10175/Along came a Huntress

Along came a Huntress
Date of Scene:	18 February 2022
Location:	Burnley - Bleake Island
Synopsis:	Faced with committing another murder, Huntress was offered another way. One that she uncertainly accepted.
Cast of Characters:	Helena Bertinelli, Bruce Wayne

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Helena Bertinelli has posed:
The methodical hunt for the key Mafia members that had inolvement with the murder of Helena's mother, brother and Mafia Don steph father had been on going for some time. A lot of things happen in twenty years, not the least of which is being moved to different cities to help The Family. It made tracking each figure down more time consuming than Helena had anticipated when she first formulated this plan of revenge.

She may not be entirely patient but she was long on memory and short of forgiveness. She would find every one that had anything to do with approval, or enactment, of the hit on her family. It was only a matter of time.

As night fell over Gotham, Huntress was set up atop an old five story building. It was the sort with barely profiting shops on the street floor and run down apartments with rusting fire escapes placed above. There might even be a Grotesque or two at the corners of the roof, she wasn't certain; mainly because she just didn't care about the archetecture. Her focus was on the fourth floor across the street where a meeting of lower level Mafia figures was being held. She slipped an ear bud into place and aimed a small shotgun microphone toward the windows of the apartment and began listening to the conversation within.

Idly, her gaze swept along the street, watching random traffic pass by.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
There were a number of threads the Batman was following in Gotham in the aftermath of what could well have been a global catastrophe. A wide range of cases from small and seemingly insignificant to almost global in scale. He'd often farm them out to the other members of the family, but there were some he kept just for himself. Passion projects, or the sort he believed only he could handle. The death of certain underworld figures was one of them. It sent his memories back twenty years to the earliest days of his career as Batman, where the thugs in suits were his focus. Before the Joker, before everything got so big.

He'd been following the trail of clues, admittedly distracted by Manhattan. But now it was over, and he was fresh on the trail once more. He'd connected the dots, and a certain 'Matches' Malone had heard talk of a meeting going on tonight. It didn't take long for him to conclude that the murderer may strike again there.

As Helena watches the street below, the Batman watches her from above. Concealed in shadow, cape drawn about him, he crouches low on a parapet. As he drops, there's hardly a sound as he lands behind her and rises slowly to his feet. His voice is gruff, barely above a whisper.

"Huntress. This has to stop."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Huntress wasn't the startling type. Not since that night. She'd grown in the time it took for the shots to be fired and there was no going back. It didn't mean that her heart rate didn't jump because, obviously, Batman. No one was truly immune to the intimidate his arrivals delivered.

She managed to not jump, choosing to keep her focus on the meeting. She had a good idea what this was about but she wasn't going to give away anything. Just maybe he wasn't here to lecture her. But she knew better than that.

"It's a free city. I'm just enjoying a nice rooftop. You should try it sometime. They're surprisingly comfortable. Once you get past the old, peeling tar paper and pigeon droppings."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Don't treat me like a fool and I'll pay you the same courtesy," the Batman tells her simply, remaining at his full height with his dark cape drawn about him. He chooses not to move either, simply observing her from this distance.

"Those men are guilty as sin. They should be punished. But not like this. Not how you've been punishing them."

He pauses.

"They deserve it, but you shouldn't be the one to pull the trigger. You can't be."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Huntress laughs, "No. You're not the fool. I am. For thinking I could give them what they'd deserve and pull it off before you put the pieces together." She still won't look at him. Revenge and hatred are strong drugs.

"Oh. They're all guilty. Of more than I'm holding them accountable for. The thing is, no one can or will hold them accountable for what they did to -me-. I could get them sent to prison for decades if I turned over what I know and have on most of them. Then they'd continue their crimes from inside a cell until they were allowed to walk back out again."

Her eyes narrowed, "No one would punish them for the right reasons. So tell me. Why can't it be me? I am the one they wronged. I am the one who knows. I'm the ONLY one who knows - or cares - anymore."

Bitterness hangs icily on her final words, "I absolutely should be the one. If not me? Then who. You?" she retorts.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Because in this City? My City? When you choose this life, if you choose to go this way, then there are two options. You can fight the monsters, or you can become one. If you go through with this, you're declaring yourself for the cannibalistic, chattering filth who live down there in the muck."

Only now does the Dark Knight move, stepping up to the ledge. The toe of his boot hangs over the edge, his solid-white eyes cast downwards at the building far below.

"I've wanted to do what you're doing more times than I can count. I've thought the exact same thing. Why not me? Men like that - cowardly, avaricious men - stole my life from me, too. I hated them for it. I still ... hate them for it. But I vowed to never be like them. To never sink to their level."

"I can't undo what you've already done, Huntress. All I can tell you is that it'll never be over. You'll never put enough bodies in the ground. Every rat you kill in the trap just breeds a dozen more. A dozen smarter rats who know how to outsmart the trap next time."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Huntress hadn't managed to come up, significantly, on the radar of The Batman before now. Part of her was curious, admittedly. But most of her was peeved at the self righteous talk.

"So what you're saying is that, it's okay for these men to go to jail for lesser crimes but that I cannot be forgiven for killing them as retribution for murdering my whole family in front of me when I was a girl?" She snorts in disgust, "There's no justice in that. At all. They're just going to continue until someone stops them. And no, you can't undo what I've done - and that is good. Because those men were responsible for the killing of more innocent people than I could keep track of. They didn't deserve to live."

She finally stands up and faces him, "I'm not out to kill every punk and thug in Gotham. Just the ones that had a hand in the murder of my family. After that?" Well, it is always easier to kill than show mercy. Not that she's going to admit that.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"After that you'll find an excuse to carry on. It's a drug. It starts in righteous fury, but it becomes a black mark on the soul that you have to feed to feel alive. If it's so easy to execute these men, you won't have any trouble looking for a reason to execute men like them. Then it's just a matter of degrees."

"You can be forgiven," the Bat tells her, "I'm here now. Forgiving you. If I thought you were a killer - someone who didn't think for a moment what she was doing was in any way wrong - then this wouldn't be a conversation. I'd have put an end to you. Made sure you never did it again."

"Stay your hand. Let me take them in. Let me show you how to not leave a vacuum for the next greedy bastard to fill. Let me show you how to dismantle them so completely that all they can do is watch from behind bars as their empires crumble to dust."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Huntress growls, "That animal - he's not a human - drove the get away car. He sat outside my parent's house and at a sandwich while the hitman went inside. He heard the shots. He drove them away then went out to dinner that night with his mother. Like he'd just come home from Mass!"

She laughs bitterly "I don't need your forgiveness. I can live with what I've done. Even if I never come back to Gotham again it'll have been worth it. You know better than to believe the propaganda you're selling. How many criminals have /you/ put away that are back on the streets months or just weeks later? Don't talk to me about how to dismantle them. It. Doesn't. Work."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"The Maronis, Lew Moxon, Boss Thorne, the Berettis, the Cassamentos, the Galantes," the Batman recites a litany of criminal organizations that once held sway over vast swathes of Gotham only to go down in flames during the early years of the Batman, "The Khadym mob. The Ibanescus. All of them are gone. Their operations fell apart. Human beings they trafficked gone on to find new, better lives. Drug mills burnt to ash and cinders. Protection rackets broken to splinters. You can tell me what I do doesn't work, but I've been here on the ground for twenty years. Rupert Thorne isn't in his cell calling the shots, he's walking with a cane because of a permanently fractured sacrum and hoping one of the Blackgaters doesn't choose to gut him just to make a point."

"Meanwhile," he continues, "If you kill that man, that's the end of him. He doesn't have anything to fear. He doesn't have any pain to live with. There's just an open hole that the Mandragoras will fill tomorrow. Let him live? They know what's coming for them. They panic. They overextend. Their operations suffer. They lose their grip."

A pause. The Dark Knight turns his head slowly to look at the Huntress.

"Then we break their hand."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Huntress laughs bitterly. "Santo Cassamento was my biologic father. I didn't learn that until I turned 21. I believed Franco Bertinelli was all along. Good for you that you shut down the rest of his family. But that doesn't absolve the murders." Her jaw is clenched so tight she could probably grind glass into powder.

"If I kill that man, then he is no longer breathing the same air that I do. He is no longer able to say or do anything. Those who would follow after will be stopped one way or another. But he - he needs to be ended."

It sounds more like she is now trying to convince herself that it is the right decision more than convince him.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Then end him the right way," the Bat whispers, his voice sound more insistent and even pleading now, "Don't give him the easy way out. Best outcome, he dies knowing why he's dying but that suffering last a second. Break him instead. He'll suffer forever. Always looking over his shoulder. Always wondering if tonight is the night that the hammer comes down."

The connections are drawn in his head. He had a list of suspects for the so-called Mafia Murders, but there was only the one that ever really made sense to him. The Huntress has all but confirmed it now.

"Let me show you how I fight them. Let me teach you, Helena."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Armored fists clench tightly. She knew what she was there to do. She knew why she was there to do it. She shuts her eyes, trying to block out the memories of that night.

She wants to see this through. She wants to kill this man. And the last two. To finish what she swore she would before she started. To give up now feels like abject failure, not some righteous decision as Batman is making it out to be.

Maybe it's the fact he called her by her name. Maybe she just decided enough was truly enough and that she wouldn't let herself be tortured and haunted by thoe memories any more. Whatever the case, she takes a slow deep breath and lets it out just as slowly.

A growl of anger rises from her throat even as she swiftly draws her cross bow and fires at the man she so strongly wants to end.

The bolt flies silently and true - streaking across the street below - shattering the window before lodging itself through the hand of the very man she swore to kill.

With the ensuing chaos, screaming and alarm inside the apartment, Huntress holsters her crossbow and turns to walk away from the ledge, her back to the very target she had stalked. Her voice was barely audible as she paused, "You'd better be right."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Batman performs the mental arithmetic as soon as he recognizes the faint muscle twitches that show the Huntress is going for her crossbow. He could reach out to try and stop her, pull it from her hand or try and pluck the bolt from the air. He identifies a forty percent chance that he'd be successful. Eighty-five that he'd knock the bolt off course, but an even high probability that he'd injure his hand and put himself in a disadvantageous position if she chose to strike.

All the same, he reaches out but a fraction too slow. The bolt lets fly before he can intercede, and hawk-sharp eyes dart across the street to watch the bolt land. He breathes an internal sigh of relief when he sees where it lands, once again wrapping his cape about his shoulders to better conceal himself. He watches Helena as she turns, looming there in silence.

He produces something from his belt. An earpiece and a small receiver attached to it. He tosses it through the air to her, confident that she'll catch it.

"I am."

He leaves no time to question, to ask his thoughts or advice. It's a show of respect and deference to the young woman. An understanding that he trusts her not to finish what she came here to do once his back is turned. In a moment, he is gone.

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
The tossed object is caught and studied. She eyes it for several seconds, reflecting on the implications. Her jaw continues to tense as she struggles with all of the emotions and thoughts screaming inside her head.

She could attempt to finish what she came here to do, but her shot warned the men that someone was watching them. They've likely called for more muscle as well as armed themselves to fight back, no doubt.

Closing her eyes, Huntress let out a breath and silently dropped off the back of the build into the alley below.

It was not how she had planned for this evening to go. Now what.