Chapter 19 - Russian revenge

She had actually killed Kosov. He had not anticipated this...

His fist clenched slightly as his mind raced for a solution, but he just couldn't think of one.

This was a complete disaster!

The Bratva had tried to hide the loss of one of their leaders, but the numbers didn't lie: thirty-one men entered the compound and only thirty left. Although it was pure chance that he caught the secret cremation ceremony at the Saint George cemetery.

Oswald Cobblepot clenched his teeth in frustration while the messenger in front of his desk soiled himself from fear. The whimpering wretch was shaking like a leaf. It was honestly so pathetic that he contemplated just shooting him now. But no... Getting the carpets changed again would be a pain.

Instead he focused on the last part of his report: "What do you mean you 'blacked out' before you could even approach White Lady?"

His tone was decidedly even, yet the nameless goon flinched as if he had struck him. What an idiot. The true pain would come later.

"I-I-I'm s-sorry, Sir, but I-I was just g-getting out of the d-door and th-then something hit me on the h-head a-and then I w-woke up in the morning on my s-seat! I swear, I d-didn't f-fall asleep! No, Sir! You h-have to believe me!"

"Oh, do I, now?" Oswald drily remarked, making the moron cry out like a little girl.

"N-No, I di-didn't mean it like that, Sir! P-P-Please forgive me-"

"Enough!" he interrupted his annoying stuttering before he actually shot him dead. "I believe you."

It was clear that this man would never have the spine to lie to his face and he couldn't have been asleep anyway because he got intel on White Lady in the first place.

"At least tell me what you know about her accomplice. The one with the plants."

His spies reported highly anomalous growth patterns in the garden surrounding Kosov's villa. The concrete had cracked where grasses and bushes had forced their way to the surface and even some flowers had bloomed in small patches around the area despite it being January. This was clearly a supernatural event, but nothing suggested White Lady possessing such talents.

Stumbling over his words again, the fool told him again what little details he had been able to gleam in the darkness, but it seemed that other than possibly red-hair and a green costume, the extra freak would remain unidentified.

Assessing his minion's worth one last time, Oswald came to a decision.

"There is only one question I have remaining..." he asked neutrally.

Hope entered the idiot's eyes as freedom appeared to be near. It brought Oswald a spark of amusement to crush it when he continued coldly:

"Why didn't you come to me immediately after this all went down?"

This sad sack of shit had hid that info from him for three days, likely fearing retribution for his failure. And it had cost Oswald the advantage in this war.

"I-I-I didn't-"

Waving his hand dismissively, his enforcers grabbed the man who promptly began to scream before he got decked in the mouth and dragged limply out of the door. Disgusting.

Putting the imminent fate of his nameless mook aside, Oswald Cobblepot went back to what he did best: Scheming.

Wounded and embarrassed, the Russians were going to get a whole lot more aggressive in the near future. They tried to keep the demise of Kosov a secret, but they knew that that was only a stopgap measure. Word would get out and other gangs would smell blood in the water. So now, they really needed to demonstrate their strength and do so fast before they got ripped apart from all sides. They would arm themselves to the teeth and call in much of their social capital in order to stay afloat.

Originally he had planned to fight them directly, possibly even with the assistance of White Lady, but why not redirect their rage to do something productive instead? Let them tire themselves out first by chasing after a fake trail. Afterwards, he would come in and mop up the rest! A bigger war would, however, draw the attention of that bastard Batman and he had a talent for messing things up at the most inconvenient times.

Mmmh...

He would take the risk.

This would be accelerating his plans somewhat, to say the least, but he was reasonably optimistic that it would not blow up in his face. His men were going to hit a few of their locations under Falcone colours and put up their street tags on the walls as well. That would send a message that could not be ignored.

Pitting two of the largest gangs against each other was not as beneficial to him as one might believe, seeing as collateral damage could easily spiral out of control and the police would also be forced to intervene with greater force. The mayor might have been in his pocket, but if other interest groups pushed him hard enough, then even the National Guard could be called in, although that had only happened once in the last thirty years...

Furthermore, whoever emerged victorious would attract Batman's undivided attention. The bastard didn't like it when anybody grew too quickly in 'his' city. What a prick!

-W-

Selling an entire bag of jewellery was definitely not as easy as it may seem. Gotham was a pretty shady place and there were plenty of ways she could turn the gold and precious stones into quick cash, but none where she also wouldn't get ripped off. As per their agreement, Pamela had forfeited her bag of loot in exchange for direct cash, which left Tanya with – to her estimations – around four million dollars worth of sellable items.

Some of it she would keep, but the rest she would have to distribute over multiple pawn shops in multiple districts. An annoying endeavour, but a possible one thanks to her newest acquisition: Her very first van.

She never had the time or money for a driver's license, however paying a taxi driver to circle around her block while she watched his movements from the passenger's seat had arguably been sufficient in teaching Tanya everything she needed to know. Cars were specifically designed to be controlled as easily as possible after all, and she knew all the street signs since middle school. (Not like most people didn't treat them like an afterthought anyway.)

So, she ended up zigzagging her way through the dirty and chaotic streets of Gotham in a most definitely stolen and refurbished Volkswagen, periodically hopping out and speed-haggling with bored pawn shop owners. They all operated as fronts for some gang or another, which meant that they were not prone to asking uncomfortable questions or looking too long at her shabby disguise.

Even if someone somehow connected the dots of her driving around and offloading stolen goods, it wouldn't matter anyway. She wouldn't keep this vehicle for much longer anyways...

Which didn't mean that she wanted it stolen however!

And so, while exiting the last pawnshop on her list with a nice wad of cash in her pocket, Tanya sighed in exasperation.

"Scram or I'll gut you like a fish!"

The kid in a ratty hoodie turned away from his task of dismantling her tires and shot her a dirty look. He wasn't even intimidated by her casual threat of violence!

Honestly, the youth these days...

Wordlessly she pulled out her knife and he finally ran off. Not before flipping her the bird though.

She couldn't be mad at him though. If things had turned out slightly differently, this could have been how her future prospects looked like. Unwashed, petty street crime without long-term goals or reason beyond surviving the next week. Well, now that she thought about it, those were pretty surface-level differences to her current situation after all...

At least the kid didn't have to worry about a super-assassin coming after his head!

Tanya had done some research on the unknown mercenary who had savagely attacked her on Kosov's orders with what was clearly superhuman strength and agility. His name was 'Deathstroke' and he was well known online for his apparently flawless service record when it came to assassinating anybody he set his mind to – short of Batman, naturally... His prices were ludicrously high, but if those claims of his competence were not exaggerated then Tanya could admit they were reasonable.

The only problem? She presented a credible threat to his reputation.

Yes, she had killed the Joker, but other than that, she was an absolute nobody. She held no territory and no gang carried her symbol proudly on their skin. She was a newbie upstart in the criminal underworld and she had sent him running without fulfilling the condition of his employment by the Russian mob.

If word got around then that wouldn't be good for his business. And the best way to ensure that it didn't spread would be to remove the only direct witness and root of his problem...

Thus, Tanya had vowed to expand her arsenal to not be cornered by the giant mercenary again. Without Pamela's assistance and the dark lighting conditions that favoured her, she would have been toast. Plain and simple.

There wasn't much she could do against his disastrously large calibre bullets, but blocking something you could dodge was always a terrible option regardless. Instead, she would have to play to her own strengths and obscure any future battlefields in a way that would support her enhanced senses.

In the last week she had finally cracked Mr. Freeze's formula and had begun to modify it to suit her own needs. While she couldn't accurately freeze distant targets due to missing technical components of the Freeze-Ray gun, less directed area-of-effect attacks suited her equally well. Tanya was rather proud of the fact that despite her lacking engineering degree she had been able to produce rudimentary mist and ice fragmentation grenades with minimal mishaps. (There was still a foot long icicle stuck in her ceiling and she was unsure if it was structurally safe to simply remove it...)

The second grenade type was less harmful than it sounded, but that suited her just fine. Getting hit by her own weapon would be pretty stupid after all. No, what it was really good at was buying her a second or two of time for her to deploy her magnum opus: The Ice Mirror.

An unimpressive name for an equally unimpressive looking contraption. It was basically just a long cylinder with a slit on its side. Yet what it could do was nothing short of incredible. By rotating the ring at the top, Tanya was able to break the two vials of liquid inside it which would violently mix and spew out of the opening at its side. Colliding with the floor, the chemicals would cause a self-propagating chain reaction that instantly froze every water molecule in the vicinity and created a dense, supernaturally perfect ice crystal, completely spotless and near frictionless.

Honestly, if it wasn't weak to sources of heat, her invention could have been a revolution for the shipping and transportation industry. Physical objects just seemed to glide over the surface of her mirror with only the most negligible loss of inertia. So, sadly, instead of transporting goods in the name of the free market from A to B, her mirror would serve both as a deadly immobilization for her enemies and massive mobility enhancer for herself. Her boots had already been upgraded with extremely high surface area soles not unlike the feet of a gecko, beset with tiny spikes to anchor her on the ground.

Deathstroke on the other hand was going to slide around miserably, losing all control of his movement and become easy pickings. Or that was what she hoped would happen at least. If he was clever he would shoot the ice to splinter it and create a path for him to safely traverse across. Regardless, it would cost him time and ammunition, so it was still a worthwhile tactic.

In the worst case scenario she could also just throw the chemicals directly at him, hoping to freeze him solid. Until he upgraded his suit with futuristic heat-tech then it should still be rather debilitating. Furthermore, if by some miracle she managed to bring it into contact with his blood stream via an open wound it would certainly be deadly when his insides got shredded by a mathematically perfect ice mirror.

Tanya smiled at the pleasant thought as she parked her car in front of Pamela's home.

Normally she would be highly worried of leaving her vehicle unattended in the middle of the Narrows, but her partner in crime had assured her that nobody in this neighbourhood was stupid enough to steal from her doorstep. After gaining a newfound appreciation of the woman's skill set, Tanya was willing to trust that likely well-earned confidence.

It also helped that she felt a tiny bit safer in Pamela's presence. Now that there was possibly a very pissed off Deathstroke after her, Tanya needed her capable support more than ever.

Politely knocking onto the door, she was let in to begin planning their next heist.

-W-

Their newest target was located in the cellar of a dilapidated looking apartment building. Graffiti was sloppily spray-painted all over the walls and the roof looked to be patched up with a plastic tarp. Some windows were boarded up, but orange lights shining through the curtains and clothes lines full of laundry fluttering in the breeze proved that the rooms were still occupied. One had even been plastered with cute little hand-crafted paper rabbits from the inside and another with festive garlands leftover from Christmas.

Normal families lived here, serving as a convenient cover for the Russian mob's illegal operations and likely a source of cheap labour. Tanya couldn't imagine the gangsters paying the residents fair wages – or any wages at all for that matter – when they got roped into moving drugs or other illicit activities. Indeed, if anything, they had to pay for the 'honour' to be under their direct protection. She could only shake her head at the unfairness of it all.

Looking at Pamela, she was about to explain her entry plan when suddenly a black mini bus pulled up on the side of the street directly below them. That in and of itself wouldn't have been anything unusual, but masked and heavily armed men began streaming out of the rear doors before the vehicle had even fully arrested its momentum. Clicking off the safeties of their assault rifles and arraying themselves in a formation ready to storm their target building, they were clearly operating with hostile intent. Judging from their bulging ammo pockets, these unknown aggressors had come prepared for an extended firefight or a total extermination mission. Most likely, none of the inhabitants of that building would be spared as they could all be connected to the mafia.

Had she caused a gang war by weakening the Bratva's hierarchy? News of Kosov's death couldn't have spread so quickly, right?

"What are we going to do about that?" Pamela asked her and Tanya had to admit to herself that she had no clue...

Should she end the mission now and flee the scene of the massacre? But what about all that loot lying around? These mercenaries were making her job easier by taking out the security, so wouldn't it be foolish not to capitalize on the opportunity?

In the end, she settled for waiting things out.

"We observe."

The innocents caught in the crossfire were a regrettable tragedy, but those were the risks of living in the same house as gangsters. Technically, she could intervene, but what would that really change? Another armed group would come back on a different date to finish the grizzly work their masters demanded. She would just be delaying the inevitable. No, better to let this play out and in the aftermath she would call an ambulance to look after possible survivors. The attackers probably wouldn't shoot the younger kids, right?

Nodding to herself in resignation, Tanya was prepared to sit things out when suddenly a small figure rushed out from a blind spot in her vision and started ripping into the mercenaries. Any question of where this person could have come from when she made sure to thoroughly scan the street beforehand was pushed to the side when Tanya beheld her martial prowess.

Within seconds the tightly organized crew of mercenaries devolved into a brawling mess as the hooded girl basically flowed through their ranks, dislocating limbs with precise punches, re-directing their momentum into each other in an effortless fashion and disabling their guns with lightning quick jabs. Bouncing from one guy to the next, she twirled and ducked through their attacks, virtually untouchable by a dozen men nearly double her size. It was an awe-inspiring display of accuracy and speed, the likes of which Tanya herself would be hard-pressed to replicate. In a way it reminded her of her short bout with Talia, but even further refined.

'Well, looks like I could still learn something about nonlethal takedowns after all...' she mused to herself, paying careful attention to the girl's every move.

Tanya had the reflexes and speed to technically pull off similar feats, but looking at the sheer efficiency and elegance of this girl's movements, she couldn't help but see her own melee skills as quite crude in comparison. Her superhuman strength had carried her and in a way she had used it like a crutch, ending every engagement as quickly as possible with overwhelming force. That was still a tactically sound and reliable strategy, of course, but it could be better. She could be better than this.

'He who stops being better, stops being good' as Cromwell had so pointedly said.

Barely a minute had passed and now the gangsters were lying scattered across the sidewalk, groaning in pain or unconscious from the whirlwind in the form of a little girl that had so effortlessly dispatched them. Their professional pride would undoubtedly be damaged beyond repair.

Of course that would only be a concern for them if they survived, because the inhabitants of the house had heard the commotion by now and were storming outside. Six beefy Russian men (at least Tanya assumed they were Russian due to their matching brutish facial features and stereotypically short-shaven heads) were exiting the front door, pistols and spiked bats held at the ready. Why wasn't the girl running? More reinforcements would soon arrive and she couldn't possibly think of taking them all head on with her bare fists!

The unknown girl was holding her hands up in the universal 'calm down' gesture, but it seemed the Russians weren't willing to tolerate being ordered around by a child. One raised his gun in her direction and suddenly Pamela cried out in alarm. Tanya instinctively threw herself backwards, away from the edge of the roof and pressed herself flat on the ground to avoid a potential sniper, but the shot never came. Looking back to her partner in confusion, she found Pamela missing and renewed sounds of conflict exploding from below.

Hastily, she jumped to her feet just in time to witness her companion slamming a barrage of barbed vines into the Russians, tangling them tightly while they attempted to unload on her. Luckily their aim went wide as sharp thorns drilled into their flesh and began to strangulate them.

Wow, Pamela really wasn't someone she wanted to mess around with...

Her partner then sprinted over to the hooded girl and began worriedly checking her over. Like her mother had when she fell off the swing that one time, Tanya's subconscious supplied inadvertently. Ugh, she had to check this out before this devolved into a complete disaster of a mission.

Jumping off the roof, Tanya jogged over to the two of them, listening to the one-sided conversation that was taking place between Pamela and the mystery girl who was potentially deaf. Or rather, mute?

'Wait a minute... A mute fighter girl!?'

"Oh my gosh, why would you do that! Were you following us? Oh, no..."

"So we meet again..."

At the sound of her voice, the girl's head snapped towards her direction and Tanya could verify that it was indeed the same girl she had freed from that hole in the mafia's basement. What were the chances? Gotham was much smaller than expected.

"Oh, uh, T-uh White Lady... Uh..."

Pamela was wringing her hands in a clear admission of guilt; for what, she could not say. Pursing her lips, Tanya decided to press the issue.

"Do you know this young woman?"

"Uhm... Do you remember when I told you that I picked up a stray?"

"I had assumed you meant a dog by that. I was surprised that there wasn't any smell of it in your garden." she blandly replied, inwardly disappointed at herself for falling for a wrong assumption.

Getting deceived by others was an inevitable reality of business. Deceiving yourself, however, was unforgivable.

"Yeah... I guess I could have made myself a bit clearer, hehe! But the poor girl was really scared of other people and – I mean, just look at those scars!"

Pamela gestured at the girl's face before apologetically signing something with her hands. Tanya added sign language to the ever growing list of things she needed to have learned yesterday.

"I understand." she nodded. "To be clear, I'm not mad at you for hiding some clearly traumatized girl you picked up from somewhere-"

"Garbage dump" she heard Pamela whisper, but carried on with merely a raised eyebrow.

"- but I really would like an explanation as to why she is here. A dangerous raid on a mafia stronghold is not the place for a child, no matter her fighting prowess."

"That's what I tried to tell her!"

Once again Pamela attempted to convey some vague meaning waving her hands around every which way, but Tanya didn't need to be an expert to see that she was asking the girl about her reasons for barging in on their mission.

Signing back, the scarred child glanced between the two with a hesitant smile.

"I think she says that she was worried for us. Like, she wanted to keep us safe, because of our... friendship? I'm not sure. And she took out those guys, because they wanted to kill people."

What an appropriately childish reason. No, that wasn't actually true. Pamela was her caretaker, so obviously she would want to secure her provider's wellbeing, lest she find herself homeless again. Furthermore, she had obviously sought to minimize casualties that could incriminate her guardian, in order to protect her long-term reputation. Quite forward-looking of her! If seen like that, then Tanya could very much appreciate the logic behind her actions. Still, the mute girl was an unknown variable and as such needed to be eliminated from their plan.

"As long as the girl knows not to repeat this incident then it's no problem."

"Oh, by the way her name is Cas-"

Tanya held up a hand to stop her and then gestured to some of the conscious mafia members lying around in the muddy snow.

"Not here. We need to be careful with our identities. I already have an alias, but you two need a code name until we are all back home. I'm sorry that I neglected to broach that topic before, but until now, simply using the second person was sufficient to communicate."

In a group larger than two people, saying 'you' quickly devolved into confusion and uncertainty. Thus, Pamela would need a proper name for when she was in costume.

Her partner looked highly uncomfortable as scratched her chin.

"Ah... I guess I was once called Poison Ivy, so that works for me. And she can be... "

The girl tilted her head like a cat as she silently returned their stares and shrugged lazily.

"Quiet." Tanya decided for the sake of time. That sounded menacing enough. She liked it.

"So, Poison Ivy, keep an eye on Quiet and secure the ground floor. I'm going to finish up the mission and then we hightail out of here before the police show up. She can handle herself, but she's still a child, so be careful that she doesn't do any... child stuff."

Half-way through her sentence she had realized that she didn't know what normal children would do in this situation. Not to mention, that Quiet was far from a normal child anyway. Nonetheless, it would probably be something devious or annoying, so she felt her warning was warranted.

Not awaiting her partner's confirmation, she rushed inside the house. A boy peeked at her from the second floor through the gap in the stairwell, but one glance in his direction scared him off. All her senses were on high alert as she passed multiple empty security checkpoints and finally the open doors to the cellar. The lights were out, but that didn't hinder her as she explored the place only to find... nothing.

Well sure, there was a lot of equipment that could certainly be used to manufacture meth and everything stank like it had been recently used too, but there were no drugs or weapons. Even more tellingly, the safe in the office was empty.

Damn it! The Bratva was catching onto her!

But how? Had they known she would be coming here? That wasn't possible. Tanya had chosen this target at random to prevent this exact scenario. Could they have withdrawn all their assets across their entire territory to lure her out?

Was this a trap?

With troubling thoughts filling her head, Tanya hurried back to the ground floor, only for the sound of many engines to hit her sensitive ears. Naturally, the noises of heavy cars weren't a rarity in Gotham, however they came from all directions and were closing in. Fast.

It could be pure chance, but she couldn't count on it. Those were reinforcements, possibly a highly mobile, rapid response kill team designed to specifically catch her before she could slip away. Clever, but not clever enough considering that the rooftops were still open to her.

Turning to her partner, Tanya grimly explained the situation: "It seems they prepared for us. Hostiles inbound; we need to get out of here ASAP!"

The botanist seemed to understand and gestured for Quiet to come quickly when another faint sound caught her attention. A faint thrumming filled the air, drowning out the approaching cars in seconds before becoming near deafening to Tanya. What the hell was that?

As she stepped outside to get a good look, she got her answer. A powerful light from above began to swipe over the street, turning night into day with its sheer radiance. They had a damned helicopter!?

This was bad. Really bad. Barred from taking the rooftops and with a small army closing in on her location, Tanya had to formulate a plan if she wanted for them all to make it out alive.

-W-

Barbara was just browsing her network, idly flagging certain anomalous data streams for further review when her traffic algorithm picked up some concerning movements in Slavtown. Twenty suspicious vehicles were all headed for a suspected Bratva hideout and judging by their license plate history only eighteen of them were likely from the Russians themselves.

This smelled like trouble! Pulling up her messenger application, she typed out a simple message and the coordinates before sending it. Batman still hadn't found another lead on Scarecrow's current hideout, so hopefully he would be okay to swing over and take a look before things got bloody.

Sighing, she bent back to watching the cameras in the area for more info.