A/N: Thank you for the reviews! And thank you to DaisyJane, my wonderful beta.

Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night and

Wouldn't you love to love her?

Takes to the sky like a bird in flight and

Who will be her lover?

All your life you've never seen a woman taken by the wind

Would you stay if she promised you Heaven?

Will you ever win?

She is like a cat in the dark and then

She is the darkness

Rhiannon—Fleetwood Mac

Chapter Three

He'd known what she looked like before this morning, of course—even he saw newspapers occasionally. And he'd known she was beautiful. But Alexa without her mask on, in the flesh, was absolutely stunning. Her every feature was flawless, and it would have been intimidating except for the fact she had Diana's warming smile. In her society role, make up on, hair coiffed and everything polished to perfection, she must look every inch a princess, Kal thought.

Sparring was a good idea, and it was probably the next step in his reintroduction to the League. It was going more smoothly than he'd anticipated, so far anyway. Batwoman's rampage through downtown Gotham aside. He had sparred with Warhawk and Thomas (Batman III, which was still disconcerting), but so far no one had pushed him even into his comfort zone. And ordinarily he might doubt Alexa could, except a couple of days ago she had made him bleed, and he couldn't remember the last time anyone had managed that.

"In the Cave?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Walls of the Cave are only stone. The sparring suites in the Metrotower have been specifically designed –"

"To withstand impacts with meta force behind them, I remember."

"Of course you do. Give me a moment to change."

Once Alexa had morphed into Batwoman (and he was almost disappointed to see those cornflower-blue eyes disappear), the two of them went to the Metrotower, flying rather than the slightly faster teleport.

"So why Metropolis?" Alexa asked as they flew towards it.

"Why Gotham?"

"Because my family have lived there for generations and we have a deep personal connection to the city."

"As I have to Metropolis," he said, a bit defensively.

"I know you have now, Kal, but surely you didn't when you first left home. You grew up in Kansas, didn't you?"

"Yeah. But Kansas City doesn't really have a big crime rate. I decided I could do more in Metropolis. Why?"

She shrugged. "Curiosity."

"Are you making a study out of me?"

"Maybe," she replied coyly.

"I'm pretty sure your father kept meticulous records about all members of the League. They could tell you everything they wanted to know."

"Not everything," she corrected as they landed. "If I wanted to know your favourite colour, for instance, I'd be stumped. And besides, I don't like trying to take the measure of a person from words written by someone else. Even if he is my dad."

"That seems like a wise thing to do."

"I'd like to think so. I'm biased though—I only do that with allies. Any of Batman's rogues, I'm happy to take his word without further examination of the criminal in question."

"Again, probably a wise decision."

Entering the turbo-lift, they headed down, underground rather than up to the top of the Metrotower. It was safer, just in case a wall did get destroyed, as that way there was no chance of the building coming down.

"Violet," Kal said as they exited the elevator.

"Sorry?"

"That's my favourite colour. If you were really wondering."

She smiled. "Filed away for future reference."

A civilian member of staff was sitting at an admin desk, typing away on a touchpad. He stood when he saw them approaching. "Are any of the suites free?" Alexa asked.

"Only number five, Batwoman."

"The biggest one. Perfect."

The two of them started towards number five, but the man called out to Kal. "Uh, Superman?"

"Yes?"

"It's – It's good to have you back, sir."

Kal smiled, but there was a slightly troubled edge to it. No one except Alexa would have heard him mutter, "And suddenly I'm 'sir' again …"

"You don't like it?"

"Not really. I don't like anything that puts me above other people. I know it's just meant as a gesture of respect, but it still bothers me."

"Interesting," Alexa remarked as they entered sparring suite five.

He waited for her to go on, but all she did was to move over to the control panel on the wall. She deactivated the security cameras and password-locked the doors, so no one could enter unauthorised.

Kal lost patience waiting and asked, "What's interesting?"

"Well, you've spent at least the last thirty years—if not longer—pulling away from the rest of the world, so it's really no shock people will treat you differently. We fly in with these god-like powers, save everyone and then vanish again. It must be difficult to see much normality in us. Don't be offended, but you've broken most of the links you had to humanity. It's going to take time to rebuild them."

"So it's my fault?"

"It's not apportioning blame. I'm just stating fact."

It wasn't a fact Kal particularly wanted to hear, but he couldn't deny that Alexa was necessarily wrong. Nor was she completely right, however. He hadn't voluntarily severed any of his ties with humanity—they had all been cut for him. First his parents, Pa Kent first, with throat cancer. Ma had lived to the grand age of ninety-nine. It had been hard, losing his second set of parents, but he had come through it because he still had Lois. She might have aged far faster than him, but she'd still been the most beautiful woman in the world. Right up until the day she died. And they had both known it was coming, for months, for years they had. Kal thought he was prepared, thought he knew grief. He'd had no idea. Their time together just had not been long enough. He realized after her death ... forever wouldn't have been long enough. The reason he left Metropolis and retreated into the Fortress was because there was no material difference between the two. The entire world had become an icy, barren wasteland. There was no solace to be found anywhere, no comfort, no warmth. Overnight, his soulmate had gone, and in her devastating wake had left his entire life an empty, sunless vacuum. Things that had never mattered before mattered with an acute pain. Like the fact that he was not human. Like the fact that he did not belong on Earth.

"Do you think I can?" he asked, suddenly filled with doubt.

"I do," Alexa said seriously. "You're still Superman. And they won't forget that in a hurry."

"I hope you're right."

"Of course I am," she replied cockily. "Now, are we sparring or what?"

"We're sparring. You ready?"

"No. Give me a second." She took her mask off, throwing it into a corner of the room. "Hope you don't mind," she smiled, tying her hair up. "But I figure we'll be at this for a while, so I don't want to get too uncomfortable."

"Not at all."

She didn't stop there though, shedding the top half of her costume to reveal a black sleeveless vest underneath. That done, she turned to face him with a smile and dropped into a fighting stance. "Ready."

Neither of them moved for a moment, and then Alexa grinned. "Too chivalrous to attack a woman, Kal?"

It was fairly obvious she thought she could beat him. Smirking slightly, Kal flew forward in a sudden burst of speed. She dove out of the way just in time, still grinning. She punched for him, and when he caught her fist, she brought her leg up, kneeing him in the stomach. It forced him into the air again, but Alexa was already there, hovering above him. She landed a blow at the base of his skull, which sent him plummeting back to the floor and sent a tingle of pain enough to make him slightly dizzy through his vision.

Still hovering in the air, Alexa no longer looked happy. "Please, Kal. Don't underestimate me again."

He almost protested, but she was right—he thought of her as young, and because of that, inexperienced and unlikely to be a particularly strong opponent. She had already proven the opposite, and reminded him of something he'd forgotten. She had the powers of her mother, and the skills of her both her parents. She had probably been training since she could walk.

He nodded, and then got to his feet again. It was Alexa who moved first, diving down with her foot ready to kick him in the jaw. Kal caught her foot and used her momentum to swing her into the wall. Or, he aimed for the wall. Alexa used his momentum and a little of her own at just the right moment, and instead of her ending up slammed into a wall, she swung around in mid air and stopped behind him. She grabbed his shoulders from behind and lifted him, back-flipping and letting go of him while they were both upside down, driving him headfirst into the floor. Titanium-reinforced floor met Kryptonian head, and naturally the floor gave way. There was a dent the exact shape and size of his head and shoulders when he extracted himself, and absolutely no sign of a Batwoman. Apart from her breathing, quiet and steady, if a little quick. And her heartbeat. Both of which were clear and loud as sirens to Kal's hearing. She was in the far right corner of the ceiling, hiding in the dimness.

Kal accelerated upwards at top speed, blurring faster than Alexa's eye should have been able to follow him. But he heard her sharp intake of breath anyway, and while she only had time to move her head two inches to the left, it was enough. His fist sank into the wall. Alexa's fist came up to his throat; he caught it, then did the same to the other one, pinning her against the wall. Not to be deterred, all Alexa did was slam her head forwards, smashing her forehead into the bridge of his nose. It made Kal see stars for about three seconds—it made Alexa swear extremely loudly and in Themysciran. At least, he assumed she'd sworn.

It was definitely followed up by a, "Fucking hell that hurt!"

"That … was not a good idea," he said.

She managed a shaky laugh, blinking rapidly. "You're telling me."

"Do you want to stop?"

"Don't be …" she cut off, her eyelids slid shut and she dropped like a stone towards the floor.

Kal dove after her, and caught her a few good metres before she hit the floor, but then Alexa jerked, grabbed his arm and flipped him. For the second time, Kal found his face in the floor. Only this time, both his arms were twisted up behind his back, and Alexa was straddling his hips, her weight on his lower back.

"Yield?" she asked, sounding delighted.

He groaned. "Tell me I did not just fall for the oldest trick in the book."

"Yield first."

"Alright, I yield."

She got off him, though didn't stand up. When he turned around to face her, she looked even more beautiful than she had before they started. Her cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes had been made more intensely blue by the exercise, and she had a genuinely pleased grin on her face. The smell of her adrenaline came off her strongly, and her heartbeat was a furious drum-pounding in Kal's ears. Or was that his?

"You fell for the oldest trick in the book," she said with a light, musical laugh.

Kal nodded, unable to look away from her. Until a thin line of dark red liquid began to seep from one of her nostrils. He frowned. "Alexa, you're bleeding. Your nose."

She put a hand to her face, then grimaced. "Damn. I know people who are hard-headed but I think you win that contest," she said.

"Do you need to see a doctor?"

She shook her head. "Nah, it's fine. Stopping already."

She was right, after she'd wiped away the blood, no more replaced it. Kal still felt guilty though. "I'm sorry."

She smiled warmly. "Kal, you didn't make me headbutt you."

"True, but if –"

"Please don't feel bad—I've been through worse, and I've learned a lesson: Kryptonian skulls are harder than Amazon ones."

"Probably thicker, too," he said, getting to his feet and then holding out a hand to help her up as well. Alexa looked pleasantly surprised at the gesture and took his hand.

"Thank you. So," she said, as they walked out, Alexa now fully masked again, "same time tomorrow?"

"Yeah, unless some major crisis happens in the world," Kal half joked.

No crises happened, so they did continue the next day, and another four times that week alone, and each time, both of them came away a little more excited, and a little more confused. Alexa knew she definitely had been flirting when Kal had come over for coffee, and she was still doing so now. She didn't feel any embarrassment over finding him attractive; there wasn't a woman in the world who could argue he wasn't. It surprised her, yes, as she'd never considered the older man before, and a nearly hundred years was certainly an age gap, but it didn't bother her. She honestly found his maturity something that distinguished him from the boys that she usually dated. Alexa had always been practically-minded, and in terms of practicality, age literally was just a number for two immortal beings. And while he was charming and warm and funny, Alexa couldn't deny that the thing she felt most for him was desire. She kept finding things about him that were sexy, whether it was the breadth of his shoulders of the silver in his hair. It didn't hurt that he found her attractive too. And she knew he did—whether he acted on it or not.

Sparring sessions were a kind of sweet torture—neither of them held back (though she knew, logically, Kal must be doing so) in the fight, and a lot of dents got put into walls, floors and ceilings in the Metrotower's sparring suites, but it felt like dancing. There was a kind of rhythm to it, both of them moving in harmony. All that was missing was music. Alexa relished the challenge, and it never failed to be just that. He was stronger than her by about five or six times, according to the information she had access to, and his strength could vary depending on sunlight exposure. But Alexa was by far the superior in technique. He had strength; she had martial arts; he had laser-beam eyes, and she was expert in the use of almost every non-projectile weapon in the world. She had won their first sparring match, but then he won the next, and so on. They invariably ended with large amounts of bodily contact. Alexa hated losing—but she also enjoyed the feeling of being pressed against him, both of them heated and so-suddenly aroused.

Yesterday, there had been a moment where she had teetered on the edge of it. One drop of sweat, after more than an hour had run down Kal's neck. The temptation to lean forwards—and it would only have been a few inches, they were that close—and lick it off was almost overpowering. By the time she'd dragged her eyes back up to Kal's face, it was to find his gaze on her mouth. Unconsciously, she bit her lip, and the two of them shared a startled, guilty look. The session had ended there, no victory declared.

It might have helped if they didn't work so well together, but they did, becoming somewhat of a deadly duo. Last Tuesday being a prime example …

An international terrorist cell had invaded a nuclear fusion plant on the outskirts of Las Vegas, taking over sixty hostages and demanding, in return for their lives, the immediate release of several detainees the terrorists claimed the US government locked up somewhere. Whether the government had or not was irrelevant; they weren't confirming or denying anything and they did not negotiate with terrorists. Happily, that was the point of a Justice League, and Superman was already there dealing with the situation. The bad guys had about ten seconds, everyone assumed, until they were in custody and the power plant workers were released.

Except the terrorists were smart, and they'd bought a certain glowing green rock with them. Alexa, in the monitor room of the Metrotower, was watching it all take place. She saw Kal vanish, blurring into the building, and then about twenty seconds later, blur back out again. There was a frown on his handsome face that hadn't been there when he went inside. He needed help with something, clearly.

Alexa left the monitor room and flew down to the transport pad. "Send me to Superman's location," she ordered the technician.

A second later she was standing in Nevada, blinking in the afternoon sunshine. There were about a dozen members of the Nevada State Police standing there as well as her ally. Kal looked pleased, but not remotely surprised to see her. "Batwoman."

"Kryptonite?" she asked.

He nodded. "Armed guards on all the access points they can cover; infrared cameras on the one's the can't. All of them have at least one piece of Kryptonite on them. The hostages are being held in the canteen, but I can't get within thirty feet of it."

"How many hostiles are there?" she asked. She knew it would take some time for his abilities to come back to full strength after Kryptonite exposure, but standing the Nevada sunlight it certainly wouldn't take long.

"Fifty four."

"And the easiest route in?"

"Underground access tunnels. But they're rigged with booby traps and cameras, like I said."

"Not a problem. I'll need your help. Where's the entrance to the tunnels?"

"Over here, ma'am," one of the police officers said.

He led them to a set of doors that were padlocked shut and chained; Alexa quickly snapped the chain and pulled the padlock away, then opened the doors. Dark stairs confronted them, and Alexa went down first. There was no lighting, but neither of them needed there to be; Kal's vision was perfect even in the dark, and Alexa's mask had inbuilt night vision.

The stairs continued down for another thirty feet or so, and then leveled out into the tunnel, which seemed to go towards the foundations of the fusion plant. "What are they saying they'll do if their demands aren't met?"

"Kill hostages. And one was talking about blowing up the fusion reactor."

Alexa snorted. "Good luck with that one."

"It won't work?"

"No. It's impossible to blow up a fusion reactor."

"Why?"

"If there's a breach, the magnetic containment fails and the reactor just switches off. No reactor, no reaction. There would be a high-energy plasma discharge, but no more. "

The tunnel turned a corner up ahead, and just before Alexa went past it, Kal caught her arm. "The first camera is just ahead. Any further and they'll spot us. Now would be a good time for that plan of yours."

"Super-cool me."

"Come again?"

"Use your freeze breath to lower my temperature down to the ambient one. That way I'll be as grey as any other image as far as the cameras concerned. Unless someone's watching really closely, I'll get through undetected."

"That will cause hypothermia. It could well kill you."

She shook her head. "Thermal coils in my suit. They'll regulate my body temperature. All you're cooling is the external layer. And maybe my face," she added, gesturing to the exposed lower half.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It won't last long before the coils heat me up again though, so you'll probably have to keep doing it until we get past the cameras. I'll sabotage each one as we get to it, so you can come with me."

"Alright."

He still didn't look convinced, but as he didn't come up with a better plan, she knew she'd won the argument. A moment later, she was slightly cooler than the rest of the tunnel. And probably slightly cooler than she'd wanted to be, but she wasn't about to show Kal that. Instead she lifted quickly into the air and flew around the corner. The infrared camera was about fifty feet away, and she could feel herself warming up with every foot that passed. She got to the camera just in time, twisting it away carefully. It would still show nothing but grey, except now it was pointing at the ceiling.

"It's clear," she said quietly.

There were another twelve cameras after the first one, and Alexa got colder with every application of freeze-breath. She was able to ignore it pretty effectively, at least at first. The thermal coils in her suit were doing their job well, and regulating her body temperature effectively. The problem was that they weren't designed to adapt quickly, multiple times. If she'd been in a consistently cold environment, fine, a warm one likewise, but she was forcing them to go through warm, cold, warm, cold, warm, cold every time there was a camera to be disabled. At the seventh camera, a warning flashed up inside her mask—thermal coils operating at seventy per cent capacity. And then sixty. And then fifty. She didn't react to the warning, and she didn't make any sign to Kal that the last time he cooled her down, it was her own body warming her back up again.

While she was focused on the mission, it was easy; she focused entirely on that, keeping herself so still and poised that she didn't even shiver. When they got past all the cameras, there were still the armed guards to consider—and they were protected by kryptonite, thus rendering them safe. Unfortunately for them, it did absolutely nothing to render them safe against Amazons.

Alexa couldn't quite blur as fast as Kal could, but she could move more than fast enough for these bozos. She couldn't have them making too much noise though, so the first one got as far as a gasp, raising his gun and nothing else before she ripped it out of his hands, threw him to the ground and put him in a sleeper hold. After a moment he went limp. She tore the kryptonite—on a necklace—off his body and slipped it into a lead-lined pouch on her belt.

Kal joined her. "There are still a lot more guards."

"I know. I'll take the ones immediately surrounding the hostages, then you can release them, and I'll clear out the others. Any alterations you can think of?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Okay then."

There were thirty two guards between them and the hostages, and it took Alexa a little over two minutes to deal with them. The first fifteen or so were isolated, apart from each other and weren't given time to make much in the way of noise. After that, they started congregating in groups of about three or more, and they did start firing at her. Their machine guns rapped out a rapid fire burst of red hot bullets, each of which were repelled by the bracelets hidden in her gloves (the only piece of Amazon armour in her suit) and sent ricocheting off the walls. That inevitably brought more guards running, and Alexa tore into them all.

In close quarters, it was obvious that they relied heavily on their guns, since their punches were clumsy, slow for the most part. Those that did connect hardly hurt, but most were rebuffed. The only challenge was the amount of men there were. After all of them were down, she had to spend another five minutes searching through all the unconscious bodies for all trace of Kryptonite, and then she had to find space for it all. By the time she had the last piece, there was almost no space in her belt.

"Hera, they really didn't want you getting up here, Kal," she muttered into her com-link.

"Tell me about it."

"Well, you can come up here now. It's clear."

There was a whoosing noise, as usual, and then he was at her side. The doors to the canteen were locked, chained and had been guarded with guns. Kal pulled them off and opened the double doors. There were at least two hundred workers all tied up in there, in groups of no more than five or six.

"I'll get them," Kal said. "There are still more terrorists."

She nodded. "Get the police in here when you can. They might be getting bored out there."

"Be careful."

She disappeared into the rest of the building, sweeping through the last of the terrorists without a problem, and packing away any kryptonite she found. The sheer amount of it was worrying—any the League had ever found was resting in a secure vault underground, in the Czech Republic. Any Bruce had ever found was either in the Batcave or on Isla Wayne, and by all estimates that accounted for nearly all of the kryptonite likely to have fallen to Earth. And yet someone had given all of these men a piece each.

It took some time, in all her worrying, to realise how cold she was. Her hands weren't cold, and neither was her face, but her chest felt hollow, it was so cold. Her stomach, the same. Oh, you stupid, stupid girl, she thought.

Alright, she had to conserve whatever heat she could, which meant immediate cessation of movement apart from rubbing her chest. She had hypothermia—going from almost no movement to constant and quick movement of her limbs had meant that the warm blood at her core had fled to her limbs. Unfortunately, that also meant that the cold blood had gone to her core.

Her com-link beeped. "All the hostages are out."

Alexa closed her eyes in relief at the sound of Kal's voice. "Good. Need your help."

"Where are you?"

"Fifth floor."

Half a second later, she was confronted with a pair of concerned blue eyes. "What's the matter?"

"Next time I tell you to breathe cold all over me, remind me of this, okay?"

"Hypothermia?"

"Yeah."

"Metrotower, transport myself and Batwoman to the infirmary, right now."

Alexa thought that was a good idea, but she wasn't particularly expecting him to pick her up like a sack of potatoes and pull her flush against him. Under normal circumstances she probably would have enjoyed that too, except this was just to get her close to his body heat.

The Metrotower teleport engaged, and the infirmary appeared around them, the doctors already rushing towards them and with a gurney ready for her. Kal put her down on it. "She's got hypothermia."

"I'll be fine," she said. "It's not severe."

"Hurry up."

The doctors were wrapping silver-foil blankets around her, then piling normal blankets on top of those. She wasn't really focused on herself though; she felt guilty at how guilty Kal looked. "It's not your fault," she whispered, knowing he'd hear it.

A doctor leaned over her, blocking her eye contact with Kal. "Batwoman, try to shiver, if you can."

She smiled. "Can I have some coffee? Coffee would be good."

"In a moment."

"Hot liquids will raise my core temperature," she countered.

"Let them work," Kal interrupted, looking hard at her.

The corner of her mouth curled up into a slight smirk. "Yes, sir."

After another thirty minutes of wrapping her up and keeping her warm, the doctors were satisfied that her core temperature was high enough. They weren't prepared to let her leave until she'd kept it for another two hours though.

"With all due respect, you can't stop me leaving, doctor."

"I can," Kal said. She thought he intended his tone to be threatening, but it was tempered by the relief in his gaze.

When the doctor left them alone, she spoke before he could. "Don't feel guilty."

"Who said I felt guilty?"

"You don't need to say it, I can tell. Kal, it was my suggestion, remember."

"I should have known better than to agree though. You're –"

"What? Too young?" she asked. "You don't believe that. It was a risk, I never said it wasn't."

"A risk you didn't have to take."

"A risk that paid off."

He frowned. "How do you work that out?"

"I'm alive aren't I? The hostages are safe, the bad guys are in custody, and by tomorrow I'll be right as rain."

"So the ends justify the means?"

"Yes, in this case. Or are you disagreeing?"

He let out a very low noise of pure frustration. "Alexa, you …"

She grinned. "Are too much like my mother, right?"

"And your father," he muttered. "And the combination probably makes you worse than both of them." He sighed in exacerbation.

She grinned. "Am I forgiven?"

He glowered for just a second longer, and then smiled. "Just."

Last Tuesday seemed like weeks ago, and yesterday. When she thought back at the entire length of her acquaintance with Kal, though, everything seemed like that. Like she'd known him forever, and she knew him not at all.

She was still weighing her options. She did not think it likely that Kal would make the first move. He wanted her, she was completely sure of that. But whereas that excited and aroused her, it confused him. She wondered when the last time he'd had sex was, as that might have been a factor in his hesitation. Another might be that he had only known her a few weeks, and he had grown up in the twentieth century. Alexa had the benefit of being born in the latter part of the twenty-first. Sex, as far as she was concerned, was a perfectly valid form of recreation. She didn't think it was the length of their acquaintance that bothered him though. More likely his/her age, her parents and … something else. The more she learned about him, the more she thought it was probably the memory of his wife, Lois, that was the biggest obstacle them becoming more than friends. Alexa understood that, and while she carried on flirting, she knew there was a line that Kal had to be the one to cross.

Alexa shook her head and refocused on the task in hand: patrol. There were still a few pockets of violence throughout the city, and Old Gotham had been one area that had never really been cleaned up successfully. Terry had purged it of crime during his tenure of Batman, but drug dealers and pimps had always managed to gravitate back to it. Batwoman's theory was that they were following tradition, returning to what social history had taught them was their territory. The supervillains were all but gone from Gotham now, cockroaches in the bathtub of her city that had been exterminated by Terry and their father before him. What Alexa was left with now was the mildew. Easy to remove in theory, but often the most stubborn stain. What she dealt with were the petty criminals—but that was relative, really. It still meant mob bosses, serial killers, large-scale drug dealers …

Tonight was about one of those drug dealers. Ozzie Cawson supplied narcotics to half of the city, but because Alexa had shut down a lot of his production factories, he'd been getting desperate, cutting his drugs with other white powders that mostly consisted of poisons. Five people had died in the last two weeks because of it, and Batwoman was determined there wasn't going to be sixth. The police had been unable to take him down as yet—there was a mole in the GCPD, and a corresponding anti-corruption investigation, headed by Matt himself. Before they identified and arrested the informant, it would be impossible for them to go after Ozzie Cawson without him being alerted. Happily, Matt had told her, it paid having a sister who was Batwoman. All the evidence was in place; all that was missing was the criminal.

"How's the rest of the city?" she asked Thomas, who was monitoring from the Cave.

"Quiet. Now's as good a time as any."

"Agreed."

She flew to the building opposite Cawson's home. It was a nice house—in its own compound, patrolled by guards with dogs, CCTV on every corner and bulletproof glass in the windows. Clearly Ozzie thought someone was coming for him. Too bad for him it was her, she thought with a smirk.

"Hacked in?" she asked.

"Yeah. We have full control of the cameras."

As she watched, the cameras all pointed away from her. She now had a blind spot of about three feet—any further and the people monitoring the CCTV screens could get suspicious. It would be more than wide enough for Alexa. From her belt she pulled four pellets, black and oblong, about two inches long. She pressed a button in the centre, and the thing began to beep steadily. Wasting no time, she threw it through the nearest window. Bulletproof glass stood no chance with how hard she'd thrown it, and it burst through several walls before it landed on the floor of the second story with a thud. Coupled with the sound of breaking glass, it made the guards come running. Right in time for the pellet to explode in their faces. It was a clever little device, even if she did say so herself. The explosion wasn't really; it was essentially a flash grenade. While they were blinded, the pellet started projecting a hologram of fire. Unlike most holograms, it was completely impossible to detect any difference between that and the real thing. Unless you put your hand in it. By the time the men recovered their senses—literally—the 'fire' had completely consumed that end of the corridor. They all did the right thing, and ran away.

Alexa put a hand to her com-link. "Fire alarms."

They were linked in with the computer system, which Tommy could hack through its wifi, and he did so now—shrill and blaring, the alarms went off, to convince everyone inside the building that the fire was real.

"Did it work?" Thomas asked excitedly.

"Like a charm."

She threw the rest of the pellets through the other windows and people poured out of the front doors, from prostitutes to burly guards, and even a dumpy woman who looked like she might be Ozzie's mother. Within seconds, the building was empty. Except for one corner of the building. There, she could hear several voices raised in alarm, heading towards the back exit. Batwoman was waiting for them. She let them come all the way out and into the alley before she pounced, diving down onto two of the guards. They were both unconscious before they hit the ground. That still left four guards before she could get to Ozzie. All of whom were now firing semi-automatics at her. She brought her bracelets up in time, and bullets sprang from the black metal and ricocheted off in safe directions. She got to the nearest man and grabbed his wrist, bending it backwards and breaking the bones. Then she picked him up and swing him into Ozzie. It would kept him down until she dealt with his guards. The next guard had decided that guns weren't going to work, so dropped his and attacked her with bare fists. He went to punch her in the face; she dodged under his arm and dropped to one knee. He crumpled to the ground. She pushed his head into the floor; the next guy decided to try his lick. He slammed the butt of his pistol into the back of her neck. It didn't break—she wasn't as impervious as Kal—but it didn't really do anything either. By the time Alexa had turned around, he'd realised it wasn't going to work and had aimed the barrel at her instead. She swatted it away with one hand, and with the other grabbed his lower leg, squeezing gently. Both tibia and fibula broke with satisfying cracks, and she knocked him out with a tap to the forehead.

Ozzie, at this point, recovered some of his wits and shot her. The bullet grazed her shoulder, nothing more, and she knew it would heal before a few hours had passed. Ozzie wasn't given a chance to fire again. Once he was out, she handcuffed him and all his guards, then flew the whole lot to GCPD, dumping them on the roof next to the batsignal. She tapped her com-link.

"Inform Matt that Ozzie's been gift-wrapped. Normal place. I'm coming home."

"Acknowledged. See you in thirty."

A/N: Review please!