"Hello?" Adriana answered Bruce's phone call.
"Hello, beautiful," Bruce said to Adriana over the phone.
"Hi, Bruce," Adriana said and flopped onto her bed.
"You sound tired,' Bruce said to her.
"I really am," she said. "But I'm so happy to hear from you. How is Geneva?"
"It's beautiful," Bruce said. "Lot of snow. Beautiful fireplace. Wish you could have been here with me."
"Me too," Adriana said.
"I'll be seeing you soon hopefully," Bruce replied. "I may be leaving here a bit early."
"Really?" Adriana asked. "I thought you had meetings."
"There are a few other partners here that can handle it," Bruce explained. "I'm concerned with a situation in the city. Might need to be back sooner than I thought."
"What situation?" she asked.
"The Senator," Bruce said.
"Oh..I heard on the news that he's okay," Adriana said.
"So did I. A team sent to survail him lost track of him for over twenty minutes."
"Wow..." Adriana struggled through exhaustion, trying to sound surprised. "What does that mean? I mean...he ended up at the hospital?"
"Yes," Bruce said. "It was a close call."
"So you'll come back early to protect the senator?" she asked.
"To protect the city," he said.
"What about Shade?" she asked.
"I heard on the news about Shade saving a high school student being held for ransom earlier tonight," Bruce said. "She seems to be...decent at what she does. She's no match for the Joker though. The senator will need more protection than she or even a security team can provide."
"Yeah I heard about that too," she said.
"Can never stay away from Gotham for too long," Bruce said. "You never know what will happen."
"So when will you be back?"
"Soon."
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"I've adjusted the guest list in their system," Lucius said over the phone. "You will be...a Miss Mary Rainier."
"Okay, got it," Adriana said while pulling on a long deep blue floral dress over her suit. She put on glasses, brown contacts, and a short grey wig. She then put on a deep burgundy lipstick and powder makeup two shades too light on her face and neck. She looked like a much older woman.
"Good luck," Lucius said. "Perhaps I will see you there."
"You definitely wouldn't recognize me," Adriana said while putting her mask, makeup wipes and black wig into her purse.
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.
.
"Mr. Fox," Adriana said in a small voice to Lucius when she arrived at the conference.
"Oh, wow," Lucius said after taking a moment to recognize Adriana before using her alias. "Good to see you again, Miss Rainier."
"You too," she said and smiled before walking away.
Adriana walked around the trade center conference room, still feeling a bit tired from the previous day but knew she needed to be sharp. She didn't see the Senator at all as she scanned faces of people who were socializing before the conference started.
And then she saw him, in the corner of her eye. The server from the luncheon the previous day. The one who had given the senator a sedative.
He was breezing through the room as if he was in a rush to leave. Adriana hurried across the room to stop him, bumping into two people on her way over.
"Hello, young man," she said to the man who was dressed in an over-sized blue suit.
"Excuse me," he said immediately trying to step around her but she stepped in his way.
"Do you have the time?" she asked him politely. "Just wondering if the conference is about to start-"
"11:18," he said quickly and then walked around her incredibly fast.
She had it. His thoughts. She felt herself trembling a bit as she realized what was going on. She considered stopping him but there was likely no time. The Senator needed to be located right away.
She needed to find a place to transform. To become Shade.
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.
.
The Senator was relaxing with a cup of lemonade in a separate room with two of the venue's security guards. Shade could hear them talking on the other side of the door. She wasn't entirely sure what she would do yet, but she had to do something.
"Senator," Shade entered the room, heavily disguising her voice.
"You're that...that woman from the TV," the Senator's said suspiciously. "Shade?"
"Back up!" one of the guards said as Shade stepped closer, determined to protect the Senator. "We are warning you."
"Please, I'm here to help-" Shade started to say in her heavily disguised voice.
"Listen, whoever you are," the Senator said. "I don't need any help. My security team will escort you out-"
"No," Adriana said. "Listen to me. You're in danger-"
"Ma'am you're going to have to leave now," the security guard said as he grabbed Shade's arm.
Shade gave him two punches and a kick before sending him down the floor with a jab in the center of his chest. The second guard came her way with a baton. She dodged the first swing but felt the second one hit her suit in the leg. Her suit solidified around the impact but it still caused her a great amount of pain. He ran over to grab her as she went forward with pain but she used both elbows to hit him hard in the side of his jaw as he came behind her. They continued to fight until second guard was down, and Shade tried to speak to the governor again.
"Please, listen to me," Shade said. "You've been-"
"I'm calling the police!" he said and Shade snatched his phone away.
"Senator, you have-" she tried to say again.
"Stay back!" he said and walked over to a land line phone that was on the table in the room and began punching buttons.
"I'm so sorry," Adriana said, and he looked at her with a bit of confusion right before she struck him, causing him to pass out. She caught him as he fell and lowered him to the floor. She had just knocked out a senator.
She rolled him onto his back, knowing what she had to do but had no idea how to do it. She placed a hand on his chest and took a deep breath.
Before she come up with a plan she felt an enormous surge of pain through the center of her body as she was flung into a wall. The moments in suspension felt like flying towards death. The pain was dizzying as she tried to gather where she was and what had just happened. She pushed herself onto her forearms and looked up at the powerful shadowy figure standing over her.
Dark armor was all that she could see as the Batman looked down on her. She tried to stand but she could see in his thoughts he assumed she was running. He grabbed her by both arms as their struggle began.
"St-" Shade could barely speak as they began to brawl.
The level of skill he had as a fighter was far above anything she had encountered so far. The security guards paled in comparison. She truly felt challenged and for the first time felt as if she was fighting for her life. The entire scuffle was a blur as survival mode took over her. She wasn't even sure how she had gotten it but she had the baton and was swinging at him hard enough to send him to his knees. She did not want to hurt him but she needed him to stop coming for her long enough for her to explain. While he was kneeling he grabbed her foot sending her down onto the floor, onto her back. He had the baton and was pressing it down into her throat. She used all of the strength the had in her arms to push it back up in the opposite direction but her strength was not enough.
"Stop!" she screeched, her voice rough and raw through the pressure of the baton. She swung at his face but missed.
The circular blades in her suit that Lucius gave her for defense, which had gone unused so far, needed to be discharged now. She reached for the release and sent one of the flying blades at his arm. He recoiled in pain for less than a second as she mentally gathered herself and disguised her voice.
"There's a bomb!" she said in the split second, her voice husky and disguised, and the Batman reacted to his pain before pressing the baton down again.
"Is that a threat?" he asked, not letting up.
"The Joker put it there!" she tried to get him to listen while still using the last of her energy to keep her voice as disguised as she had trained herself to. "In his chest!"