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Cassandra gets a notification that the Red Hood is causing trouble at a laboratory downtown, and immediately turns to make her way there. Amongst other things, Cassandra has something of a bone to pick with the Hood.
Either way, she can handle him no problem.
When she’s less than a minute out from the location, Cass receives a ping from Oracle.
“Batgirl!” Barbara’s voice comes yelling frantically out of her earpiece, earning a cringe from the airborne young woman. “Fall back!”
Cass barely manages to get herself upright again in time to land safely on the next roof. She yells back, “What? Why?”
“Red Hood is accompanied by Artemis! You do not want to fight her!”
Behind her mask, Cass knits her brow. It takes her moment to recall some of the informational videos Barbara had her watch about other heroes and meta allies, placing the name Artemis with the section under Wonder Woman. She’s an…Amazon? To be honest Cassandra still isn’t entirely sure what that means, but she knows it means that this Artemis is really strong and a really good fighter.
That sounds exactly like the kind of person Cassandra would want to fight.
“Why? I can take her,” Cass replies confidently, picking up her stride once again and continuing to make her way there.
“No!” Barbara snaps back.
Cass snorts. “You said that about Shiva. And I beat her.”
“Only after she killed you.”
“I got better,” Cass says indignantly. “And I beat her.”
She can hear Barbara sigh. “That’s true…but this is different. You and Shiva stretch the limits of human capability, but Artemis is an Amazon. There’s no skirting, no stretching—she is far beyond human capability.”
“She’s a meta,” Cass continues. “I’ve fought metas. I’ve beaten metas.”
“But never an Amazon,” Barbara says firmly. “She’s not just super strong, she’s been trained by the greatest warriors on Earth, and I’m pretty sure she has some huge, magical axe.”
Surely Barbara understands that she’s only making this Artemis sound like an even more appealing opponent. Cass feels her fists itching with anticipation. Trained by the greatest warriors on Earth?
We’ll see about that, Cass thinks, leaping off the last rooftop.
“Cassandra—“
Cass cuts her off. “I got this.” And she promptly turns off her comm. Barbara will definitely be pissed about that, but it’ll be well worth it.
Landing across the street from a smoking building, she immediately spots Red Hood. He’s standing, casually, with his hands on his hips, looking into the building and surrounded by a small bunch of what appear to be security guards. From this distance, Cassandra can’t tell if they’re just unconscious or…
No sign of anyone else nearby, Amazon or otherwise.
His back is to her. She gets a running start and throws a batarang at his head. The helmet is on so it doesn’t knock him unconscious, but the impact does cause him to the stumble to the side with a loud “Argh!”.
His hands are at his gun holsters in a second, but it’s a second too long as Cass is already on top of him. She knees him in the back with all her momentum and sends him tumbling forward.
He rolls a few times but manages to land on his feet, just in time to draw a gun just as Cass is about to deliver another hit. She sees his finger on the trigger, and flips backward to dodge the bullet she knows is coming, milliseconds before she even hears the gunshot.
“Hey there Spooky,” Red Hood greets her when she’s several paces away.
“You could’ve killed me,” Cass says flatly. “And don’t call me that.”
“You think so?” Hood holsters the gun. “Coming from you, that’s some really high praise. I’ll take it.”
Cass crosses her arms. “Uh huh. What are you doing?”
“Now that is astoundingly none of your business Batgirl.” He replies, and Cass can see him sneer with his whole body. “Just know that it has nothing to do with you, or the Big Bat, or Gotham. Really, it’s not even a bad thing, I just…can’t tell you. Alright?”
“No.”
The Hood sighs. “Not gonna leave well enough alone, are you?”
Cass smirks, raising her arms. “No.”
They stare each other down for a few moments, and then charge. He brings out his guns again and begins shooting, but Cass nimbly dodges the onslaught of bullets he sends her way.
When she twists out of the way of another pair of bullets flying past her head, Cass hears him cry, “What bullshit!”.
Cass stifles a laugh. She always enjoys causing him grief, but she’s played around enough. He’s reloading. Gaining her footing, she immediately begins to close the distance between them.
She’s on him before he can even raise his gaze again. Knocking him down once more and pinning him to the ground. With a single swing of both her hands his guns are flown from his grip. Hood’s ensuing grunt is interrupted when Cass punches his head. Not hard enough to break his helmet, but definitely more than enough to rattle his brain.
“What are you doing here?” Cass demands, clutching the collar of his jacket.
“Ugh…it’s none of your business,” he mutters.
Gritting her teeth, Cass raises her arm again, this time fully intending to crack that melon helmet of his. She brings the fist down with all her might, but it doesn’t meet its target when she expected it to. In fact, her arm isn’t coming down at all. In the heat of the moment, with adrenaline pumping through her, it takes Cass a few moments to process that her arm never actually came down. In fact, it’s still in the air…and there’s something holding her back.
Cass whips her head around to find her arm held back by a massive hand, and looking up even further is perhaps the single tallest person she’s ever come across. Even in her crouching position, the young woman can tell that this new opponent is even taller than Bruce.
And Cass knows this is an opponent, because memories come rushing to her of the images from those info vids and she recognizes the huge woman immediately. The black suit, the red head guard, the impossibly long and fiery red hair flowing from a ponytail at the top of her head. This is Artemis.
…how the hell did she manage to sneak up on Cass? Damn it, that’s what she gets for having too much fun.
“You’re a Bat,” she says matter of factly, as if Cassandra isn’t wearing a bat costume with a bat logo on her chest. Artemis turns her gaze towards the man beneath the smaller woman. “A family member of yours?”
“If you stretch the definition,” Hood answers glumly. “Could you get her off of me, please?”
And suddenly Cass is being flung back by her arm. She’s thrown into the air and rather far down the street. She lands on her feet of course, but the ease with which that woman threw her whole body behind her as if she weighed less than a plastic bag rattled her.
Rattled and excited her. Super strength, huh?
Mission and Red Hood all but forgotten, Cass prepares herself for the battle she came looking for.
Down the road, Artemis is helping Red Hood back to his feet. They’re talking, but Cass can’t hear anything from this distance. There’s nodding, and the Amazon hands something to the man next to her. It’s a laptop, Cass realizes as Hood opens it. He nods, and as he does whatever work he needs to on the computer, Artemis turns her head towards the girl she’d thrown moments ago. Far though she may be, Cass can still see in the way Artemis holds herself she’s asking, “What about her?”
At that, Cass begins sprinting back towards them, making a beeline for Artemis.
“Keep her busy while I find the file!” Hood yells, but the words barely register in Cass’ mind as she throws herself into a flying kick aimed at Artemis’ stomach.
“Done!” Artemis replies, the same time as she raises her arms to block the strike. There’s a moment where the two women meet eyes—or, as close as one can when a full face mask is involved—and both smile. Both of the warriors can tell, a wonderful martial exchange is about to take place between them.
With that, Cass pulls back and begins to make rapid strikes at Artemis’ body. To the smaller woman’s surprise her hits don’t seem to faze her opponent at all. They’re not her strongest hits by any means, really they’re mostly to gauge just how much damage the other woman can take, and the answer to that seems to be a resounding: a hell of a lot.
However, before Cass can start making heavier hits, Artemis swings her arm in a wide arc, which Cass has to dodge.
In those few moments Cass can tell that Artemis has the advantage in almost everything. Strength, height, dexterity, reach—but as with most of her fights, Cass is faster.
So she closes the distance once again, winding up a punch in that time and she sends it flying to Artemis’ shoulder. It connects, and there’s a wince and a grunt from the Amazon.
“Damn,” she says, clearly impressed. “That was a good hit.”
“She’s one of the best,” Hood provides helpfully. “Definitely best of the Bats.”
Artemis doesn’t reply, but she does smile again, and draws a pair of sai from holsters on her legs.
Now it’s Artemis closing the distance, sai in hand, she meets Cassandra in a flurry of blows. Cass dodging hers, and Artemis blocking or tanking Cass’. When she sees an opening, Cass is able to strike at Artemis’ wrists and disarm her, but just as her hands involuntarily fly open she’s reaching behind her and unsheathes a sword, which she then swings at Cass, all in a single, fluid motion.
It’s a thing of beauty, Cass thinks of her movements, rolling out of the sword’s way.
Now Cass has to deal with the even greater reach of the sword. She works to get behind Artemis and surprise her, but this woman keeps an eagle eye on every part of her. Truly Cass’ saving grace is and always has been her speed. She’d have lost her head five times by now if she wasn’t fast enough.
Cass throws a barrage of batarangs at Artemis, which she blocks with her sword, giving Cass enough time to close the distance again. This time, she goes for a nerve strike by her neck. She gets so close, but Artemis is able to recover just in time to swing at her again.
Cass falls back, and then moves frantically in a blur of false moves and feints, hoping to confuse her opponent in preparation for the next attack. However, she catches that Artemis’ eyes are actually following her movements.
Before Cass can even process the implications of that, Artemis has reached forward and caught the smaller woman in one hand. Cass doesn’t even get to gasp before she’s thrown hard into the concrete and bouncing, vision blurring and breath lost.
It feels like she fell off of a building. But Cass can take punishment too, and she gets back to her feet, but Artemis has closed the distance once again, but this time with an utterly massive axe in her hands. Still recovering from the hit that literally shook her world, Cass can only numbly stare at the goliath axe wielding woman as she grows closer and closer—
—but it’s not the axe that hits her. It’s a fist, going deep into her abdomen and easily cracking a few ribs, sending Cass crumpling to the ground.
“Done—holy shit!” Red hood exclaims from somewhere behind her. “I hope you didn’t break her. I’ll never hear the end of that.”
“Of course not,” Artemis replies, standing over Cass. “I doubt I could do that even if I tried.”
The Amazon nods respectfully at her defeated opponent, and then jogs to meet up with her partner. Cass barely hears whatever it is they say to each other, she just stares upward, black spots in her vision.
A moment, or maybe even several minutes later, with Cass still lying motionless on the ground, she hears a beep and a second of static in her ear.
“Batgirl?” Barbara’s voice reappears in Cass’ ear. “Cass, are you there?”
“Hnngh,” is all Cass can manage to get out in between wheezes and a stinging chest.
Some cross between a sigh and a chuckle come out of the earpiece. “I’m guessing your fight went well?”
“Hrrrmmgh.” Cass grumbles.
“I’ll send Signal to pick you up, hang tight.”
The line goes silent, and Cass is left with her bodily pains and thoughts once more.
Amazon huh, she thinks. Damn. That was fun.