Chapter 6 - Following leads

This could have gone better, but in hindsight also a lot worse. At least she hadn't been squashed like a bug by the enormous brute. What had she been thinking!? Well, she could have an existential crisis over her own impulsiveness later. For now she needed to run!

Gotham's police were famously corrupt, but they also held together. When one was deployed against super-villains on a near monthly basis then you needed to be certain that your team got your back. And she had just attacked an officer in broad daylight. With a side view mirror no less! There were certainly going to be consequences for that.

To be fair, she didn't have much of a choice. As atrocious as that guy's aim had been, sooner or later he would have hit something vital on Killer Croc and then promptly blamed her for the deed in his report. Any murders on her record would be by her own choice, thank you very much!

'And that asshole also hit me!' she thought angrily.

Thanks to her altered biology, that few millimetres deep abrasion on her side sent ripples of agony throughout her whole torso with every step. It was like a burning iron was being rammed into her gut and it wouldn't cool down! Her throwing something at him might have been influenced a tiny bit by that sensation. She considered it a small mercy that the wound wasn't bleeding at least. Leaving behind a convenient evidence trail would just be annoying.

Nonetheless, Tanya took multiple detours and carefully waited around random corners to catch anyone potentially following her. Finally when the moon stood high in the sky, she allowed herself to relax and entered her home. After once more bemoaning how every pre-made meal from the supermarket tasted terribly over-seasoned now, she makeshift patched the rip in her shirt and scrubbed out the small blood splatters.

Only then could she finally sit back in her favourite armchair and enjoy a late cup of coffee to finish her day. It was one of the few luxuries that she did not save money on and the newly enhanced flavours flooded her tongue with pleasantly aromatic waves, making her almost forget the scorching agony on her stomach.

How would she even be able to sleep with the wound distracting her? Groaning, she began rifling through her bathroom cabinet for some painkillers.

-W-

Batman was not amused. His sleep schedule was precarious as it was, having to play the role of billionaire playboy by day, spending time with his family and fighting crime by night. Now there had been a significant fight in the evening and he had been nowhere near it! Why hadn't he been informed that Killer Croc had been spotted? And to chase him through a residential area... Madness!

And who was right in the middle of the entire mess?

White Lady, once again...

Was that a coincidence or was she taunting him?

Technically, the description of the woman who had hospitalized the crocodile-themed killer was different from who he had met yesterday, but all the signs pointed towards them being the same person. He was sure of it.

A white woman in a business suit and Oni mask, moving with superhuman strength and speed and using a brutal fighting style designed not to incapacitate, but to kill. He had read Killer Croc's medical assessment. She had struck the mutant between his ribs, using a knife with deadly precision. Twice. That skill didn't just come from anywhere.

Though that Japanese demon mask had to be new or else she would not have worn that shabby medical mask prior. A possible lead? Some rifling through the nearest traffic surveillance feeds – grainy and fuzzy they may be – revealed a similarly dressed, blond woman walking away from the direction of Chinatown. Her face was not distinguishable from this angle, being barely a couple of monochromatic pixels, but he now had an idea of what her face looked like.

The biggest piece of evidence against connecting the woman with White Lady was that none of the officers on site had described her eyes as blue, though that could be due to the mask obscuring them...

Regardless, this would be a fine assignment for Barbara. She had just complained last week that he wasn't giving her enough to do and tracking her down should be a safe yet equally useful mission.

Dialling her number he waited for the pager he had given her to respond. Seconds turned into minutes and he was starting to impatiently tap his foot while he read through other reports on his main monitor. He had advised her to keep the device always on her in case of emergencies, but maybe she was simply bathing at the moment or something similar.

At long last the call went through and he instantly began to speak.

"Do you have time tomorrow?"

"Uhm, yeah. I have some time... What do you want me to do?" Barbara asked uncertainly.

"A new potential villain has appeared; codenamed 'White Lady'. I believe that she was the one who stopped Killer Croc today."

"Wait, the person with the demon mask is a villain? But I thought she saved that trapped woman in the car."

"She did. But we cannot risk her going rogue. I have found a possible lead on her identity that goes back to Chinatown. Try finding shops near Westharlow Avenue that sell Japanese masks and inquire if they have sold one to a blond woman in her twenties. The transaction must have happened not even an hour before Killer Croc was incapacitated."

"Mmm... That's going to attract suspicion if the triads catch wind of this." his apprentice pointed out.

"Will they catch wind of this?" Bruce asked rhetorically.

Her grin was audible as she spoke: "Of course not!"

"Then get to it, Batgirl."

"Will do, Sir."

And with the ding of the call disconnecting, his mind turned towards the next problem to solve.

-W-

She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Nothing had happened yet. If the trend of the last few days was anything to go by then a bloodthirsty assassin would bust down her door any moment now or Falcone himself would finally lose his patience with her and set fire to the entire block or Killer Croc would come back for revenge or Batman would-!

Tanya forcefully broke off her spiralling thoughts of doom by taking a long gulp from her mug.

Paranoia would not help her. Still, it couldn't be denied that today had been remarkably average. She went to work, worked on her little system update and returned home without a hitch. Neither the police nor a certain bat-themed vigilante had tracked her down. Everything was quiet. Not literally of course, as she could hear pretty much everything going on within her vicinity, but in the sense that the day had been devoid of violence of any sort.

How vexing...

She hadn't even completed her outfit yet, and she already couldn't imagine her life without super powers.

Was that what Acton meant when he said that power corrupts? Tanya supposed that it was entirely logical that her sudden increase in personal might would go to her head, at least a little bit. Freedom had always been her goal and now she was closer than ever to truly attaining it. She had been chained by her school, by her mother, by her university, by her job and by the mob all her life. They had – with the exception of the last one – been cushy bindings, a support network that helped her guide her life unto a path that was desirable to society. Yet, they were restricting all the same.

And now she had the strength to tear them off.

No, it was truly no wonder that she would take a liking to the effects of the serum, inconvenient as they could be at times.

Like right now, when she had already taken double the recommended dosage of painkillers and the blasted wound was still aching !

-W-

Barbara was excited about her mission. Sure, beating up bad guys and solving crimes was awesome and all, but this one required an entirely different skill set. For one, she was not in costume which meant that she had to hide her identity in a different way. Bringing trouble home with her was not an option. Because of that, she had braided her hair and hidden it underneath her long trench coat while wearing a black wig on top. Additionally, a pair of glasses and a bit of clever makeup served to make her look a good ten years older.

Pleased by her disguise she rode the closest monorail train to Chinatown.

The first shop she tried was a bust. No masks of any kind. The second one wasn't much better; they only sold Santa Claus ones. As were the third and the fourth. This clearly wasn't working... Maybe she should look in one of the more remote stores.

At first she thought that she hit the jackpot, but the masks on the wall of the cozy little establishment were only for show, not for sale. The next one was closed and she was unwilling to break in through the back on moral principle.

That was when she felt a pair of eyes on her, the kind that working with Batman had given her a sixth sense for. Fishing her brand new flip phone out of her pocket she pretended to fiddle with the settings, all the while angling the reflective screen to show a man on the other side of the street watching her from the shadows.

He was either a mugger or an agent of the triads.

She had time for neither of those.

Exaggeratedly touching her forehead, she cried out: "Oh no! My appointment! I'm such a dummy!" and began to sprint down the street. Ducking into an alley along the way she took a left turn and another one before drawing her grappling-gun from her pouch and aiming straight up. The house facade blurred in front of her eyes for a moment before she gripped the edge of the roof with practiced ease and swung herself over it.

Gleefully, Barbara watched her pursuer stumble around the corner only to find nothing. People tended to neglect looking up far too much as her mentor had taught her.

Climbing back down on the other side of the building, she caught sight of a tiny, faded hanging sign full of kanji that she couldn't read. Curtains were drawn inside the display window, but the glowing neon sign on the entrance still read as 'open'. It was worth a try at least and so, shrugging her shoulders, she stepped inside.

Scanning the crammed room made her lips twitch in satisfaction.

'Bingo!'

Those wooden masks were exactly what she was looking for.

"Looking for something, Missy?" croaked the wrinkly old woman behind the counter, her accent clearly foreign.

"Ehm, yes. I was looking for a cool mask like this! You see, my dad loves this kinda stuff and it would be a nice present. Can you tell me anything about these things?"

She was playing up her act as the naive tourist in the hopes that this would lower the woman's guard. Maybe she would let some information slip if she thought that it didn't mean anything to her.

"Different mask, different purpose. For theatre and war."

"For war? What do you mean?" Barbara asked, perplexed.

"Playing role. Not so different. It's all play. One with blood. One with no blood."

What a weird thing to say. Barbara guessed that she meant something akin to dancing being similar to fighting. Both required endurance and bodily control, but the outcome and goals were however entirely different.

"What do you mean?"

"To tell story, tragedy happen. Life is greatest story. Life is greatest tragedy . Performed for audience story endure. No audience, no story. No story, life never happened. Mask make human into character. Make memorable. Mask is no flaws. Mask is greater. Mask make tragedy into story for audience."

Uff, that was a lot to unpack... If she understood the heavily accented and broken English correctly, then the old lady was basically saying that life sucked and that humans wore these masks without flaws to be remembered as stories forever. That was kind of... sad? Thinking of what Batman was doing, she couldn't deny the parallels.

His life had taken a terrible turn and so he put on the mask of the Dark Knight to give the people hope. She was pretty sure that he was under no delusion that his actions would eradicate crime everywhere in Gotham, but he was fighting every day to make people's lives a small bit better nonetheless. His symbol, that of the bogeyman in the night who scared all the bad guys away, would endure long after his death in children's tales and quiet pleas for help.

Meanwhile – as much as the thought hurt – her father would probably soon be forgotten when he retired. No matter how brave and hard working he was, Commissioner Gordon was an ordinary man, no grander than any other citizen. He was no symbol, just an honest man doing the right thing.

Putting on a smile despite her depressive contemplations, she asked: "And how much do they cost?"

"Painted, fifty dollars. Unpainted, thirty dollars."

"A small price for immortality." Barbara chuckled.

The saleswoman did not laugh with her.

"Uhm, do these sell well?" she tried again to elicit a reaction.

"No." the woman simply said.

"Really? Nobody wants a beautiful thing like that?" she desperately tried to fish for more information.

"Few have use. Few actors. Few warriors. You buy or not?"

"Do you think I could try one on before deciding?"

A lazy wave of the withered hand resting on the table gave her the go ahead. She grabbed the prettiest one and carefully pulled it over head after taking off her fake glasses.

"Does it fit me?" Barbara grinned from behind the thick slab of wood in front of her face.

"No."

The deadpan delivery hit her like a sledgehammer.

"Uh, really?"

"No."

"Why not?" she questioned, a little hurt by the brisk answer. No girl liked to be told that the thing she was trying on looked ugly on her.

"Not made for you. You already have other mask, Missy."

A chill ran down her spine. Did that woman know who she was?

"You not ready for another. Would lose yourself."

For the first time since she entered the store, the creepy grandma smiled. Brown teeth formed a hole-filled wall that seemed to almost physically push her back.

"Get out, Missy. You no more answers find here."

Barbara would vehemently deny it later, but she fled from the dingy room like the devil was on her heels...