BIRDS OF PREY: REMEMBER

CHAPTER ONE

The Batsignal had been lit above Lady Gotham for 20 minutes.

She had called acting commissioner Bullock...he'd made clear that the real Batsignal, much to his dismay, was still on the roof of the GCPD…

She was just then reaching for her suit, when a blinding flash overtook the statue.

The terror shook Barbara as she felt the floor rock beneath her, the panicked voices on the police scanner screaming in her ears.

"Officers down at the Lady Gotham statue, requesting medics!" One cried out, shouts of pain filling the small gaps of would-be silence.

"Canary!" Barbara called over her comms.

"I saw. I'll meet you there." Dinah Lance's voice was always a reassuring sound to Barbara. No matter if she was seriously assessing a threat, or dropping a one liner with her signature sarcastic edge, Barbara took comfort in it, and whether or not she was singing...or screaming. So long as Dinah wasn't screaming at her, she could listen to it all day long.

Barbara wished she could bring herself to smile, as she encased herself again in the dark purple suit, and felt the cape drop to meet the back of her yellow boots. She wished she could take a moment to admire the sleekness of her batarangs, and she wished she had the time to appreciate how far her suit had come since the first night she swung across the Gotham streets, wearing a cheap costume she'd made, where her hair didn't even escape from the headache-inducing cowl she'd worn over her face.

The night she met Robin.

She hadn't known who he was at the time, so she'd taken to simply calling him "dork".

And now she stood by that.

"Not staying for dinner tonight, Ms. Gordon?" AI-Fred chirped.

Batgirl did allow herself a smirk. Dinah really had done a great job of programming Alfred's personality into the sassy artificial intelligence.

"Not tonight, sorry. Don't wait up." Batgirl chuckled, ascending the elevator to the roof of the clock tower.

She took a few steps back, and with a mighty determination, she sprinted forward, quickly stomping one boot on the railing, and launching herself forward...

In a second or so, Batgirl felt the wind in her cape, as it extended, with her arms spread at her sides.

She was gliding above Gotham now. Weaving between buildings as she descended, she could hear the people below shouting, as the sound echoed through the speaker in her cowl.

"Batman?! Batman! Down here!"

Damn, Batgirl thought. She had figured the yellow lining of her cape would help indicate that she was, in fact, not Batman. But no matter.

She let the cape drop ever so slightly, as she grabbed her grappling gun, and fired it at a building just far away enough to get some momentum back, and just high enough for her to keep the altitude she'd need to make it to Lady Gotham.

Batgirl winced as her boots touched down atop a police car, and she heard the glass in the windshield crack. She had meant to land in front of the car…

"Gotta work on that, Batgirl." She muttered to herself, and the numbers on the car caught her eye.

UNIT 2112

2112? She knew that number. It belonged to-

She looked a little ways across, and could see Harvey Bullock's silhouette spreading its arms in rage and disapproval, but not exactly surprise, as if to say "What the Hell, you pointy-eared dame?"

"You never fail to amaze me with your grace, dear Batgirl." Black Canary laughed from what seemed like nowhere at all.

Batgirl looked to her left to see Canary staring up at her from behind a black domino mask, and black eye liner.

Batgirl cringed and hopped from the top of the car, landing gently on the ground.

"Um. Hi." Batgirl squirmed as Bullock stomped toward the two superheroines.

"You got any idea how much these cost?!" Bullock roared.

"I know it would've gotten destroyed by some psycho in this town at some point." Black Canary shoved herself between Batgirl and Bullock. "Where's Batman, anyway? He didn't think a fake batsignal was a priority?"

"He's workin a case. The Riddler. Y'know how that goes." Bullock turned away from Canary.

"Casualties?" Batgirl finally asked.

"Two dead cops, six more injured, no civies on site." Bullock grunted from behind a cigarette.

"Any ideas who did this?" Canary asked, stepping closer to the fallen Lady Gotham.

"Not a one." Bullock shook his head. "In this town, coulda been damn near anybody."

"Detective Bullock!" Called a woman's voice from down the pier. She wore a pair of black slacks, with a white dress shirt, and dark blue coat. The woman's black hair was in a ponytail, with two strands on either side of her tan face.

"Montoya," Bullock groaned. "It's "Commissioner Bullock"! Why can't you guys wrap your heads around that? Is it that hard to believe?"

Renee Montoya shook her head and pointed somewhere beyond the smoke. "I think we've got something."

Batgirl's scanner lenses dropped over her eyes and focused in on the shape Montoya had pointed at…

A small boat, with a sail, floating aimlessly in the foggy water.

On the sail was the yellow emblem of the bat she wore on her chest.

"Wait here." Batgirl said, and with that, she grappled away.

Bullock scoffed. "Who does she think she is? Batman?"

Batgirl's feet touched down, this time, where she'd actually intended to land. On the boat.

She'd hated to bark orders at people like that, especially at the expense of sounding like Batman, but she couldn't risk pulling the boat to shore, and it being a bomb. Canary didn't have armor to shield her from a blast, and the GCPD still had to secure the scene. If it was a bomb, she could take the blast without risking more lives.

But Batgirl eyed the sail for a moment, and knew then that it wasn't a bomb. No, somebody wanted her here. There was something they wanted her to see…

Batgirl scanned the boat for out of place objects, but found nothing out of the ordinary. In fact the only thing on the boat seemed to be the emergency supply box beneath a seat.

Batgirl grabbed it, and pried it open. A note...

Remember, Batgirl? Do you, Barbara?

Batgirl froze as she noticed what had been beneath the note.

Her old cowl.