The Eye of Anubis - Chapter 03
Main Pairing: Batman / Catwoman
Rating: PG-13 for now
Author's Notes: Please read the note at the end of the chapter. Thanks.
Summary: Being the Hand of a Goddess isn't easy, especially when duty pits a girl against the Dark Knight, but the new Catwoman has a mission, and nothing is going to stand in the way of its completion. Not even Batman.
The Eye of Anubis
By Nightmare and Winged Dreamer
Chapter Three
Night in Gotham was a maze of treacherous shadows, navigable by instinct and experience alone. Safety was determined by how much fear a person could instill in those around them. The meek who dared venture from their homes without protection were lucky if they survived the night with their lives. The dangerous or powerful feared only each other, and hid their fear with brutality.
There had once been a time when mob bosses ruled the shadows with fear and corruption, bending the city and its people to their will. That time was now gone, leaving gangs to play a much bloodier version of the mob game as they fought their turf wars, and leaving control in the hands of sociopaths such as the Joker, the Penguin and Two-Face. When they escaped from Arkham Asylum, that is. For hiding in the night's shadows was a fierce beacon of hope for the meek, the helpless, and the innocent. In the shadows of Gotham was where the Batman thrived. From the shadows of Gotham was where he protected her people, as he had sworn to do so on the graves of his murdered parents so many years before.
Crouched on a gargoyle high above the city of his birth, Batman surveyed the streets below, on guard for anything from as small as a mugging to as large as the Joker about to execute a mass homicide. In his ear buzzed the small receiver implanted in his Kevlar-reinforced cowl, its frequency set on that of the Gotham City Police Department's dispatch radio.
Ten minutes passed without any signs of criminal activity below and Batman rose from his crouch, reaching for a jumpline on his utility belt. He paused as a dispatch order began and, with a quick press to the outside of his cowl, turned up the radio's volume.
"-Luther King Jr. Drive, approaching Millennium Avenue. All cars in the area join the pursuit. Be advised that the subjects are armed. Repeat. Calling all cars. There is a black Ford sedan containing two million dollars stolen from Gotham Bank speeding north on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, approaching Millennium Avenue. All cars-"
Batman sprung into action, swinging to a nearby building to join in the chase from rooftop. While there was a high chance that the police could take care of the bank robbers on their own, it was not in Batman's practice to leave things to chance, especially not if someone much more dangerous than a simple bank robber showed up with their own interest in the loot. Or if the bank robber turned out to be someone more than just a simple crook.
"Want me to make my way over?" asked Robin's voice through the communicator in his cowl. Robin's patrol had taken him north, putting him in a good spot to intercept if the car stayed on its present course.
"Yes. If you can, use the Redbird to cut them off."
"Got it."
Leaping over an alley onto a lower roof, Batman landed in a somersault and launched himself back up into a run. Three more alleys and two streets and he would be above Thirty-First Street, half a mile north of Millennium Avenue and hopefully far enough ahead of the chase to join in.
What-?
Spotting movement out of the corner of his eye, Batman stopped in a shadow to do a quick visual scan. Three roofs away, a dark, slender figure was running east, towards Gotham's corrupt East End. There was no cape, ruling out Robin and Huntress. When the figure leapt from one roof to the next, the moonlight outlined what was clearly a woman in a silvery silhouette. There were many reasons for a woman to be running over rooftops towards the East End, all of them bad. Making a quick decision, Batman abandoned the police chase and ran after the woman. "Robin, you're on your own. I have another situation."
The woman led Batman deep into the heart of the East End's drug district, at last jumping down into an alley behind a crack house. Hiding in a shadow, he watched her dark, slender form move through the inky blackness below as she checked for guards or traps, unable to make out any of her features. Activating his night-vision lenses with a squeeze of his glove, Batman felt his heart leap into his throat at the sight of a painfully familiar leather costume.
Catwoman.
No, not Catwoman. At least, not Selina. Selina Kyle was dead.
Nearly two years ago, Bruce Wayne had gotten a call from a backwater hospital in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula asking him to come down and confirm the identity of a body that had been brought in the day previous. All it had taken was the mention of Selina's name and he'd immediately flown down in his personal jet, leaving Robin in charge of Gotham.
Bruce could still remember all the details of the morgue. Dirty whitewashed walls, a broken dehumidifier, the reek of rotting bodies, numerous half-filled flypaper sheets on every wall… and Selina's still, horribly pale form laid out on a table in front of him, wearing nothing save an old, faintly stained white sheet. Eyes trained by the best and by years of experience had zeroed in on her wounds, all of them scrapes caused by a wild run through the dense jungle, except for a long, shallow gash down her right side from the middle of her abdomen to the bottom of her hip. The skin along either side of the gash had already begun to rot, and Bruce had recognized the unmistakable signs of poison.
Angry and grieving, Bruce had insisted on watching Selina's autopsy in hopes of gleaning some clues about her killer so he could extract revenge on those who had taken from him one of the few women he'd ever truly loved. And he had loved her, despite everything. No, they had never seen eye-to-eye on most things, especially Selina's worst habits, but she had helped him almost as many times as she had battled against him, dancing along the line between black and white as if it didn't exist. At the end she had begun to play more on the side of white than black, giving Bruce the hope that maybe someday soon things would be able to work between them at last. But that was all gone now, stolen just like every other chance of happiness he'd ever been offered. To his immense fury, the only thing he'd learned from the autopsy was the exact poison that had been used, and it was a common frog toxin derivative that was used in just about every form of native hunting in the area, meaning it could have been quite literally anyone.
After weeks of paperwork and a painful cremation - neither government would let him take Selina's body back to the States in case she carried a disease or anything that could become an invasive species, especially since she had died in the jungle - Bruce was at last able to return to Gotham, most of his anger replaced with heartache. At her funeral, he had thrown her ashes to the wind and watched as Selina was taken away from him forever.
No, the woman below was not Catwoman. She was simply a thief, using Catwoman's name and costume for her own gain. Anger rose within Batman as he watched her move silently from the alley mouth to the crack house's heavily chained cellar door. The large padlock and thick chain were soon set aside and the woman disappeared into the dark cellar, the door's quiet squeak as it shut masked by the sounds of people milling about on the poorly lit street.
Batman waited thirty seconds before jumping down into the alley, landing with only a rustle from his cape. A quick treatment of vegetable oil on the door's hinges enabled him to silently slip into the cellar. Absolute darkness enshrouded him once the door was closed, and Batman crept down the stairs after Catwoman's imposter, listening for guards or one of the ligers he knew the owner of this particular crack house favored. Huge cats, crosses between a lion and a tiger, the males weighing in at no less than one thousand pounds, and always kept hungry so they would attack anyone foolish enough to try and steal the stashes hidden away in the cellar. Batman reluctantly hoped the woman hadn't been attacked. No matter how intense his anger at her theft of Catwoman's mantle, he still refused to let her die for something so foolish as stealing drugs.
The door at the end of the short hallway was open, a sliver of weak light cutting through the darkness. Batman could hear the soft purr-growls of at least two large cats and the curious mewls of… a cub? Unsettled by the lack of sounds of a struggle or of feeding, he cautiously crouched down and peeked through the crack between the door and wall. What he saw amazed him.
Two unconscious guards pumped up to an inhuman massiveness by drugs lay sprawled on the floor, bearing no obvious sign of injury. Shelves upon shelves of crack filled the large cellar, yet from his angle, he could see no signs of anything having been taken. And there, at the far end of the cellar, crouched the woman, busily making a sling out of one of the guard's shirts. A liger cub, young enough to have just been weaned from its mother, watched her with avid curiosity. Two adult ligers, thin from forced starvation, simply lay on either side of her as docile as house cats, their cages sitting open behind them. Batman watched as the false Catwoman put on the makeshift sling and settled the cub against her stomach, then turned towards the stairwell with the two adults following right behind.
Recognizing his cue to leave, Batman quickly retreated via the way he came and used a jumpline to haul himself to a roof above the alley. The woman and cats emerged not a minute later and immediately set off through the alley maze, Batman following them from above.
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"What are we waiting for?" whispered Robin, his gaze never leaving the strange scene below.
"The cats to finish eating." Batman watched as the two adult ligers scarfed down their piles of meat, meat for which the woman had left them alone in this condemned warehouse while she went to "buy" it from a butcher's - the butcher was going to be very surprised come morning to find a beef quarter gone and a wad of money sitting next to the cash register. The cub sat in the woman's lap, eagerly taking small pieces of meat from her fingers. The sounds of soft murmurs rose to the rafters and Batman narrowed his eyes as he tried to make out the words. Unable to, he motioned for Robin to stay where he was and silently climbed his way down through towers of dusty packing crates, creeping closer until he could understand what the woman was telling the feeding cats.
"Eat a little slower, kitten. Catwoman likes her fingers attached." The woman's voice was amused and affectionate as she cut another piece from the round steak sitting beside her on its paper wrap. The cub just cried and took the piece a little less quickly as requested. "No more empty bellies. I promise. We'll take good care of you in Egypt. All of you. Getting you there will be a challenge, but we'll manage. The Temple has its resources and you're definitely a rescue in need of charity. Poor things. I should put in a call to the GCPD about that place. Wish I had a cell phone, but then," she laughed in a soft, rich chuckle. "Where would I put it, huh? Although, I could treat it like a cleavage dagger. The 'cleavage phone'… I could get rich marketing that. Well, maybe."
The thinner of the two adults finished his meal and, licking his chops clean, he intently eyed the meat next to the woman. Slowly, he began to pad towards it.
"Ah, ahhh. That's this little one's meal. You can wait until he's finished. Go clean your companion's face or something. Shoo." Catwoman's imposter didn't even have to raise a hand. The big cat just looked at her, made eye contact, then slowly blinked and turned around to do as it had been told. "Thank you." Looking back down to the little one in her lap, the black-clad woman sighed. "Are you done yet?"
In a very firm negative, the cub stared expectedly at the woman's fingers and kneaded her legs, small claws just beginning to poke out of their sheaths to scratch against the leather.
"Alright. Alright. No claws!" Cutting off more of the meat, she offered it to the cub and smiled as he took it from her with care. "Good boy," she crooned and glanced up at the two adults, obviously checking to make sure they were behaving.
Put on edge by how clearly the ligers understood her - the product of magic or a metahuman ability or both, any combination of which had the large potential to cause problems - Batman watched and waited for all the meat to be eaten. The less the cats had to defend when they finally noticed him, the better.
When the last piece of beef disappeared down a hungry throat, he took a batarang from his belt and dropped it from two inches above the ground.
Four heads turned in his direction and the two larger cats got to their feet, moving closer to the woman with cautious, suspicious steps. The false Catwoman set the cub on the ground before gracefully rising and turning to face the direction from which the sound had come. She didn't speak, just laid a hand on the two large shoulders to either side of her waist as the ligers moved up to flank her and waited. The cub stood peering between her legs into the shadows, watching intently from behind her where he was presumably safe.
Moving slowly so as not to seem a threat or be seen as prey by the ligers, Batman emerged from behind the crates, though not from the shadows.
"Easy boys," murmured Catwoman to her "friends." She stepped forward then and folded her arms beneath her bosom. "You know, it's rude to eavesdrop, Batman."
"Who are you?" he demanded, his gruff voice quiet only in volume. The ligers rumbled softly in warning at the danger in his tone.
"Catwoman. It's… a pleasure." It was obvious that she was looking him up and down even if he couldn't see into the yellow lenses of her goggles from his current distance.
Batman's banked anger rose again at her confident declaration. She had no right to take on Selina's mantle, not when she was brazen enough to wear a perfect copy of Selina's costume. "You're not Catwoman."
"I'm not that Catwoman, no, but I am Catwoman. That Catwoman chose me to be her heir and so… here I am." The woman seemed completely unperturbed by the denial of her identity, taking his justifiable refusal in stride.
Stepping out of the shadows, Batman narrowed his eyes in suspicion. The only women he knew of who would have reason to make such a claim were Selina's sister Maggie, who lived in a convent, and her friend Holly Robinson, who had moved away from Gotham after Selina's death. Both had been fair-skinned. Moonlight streaming through holes in the warehouse walls showed the woman in front of him to have dusky skin, her full lips betraying the likely presence of at least some African in her background. Remembering that the Mexican doctor had claimed a dark young woman had been the one to bring Selina's body to the hospital, perhaps the costume this girl wore was not a copy but the one taken off Selina's corpse. Batman's fists clenched in restraint against the vicious desire to shake the woman before him until she delivered the answers he wanted. "Catwoman didn't have anyone she could make her heir," he grit out.
"As far as you knew." Stepping forward, the woman approached him at a sedate walk that spoke plainly of how relaxed she was despite the circumstances. She stopped a good three feet from Batman, still exhibiting no signs of fear or intimidation. "Here isn't the place to discuss this. I have to find a way to get these three to safety, so you'll have to excuse me for tonight. It was nice to meet you."
A warning growl from the ligers made Batman take no more than one step closer. Underneath his cape, the Dark Knight toyed with the tufted ends of his tranquilizer darts, ready to throw them if the cats decided to attack. "Where are you taking them?"
"Bubastis, Egypt, to the Temple of Bast. They'll be well-kept there since there's no way they could survive in the wild. They'll be Temple Cats like the others."
Mildly surprised by the immediate and honest answer, Batman grudgingly allowed a small nod after a long moment. He had heard of the Temple of Bast. It had only been a year ago that he had read an article in the paper about the restoration of an ancient temple in Egypt funded completely by an anonymous benefactor. The temple's added function as a sanctuary for rescued cats had been mentioned in the article. Considering the goddess the temple had been built for, such a sanctuary made perfect sense. However, there was one small flaw in the woman's story. "And just how do you plan to smuggle them out of the country?"
Dropping her arms, Catwoman placed one hand on her hip and pivoted on a heel. Putting her back to him, she tipped her head and sized up her small pride. "I'm not sure, but I'll manage. I have to."
Robin emerged from a shadow behind his mentor to stand next to him. "We could help." Meeting Batman's dark, disapproving stare with a placid one of his own, Robin asked, "What? I was getting bored up there."
"Hello," Catwoman greeted the newcomer as she spun back around and presented him with an appreciative smile. She snapped her fingers a few times and stooped to scoop up the liger cub when he trotted over. The other two cats immediately relaxed at that, one sitting down to wash himself while the other lay down to digest. "Welcome to the party, Birdie. Help how?"
"It's Robin. We can ship them to Egypt for you. All you'll need to do is make sure they stay here and don't eat anybody until everything's set up." Robin smirked in amusement as the cub tried to squirm out of the baby cradle hold Catwoman had him in to put his paws on her shoulders. "It gets them out of Gotham faster if we do it, and then that's three less illegal cats we have to worry about."
Cradling the cub's hindquarters with one arm and scratching at his spine with her other hand, Catwoman looked at the cub, who was avidly watching the shadows across the warehouse, then back to the Dynamic Duo. "Alright. If I can't trust you two, I can't trust anyone. Thank you, Robin. This will definitely make things easier on… well, everybody. Ever held a liger cub before?"
Batman cut Robin off with a firm, "We'll meet you here in two nights to discuss shipping details. Robin."
Knowing better than to protest when his mentor used that tone of voice, Robin gave Catwoman a farewell nod and followed Batman back into the shadows and out of the building.
"See you soon," the new Catwoman murmured to their retreating backs.
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They were in trouble and they knew it. Oracle hummed softly and shook her head. Batman would know they were lying the moment she or Nightwing tried to deny any knowledge of the existence of the imposter. Tim, so far, had been the only one ever to be even remotely successful when it came to lying to the Dark Knight. Neither Oracle nor Nightwing would rat their little brother out, but the former Batgirl had a feeling that their little bird wouldn't hold out on their "old man" for too long. He wasn't into letting others take the fall for him, and they'd been in it together.
Switching to a private frequency, Oracle patched into Nightwing's commlink and let out a small sigh. "Better brace yourself, Nightwing. Batman just had a little run in with our new Feline Femme Fatale. Robin was with him, too, so maybe he picked up on some things that you missed. We'll have to wait and see. Just… be prepared for an unhappy conversation. Oracle out. He's paging me."
Flipping the disconnect switch before Dick could respond, Barbara Gordon scooped up another headset, laid the one she'd just held up to her ear aside and settled the second set securely over her skull. "Oracle here."
"Have Nightwing meet us at your location ASAP. Robin and I will be there in fifteen minutes," growled Batman's low voice in her ear.
"Connecting to his network now," Oracle responded and set that headset aside so she could pick up the set she had laid down moments before. "Nightwing. This is Oracle. How close are you to me?"
"I'm about five blocks from my boathouse. Why? Does he want me there?"
"Yes, and if you had heard the tone of his voice, you would be here already."
"I'll be at my boat in five minutes. Give me twenty to get there. Where are we meeting?"
"Here, and hurry. He's only twelve minutes away."
"Got it. I'll be there ASAP."
"Good." Resigned, Oracle set aside that headset again and turned to face the entrance to her Oracle room. It wouldn't be long before Batman and Robin came through it.
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Satisfied that Oracle was calling Nightwing, Batman flipped off the Batmobile's communicator. A brief, harsh silence filled the car before he growled, "The next time you think of making a suggestion like that, discuss it with me first."
Robin resisted the urge to sigh at his mentor's predictable disapproval. "The intimidation tactic clearly wasn't working, and you weren't getting anything but the most basic information out of her, so I thought I'd try the friendly approach. You saw how quickly she agreed when I offered to help. Besides, working with her will give us an opportunity to see what she's like," he calmly argued. "And just how much she's like Selina, if at all." It didn't take being Batman's protégé to know that the Dark Knight was severely irritated by the new Catwoman's appearance. Given how tight the muscles in his jaw were, Robin would have also been willing to bet that Batman would spend the rest of the night brooding.
The only counter offered was a heavier, darker silence that followed them the rest of the way to the Clock Tower.
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Before he had even entered Oracle's headquarters, Nightwing could feel the oppressive atmosphere waiting for him inside. Batman must be in a severely foul mood for him to sense it through the thick hidden door separating Barbara's apartment from her secret computer nest. Steeling himself for the confrontation he knew was coming, Nightwing entered the already crowded base.
Oracle was at her main console, typing a mile a minute, with Batman hovering behind her and radiating anger. A quick glance around the tiny room found Robin in an uncluttered corner, plainly trying to blend in with the maze of circuitry. Meeting his gaze, the younger vigilante gave his "brother" a pained smile in greeting.
"Why didn't you tell me you had encountered Catwoman in Blüdhaven?" his mentor growled without turning around.
"We wanted to know more of the facts before we told you," Nightwing responded evenly and settled himself on the edge of a table not too far from where Oracle and Batman stared at the main screen. Hopefully, Batman would infer that they were doing their best by him and not jump to the conclusion that they were somehow in cahoots with the new cat burglar. Although, that name really didn't seem to fit her any more. At least not that Nightwing had seen.
Now Batman turned to face him, his fury accentuated by the sharp, ominous shadows covering his face. "Even after Arsenal found her in Chicago? And after you found out she knows your name?" Apparently the twenty minutes it had taken Nightwing to get there had been more than enough time for Oracle to spill all.
"All we know is that she isn't Selina reincarnated, reanimated, or resurrected, and that she doesn't seem to be after money, black marketable items, jewelry, or even, surprisingly enough, cat-related pieces. That's not a lot to go with when you're dealing in terms of a loved one's dead loved one." Nightwing met Batman's gaze fearlessly.
Robin let out a silent groan from his corner and put a hand over his eyes as the tense clouds around his mentor grew in strength. Now was not the time to mention that Bruce had loved Selina.
"The fact that she knows your name should have been enough. Either we have a leak in our security," Batman's glare darkened significantly, making it clear who he thought the leak was, "or she knows a lot more than she's letting on and has the potential to significantly compromise us."
"Well," Nightwing grunted and straightened from his half-seat on the table edge. "She's not one of mine. I think I'd remember that mouth. I don't think Robin here swings any way but Super these days, and unless Oracle has something she'd like share, I think we can say it's a safe bet that there isn't a leak in this room."
Silent to that moment, Oracle at last looked away from her computer screen and shook her head. "Nightwing's right. It's none of us. I think we need to contact Huntress. Though I doubt she'll be the source of the problem, she may have leads or may even have run into Catwoman herself. If that's the case, she may have more information for us."
"We can also start gently roughing up the local wildlife and see what we can find out from them," added Nightwing.
"She said Selina chose her as her heir," offered Robin, prepared for the glare as it transferred to him. "Maybe… she knows Dick's name because Selina told her. I mean, Selina had been missing for five months before her body was found, and we have no way of knowing what happened during that time. Also, we know she's - the new Catwoman - that she's somehow connected to the Temple of Bast in Bubastis, Egypt. I think that's a lead we should check out."
Silence enveloped the room as the three protégés watched their leader process Robin's words. They all let out a silent sigh of relief when the anger surrounding Batman took on a sense of determined purpose. Turning to Oracle, he ordered, "Call Huntress and Azrael and see if they know anything. I'm going to Egypt as soon as I can get a plane ready."
Pushing off the wall behind him, Robin said, "We told Catwoman that we'd meet with her in two nights to talk about moving those cats she rescued."
"You'll just have to tell her that the meeting's been postponed." With that, Batman strode out of the room.
Nightwing watched him go and turned to Robin. "Think you can handle the kitten on your own, Robin?" he asked, noting that Oracle was already contacting Huntress. "Or would you like me to go with you?"
"I can handle her on my own, thanks. I'll just make sure to keep an eye on her until Batman gets back."
Nodding, Nightwing started for the door himself. "Alright, I'll start scouting. Oracle, don't forget to keep an ear on the police feeds and civilian CB. Any sighting is a potential lead."
Humor in her voice, Oracle tossed Nightwing a look over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "Tell me something I don't know, Grayson."
With a brief flash of straight white teeth, Nightwing left as well.
Robin walked over to stand behind Oracle's chair. "Did Huntress answer?"
"She's in the middle of something, so I'm letting her finish before I start asking her questions. I'm working on contacting Azrael right now." Oracle's finger flew over the keys faster than even the Dark Knight's when he was on an information hunt in the Batcave.
"Alright. I'm going to head out and finish my rounds. Give me a call when you get ahold of those two." Robin gave Oracle's shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "See you later, Babs."
"Stay safe, Tim," Oracle replied as she covered the hand on her shoulder for a brief return squeeze.
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She'd done it. She'd met the Batman and survived. Racing over rooftops in the false light of predawn, Catwoman sent a prayer up to Bast that all of her encounters with the World's Greatest Detective were as favorable as this night's had been. Granted, her first encounter hadn't been all that pleasant - and she was surprised she hadn't fainted dead away in the face of all that legendary and formidable intimidation technique - but any dance with the Dark Knight that she could walk away from free as a bird was a good one.
Heart pounding, Catwoman made the final leap onto her balcony railing from the rooftop across the street and dropped wearily to the balcony floor. Rising from her crouch, she reached for the sliding doorwall and pulled. It closed behind her with a quiet rolling whoosh and whump, and - home at last - Catwoman raised her foot to step deeper into her lair.
The tred of her boot had barely come an inch off the polished wood floor when she was hit by a body moving far too fast for the human eye to follow. Bowled to the floor, Catwoman hissed and lashed out with her claws, the movement slow enough that the Speedster above her could dodge their sharp points. Moving with speed of her own, Catwoman twisted and booted feet connected with red clad hips, launching her assailant over her head and onto the bed behind her. Flexing her way to her feet by rolling her spine and throwing her body vertical from the floor, she spun and pounced, pinning her guest to the mattress by sitting on his hips and pinning his shoulders with her hands.
A round of punches literally fast as lightning connected with the side of her shoulder, forcing her off her opponent. The ensuing tumble was a blur of motion that took them to the floor in a messy tangle. Then, just as fast as it had began, the fight ended in a stalemate with both of them holding tight to the other's throat, threatening to cut off air.
Gold eyes framed by yellow fabric glared at Catwoman. "What are you doing here?" Kid Flash demanded, his fingers constricting.
"I live here," Catwoman huffed.
Next in Chapter Four: The truth of the new Catwoman, and the secret Selina kept from everyone, even herself.
Author's Notes: Hey all. Thank you so very much for reading the first three chapters of a fic that's been almost three years in the making. If you enjoyed what we have so far, please consider volunteering to be our beta! We have chapter five done, but chapter four is proving problematic because it's so Selina heavy and we're having trouble with our characterization of her. We also have an outline of the ENTIRE story completed, and another set of eyes to look it over and find any potential plot holes / unnecessary bits would be greatly appreciated. If you're interested, go ahead and drop a message here or send us a PM. Thanks in advance!
Rating: PG-13 for now
Author's Notes: Please read the note at the end of the chapter. Thanks.
Summary: Being the Hand of a Goddess isn't easy, especially when duty pits a girl against the Dark Knight, but the new Catwoman has a mission, and nothing is going to stand in the way of its completion. Not even Batman.
The Eye of Anubis
By Nightmare and Winged Dreamer
Chapter Three
Night in Gotham was a maze of treacherous shadows, navigable by instinct and experience alone. Safety was determined by how much fear a person could instill in those around them. The meek who dared venture from their homes without protection were lucky if they survived the night with their lives. The dangerous or powerful feared only each other, and hid their fear with brutality.
There had once been a time when mob bosses ruled the shadows with fear and corruption, bending the city and its people to their will. That time was now gone, leaving gangs to play a much bloodier version of the mob game as they fought their turf wars, and leaving control in the hands of sociopaths such as the Joker, the Penguin and Two-Face. When they escaped from Arkham Asylum, that is. For hiding in the night's shadows was a fierce beacon of hope for the meek, the helpless, and the innocent. In the shadows of Gotham was where the Batman thrived. From the shadows of Gotham was where he protected her people, as he had sworn to do so on the graves of his murdered parents so many years before.
Crouched on a gargoyle high above the city of his birth, Batman surveyed the streets below, on guard for anything from as small as a mugging to as large as the Joker about to execute a mass homicide. In his ear buzzed the small receiver implanted in his Kevlar-reinforced cowl, its frequency set on that of the Gotham City Police Department's dispatch radio.
Ten minutes passed without any signs of criminal activity below and Batman rose from his crouch, reaching for a jumpline on his utility belt. He paused as a dispatch order began and, with a quick press to the outside of his cowl, turned up the radio's volume.
"-Luther King Jr. Drive, approaching Millennium Avenue. All cars in the area join the pursuit. Be advised that the subjects are armed. Repeat. Calling all cars. There is a black Ford sedan containing two million dollars stolen from Gotham Bank speeding north on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, approaching Millennium Avenue. All cars-"
Batman sprung into action, swinging to a nearby building to join in the chase from rooftop. While there was a high chance that the police could take care of the bank robbers on their own, it was not in Batman's practice to leave things to chance, especially not if someone much more dangerous than a simple bank robber showed up with their own interest in the loot. Or if the bank robber turned out to be someone more than just a simple crook.
"Want me to make my way over?" asked Robin's voice through the communicator in his cowl. Robin's patrol had taken him north, putting him in a good spot to intercept if the car stayed on its present course.
"Yes. If you can, use the Redbird to cut them off."
"Got it."
Leaping over an alley onto a lower roof, Batman landed in a somersault and launched himself back up into a run. Three more alleys and two streets and he would be above Thirty-First Street, half a mile north of Millennium Avenue and hopefully far enough ahead of the chase to join in.
What-?
Spotting movement out of the corner of his eye, Batman stopped in a shadow to do a quick visual scan. Three roofs away, a dark, slender figure was running east, towards Gotham's corrupt East End. There was no cape, ruling out Robin and Huntress. When the figure leapt from one roof to the next, the moonlight outlined what was clearly a woman in a silvery silhouette. There were many reasons for a woman to be running over rooftops towards the East End, all of them bad. Making a quick decision, Batman abandoned the police chase and ran after the woman. "Robin, you're on your own. I have another situation."
The woman led Batman deep into the heart of the East End's drug district, at last jumping down into an alley behind a crack house. Hiding in a shadow, he watched her dark, slender form move through the inky blackness below as she checked for guards or traps, unable to make out any of her features. Activating his night-vision lenses with a squeeze of his glove, Batman felt his heart leap into his throat at the sight of a painfully familiar leather costume.
Catwoman.
No, not Catwoman. At least, not Selina. Selina Kyle was dead.
Nearly two years ago, Bruce Wayne had gotten a call from a backwater hospital in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula asking him to come down and confirm the identity of a body that had been brought in the day previous. All it had taken was the mention of Selina's name and he'd immediately flown down in his personal jet, leaving Robin in charge of Gotham.
Bruce could still remember all the details of the morgue. Dirty whitewashed walls, a broken dehumidifier, the reek of rotting bodies, numerous half-filled flypaper sheets on every wall… and Selina's still, horribly pale form laid out on a table in front of him, wearing nothing save an old, faintly stained white sheet. Eyes trained by the best and by years of experience had zeroed in on her wounds, all of them scrapes caused by a wild run through the dense jungle, except for a long, shallow gash down her right side from the middle of her abdomen to the bottom of her hip. The skin along either side of the gash had already begun to rot, and Bruce had recognized the unmistakable signs of poison.
Angry and grieving, Bruce had insisted on watching Selina's autopsy in hopes of gleaning some clues about her killer so he could extract revenge on those who had taken from him one of the few women he'd ever truly loved. And he had loved her, despite everything. No, they had never seen eye-to-eye on most things, especially Selina's worst habits, but she had helped him almost as many times as she had battled against him, dancing along the line between black and white as if it didn't exist. At the end she had begun to play more on the side of white than black, giving Bruce the hope that maybe someday soon things would be able to work between them at last. But that was all gone now, stolen just like every other chance of happiness he'd ever been offered. To his immense fury, the only thing he'd learned from the autopsy was the exact poison that had been used, and it was a common frog toxin derivative that was used in just about every form of native hunting in the area, meaning it could have been quite literally anyone.
After weeks of paperwork and a painful cremation - neither government would let him take Selina's body back to the States in case she carried a disease or anything that could become an invasive species, especially since she had died in the jungle - Bruce was at last able to return to Gotham, most of his anger replaced with heartache. At her funeral, he had thrown her ashes to the wind and watched as Selina was taken away from him forever.
No, the woman below was not Catwoman. She was simply a thief, using Catwoman's name and costume for her own gain. Anger rose within Batman as he watched her move silently from the alley mouth to the crack house's heavily chained cellar door. The large padlock and thick chain were soon set aside and the woman disappeared into the dark cellar, the door's quiet squeak as it shut masked by the sounds of people milling about on the poorly lit street.
Batman waited thirty seconds before jumping down into the alley, landing with only a rustle from his cape. A quick treatment of vegetable oil on the door's hinges enabled him to silently slip into the cellar. Absolute darkness enshrouded him once the door was closed, and Batman crept down the stairs after Catwoman's imposter, listening for guards or one of the ligers he knew the owner of this particular crack house favored. Huge cats, crosses between a lion and a tiger, the males weighing in at no less than one thousand pounds, and always kept hungry so they would attack anyone foolish enough to try and steal the stashes hidden away in the cellar. Batman reluctantly hoped the woman hadn't been attacked. No matter how intense his anger at her theft of Catwoman's mantle, he still refused to let her die for something so foolish as stealing drugs.
The door at the end of the short hallway was open, a sliver of weak light cutting through the darkness. Batman could hear the soft purr-growls of at least two large cats and the curious mewls of… a cub? Unsettled by the lack of sounds of a struggle or of feeding, he cautiously crouched down and peeked through the crack between the door and wall. What he saw amazed him.
Two unconscious guards pumped up to an inhuman massiveness by drugs lay sprawled on the floor, bearing no obvious sign of injury. Shelves upon shelves of crack filled the large cellar, yet from his angle, he could see no signs of anything having been taken. And there, at the far end of the cellar, crouched the woman, busily making a sling out of one of the guard's shirts. A liger cub, young enough to have just been weaned from its mother, watched her with avid curiosity. Two adult ligers, thin from forced starvation, simply lay on either side of her as docile as house cats, their cages sitting open behind them. Batman watched as the false Catwoman put on the makeshift sling and settled the cub against her stomach, then turned towards the stairwell with the two adults following right behind.
Recognizing his cue to leave, Batman quickly retreated via the way he came and used a jumpline to haul himself to a roof above the alley. The woman and cats emerged not a minute later and immediately set off through the alley maze, Batman following them from above.
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"What are we waiting for?" whispered Robin, his gaze never leaving the strange scene below.
"The cats to finish eating." Batman watched as the two adult ligers scarfed down their piles of meat, meat for which the woman had left them alone in this condemned warehouse while she went to "buy" it from a butcher's - the butcher was going to be very surprised come morning to find a beef quarter gone and a wad of money sitting next to the cash register. The cub sat in the woman's lap, eagerly taking small pieces of meat from her fingers. The sounds of soft murmurs rose to the rafters and Batman narrowed his eyes as he tried to make out the words. Unable to, he motioned for Robin to stay where he was and silently climbed his way down through towers of dusty packing crates, creeping closer until he could understand what the woman was telling the feeding cats.
"Eat a little slower, kitten. Catwoman likes her fingers attached." The woman's voice was amused and affectionate as she cut another piece from the round steak sitting beside her on its paper wrap. The cub just cried and took the piece a little less quickly as requested. "No more empty bellies. I promise. We'll take good care of you in Egypt. All of you. Getting you there will be a challenge, but we'll manage. The Temple has its resources and you're definitely a rescue in need of charity. Poor things. I should put in a call to the GCPD about that place. Wish I had a cell phone, but then," she laughed in a soft, rich chuckle. "Where would I put it, huh? Although, I could treat it like a cleavage dagger. The 'cleavage phone'… I could get rich marketing that. Well, maybe."
The thinner of the two adults finished his meal and, licking his chops clean, he intently eyed the meat next to the woman. Slowly, he began to pad towards it.
"Ah, ahhh. That's this little one's meal. You can wait until he's finished. Go clean your companion's face or something. Shoo." Catwoman's imposter didn't even have to raise a hand. The big cat just looked at her, made eye contact, then slowly blinked and turned around to do as it had been told. "Thank you." Looking back down to the little one in her lap, the black-clad woman sighed. "Are you done yet?"
In a very firm negative, the cub stared expectedly at the woman's fingers and kneaded her legs, small claws just beginning to poke out of their sheaths to scratch against the leather.
"Alright. Alright. No claws!" Cutting off more of the meat, she offered it to the cub and smiled as he took it from her with care. "Good boy," she crooned and glanced up at the two adults, obviously checking to make sure they were behaving.
Put on edge by how clearly the ligers understood her - the product of magic or a metahuman ability or both, any combination of which had the large potential to cause problems - Batman watched and waited for all the meat to be eaten. The less the cats had to defend when they finally noticed him, the better.
When the last piece of beef disappeared down a hungry throat, he took a batarang from his belt and dropped it from two inches above the ground.
Four heads turned in his direction and the two larger cats got to their feet, moving closer to the woman with cautious, suspicious steps. The false Catwoman set the cub on the ground before gracefully rising and turning to face the direction from which the sound had come. She didn't speak, just laid a hand on the two large shoulders to either side of her waist as the ligers moved up to flank her and waited. The cub stood peering between her legs into the shadows, watching intently from behind her where he was presumably safe.
Moving slowly so as not to seem a threat or be seen as prey by the ligers, Batman emerged from behind the crates, though not from the shadows.
"Easy boys," murmured Catwoman to her "friends." She stepped forward then and folded her arms beneath her bosom. "You know, it's rude to eavesdrop, Batman."
"Who are you?" he demanded, his gruff voice quiet only in volume. The ligers rumbled softly in warning at the danger in his tone.
"Catwoman. It's… a pleasure." It was obvious that she was looking him up and down even if he couldn't see into the yellow lenses of her goggles from his current distance.
Batman's banked anger rose again at her confident declaration. She had no right to take on Selina's mantle, not when she was brazen enough to wear a perfect copy of Selina's costume. "You're not Catwoman."
"I'm not that Catwoman, no, but I am Catwoman. That Catwoman chose me to be her heir and so… here I am." The woman seemed completely unperturbed by the denial of her identity, taking his justifiable refusal in stride.
Stepping out of the shadows, Batman narrowed his eyes in suspicion. The only women he knew of who would have reason to make such a claim were Selina's sister Maggie, who lived in a convent, and her friend Holly Robinson, who had moved away from Gotham after Selina's death. Both had been fair-skinned. Moonlight streaming through holes in the warehouse walls showed the woman in front of him to have dusky skin, her full lips betraying the likely presence of at least some African in her background. Remembering that the Mexican doctor had claimed a dark young woman had been the one to bring Selina's body to the hospital, perhaps the costume this girl wore was not a copy but the one taken off Selina's corpse. Batman's fists clenched in restraint against the vicious desire to shake the woman before him until she delivered the answers he wanted. "Catwoman didn't have anyone she could make her heir," he grit out.
"As far as you knew." Stepping forward, the woman approached him at a sedate walk that spoke plainly of how relaxed she was despite the circumstances. She stopped a good three feet from Batman, still exhibiting no signs of fear or intimidation. "Here isn't the place to discuss this. I have to find a way to get these three to safety, so you'll have to excuse me for tonight. It was nice to meet you."
A warning growl from the ligers made Batman take no more than one step closer. Underneath his cape, the Dark Knight toyed with the tufted ends of his tranquilizer darts, ready to throw them if the cats decided to attack. "Where are you taking them?"
"Bubastis, Egypt, to the Temple of Bast. They'll be well-kept there since there's no way they could survive in the wild. They'll be Temple Cats like the others."
Mildly surprised by the immediate and honest answer, Batman grudgingly allowed a small nod after a long moment. He had heard of the Temple of Bast. It had only been a year ago that he had read an article in the paper about the restoration of an ancient temple in Egypt funded completely by an anonymous benefactor. The temple's added function as a sanctuary for rescued cats had been mentioned in the article. Considering the goddess the temple had been built for, such a sanctuary made perfect sense. However, there was one small flaw in the woman's story. "And just how do you plan to smuggle them out of the country?"
Dropping her arms, Catwoman placed one hand on her hip and pivoted on a heel. Putting her back to him, she tipped her head and sized up her small pride. "I'm not sure, but I'll manage. I have to."
Robin emerged from a shadow behind his mentor to stand next to him. "We could help." Meeting Batman's dark, disapproving stare with a placid one of his own, Robin asked, "What? I was getting bored up there."
"Hello," Catwoman greeted the newcomer as she spun back around and presented him with an appreciative smile. She snapped her fingers a few times and stooped to scoop up the liger cub when he trotted over. The other two cats immediately relaxed at that, one sitting down to wash himself while the other lay down to digest. "Welcome to the party, Birdie. Help how?"
"It's Robin. We can ship them to Egypt for you. All you'll need to do is make sure they stay here and don't eat anybody until everything's set up." Robin smirked in amusement as the cub tried to squirm out of the baby cradle hold Catwoman had him in to put his paws on her shoulders. "It gets them out of Gotham faster if we do it, and then that's three less illegal cats we have to worry about."
Cradling the cub's hindquarters with one arm and scratching at his spine with her other hand, Catwoman looked at the cub, who was avidly watching the shadows across the warehouse, then back to the Dynamic Duo. "Alright. If I can't trust you two, I can't trust anyone. Thank you, Robin. This will definitely make things easier on… well, everybody. Ever held a liger cub before?"
Batman cut Robin off with a firm, "We'll meet you here in two nights to discuss shipping details. Robin."
Knowing better than to protest when his mentor used that tone of voice, Robin gave Catwoman a farewell nod and followed Batman back into the shadows and out of the building.
"See you soon," the new Catwoman murmured to their retreating backs.
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They were in trouble and they knew it. Oracle hummed softly and shook her head. Batman would know they were lying the moment she or Nightwing tried to deny any knowledge of the existence of the imposter. Tim, so far, had been the only one ever to be even remotely successful when it came to lying to the Dark Knight. Neither Oracle nor Nightwing would rat their little brother out, but the former Batgirl had a feeling that their little bird wouldn't hold out on their "old man" for too long. He wasn't into letting others take the fall for him, and they'd been in it together.
Switching to a private frequency, Oracle patched into Nightwing's commlink and let out a small sigh. "Better brace yourself, Nightwing. Batman just had a little run in with our new Feline Femme Fatale. Robin was with him, too, so maybe he picked up on some things that you missed. We'll have to wait and see. Just… be prepared for an unhappy conversation. Oracle out. He's paging me."
Flipping the disconnect switch before Dick could respond, Barbara Gordon scooped up another headset, laid the one she'd just held up to her ear aside and settled the second set securely over her skull. "Oracle here."
"Have Nightwing meet us at your location ASAP. Robin and I will be there in fifteen minutes," growled Batman's low voice in her ear.
"Connecting to his network now," Oracle responded and set that headset aside so she could pick up the set she had laid down moments before. "Nightwing. This is Oracle. How close are you to me?"
"I'm about five blocks from my boathouse. Why? Does he want me there?"
"Yes, and if you had heard the tone of his voice, you would be here already."
"I'll be at my boat in five minutes. Give me twenty to get there. Where are we meeting?"
"Here, and hurry. He's only twelve minutes away."
"Got it. I'll be there ASAP."
"Good." Resigned, Oracle set aside that headset again and turned to face the entrance to her Oracle room. It wouldn't be long before Batman and Robin came through it.
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Satisfied that Oracle was calling Nightwing, Batman flipped off the Batmobile's communicator. A brief, harsh silence filled the car before he growled, "The next time you think of making a suggestion like that, discuss it with me first."
Robin resisted the urge to sigh at his mentor's predictable disapproval. "The intimidation tactic clearly wasn't working, and you weren't getting anything but the most basic information out of her, so I thought I'd try the friendly approach. You saw how quickly she agreed when I offered to help. Besides, working with her will give us an opportunity to see what she's like," he calmly argued. "And just how much she's like Selina, if at all." It didn't take being Batman's protégé to know that the Dark Knight was severely irritated by the new Catwoman's appearance. Given how tight the muscles in his jaw were, Robin would have also been willing to bet that Batman would spend the rest of the night brooding.
The only counter offered was a heavier, darker silence that followed them the rest of the way to the Clock Tower.
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Before he had even entered Oracle's headquarters, Nightwing could feel the oppressive atmosphere waiting for him inside. Batman must be in a severely foul mood for him to sense it through the thick hidden door separating Barbara's apartment from her secret computer nest. Steeling himself for the confrontation he knew was coming, Nightwing entered the already crowded base.
Oracle was at her main console, typing a mile a minute, with Batman hovering behind her and radiating anger. A quick glance around the tiny room found Robin in an uncluttered corner, plainly trying to blend in with the maze of circuitry. Meeting his gaze, the younger vigilante gave his "brother" a pained smile in greeting.
"Why didn't you tell me you had encountered Catwoman in Blüdhaven?" his mentor growled without turning around.
"We wanted to know more of the facts before we told you," Nightwing responded evenly and settled himself on the edge of a table not too far from where Oracle and Batman stared at the main screen. Hopefully, Batman would infer that they were doing their best by him and not jump to the conclusion that they were somehow in cahoots with the new cat burglar. Although, that name really didn't seem to fit her any more. At least not that Nightwing had seen.
Now Batman turned to face him, his fury accentuated by the sharp, ominous shadows covering his face. "Even after Arsenal found her in Chicago? And after you found out she knows your name?" Apparently the twenty minutes it had taken Nightwing to get there had been more than enough time for Oracle to spill all.
"All we know is that she isn't Selina reincarnated, reanimated, or resurrected, and that she doesn't seem to be after money, black marketable items, jewelry, or even, surprisingly enough, cat-related pieces. That's not a lot to go with when you're dealing in terms of a loved one's dead loved one." Nightwing met Batman's gaze fearlessly.
Robin let out a silent groan from his corner and put a hand over his eyes as the tense clouds around his mentor grew in strength. Now was not the time to mention that Bruce had loved Selina.
"The fact that she knows your name should have been enough. Either we have a leak in our security," Batman's glare darkened significantly, making it clear who he thought the leak was, "or she knows a lot more than she's letting on and has the potential to significantly compromise us."
"Well," Nightwing grunted and straightened from his half-seat on the table edge. "She's not one of mine. I think I'd remember that mouth. I don't think Robin here swings any way but Super these days, and unless Oracle has something she'd like share, I think we can say it's a safe bet that there isn't a leak in this room."
Silent to that moment, Oracle at last looked away from her computer screen and shook her head. "Nightwing's right. It's none of us. I think we need to contact Huntress. Though I doubt she'll be the source of the problem, she may have leads or may even have run into Catwoman herself. If that's the case, she may have more information for us."
"We can also start gently roughing up the local wildlife and see what we can find out from them," added Nightwing.
"She said Selina chose her as her heir," offered Robin, prepared for the glare as it transferred to him. "Maybe… she knows Dick's name because Selina told her. I mean, Selina had been missing for five months before her body was found, and we have no way of knowing what happened during that time. Also, we know she's - the new Catwoman - that she's somehow connected to the Temple of Bast in Bubastis, Egypt. I think that's a lead we should check out."
Silence enveloped the room as the three protégés watched their leader process Robin's words. They all let out a silent sigh of relief when the anger surrounding Batman took on a sense of determined purpose. Turning to Oracle, he ordered, "Call Huntress and Azrael and see if they know anything. I'm going to Egypt as soon as I can get a plane ready."
Pushing off the wall behind him, Robin said, "We told Catwoman that we'd meet with her in two nights to talk about moving those cats she rescued."
"You'll just have to tell her that the meeting's been postponed." With that, Batman strode out of the room.
Nightwing watched him go and turned to Robin. "Think you can handle the kitten on your own, Robin?" he asked, noting that Oracle was already contacting Huntress. "Or would you like me to go with you?"
"I can handle her on my own, thanks. I'll just make sure to keep an eye on her until Batman gets back."
Nodding, Nightwing started for the door himself. "Alright, I'll start scouting. Oracle, don't forget to keep an ear on the police feeds and civilian CB. Any sighting is a potential lead."
Humor in her voice, Oracle tossed Nightwing a look over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "Tell me something I don't know, Grayson."
With a brief flash of straight white teeth, Nightwing left as well.
Robin walked over to stand behind Oracle's chair. "Did Huntress answer?"
"She's in the middle of something, so I'm letting her finish before I start asking her questions. I'm working on contacting Azrael right now." Oracle's finger flew over the keys faster than even the Dark Knight's when he was on an information hunt in the Batcave.
"Alright. I'm going to head out and finish my rounds. Give me a call when you get ahold of those two." Robin gave Oracle's shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "See you later, Babs."
"Stay safe, Tim," Oracle replied as she covered the hand on her shoulder for a brief return squeeze.
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She'd done it. She'd met the Batman and survived. Racing over rooftops in the false light of predawn, Catwoman sent a prayer up to Bast that all of her encounters with the World's Greatest Detective were as favorable as this night's had been. Granted, her first encounter hadn't been all that pleasant - and she was surprised she hadn't fainted dead away in the face of all that legendary and formidable intimidation technique - but any dance with the Dark Knight that she could walk away from free as a bird was a good one.
Heart pounding, Catwoman made the final leap onto her balcony railing from the rooftop across the street and dropped wearily to the balcony floor. Rising from her crouch, she reached for the sliding doorwall and pulled. It closed behind her with a quiet rolling whoosh and whump, and - home at last - Catwoman raised her foot to step deeper into her lair.
The tred of her boot had barely come an inch off the polished wood floor when she was hit by a body moving far too fast for the human eye to follow. Bowled to the floor, Catwoman hissed and lashed out with her claws, the movement slow enough that the Speedster above her could dodge their sharp points. Moving with speed of her own, Catwoman twisted and booted feet connected with red clad hips, launching her assailant over her head and onto the bed behind her. Flexing her way to her feet by rolling her spine and throwing her body vertical from the floor, she spun and pounced, pinning her guest to the mattress by sitting on his hips and pinning his shoulders with her hands.
A round of punches literally fast as lightning connected with the side of her shoulder, forcing her off her opponent. The ensuing tumble was a blur of motion that took them to the floor in a messy tangle. Then, just as fast as it had began, the fight ended in a stalemate with both of them holding tight to the other's throat, threatening to cut off air.
Gold eyes framed by yellow fabric glared at Catwoman. "What are you doing here?" Kid Flash demanded, his fingers constricting.
"I live here," Catwoman huffed.
Next in Chapter Four: The truth of the new Catwoman, and the secret Selina kept from everyone, even herself.
Author's Notes: Hey all. Thank you so very much for reading the first three chapters of a fic that's been almost three years in the making. If you enjoyed what we have so far, please consider volunteering to be our beta! We have chapter five done, but chapter four is proving problematic because it's so Selina heavy and we're having trouble with our characterization of her. We also have an outline of the ENTIRE story completed, and another set of eyes to look it over and find any potential plot holes / unnecessary bits would be greatly appreciated. If you're interested, go ahead and drop a message here or send us a PM. Thanks in advance!