reflection of his enemy. chp10

Reflection of His Enemy
Chapter Ten // Going Crazy


Eleanor had never felt loneliness to the caliber she did as she sat on her couch, staring at the black screen of the television she hadn’t been able to turn on; she was sure if she saw what was going on in the outside world, the pain from being alone would only get worse. She hadn’t been alone for very long, but the prospect of being isolated for God knew how long was weighing heavily. Detective Renee Montoya, one of the officers handpicked by Gordon to work on the NanoShift technology, and her partner, Detective Crispus Allen, had driven Eleanor home from the police station and had offered to stay with her for a while. Eleanor had all but forced them from her loft – a decision she was no regretting – and told them she’d be fine. The detectives had been given the duty of checking up on Eleanor every once in a while, so they had obliged and left, promising they’d check in as soon as they had a minute. Eleanor quite liked the detectives.

When she had been alone again, she had wandered around her loft without even the bark of her dog to comfort her since Blaze was still at Naomi and Liam’s; the once comfortable and familiar surroundings seemed alien and cold now that they were her prison. After she had changed into a pair of pajamas, the weight of her ankle monitor quickly drove her to sit down on the couch. She didn’t like being constantly reminded of her position. Eleanor hadn’t moved since she’d sat down. Three hours ago.

It was nearing three in the morning when something finally dragged her from the couch.

A sound outside the window made her jump. She turned, cobalt eyes alight with fear and worry and maybe, just a spark of hope that she knew who had caused that noise, and stared into the orange night caused by all the lights of Gotham reflecting off the smog hanging low. Whether it was her imagination or reality – she wasn’t sure – but Eleanor would have sworn to anyone she’d seen a dark, vaguely human-shaped form flying passed her window. She got to her feet and walked over to the window, grunting slightly as she heaved the heavy thing open and locked it into that position. It had stopped snowing, but there was a sharp winter wind blowing in angry gusts, and it stung Eleanor’s eyes, but she kept them open and tried to make out any sign of the Batman amongst the rooftops surrounding her loft. Scanning the rooftops provided an excellent distraction from her impending mental break. Ever since he’d saved her from the mugger a while back, Eleanor had kept her eyes on the sky whenever she’d been outside at night, looking for the inky black of his silhouette and listening for the quiet flapping of his cape. Eleanor hadn’t mentioned this to anyone, not even Adam or Shauna, but since her rescue, she’d held onto the slight chance she’d get to see him again, and maybe, just maybe, she’d get to talk to him again. Did she know what she’d say? Not in the slightest. But then again, she didn’t think she’d ever get that chance again, no matter how much she hoped or got involved in the whole NanoShift situation.

Ignoring the biting winds, Eleanor shifted into her favourite, comfortable pose on the wide windowsill. Her hair whipped around her face and very quickly she started to shiver, but, as she had not found Batman anywhere in her sights, her mind had drifted elsewhere. Specifically, she was staring the thick black ankle bracelet with its little red LED light blinking at her like an eye. Eleanor scowled at the device, dropped her leg so she couldn’t see it and turned her gaze back onto the city outside. From somewhere down the street, the sounds of a party reached her ears. She sighed heavily, for once actually wishing she could be at that party.

Unexpectedly, tears swelled in the corners of her eyes and she sniffed, making her nose throb painfully and, as she sucked in a quick breath trying to calm herself down, her ribs, which hadn’t bothered her too much over the past week, protested, and she began to cry more, gasping for breath. Gotham blurred in her vision, and everything seemed to hit her at once. She was literally a prisoner in her own house. There was a madwoman ruining her life. Ruining her life in order to get to Bruce. Bruce… She sobbed rather violently at the thought of the billionaire and set her jaw, clenching her teeth tightly, which, in her current state, turned out to be a bad idea because she couldn’t get a proper breath and she started to hyperventilate.

Why did I choose to stay here? Why didn’t I go back to my parent’s house? Why did I choose to be alone? Eleanor climbed down from the sill, not wanting to risk falling off the wrong way and made her way back to the couch, still sobbing harshly. She missed and ended up sitting on the floor, her legs sprawled awkwardly out to one side, the heels of her hand striking the hardwood floor and sending a wave of nausea through her. What am I doing? She sobbed out loud and sucked in another short breath. The lack of air was starting to make her head swim and her side was throbbing in time with her nose. I can’t breathe… God, I’m so stupid. Stupid! She tried to take a satisfactory breath, and managed. The air served to calm her, if only momentarily. In that brief window, something else hit her, and she thought of her parents. They had been at Bruce’s party. They had seen their daughter attack someone, and they had seen her being dragged through a crowd, her face broken and bloodied and they had no idea what had actually happened. Oh God, my parents! Any hope Eleanor had of calming herself down vanished as quickly as it had come. Images of Liam and Naomi’s hurt expressions swam in front of her eyes. She gasped again, trying to get a breath.

Tears were streaming down Eleanor’s face now, her cheeks soaked and her eyes burning as still more tears came; she was vaguely aware of the tears sliding down her chin and neck. Her breaths were short and ragged, still hyperventilating, and she couldn’t force her brain to think rationally.

Rational.

What about the whole fucked up situation was rational?

There was some freak mutilating herself to get revenge on Bruce Wayne.

Eleanor and Rachel were apparently the vehicles of that revenge.

Her life was falling apart.

Her parents, everyone else at the party, and no doubt by tomorrow, everyone would think she was criminal.

She was isolated in her own house.

She had done nothing wrong.

There was no rational.

Stop.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t-

Shut up. Breathe.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t-

Just shut up and take a deep breath. Calm down.

It hurts, I can’t, I can’t, it hurts-

BREATHE.

No, I can’t-

BREATHE.

Eleanor tried and coughed. She doubled over, her cobalt eyes bulging slightly and her hands balling into fists as she gasped. Can’t breathe, can’t breathe… She sobbed again and then finally, she was able to oblige the voice in her head, the rational part of her mind, and draw a satisfying breath and start to bring herself slowly under control.

-

Batman pulled off his cowl and gloves and tossed them on the desk as he sat down in the comfortable chair. He sighed, angry with himself for not being able to catch the woman responsible for attacking Eloise Griffin. He had followed her to a hidden car and had followed the car into a derelict section of the city closer to a small port, but he had somehow lost her in the winding streets and narrow alleys. That was unlike him. He knew he had failed because of Eleanor. He was distracted – worried about her. This was the first time something personal had affected him enough to let whoever he was chasing get away. He exhaled a deep breath and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes.

On his way back to the cave, he had swung by to check on Eleanor, unable to ignore his worry. She had seemed fine, if a little distraught, sitting on her couch and staring into space. As he left, he knew Eleanor had seen him, but that didn’t matter. She still thought Batman and Bruce Wayne were two separate beings; one of which she was probably mad at. Again. Maybe that was for the best…

Sighing again, he detached the phone from his utility belt and pressed the speed dial combination for Gordon’s matching phone. “She got away,” he rumbled as he heard the tell-tale click that Gordon had picked up. “I followed her down somewhere near the China Docks, but I lost her.”

“I’ll get my team on it. Search the area.”

“Good. The situation at Wayne Manor?”

“Resolved. Eloise Griffin, the woman who was attacked, was rushed to Gotham Central Hospital and they repaired her injury. Last I checked, she was sedated, stable and will be able to leave in a couple days. Eleanor, who, in the eyes of the public, is the attacker, has been placed under house arrest and I’ve got detectives checking in on her, but I don’t think she’ll be attacked again.”

“And Rachel Dawes?”

“There’s a car outside her apartment, but so far, there hasn’t been any activity. She’s fine for now.”

Batman nodded to himself, glad to hear Rachel was fine. “I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.”

“Right.”

He ended the call and replaced the phone on his utility belt. They needed a break in the case, some clue to who this woman was. Some time ago, he had determined she was attacking Eleanor and Rachel because the NanoShift technology didn’t allow her to change her sex as well as her appearance, or else, she would have most likely gone after Alfred. He was the person closest to Bruce Wayne after all.

Batman leaned forward and brought up the new files Gordon had sent him. He scanned the photos of the deformed test subjects. They were only vaguely human-shaped. Their skin had taken on an odd greenish-blue tinge and their limbs were twisted into bizarre configurations, but were apparently still functional. According to the records, the nanomachines coursing through their veins had given them a massively increased pain threshold and the ability to move their warped bodies even though they should have been confined to a wheelchair. Several of the test subjects had lost all their hair, and a couple of them had bonus deformities; one woman’s eye had swollen and was bulging almost to the point of escaping her eye socket. He quickly scanned the reports, committing the words to memory. All the test subjects had taken between three and five months to get to this point. Whoever had the technology in Gotham had had it inside them for just over two months. Things should be starting to fall apart for her.

He closed the windows on the computer screen and got to his feet. It was just past four in the morning now, and he was exhausted. He could afford a few hours sleep. Bruce stripped himself of Batman’s attire and changed into the pajamas Alfred had left folded neatly on one of the metal tables before heading up into the manor proper.

-

The next afternoon, after a series of uncharacteristic episodes and a hellish morning at work, the woman everyone thought was Rachel Dawes stumbled out of the district attorney’s office, a devilish smirk twisting her face.

Ashlynn, underneath the brown hair and brown eyes of Rachel Dawes, had started to loose her mind.

Her plot for revenge against Bruce Wayne had started off as sane as any plot for revenge could. Locating and stealing the NanoShift technology as well as all of the bank robberies leading up to Gotham City had been calculated affairs designed for a specific purpose; the robberies had funded the cross-country journey. The original plan had been to lay low for a while once they reached Gotham, but by then, the nanomachines inside Ashlynn had started to change her and her need for revenge started to take a bit of a back seat to her newfound adrenaline craving. The bank and restaurant robberies had been purely in search of that high and she was finding not even the success of her actual mission could maintain the adrenaline for long. The high she’d had after Bruce Wayne’s Christmas party had started to fade even before she’d had her fit.

Ah, the fits. And the bubbling skin. She knew that had something to do with her loosing her mind.

But she couldn’t spare too much time thinking about what the future would hold. All she cared about was getting her revenge and her adrenaline. And she hadn’t got any of the latter from attacking Rachel. Sabotaging a reputation wasn’t nearly as fun as attacking some middle-aged woman and sending several hundred rich people into a frenzy.

The black car she’d been keeping her eyes peeled for slid around the corner, and without either party coming to a complete stop, Ashlynn swung into the open and waiting door of the back seat, just as her flesh began its rippling transformation.

“How’d it go?” Sam asked from his place behind the steering wheel.

“Fine.” Ashlynn clenched her jaw through another wave of the transformation. Changing back and forth didn’t hurt as much as more, but she doubted this meant she was getting better or her body was getting more used to the nanomachines living in it.

“How are you?”

She growled in her throat as the transformation reached its peak, her skin bubbling franticly and her muscles contracting and expanding rapidly. Sam wasn’t talking about the transforming or about how she was reacting to the events just passed. He was asking about her mind. Was she still sane? He was the only person who worked for Ashlynn who had noticed her decreasing mental state, but asking her how she was doing was as close as he would get to asking her outright if she was still sane; not that anyone would ask that question in those exact words in any case. But he was her brother, so she didn’t get mad. He cared about her. She knew that. But she wished he wouldn’t make any allusions to her sanity…

“I’m fine,” she snarled after her mouth had shifted back to her own. Ashlynn settled back into the seat and buckled her seatbelt before closing her eyes and drifting into a state of almost-sleep as Sam drove them back to the dilapidated old building that was their headquarters. “Did you call everyone to the warehouse?”

“Yes. They’re all there, waiting. What are you planning?”

She sighed. “Another robbery.”

“Why?”

She sighed again, more agitated than anything. “Why does it matter?”

Suddenly, the car jerked to the right, flinging Ashlynn out of her semi-sleep and a small gasp flying from her lips. Sam drove down an abandoned side street and parked in front of an old apartment building. A heap of garbage in the alley was polluting the air with an unimaginably nasty smell and the harsh lights coming from the apartment on the ground floor gave the scenario an uncomfortable air. The big man unbuckled his seat belt and turned around, his normally soft grey eyes hard and accusing.

“It matters because these robberies you’re risking everyone’s lives on have no point! Someone is going to die eventually, Ashlynn! It might be me, it might be you! And why would they have died? Because you were looking for your next adrenaline rush? This was supposed to be about revenge! Not thrill-seeking!”

Ashlynn’s mouth bunched tightly and her eyebrows knitted together, creating a deep furrow in the middle of her forehead. “I’m still in charge of this operation, Sam! I still want revenge on Bruce Wayne! So what if I take a couple detours to get there? No one has died yet!”

“That doesn’t mean they won’t! You’re getting more and more reckless, Ashlynn!”

“I’m still careful!”

“No you’re not! That freak, Batman or whatever his name is has almost caught you twice! He followed you after that party! He almost found your apartment!”

“But he didn’t!”

“That doesn’t mean he won’t, Ashlynn!” Sam was almost pleading now, his cheeks red and his big hands balled into frustrated fists. “Someone is going to die, Ashlynn,” he said after a minute of calming himself down.

“Just go to the warehouse.”

Sam sighed heavily, closed his eyes momentarily. Then, he sat back behind the wheel, buckled his belt and turned the car around, heading back towards the dockside warehouse they’d taken over. The whole way there, he kept his jaw clenched and his eyes firmly on the road. He could feel Ashlynn glaring at the back of his head, and he knew that if he said anything, all she’d do was yell more. He knew their was definitely something up with his sister, because where she’d always been stubborn and mean, she’d never been reckless, and she’d never risked her life or anyone else’s. Maybe they should just pull out of this whole revenge plot…

Ashlynn growled in her throat again, and if Sam had looked back, he would have seen her fingers going rigid and bending in odd ways and her arms shaking rather violently. And, if Ashlynn hadn’t had been as stubborn as she was, she would have said something about the greenish-blue tinge creeping down from her fingertips.

-

It was precisely eleven fifty-two when Batman picked up the 911 call about the museum robbery. He had been sitting between the gargoyles on top of one of the numerous skyscrapers of northern Midtown, watching the cars and people pass many storeys below, listening intently to the voices of the police scanner in his ear; he was concentrating harder than normal to avoid a mistake like the one the night before. If he was going to catch this woman, he needed to be one-hundred percent focused. He couldn’t be worried about Eleanor or Rachel while he was Batman. That was a job for Bruce Wayne.

“All units respond. Robbery in progress at the Gotham Museum of History and Science. Reports of a woman changing appearance.”

That was all Batman needed to hear. He fired his grappling gun at the building directly across from him and swung down to the alley floor where the Batmobile waited for him. In one smooth motion, he retracted the line and reattached the gun to its hook on his utility belt before climbing into the driver’s seat and speeding down the streets the built-in GPS informed him were currently the least used, thus providing the quickest route to the massive Gothic structure of the museum. As he entered the so-called “Culture District” of Uptown Gotham, all he had to do was follow the ear-wrenching noise of hundreds of sirens, all speeding towards the same destination.  

He parked in an alley several blocks away and then took to the rooftops once more, traveling quickly to the skylight-riddled roof of the museum. There were at least three squad cars all ready out front, but they weren’t advancing on the building. They were waiting for backup. With a sigh, he noticed there was a fairly dense crowd of curious Gothamites even this late at night. He turned his attention back to the building beneath him. Luckily for him, the panes of glass in the skylights were large enough for him to slip through; the only thing he had to do was locate the one closest to where the criminals were. With a twitch of one of his fingers, the night vision in the protective lenses of his cowl was activated and he peered through the glass down to the floor twenty or so feet below. He didn’t see anyone in the first or second window, but he caught sight of a man dressed in black in the third and a group of five men in the next one, standing in a line, automatic weapons aimed towards the doors in case any cops decided to come through. Batman realized they were holding the security guard as hostages.

Batman stepped up to the next window and found a woman digging franticly through a display case.

He deactivated the night vision, attached his grapple hook to a rooftop fan and broke the middle pane of glass, descending rapidly in a shower of sparkling glass and landing with a dull thud on the marble floor, four feet away from the woman.

“Ah, I was wondering when you’d show up,” she hissed, turning around. The woman was lithe with a vaguely cat-like appearance. She had blonde hair pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head and piercing green eyes. She tossed the duffle bag she’d been stuffing with stolen goods to one of her men and pulled herself into a martial arts stance – a type of Kung Fu if Batman wasn’t mistaken. “This is what I’ve been waiting for. You’ve been getting in the way of my plans. I need to get you out of the picture.”

Batman stood stoically and watched as she began to bounce on the balls of her feet. She was wound up, thrill-seeking. “I know you have the NanoShift technology. Is this your true self or are you masquerading as someone else?”

“Unimportant. Fight me.”

He sidestepped a well-executed front kick and brought his elbow down on her knee, but she moved with the blow and, using her momentum, crouched down and swung her other leg at Batman’s ankles, trying to trip him. It was simple to dodge – he just jumped over her limb – and he followed it by kicking towards her solar plexus. But she was good, and somersaulted backwards, rising to her feet and moving very quickly towards Batman, her hands flying and, had he not been wearing body armor, he was sure one of her nerve strikes would have hit home. As it was, his suit protected him and he landed a solid punch in her chest, knocking the wind from her lungs. She doubled over his hand, gasping. Batman reached for the cuffs at the back of his utility belt.

Something hard smacked into the back of his head, momentarily lighting his vision with tiny points of white light. Evidently, the henchmen had decided to move of their own accord. As his vision came back, Batman realized that, indeed, there were seven henchmen standing around him.

And the woman was back on her feet, panting slightly.

Except it wasn’t the blonde. She had shrunk several inches, her hair was a dark, dark brown and her eyes were almost black. There was a phenomenally even smile on her round face.

Taking on eight people at the same time was nothing new, but the speed on that woman might prove a slight problem. And Batman didn’t think her fighting skills came from any of the woman she was impersonating.

He ducked under her first assault, and, as he straightened, he pulled three batarangs from his belt and threw them at three henchmen who had stepped back, guns pointed at him. The bat-shaped throwing stars lodged themselves in wrists and hands, causing the henchmen to drop their weapons. The last thing he needed was gunfire. Even though his armor would save him from the bullets contacting with his skin, he didn’t particularly enjoy the deep bruises they left when they hit.

The woman and two more henchmen came at him. Batman grabbed the wrist of the closest man, and used his own momentum to twist the arm behind the back and toss him forward into his companion advancing from the other side at the same time Batman stepped back, giving himself enough space to drive a powerful front kick forward and down, heading for the woman’s knee. She moved her leg at the last minute, and his foot slid down the outside of her leg. But instead of stumbling like she’d hoped, he spun on his foot and drove his elbow backwards into her face. He felt it connect solidly; felt the bone crunch. She recoiled behind him, a short wail escaping her lips.

The two henchmen he hadn’t dealt with yet ran at him as their leader backed off, one jumping on his back and the other football tackling him from the front. Batman spun quickly, avoiding the tackler and sending the monkey off his back and into a marble support pillar. There was a nasty crack and he didn’t get up again.

There was a noise from the front of the museum. The backup had arrived and the police were coming in. Batman didn’t want to stick around for that.

He turned to leave and came face to face with Eleanor.

He froze.

But just for the briefest of seconds.

It couldn’t be Eleanor.

He covered his falter by noticing the grapple line behind the woman. Using the opportunity, he ran at the woman and, dropping his shoulder, drove it into her chest, sending her backwards into a heavy glass and wood display case before she knew what had happened. The police reached the room where the fight had taken place just as Batman grabbed his line. As the whirring took him to the roof, there was a gunshot and a bullet connected with his side.

“You idiot! Bullets won’t stop him!”

Batman smiled grimly as he reached the roof and headed back to where he had parked his car.

-

“The only information we have is that the Batman has shown up and has gone inside the museum. Some are saying he’s going to stop the criminal, and some are saying he’s in league with whoever is inside. No word yet if this is a known Gotham criminal or the criminal who has been plaguing the streets.”

“Idiots,” Eleanor mumbled, running her fingers along the sharp edges of her batarang for about the millionth time. She hadn’t slept since she’d got home, and that, combined with her recent fit or attack or whatever the professionals would call it, had given her the appearance of the walking dead. Her red-brown hair was a mess of knots and was in need of a wash and her face was rather smudged from the makeup she’d worn to the party, but she hadn’t had the gumption to wash her face. Her cobalt eyes were red-rimmed and blood shot from crying and still rather watery with the tears that had constantly been hovering on the edge. She had curled herself into a corner of the couch, under her favourite blue knit blanket and, after a phone call from Lucius – who had been informed to her situation – was watching the news coverage of a museum robbery where Batman had appeared. The woman with the NanoShift technology was apparently behind this.

“You say you’ve seen the criminal before?”

Eleanor’s attention snapped to full. The Hispanic news anchor was talking to a teenaged boy who looked way to excited to be at the scene of a robbery in progress.

“Yeah man. She was like, running down the street, and she ran into me and tripped, and when I turned to like, apologize, she was like, a different person! She looked just like this woman on the other side of the street! She’s like some kind of… what’s the word from someone who looks like someone else or whatever?”

“Doppelganger?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Man, she’s like some kind of Doppelganger.”

Eleanor scoffed. Doppelganger. She knew that the morning news would carry the coverage of this incident with the name “The Doppelganger” tagged onto the new criminal. Now all she needs is a costume and she’ll be one of Gotham’s trademark freaks.

There was a flurry of action on the screen as the news cameras zoomed in and the police force – backup and all – stormed the doors. A minute later, there was a shot and Batman appeared on the roof and headed off screen quickly. Shouts could be heard from the crowd: “Look! Over there! It’s the Batman!”, “The Batman! I see him!”. Part of Eleanor wished she could be there to see Batman in person again. Her mind wandered with thoughts of the masked vigilante as the reporter appeared back on screen and babbled on about what just happened; her hand tightened on the batarang almost to the point of breaking the skin. Several minutes later, the police re-appeared, dragged five men between them in cuffs, one of which was unconscious.

The reporter ran forward to intersect the cops. “Is this all of the criminals?” she shouted over the gaggle of other reporters and civilians.

“No comment,” the cop muttered.

“So someone got away? Did their leader escape?”

“No comment.”

Commissioner Gordon appeared on screen, pushing his trench coat-clad form between his officers and the cameras; Eleanor spotter Detective Allen in the background, and a moment later, Detective Montoya appeared as well. “All we can say is that we did not apprehend their… ‘leader’. I have no more information for you at this time.” And he pushed away again, as the reporters yelled after him and one even attempted to chase the unmarked car he got into.

Eleanor watched the news for a few more minutes before switching to some show revolving around using science to prove or disprove myths. She wasn’t really watching, more just using the television as background noise to help her focus and to keep her from bursting into tears again. She stared blankly at the television screen.

Knock, knock, knock.

Her first reaction was to turn to the window first. When she realized that wasn’t where the noise was coming from, she got to her feet and unlocked and opened.

“Hi,” Rachel said quietly.

“Uhm… hi?”

“Sorry to bother you so late, but I… I didn’t know where else to go.”

Eleanor realized Rachel’s eyes were likewise bloodshot and there were still tears clinging to her cheeks. “Come in,” she mumbled. She shut the door, re-locked it, and followed Rachel back to the couch. “What is it?” she asked, sitting back down in the corner of the couch and pulling the blanket up around herself.

“She got me fired.”

Eleanor didn’t really know what to say, other than, “Oh. I’m… sorry.”

“I mean, it’s nothing compared to what she did to you, but-”

“It’s still really upsetting. I understand.” And she did.

“I think… she knew that would be the worst thing for me, you know? My job is everything to me.”

Eleanor nodded absently. Rachel was right. Both of them seemed to have been hit where it would have been hardest for them. Rachel spent all of her time at her job as a district attorney, working to make Gotham a better city, and she had been fired. Eleanor had been confined to her house and her reputation – not so important to her, but more so in connection to her parents and her closeness to Bruce – had been black marked. She had been attacked in such a way that would separate her from her family, the one thing she craved and really, actually needed.

“Again, I’m sorry for bothering you so late… I just needed to tell someone.”

Eleanor nodded. “It’s OK Rachel. I guess we don’t really have anyone else to turn to except each other.”

An uncomfortable silence settled. Several long minutes later, Rachel got to her feet and headed back to the door. “I’ll work with Commissioner Gordon and Mr. Fox, Eleanor, and I’ll keep you updated, OK?” When Eleanor nodded, Rachel smiled a genuinely reassuring smile and then unlocked the door and left, shutting it behind her.

Eleanor sighed and marveled at how chaos and misfortune could bring people together.