in his eyes. Because the thought is there. It's always there…

But Six stands his ground. He's intelligent, not brave. He's not a hero and he doesn't care shit about the deaths of his cronies. It's just that I've had the drop since the beginning and no way in Hell he'll turn his back on me now. He's had time to think, to watch, to counter…he's also had time to grab a weapon.

Flick-knife, four inch blade.

My racing heart quickens in anticipation—I've got myself a fighter. "Only four inches, baby?" that darkness in me leers. "What a shame. Then again, you are Asian, and you know what they say—"

"Size don't matter, bitch, if you know how to use it right," Six bristles in perfect English. "You'll feel me."

"Go on then," I goad him. "Fuck me."

He's the man, so I let him make the first move. And I'm pliable, panting, aching for him to come to me…and Six doesn't disappoint. He freezes. Thrusts. Parries. He attacks with viper-fast, vicious arcs of that blade and swan-like stillness. His movement is poetry. Dancing. He's the Enforcer, and he knows his shit. Keeps it together. Every twist of that knife is beautiful, deliberate, and controlled.

So slowly, step by step, he begins to back me against the brick walls of the Opera House, and I let him think he's cornered me.

I'm not Martha Wayne. Six here isn't Joe Chill. He's fast with that knife, but not fast enough. I've studied his motion, his movements, seen the intense look of hatred and concentration on his face…know the dawning light of victory as it flashes in his eyes. I know Anger intensely, She has been my close companion all these long years. And here, in his eyes, like my mirror, I see the face of my old friend. I can distinguish with ease the difference between his feints and his fury.

I let him charge, raise the knife, I let him take the plunge but at the last second I turn with him, grab the wrist and throw him past—

Isaac Newton said it more scientifically than I ever could:

1) objects in motion tend to remain in motion unless acted upon by an external , unbalanced force; 2) a body of mass subject to a force undergoes acceleration in the same directionality as the force with a magnitude directly proportional to the force and inversely to the mass; 3) The mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and collinear.

…Yeah. Whatever the fuck that might mean. This is bloodlust. This is war. It's instinct, not physics class. Six is all of five foot seven, maybe a hundred forty pounds. My body is a lever, his speed the momentum, his charge all the inertia I fucking need. I don't let go. I brace, spin, bare feet dragged through the glass shards, shit and garbage of the alley's floor and suddenly I feel the arm catch and the stop is too sudden for the shoulder to shift there's a pop! as the joint dislocates and a howl of pain as I crouch, lower my center of gravity my pivot swirling faster and faster still swinging him by that dislodged bone then I heave all this city's scream of rage, sorrow, loss, and guilt over losing Thomas Wayne into tossing this Kkangpae cocksucker as far as I can.

Equal and opposite my ass. He fucking flies.

Crime Alley

I'll give him credit. The moment tough-boy Six wakes up he tries to sit, and lets out a groan.

"Boji." I don't speak a word of Korean, but the tone is clear. A cop in Gotham knows the word cunt when she hears it.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" I ask coolly. "It's called a fractured clavicle. You have two. Best you don't move." A sharp kick to the sternum and he's back down. I dig my foot into his left collarbone until I hear the bones scrape.

He's silent and still, but his eyes scream murder.

"So while you're just laying there, you and I are going to have us a little interrogation. Soon-yi," I ask. "Did you kill her?"

"Soon-yi!" I insist again with my heel as he swears unintelligibly. "Did you kill her?"

"This isn't your turf, man," Six spits. "You're breaking the truce. You have any idea what you've just done?"

Turf? Truce?

"War's coming, man," he states coldly, not a hint of pain or fear on his mask-like features. "Don't you know? War's coming, man. You Aryan fuckheads remember what happened last time?" he demands. "You want that again?"

…Shit. It's almost perfect, isn't it?

I'm white. I'm bald. I'm Perci Simmons. This fucker here already thinks I'm Aryan Brotherhood or close enough to it...all I have to do is confirm it. Simply play the part. Resurrect the devil I've tried for over a year to forget:

Perci Simmons. WASP. Parolee. Ugly as sin. Mean as fuck.

From the ashes, from the pit, from the ninth reaches of Dante's Inferno I summon her. I close my eyes, feel release as her sneer tug my lips. She is returning…and she's brought her wrath and racism with her.

"Listen up, Charlie," Perci snarls. "You've sucked way too much cock if you think we're even afraid of starting a war we know you dickless freaks can't win. Now I ain't gonna kill you because I've got a message for your boss. One dead bodies alone can't quite deliver, you hear? So you find that Gook sumbitch and you tell him from the Brotherhood to leave them alone, that Karl and Jee Young—" she botches the pronunciation like any ethno-centric fascist would, "they've got some new friends, see? We're looking out for them now, we're looking out for all of Gotham and if you and your Gook pals want to live you'll leave 'em alone and get the fuck out of Dodge."

There. I've laid the bait. Six here's already swallowed it hook, line and sinker when I get a sudden hit of inspiration. A signature, a calling card. A little something to make sure his bosses can have no further doubts, no other choices, no other culprits…just add some more fuel to this smoldering fire.

I play my ace.

My grand finale.

My pièce de résistance…

So I saw it on a Tarantino movie once in Pakistan and get a B for originality. Sue me. "But before you go—" I shred his shirt and jacket in a single, deft move then slide the blade slowly through his drum-taut flesh. Slowly, sensuously, I peel off his tattooed skin with one small wriggle of the blade at a time. Six is still defiant, cold, lets no hint of pain or emotion show. Tries to be stoic, to stomach it with honor. He forces his dark eyes to bore into mine, and his warm, putrid breath and body odor are the only things that speak for him in this short eternity. For my part I let my silence—and my slowness—continue the conversation.

As the last little bit of stringy flesh peels away he lets out a trembling sigh, head falling back onto the blood and brain-soaked gravel. Six thinks the pain is over…but it's not enough just to cleanse him, I have to brand him as well. "This is the US of fucking A, man," Perci hisses with a final, taunting twirl of that knife. "If you Gooks gonna live here you gotta pay your respects."

Blade hits bone. Dark blood oozes, thick and greasy across my hands…and wouldn't you know it tough-guy Six here bawls like a baby the whole time I carve the shape of a swastika straight into his skull. All these thugs, all these enforcers, all these low-life killing scum who take orders and money and lives for a living, they're all the same. Deep down inside, they're all cowards. Every. Single. Goddamned one.

You can see it in their eyes. It's always in the eyes…and right about now Six here is wishing he'd just have fucking run.

AN: If Paltron on the Joker weren't sworn enemies, I think they'd be good friends.