ISSUE #7 (April 2018)
Written by Emma Woods Featuring: Batgirl
Nicholas Gage
Wildcat
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"LOOKING AT YOU FROM YESTERDAY"SIX MONTHS EARLIER
With the fog so thick tonight, Nicholas could scarcely see the Narrows across the bay, Gotham’s forgotten District blanketed in gloom. If there were lights to be seen, they had no hope of penetrating the mist, the cities cast offs all but set adrift from the mainland. The Detective pulled his coat on tighter, unsettled by a sense of premonition as he waited on the Docks, the water rocking against the harbour with a fitful tide. He coughed, fingers numb as he lingered impatiently, resisting the urge to stamp his feet as the winter chill seeped deeper into his bones. She was late, he reminded himself, all the while resisting the urge to give in to concern. She had been late before, she had even chided him for his reaction; she knew what she was doing. He needed to have more faith; she was prone to saying, the Commissioner didn’t question Batman. Gage checked his watch regardless, the minutes dragging by. She knew what she was doing. This is how it worked in Gotham. … Something had gone wrong; his gut sinking as his every instinct screamed at him to take action. Something had gone wrong and he had no idea what. They had made a terrible mistake; this wasn’t how it should work in Gotham, this was insane! It wasn’t until he began pacing that he realised how right he was. There, in the water, bobbing ominously just above the scum lay a splash of yellow and bold red. One pace became two and then, as trepidation grew into outright panic, the young Detective sped up into a trot. That trot became a run and finally it became a sprint, a figure resolving from out of the gloom as she floated in the bay, face down in the polluted murk. “Shit!” he cursed, horror threatening to overwhelm him as the fantasies of yesterday collided with the realities of today. “SHIT!” Nicholas leapt, disregarding his own well being as he dived into the bay, their hubris laid bare with startling clarity, striking like a hammer to his temple. What the hell had he been thinking? What the hell had any of them been thinking? Why was this allowed to happen...? TODAY Far too late into the evening to be awake... Disgruntled did not begin to describe the current levels of her displeasure, Stephanie Brown’s mood souring by the moment as she stomped her way down the stairs from her apartment to the Wildcat’s Gym below. Mutters came forth freely as she both scowled and cursed, grumbling to herself as she voiced her unhappiness, the young woman dragged from her much deserved sleep. Bare foot and attired in nothing but her nightie, the teenager gave not a care for the current wildness of her pillow hair, blonde tresses splayed this way and that while she had slept, speaking volumes of how irritated she was now feeling. Dragged in her wake behind her, pulled by his ears no less, came her bedside companion from the earliest days of her childhood, the oversized stuffed rabbit a suitable projectile in times of need, prepared to be hurled at a moment’s notice directly at those who would dare vex her. As she neared the bottom floor, the ruckus that had first woken her became more pronounced, the overly gruff tone of her Uncle demanding that someone move faster, accompanied by the unmistakeable thud of a gloved fist striking an exposed pad. The scraping of feet, the whistle of air, the grunts of exertion, all of it as familiar to her as her own movements, the sounds of intense sparring that filled these walls every hour of every day. Yes, the day, she reminded herself with some bitterness, the night was off limits. Some people wanted their sleep... “Uncle Ted!” she warned before coming into sight, the petite blonde utterly undaunted. “I swear, if you do not pack up and go, I will insert the entirety of my foot where the sun don’t shi...” There was not to be an ending to her sentence, not as she came within view of the ring and the two men inside of it, her eyes opening wide and all further syllables emerging as a stammer. Nicholas Gage, ‘Detective’ Nicholas Gage was inside the squared circle with her uncle, shirtless and sweating and let’s not forget, completely shirtless. She panicked, excruciatingly aware of how little she was wearing, the teenager thrust into all of a fluster as she became just as acutely aware of the wildness of her hair. The young woman stammered and stuttered, caught somewhere between fight or flight and utterly unable to decide, even more horrified upon remembering she was clutching her childhood bear tightly. “Gage!`” she exclaimed, mortified by the panicked pitch of her tone, “I didn’t, that is, you’re here, at night, the hospital, weren’t you at the hospital?” “Well, yes,” Nicholas agreed, sharing an uncomfortable look with Brown’s Uncle, “I was discharged.” “That’s good,” Stephanie nodded, trying her best to look relaxed, momentarily leaning against the wall before thinking better of it. “You’re good, I mean, you look good. WELL! You look well, I mean, very, very... well.” She nodded, swallowing only slightly. “Steph,” Ted Grant stepped in, apparently deciding that her Niece had drowned enough. “Upstairs!” she declared, finally making her choice, “I am going to go back upstairs, yes.” Pulling down on her nightie, utterly failing to make herself appear more discreet, the teenager did her utmost to at least appear as though she were not fleeing. Stephanie only took an additional few moments to compose herself before tentatively knocking on the locker room door, clearing her throat as she pushed it slowly open. “Is everyone decent?” she queried, feeling noticeably more presentable herself, before poking her head inside. Nicholas had indeed finished getting himself dressed, the Detective in the process of holstering his firearm as the teenager let herself in. “Stephanie,” he greeted the girl before pulling on his trench coat, ready for the night ahead, “sorry for waking you, Ted insisted you wouldn’t be able to hear.” “Its fine,” the young woman did her utmost to appear nonchalant, as if the whole affair was barely an inconvenience. “It’s not like you were breaking in or anything,” she threw out there, trying to make light of her growing sense of awkwardness, shoving her hands into her back pockets in order to give them something to do, “again.” “Right,” Gage nodded politely before shutting his locker, wondering if there was a way to bypass the teenager without offending her on his way out. “You look good,” Stephanie reiterated her earlier sentiment before the good Detective could formulate an appropriate exit strategy, “well!” she caught herself again. “Better than before,” she nodded her head vaguely in the direction that he had been shot, “back on your feet.” “That I am,” Nicolas agreed, ill equipped to navigate a teenager’s attentions, “back to work.” “Already?” Stephanie announced, somewhat taken aback by the declaration. “Tonight?” “Afraid so,” the Detective moved to bypass the girl as politely as possible, “GPD doesn’t have much tolerance for sick days.” Before he could get very far however, he was cut off at the pass, Nicolas caught utterly off guard as the young woman wrapped her arms around him for a tight embrace. Far too startled to form a coherent rebuttal, he was seemingly incapable of doing more than awkwardly accept it, his own arms at a loss as to what it was appropriate to do. “Stephanie?” “Don’t tell me you’re forgotten already?” the girl stepped back, letting the older man go, much to his relief, “Wildcats tradition. A hug from Stephanie Brown, and you can’t go down.” Gage was perplexed to say the least, “I thought that was only for Fight Nights?” “Yeah, well,” Stephanie shrugged, shoving her hands back into her back pockets for security, “the last time you asked for one, I said no and, well, you nearly died in my house so...” she shrugged again, “consider this some free good fortune.” Somewhat touched, and yet still utterly at loss as to how to appropriately respond, he instead cleared his throat and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Thanks,” he offered, the sentiment certainly genuine, “I’ll try not to break in tonight.” “You do that,” she smiled back, feeling a turbulent mix of both giddy and embarrassed, stepping aside to let the good Detective go on his way. “Stephanie,” Nicholas paused before reaching the exit, resisting the urge to sigh, “you’re doing what I asked right? You’re staying out of trouble?” “Oh, absolutely,” she nodded, the blonde looking as innocent as possible, “straight to bed.” Gage nodded, evidently not convinced. To her credit, once he had left, it did take a full three heartbeats before she immediately broke her promise. She swiftly vacated the locker room and made her way back into the Gym, her pace as rapid as her heartbeat as she all but bypassed her waiting Uncle. “Steph,” he attempted to stop her without a great deal of effort. “I got this,” she assured, making a B-Line for the broom closet before swinging the door open, “I can catch up on my sleep tomorrow. Besides,” Stephanie stepped forwards, slamming her fist against the back wall of the closet, smirking to herself as a deadbolt dropped and the hidden panel slid open. “How much trouble could he get into?” she queried before, without waiting for an answer, the teenager leapt into the unknown, grasping onto the fireman’s pole within the bricked off chute revealed behind the secret door. For several seconds she dropped into the dark beneath her home, gravity taking hold and pulling her towards her destination. She landed with a small bump and immediately dismounted, striding forwards into the gloom with all the confidence of one who knew there was nothing to fear, the teenager greeted by a blast of frigid, musty air. Within moments lights accompanied her arrival, rows of lamps sparking into life one after the other to follow the girl’s progress, illuminating the cavernous space and throwing shadows across the walls. Echoes followed the fall of her feet, bouncing off the concrete and returning to her, until the remnant of the world atop which the Narrows was built revealed itself. The Subway Station was long forgotten by Gotham as a whole, a relic of a time that had long gone by. By the will of her Uncle, the abandoned Station had been renovated at the same time as the Wildcats above, power returning to the cavern and, even now, was being rebuilt further. Crates lay all around, many of which unopened, some of which bigger than her, all of them embezzled with a logo she was only half familiar with, ‘KORD’ stamped on every one with authority. She paid them no mind for now, satisfied that her Uncle knew what he was doing, and instead made a B-Line for the cabinets. They had been the first thing to be installed, given their necessity, and it was with an air of giddy trepidation that she gazed upon them. On the left stood encased her original outfit, the haphazard collection of attire representing her apotheosis. The bandanna, the Kevlar vest, the cargo pants and heavy set footwear, anything and everything to she could set her hands upon making up the raw ensemble. It was basic, it was crude, it was barely functional, she would love it forever, for she would never forget what it represented. On the right... Stephanie couldn’t resist the smile that spread across her features, even as she nibbled on her bottom lip. On the right stood her evolution, the purples and blacks of the entire attire as sleek and purposeful as a second skin, as resilient as a suit of armour. The cowl looked back at her as she looked at it, her eyes finding the holes within the reflection. “Sorry,” she apologised without a great deal of sincerity, “no night off for you.” Detective Nicholas Gage openly cursed with a degree of vulgarity he was shocked to discover that he possessed, the words spilling free with no signs of stopping. There wasn’t a man, woman or child alive who would be able to hear him however, not as the air was filled with the deafening din of enough automatic fire to give the hounds of hell pause. He hunkered down behind the remains of an automobile that could scarcely still be considered adequate cover as the warehouse across the street had become a fortress. Seemingly from every window firearms were being pointed in his vague direction and unleashing enough munitions to drown him in paperwork for the rest of eternity, the building akin to a disturbed hornets’ nest if a hornets’ nest possessed the armament of a small nation. “What the Hell, Svoboda,” he shouted, his new partner scarcely able to hear him even as they hunkered beside one another, “what the hell did you do?” “Me?” the second Detective protested, clutching her own handgun which, they both realised, was an utterly paltry gesture under the circumstances. Squat, broad and surely to the bone, Svoboda was not in the heartiest of moods at the best of times. “I was just walking past, asshole, I frankly don’t give a shit what they were up to!” “Where the Hell is SWAT?” Gage cursed again, feeling as though it wouldn’t be too unreasonable to expect them to arrive. Svoboda answered with a laugh that was not entirely comforting, “This side of the bridge Gage? The only people coming are you, me, and anyone else who f’d up enough to be on the wrong side of the river!” Nicholas grimaced, wincing as shells ricocheted wildly just inches from his head, knowing in his gut that she was right. In many respects, the GCPD was like Gotham itself, Cops weren’t transferred to the Narrows; it was where they were abandoned... “HEADS UP!” someone yelled loud enough to be heard above the cacophony of munitions and, as Nicholas snapped his own gaze upwards, his heart stopped in his torso, the past rushing back to great him. Only now it appeared in the guise of purples and blacks, a single figure leaping from the rooftops of a nearby tenement building, launching through the air on a surely suicidal trajectory. Before gravity could take hold, a rapid extension of the girl’s arms brought a cape out to billowing, the impromptu wingspan catching the updraft and gliding the vigilante above the expanse of no-man’s-land at breakneck speeds. As the warehouse zeroed in closer, the girl pulled her arms in tight once more and, before Gage could even form a coherent thought, she had smashed her way through an upstairs window, disappearing into the gloom. There was a momentary pause, both Nicholas and Svoboda unable to immediately react, the sudden silence that followed the vigilante’s unseen assault upon the warehouse somehow deafening in its own right. It didn’t last, the pregnant pause over as suddenly as it arrived, a multitude of firearms expelled once more, only this time entirely within the confines of the structure. The sounds of further violence were to accompany it, the pained shouts of wounded men among them. “I’m quite happy to leave right now,” Svoboda shared. Nicholas had other ideas, not waiting long enough to offer a rebuttal, immediately leaving his position now that they were no longer being pinned down. He made a dash for the warehouse, his own firearm drawn, his breathing heavy and blood thundering in his ears. The violence had stopped, seemingly long before he was able to breach the abyss himself, and as he smashed through the front door with a lowered shoulder, he came face to face with... A dozen or so incapacitated men, some of them groaning, most of them silent, spread out in disarray and battered into compliance. One figure alone remained standing, a girl in cape and cowl, purples and blacks, atop a mountain and crates and massaging sore knuckles, a symbol, unmistakeable and gold embezzled across her torso. “Detective,” Batgirl smiled back at him, looking invigorated and full of life. “Just passing through, I trust you can read them their rights?” Nicholas didn’t answer, too dumbstruck to do so. “Right, well, I’ll take that as a yes,” Batgirl nodded, looking slightly less comfortable as she fiddled with her own belt, pulling from it a grapple gun. “And don’t laugh; this is my first time.” Pointing the device skywards, she depressed the trigger and launched the grapple skywards, releasing a pleased giggle as the hook found purchase. “Another time, Detective,” she said by way of parting, shooting upwards towards the warehouse rooftop, “stay out of trouble.” Still he did not answer, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t. “God, no,” he whispered, history repeating, “not again...” By the time morning arrived, Stephanie was back where she belonged, sleeping in her bed. It was with a low groan that she awoke, the teenager sore from head to toe, the muscles of her shoulders tense. She blinked several times, grimacing and seriously tempted to roll right on over and return to sleeping, but as she raised a hand to massage her peepers, she quickly became aware of her night time error. She groaned again, this time in annoyance, Stephanie acutely aware that she was still fully attired as Batgirl, the young woman having dropped into a deep slumber without removing her costume. Lifting her head ever so slightly, she checked the clock sitting atop her bedside table, and with a reluctant sigh realised she still had a good hour before the Wildcat’s would open, plenty of time for her to scamper back down to Station and change into something far less conspicuous. She yawned as she sat up, stretching with a grunt that was not entirely flattering before forcing herself out of bed. Rubbing her eyes, she made her way downstairs, pulling back her cowl to allow the cool morning air to brush her features. Into the Gym she marched, bleary eyed and weary, ready to consume a gallon of hot coffee... “Oh my,” a stranger voiced from across the ring, her tone laced with snark, “how discreet.” Akin to a cat who had been startled, Stephanie responded with commendable swiftness, spinning on the spot towards the direction of the intrusion and, with a single, fluid motion, snapped her collapsible boa staff from her belt, snapped it out to its full extension, and stood ready with a formidable guard presented. All very impressive, save from the flash of panic in the girl’s eyes. Across the room sat a woman who looked notably unimpressed, blonde, refined, and testy to a fault. Beside her, braced against the wall, leant a pair of crutches, ominous in their presence. “Really now?” the stranger bristled, “you would fight a cripple?” Stephanie opened her mouth to speak but, when no words came, she doubled down on her defensive posture, body language speaking for her. “And here I thought it was the predecessor who was a mute. Very well,” the stranger unfolded her arms, one finger tapping on the chairs armrest, “your Uncle invited me, felt we should become acquainted. He gave me the key.” Stephanie narrowed her eyes, still not liking this at all. “Who are you?” she finally ventured. “The Ghost of Christmas Past. My name is Bette Kane,” the stranger revealed, “I’m your new Handler.” |