Chapter 11: Back to the Grind

After her glorious day off, day and a half really if you counted the ‘flight testing,’ Alyssa was once again back in her Heroic Lair and feeling refreshed. She’d need to spend a bit of time in her civilian ID soon as well, but for the moment, she felt it was more important to follow up her first big success with more. She needed to establish a pattern, lest she become a splash in the pond whose ripples were choked out without changing anything.

To that end, she was once again brainstorming. This time, she had the holoscreen equivalent of a serial-killer corkboard that she was slowly filling out with interactions. The Hammer had been unusual for Gotham in that they were technically a big fish, but they were a big fish that interacted very little with the local power players. No metahumans, and no real territory squabbles with the various other underworld factions. Given that they’d been doing their best to keep their head down regarding the counterfeiting, it even made sense.

Which didn’t mean she was going to get that lucky twice.

“What to do, what to do. I could go full frontal assault on another gang…but doing that so soon after ripping one out nearly completely might be a bit too much too fast. So, what are the other options? I don’t have any real interest in the costumed nutjobs, not unless they come after me first. The Bat can play with them if he wants. Hmmm.”

Toying with several ideas, eventually Alyssa grinned.

“Well, if I’m trying to be noticeably different than the BatFam, there’s really only one thing for it, isn’t there? After all, the one thing they’ve always been absolute shit at is PR…”

Internally cackling just a bit at what she had in mind, she started hammering out just exactly how she wanted to go about it. This was going to be fun, or possibly a disaster, given she wasn’t an extrovert. Not to mention that this was Gotham. Could go either way, really. Still, she was fairly certain she could handle it if things went completely tits up. Most of the real crazy’s wouldn’t even be active, after all. Not in daylight…

… … …

“Thanks! It smells delicious!”

Taking a big bite of the first of three street tacos she’d just bought, she smiled.

“Ohhh, tastes awesome too! Definitely going to have to remember your cart! Have a good day! Oh, and here!”

Dropping a large tip in a jar that barely had anything in it, Alyssa threw a jaunty wave at the vendor and floated off. As she nommed happily on what was, for her new body, really just a snack, she smiled and waved at several more people. All of whom were, frankly, rather shady looking. One extra-shady-looking fellow was staring at her like a deer in headlights, jaw open and a smoldering cigarette at his feet. He looked nervous as hell as she finished her first taco, drifted over to him…and handed him a new cigarette from a pack she’d bought two streets back.

He took it with a numb, stunned look, and she drifted off. Up close, she’d been able to see the tats that marked him as a member of the Marconi family. An enforcer, most likely. She didn’t do anything to him, of course. It was broad daylight and looking shady or having certain tats wasn’t any sort of crime. Particularly since this was the Narrows, which had gained their reputation by starting out as low-income slums in the first place. Half the people here looked ‘shady,’ but not all of them actually were. Many were just trying to blend in and doing a good job of not attracting notice.

While most normal people did their best not to end up in the cheap housing that still existed everywhere in this little slice of the city, not everyone had a choice. If the options were ‘live in the Narrows’ or ‘be homeless,’ most people took the option that put a roof over their head and at least a pretense of security via a lock on the door. Multiple locks and heavy doors, typically. Since this was America, they could even keep a shotgun near that door and have some feeling of safety while they slept. Not a lot of the Gotham criminals were bulletproof, after all. Not even most of the powered ones.

Of course, the other sort of person who lived in the area were the sort who didn’t need to worry much about the Narrows, because they were part of its reputation. Gang members, ones from diverse groups at that, lived in the area in large numbers. The Narrows was, for all intents and purposes, the closest thing to neutral territory for the various gangs. Not because one group or other didn’t try to dominate it regularly, but because no one was ever able to hold onto it for long.

The Narrows’s location on an island in the middle of the Finger River, and the fact that the south side bridges onto the island led toward the rich part of town, made it just too hard to keep hold of. Something which meant the various goon and minion level thugs intermingled here and largely didn’t bother each other. Not unless their factions were actively at ‘war’ instead of just in competition. It was a little detail that also explained why the Narrows was also home to several important underworld suppliers. Ones who needed to do business with more than one group.

All of which explained why she was getting lots and lots of nervous looks as she brazenly floated, sedately and unconcerned looking, through the Narrows. In broad daylight and in her full Heroine persona. Waving at completely random people and occasionally buying street food snacks, giving a free smoke to a thug, or staring with seeming naked interest at one establishment or another.

She hadn’t started in the Narrows, of course. No, after carefully confirming that ‘Bruce Wayne’ was scheduled to be somewhere he couldn’t easily slip away from, some dedication or other for one of his many foundations, ‘Star Knight’ had started her little refuge-in-audacity plan in the Downtown area. Old Gotham and the Diamond District were both affluent sections of the city, and she’d started with the former before moving north through the latter.

She hadn’t stayed still long enough for anyone like a reporter to catch up to her. But she’d channeled her amusement at her day’s plan to greet the very few that were brave enough to approach a costumed person in Gotham with cheerful introductions. She’d let a few teenagers take selfies with her, answered a few questions about herself, and even signed an autograph or two. Her first ever. If her plans worked out in the long term, a few of those might end up being worth a lot, someday.

After touring random streets in both districts she had, without so much as a pause, moved over a bridge from the Diamond District and onto the Narrows.

There, to the great consternation of the locals, she hadn’t changed her demeanor or actions one bit. While she’d internally cranked the ‘danger sense’ that her version of The Force gave her as high as it could go, externally she’d kept up the cheerful act. Something made quite easy by a combination of Major Kusanagi’s acting skills and her own very real amusement at some of the reactions she was getting.

A heroine strolling right through the Narrows in broad daylight was a statement.

She knew it, the paling criminals knew it, and there were frantic calls and conversations going on that she could catch the edges of with her enhanced hearing. Oddly, she’d only finally figured out why her hearing was as enhanced as it was when she’d been cataloging her powers and prioritizing which to focus on for this little stroll. While she’d expected the enhanced sight from Starfire, and some general enhanced senses, she’d been more than a little surprised when she, embarrassingly slowly, had realized just how good her hearing now was. It eclipsed everything but her eyesight by a lot, senses wise.

In her defense, it had felt so utterly natural that it hadn’t really registered to her the way the enhanced sight had. Not until she was sorting her danger sense out to a finer degree and realized, much to her chagrin, that some of what she’d lumped together as ‘sensory data’ from her ‘Force’ powerset, wasn’t anything of the sort.

Instead, despite not having the physical organs for it, she’d apparently inherited Ahsoka’s Torgrutian echolocation. She shouldn’t have been surprised by it, given that almost all of Starfire’s ‘powers’ were literally just her Tamaranean physiology at work. But, not having even thought of it when picking Ahsoka, she’d been blindsided when she finally sorted it out.

It had also, as it happened, delayed her stroll by a day as she decided she really needed to thoroughly check for any other surprises. She’d found several, to her increasing chagrin. Like the fact a medical scan had turned up multiple stomachs, a trait shared by both Togruta and Tamaraneans. Even now, she wasn’t sure she’d even found them all, either. Not yet. Particularly as she’d started to realize that the fact her traits and powers had all become one powerset had caused them to bleed into each other in ways that hadn’t been apparent when she’d selected them.

Still, all of that wasn’t really important at the moment, save that realizing where the extra hearing had come from was letting her concentrate on it and pick out bits of conversation from mooks calling in her presence. Some were amusingly panicked, others were informative, and absolutely none of them had a clue what the fuck to do about her brazen little stroll. Actually, could she call it a stroll if her feet had barely ever touched the ground?

Eh. Not important, she supposed.

For all that it was a hell hole in some ways, Gotham had patterns, and virtually none of the big crime was done in the daylight. The Joker, before he’d gotten zeroed by the Black Widow, had been one of the rare exceptions who was utterly brazen enough to attack places like City Hall at high noon, just for shits and giggles. But both the remaining caped criminals of the city and the various mafia and gangs? All of them did their major operations at night. Petty crime like pickpockets and such were always a thing, but major drug deals, weapons shipments, kidnappings, and so on?

Night. It was all done at night.

Which is why the Bat Clan was also only really active at night. For that matter, every single one of the other Gotham vigilantes were the same. In their case, simply because they were hunting those whose patterns were nocturnal. Why patrol the city during the day, when no major crimes were likely to happen, when all it would do is waste stamina?

Idiots.

Well intentioned idiots, but still idiots.

Public relations were a thing. Even if they weren’t a thing that Heroes liked having anything to do with. By keeping to the shadows, they turned their ‘crusades’ into a game of cops and robbers most people only knew about from highly slanted blurbs in the local papers. The average Gothamite would never see any of the Bat Clan, and it was simple human nature to not quite believe in what you couldn’t see yourself. By never showing their ‘face’ to the regular people of the city, no one really felt a visceral, subconscious connection to, or awareness of, the Bats. Lacking that personal connection, for both the good and the bad, crippled their impact.

Worse, it let the criminals get comfortable with the idea that they wouldn’t be bothered outside the ‘set time’ where everyone came out to play. Alyssa’s little stroll today might be the first, but it wouldn’t be the last, and every single one would be a declaration to the city and its criminals that she wasn’t afraid. That she wasn’t hiding. And it would be the exact same for the citizens too. Ones that just couldn’t bring themselves to believe in the Bat Clan as their Heroes, could get a chance to shake ‘Star Knight’s’ hand. With that physical touch and presence reassuring them she was real, and she was there.

A morale boost for the innocent and another rock thrown in to destabilize the pond for the criminals. All accomplished, as she passed back out of the Narrows and into Robinson Park, with a literal walk in the park. The fact that it would probably drive Batman just a little insane was really just fun icing on the cake.

Hmmm, should she feel bad about that thought? Naaaahhh. Most versions of him were frustratingly neurotic. She’d assume she shouldn’t feel too bad until she actually met him to make a judgement call…

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A/N: Yes, Alyssa has a bit of chaos in her. Mostly because she WAS originally based off on me, and I do as well ;-). Her little stunt in the Narrows actually highlights something that's always annoyed me, though. We see a loooooottttttt of fics, or even actual series, with characters that bitch and moan about PR stuff they need to do. Rarely do we ever actually see the other side, though. The truth is that PR actually DOES have a critical role for Heroes, if they want to be effective, and it's one thing Batman and his little minions have always been completely shit at. If the public doesn't know who you are and what you're about? Then shut up and stop whining that you aren't making any progress, dimwit. Punching a few bad guys isn't very useful if you don't do the PR leg to make sure the bad guys know why you did it, and let the Public know you aren't just there to make shit worse. Without public support, any attempt to shift crime rates is useless, no matter how much money or violence you throw at a problem. Well, short of becoming a military state, at least.