TheRaven: The Tragedy of Ashley Bilefoot

Chapter 1

Beth ran along the rooftops with her hood off. She savored the feeling of the wind in her hair and the freedom of working for herself. It had been three months since her return to Metropolis. After Goth’s final defeat at the hands of Dilatrix she had spent a wonderful few nights with her girlfriend and mistress Pam. Those nights had turned to a week and the fires of passion burned bright between the two of them. Pam’s demeanor was more relaxed now that they were free of Goth, but she maintained her cautious air of care and control that she had come to crave and love. Under Pam’s supervision and guidance Beth had managed to get her apartment back in order, reign in her temper, polish up her equipment, and continue to hone her skills both in the field and at home.

Her fiery joy was turned to smoldering embers when Pam informed her of her decision to start training with Dilatrix. She understood Pam’s choice and the reasoning behind it, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Pam sought to further her knowledge and by extension her power in case Goth or anyone else were to rise up and pose a threat to either her or Jake. The sentiment was sweet, but Beth was having a difficult time adjusting to life without her. Pam had promised to take breaks and return to her once a month and those nights were what she looked forward to and got her through the months.

The only drawback to her new life, outside of Pam’s absence, was the gnawing feelings of worry about Jake. Leaving him in the custody of the woman who had brutalized all three of them was something she simply could not get behind. Jake’s word to keep her updated on any developments or problems hadn’t done much to quell the preternatural fears. It didn’t help that his messages and responses were becoming farther and fewer between. Pam had made the insinuation that she was becoming slightly obsessed with Jake and Goth. She had gone so far as to confiscate her phone from her after nine whenever they were spending the night together. She did concede that maybe texting Jake at three in the morning was a little excessive, maybe.

Jake’s current state of mind made it next to impossible for him to resume his patrols and that left the ground work to her. She didn't mind it as it gave her something to focus on other than her absent lover and a distraction from the constant worry over Jake. The feeling of wind whipping through by her as she zipped through the air, the rush of a good fight and subsequent bust, and the smell of gunsmoke made for a stupendous evening for her. The night's were enjoyable, but her return home was usually bittersweet as she was once again thrust into the emptiness of her apartment and then beset by her concern for her friend.

She had thrown herself into her work in an attempt to avoid dealing with these troubling feelings. Since Goth’s collars had dispersed, the city had been in a state of tumultuous recovery. Several of the major criminals and villains hadn’t reared their head just yet, but there were still plenty of gangs and other idiots that made the mistake of making a power grab. Word spread like wildfire of The Feral’s return to the city and after a few short cuts to the gangs’ rosters most of them had moved their operations to more closed circuit and hushed environments. It made Beth long for her time working with Jake due to his uncanny deductive abilities.

She was still managing to weed out the lowlives, but it was taking longer than she liked. Drug rings, smuggling operations, and most notably missing persons. The latter was one that had started to take up the majority of her attention. Over the last month there were several cases that were popping up across the city in varying boroughs and districts. She was working on trying to piece together some kind of connection between all of these missing persons. The problem she was running into was that none of them seemed to share much in common. Men and women, rich and poor whoever was behind this didn’t seem to show much in the way of a pattern or calling card. Her thoughts gravitated to a potential serial killer, but there were too few bodies for that to be a solid possibility.

She had set up a large board in her room that she had started using to catalogue the different persons, areas, and probable causes of their disappearance and demise. She made it a point to hide it whenever Pam was in town; the last thing that she wanted was to hear about how she was developing another obsession. She wasn’t obsessed with this case or Jake, she was simply passionate about certain things. So she spent hours on end pouring over files and messaging her friend. That didn't make her obsessive, it just made her driven. At least that was what she told herself.

Tonight was a special night for her. She had been trailing a lead on the lower west side of Metropolis and, after some lead based convincing, had managed to coerce a small-time thug into giving her the information on a potential connection. She was biding her time atop the roofs of her home city waiting for her meeting. She idly fiddled with the small stone that dangled from her collar while she stood on the edge of the building. She briefly considered trying to use the charm's magical ability to communicate, but she quickly realized she had no clue how to even initiate it. She made a mental note to ask Pam about it on her next visit.

She settled on mulling over some of the finer details she had gleaned in the last week. While the missing persons may not have shared much in the way of a social connection, there was a somewhat strange coincidence that had sprung up around the time they started to disappear. Word on the street was that there was some kind of new drug that was taking the city by storm. The trouble was, it was almost more of an exclusive type than something readily available. Two weeks ago, a drug dealer had been taken in and had been found with trace amounts of an unidentified cocktail in his veins. Dopamine, epinephrine, and adrenaline levels had been unusually high when the blood work came back. She wasn't a chemist, but even she knew that high levels of epinephrine were an odd affect from a drug. It had taken nine cops to catch and detain him according to the report she had received.

There were other oddities from the drug itself, but most of it was slightly over her head. She needed a raw sample of it to figure out more about it and maybe pinpoint a manufacturer. The strangest thing about the drug was the delivery system. The dealer in question had had a unique injector that placed dual needles into the neck of the recipient. She was a little wary after seeing the pictures of the man's neck. She had only seen marks like that once before in person, but there was no way that could have been the case. Her thoughts were put slightly at ease when her colleague had shown her a photo of the injector. Still, to see something like that was odd and stranger still was the man's skin tone had changed to a much paler shade. She told herself that she was worrying too much and that this was simply some leftover fears from her recent dealing with the supernatural. There was clearly some kind of street science that she needed to further investigate, nothing more and nothing less!

Even telling herself this, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more going on. Years of fighting her city's villains, and most recently Goth, stoked a growing paranoia within her. Oftentimes there was more going on then met the eye. Dating a woman steeped in magic, while fun, didn't help her feelings. Part of her felt like Goth was somehow playing a part in all of this. She'd been by Jake's apartment and every time, Goth had been the same as she was when they returned to Metropolis. Her powers were gone and all that remained of the woman who tormented her was that entitled attitude.

Pam reminded her time and again that there was no way that the woman could return to her former state. She had been stripped of her prowess thanks to Dilatrix, but Beth couldn't bring herself to accept that. The vile sadist had managed to make an imprint on both her and Jake, no matter how much Beth wanted to deny it. She wished that she could have some way of either corralling her paranoia or knowing what the woman was planning. She wanted to believe that Jake would keep her updated and that he wouldn't let her get her claws in him again, but she had seen first hand the effect Goth had on him. Even before her defeat and relationship with Pam, Jake had dated her. Hell, at one point he had believed that she was some sort of savior for Citiville and the world! His fractured state of mind only furthered her concern that she would find some way to resume her reign of terror.

She glanced down at her phone and noticed the time. She had forty-five minutes to make it to the meeting. She was happy to be in motion once again as she took off running. Her mind was less prone to worry and panic when she was moving or in action. As she leapt from the rooftop and fired her grappling gun, her head became focused once again like a steel trap. She would worry about all of the possibilities later. Right now, she had a job to do. As the cable retracted and pulled her upward, she morphed back into The Feral. She was a predator on the hunt for answers rather than the prey she felt like moments ago.

Pam dodged an incoming set of firebolts and felt the heat whip past her body. Sweat poured down her lithe frame as she prepared to channel both her energy and the energy around her. She had been training with Dilatrix for the last few months and had managed to learn a great deal in this time. Most notable was that she didn't need to rely on her own reserves to power her spells. Even without the intersecting ley lines that ran through Dilatrix's home, the earth held a wealth of power that she was learning to tap into. It was exemplified as she brought up an ethereal wall of power to absorb and deflect the remaining firebolts that zipped towards her. The flames exploded as they made contact with the invisible force and she pulled the resonant energy into herself before beginning to reshape into an instrument of her own will.

A pair of flaming translucent chains took shape in front of her in a matter of seconds. Her mentor had instructed her to use the image of something familiar to make her shaping of energies easier. For Pam, that meant utilizing tools of her recreational relationships as instruments for death and destruction. The chains hung in the air for a moment and moved with her arms as a direct extension of herself. She whirled around and extended her hands to launch an attack at the targets that Dilatrix had summoned. Twin statues of the nightmare that she had stared down months ago in that forsaken hotel stood twenty feet away from her. The fiery links rushed forward and arced upward in separate directions as they approached their destination. She brought her arms down in a diagnosis cross at the last second and seared the stone before twirling her hands and wrapping the chains around them. Her anger surged as she clenched her fists causing the chains to tighten their coil and crush the statues. The air was filled with heat and dust as they crumbled into nothingness.

She took a calming breath to reign her emotions in and concentrate on her surroundings. It was difficult to do as she thought of her girlfriend miles away and the pain that she had endured at the hands of a woman she had once considered a God. The blow came before she could steady her nerves and she found her face rushing to the ground. She dispelled the chains and reached out to catch herself before she hit the ground. Her hands connected with the stone floor just before she smashed into it. She pushed herself up and dusted herself off. She still had a lot of room for improvement.

"You are distracted, Pamela," the mystifying voice of her teacher called out, "Your strength is growing, but I have noticed a pattern developing. You excel when you return from your visits with Elizabeth, but the longer you are away the poorer your performance becomes."

She stood and turned to face the sorceress in question. Dilatrix wore a pitch black robe that seemed to flow past her feet and somehow drift upwards in a smokey aura. She wasn't sure if this was a spell of some sort of just the woman's radiant power dripping off of her. Pam was sporting what looked like a black leather bodysuit that captured the light that touched it without reflecting it. In truth, it was a pair of leather bound pants and a corset. Her arms were wrapped in thin leather straps so as to prevent any damage from magical discharge. Her hair was tied up in a bun as opposed to the typical cascading fashion or the occasional ponytail she wore.

She furrowed her brow and frowned at her mentor, "I am simply having an off day. My Kitten has nothing to do with my performance."

Dilatrix gave her a knowing smile as she pointed out, "You came to me because you wish to protect her and Jake. There is nothing wrong with caring about someone and it is not hindering your progress. You miss her, do you not?"

Pam looked away and sighed. She was right, she did miss her pet more than anything. She was also right about her reason for coming to her, she had admitted that to herself and Beth before she had first come here. "You know that I do," she finally said, "She means everything to me and I won't let her go through any more trauma, not if I can help it."

Dilatrix slowly walked forward as she spoke, "Sometimes a strength can become a weakness, look at Rebecca with Jake. It drove her to achieve great power, but it also made her reckless in her pursuit of him."

Pam glared at her, "I am nothing like her."

"You may not be, but even the purest and strongest can fall to temptation," she said, "It does not make you weak or corrupt, Pamela, affection can cloud one's judgment."

Pam bristled at her words, "What do you propose I do?!"

Dilatrix moved her hands in a calming gesture, "Why not continue your pursuits on your own? Be with your pet and continue your studies, you've shown quite a bit of growth and development in your abilities."

The suggestion was tempting and gave her a sense of pride, but when the image of her beloved Beth standing in a trance with her gun to her head gave her her answer. She sighed and shook her head, "There is still much I have to learn. I cannot risk Beth or Jake falling to harm. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say. I will be with her soon enough."

"And what of her?" Dilatrix asked, "How long do you believe she can go without you?"

Pam shook her head, "She is strong, stronger than most. She will be okay, so long as I continue to visit her, she will be fine."

Dilatrix nodded, "By your word, Pamela. Let us begin again, be on your guard."

Pam nodded and took her stance. She worried about her pet, but she was doing this for her. They would endure this time together, even if they were apart. Perhaps she would make a trip to Metropolis a little earlier just to check on her pet. They needed each other and they both knew it. For now, however, she needed to get stronger.

Beth dropped into the alleyway a couple of streets over from where her meeting was set to take place. She removed her hood and holstered her grappling gun in her coat. She looked, as Jake may have once said, similar to what one would consider a butch lesbian. Her attire was the same as it almost always was when on her outings, the heavy leather coat with her dark cargo pants beneath it and her heavy combat boots. The only difference was the scarlet t-shirt she wore beneath her coat. Pam had remarked that she liked the color on her, so she had taken to wearing it more. Without her hood and with her weapons concealed, she looked more civilian than heroic. She often wondered if she was still considered a hero.

The press her moniker had received was mixed between contempt and praise. Many of the citizens of her city praised her for giving the villains the justice they felt they deserved, but then there were those that looked down on her methods. It didn't help that throughout the slave state that the city had been in she had been absent. The reports of sighting her in Citiville didn't help her image. The police were more torn than the general public with many despising her lack of regard for contemporary justice and some who harrowed her for doing what they were forbidden to do. She had, thankfully, had a couple of members of the police force manage to contact her. One was a private investigator and a former detective and the other was a member of the forensics team.

She made her way through the throngs of people on the street. The look in their eyes told her all she needed to know about then. They were drug addicts, pushers, and hookers. These people were common this time of night and especially in this part of the city. The rundown state of the buildings was always low on the council's priority list. It was apparent by the many boarded windows and doors, the amount of filth that piled up in the streets, and the broken down or half scrapped cars along the streets. It did, however, make for the perfect place for lowlives to call home. This was the type of place where lives got ruined, the place where everything somehow seemed to come to a stop. Beth wasn't surprised to learn that whatever substance was being pumped into the city was coming from here.

She crossed the streets after ignoring the hails of men and women alike offering a good time. Her senses were on high alert in spite of the feelings of disgust that mingled with pity. She would think of this area later, right now she couldn't afford to let her mind become clouded.

The entrance to the alleyway was dark and the grime that filled the streets seemed to spill out from places like this. There was a palpable scent in the air, one that seemed somehow both familiar and foreign at the same time. Death and decay married a faint, yet powerful, foot odor that wafted through the air the deeper she walked. She noted her surroundings as she pressed on into the dark corridor. A fire escape hung down from what used to be an apartment building; the rust that lined the rungs of the ladder made it apparent that it hadn't seen proper use or maintenance in years. Trash cans, some with lids and some without, were strewn along the walls without order or attention. Various rotting items could be seen and certainly smelt as she walked past them. Perhaps that was where the foul stench was coming from.

She came to a stop at the end of the alleyway in front of a solid brick wall. There was only one way out, back and through the filth along with whatever chose to stand in her way. There was a door on her left and she gave it a sharp three knocks, the call sign she had been given. If she had been lied to or if this was some sort of trap, she would make all involved pay dearly through intense suffering. The door cracked open and the faint glint of a gold chain could be seen along with the eyes of someone inside, "What you needin' little lady?" a male voice asked.

His voice was smooth and somewhat rich for a standard drug dealer. She had encountered smooth talking thugs and plugs both before and after she took on her Feral moniker. She was definitely in the right place. She resisted the urge to break down the door in favor of a more subtle approach, "Needin' a fix, something strong and something new. Word is, you're the one to see about that."

"All roads lead to me and mine, sweetheart," he said, "Who referred you?"

She had beaten the name out of the criminal, and for his sake she hoped he hadn't been lying, "Jones, you got what I need or not?"

"Mhmm," he replied as the door shut and she heard the sound of locks being released, "I do, I do indeed, sweet thing. Step inside and have a look for yourself, I'll have to send Jones a thank you for sending me such a cute thing like you."

She resisted the urge to shoot the man as she walked into the dimly lit entryway. Her finger itched, but that would be satisfied in time. She instead tried to put her best seductive face on and sauntered into the room. She felt ridiculous as she purposefully swayed her hips, but this was something she had learned from Pam. Her mistress enjoyed the occasional show, no matter how humiliating it may have been for her. She could feel the eyes of her mark on her ass so she knew it was working well enough. That didn't mean she enjoyed being ogled by him though.

She turned to face him as he closed the door and got a good look at him. He was dressed somewhat nicer than she was expecting with an almost business casual attire. His clothes were clean, but everything was either too big by design or because he was gaunt. His blue button down shirt was untucked and hung past his waist with a black tie that was more for show than anything tucked under the ruffled collar. His pants, slacks by the looks of it, were black as midnight and looked to be held in place by suspenders of all things. His shoes clicked as he walked closer to her and she was reminded of her girlfriend by the sound for a brief second. They were polished and if she had to guess new by how stiff they both looked and sounded. What sort of drug dealer was this?

"So, doll, what can I get for you tonight?" he asked.

It took everything she had not to wince at the man's absurd flattery. She forced herself to smile at him as she said, "Jones said you had the hookup on something new, something special. He ain't lied to me yet and I guess you could say I'm as adventurous as I am curious."

His eyes were hidden behind some messy bangs, but she could feel his eyes combing over her. It made her skin crawl. She just needed to get through this little exchange and she could rid the city of one more troublesome vermin. He cracked a smile and showed a set of yellow teeth, "My kind of girl," he said as he walked over to a desk and began rooting around, "I think you'll find this as unique as it is incredible."

She watched him produce a vial of liquid that was no larger than her pinky. The liquid inside looked to alternate between a deep maroon and a vibrant purple with bubbles rippling through it occasionally. She narrowed her eyes as she studied the little container, "What is it?" she asked.

He reached into the drawer and withdrew the applicator she had seen in the photos, "This is BFB, sweetheart, you want something different? This is it, this is a high you won't get anywhere else, but it doesn't come cheap. Twenty-five hundred is usually the price, but I'm a reasonable man and you seem like a fun girl. Tell you what, I'll knock a grand off the price for a night with you. Do good enough and I'll throw in an extra dose for free."

Her blood boiled as she listened to his terms. According to Pam, she was indeed a fun girl, but she was her fun girl and no one else's. It was time for her to make her move. She sauntered over and circled him like the predator she was. Her fingertips danced along his neckline while her other hand gripped at the hilt of her favorite knife. "Oh I do love a good time," she whispered in his ear, "I don't know if you can handle a full night with me though."

He shivered in her arms from her touch and the warmth of her breath, "Oh baby, trust me when I say, I can handle whatever you got!"

"You sure?" she asked and when he nodded she withdrew her knife and pressed it to his throat, "You asked for it, shitbag!"

"What the-" was all he was able to get out before she sliced his throat open.

His body convulsed from the wound and his gasps turned to disgusting gurgles. It was music to her ears and she quickly moved her free hand to snatch the vial from his hand before it fell to the ground. With the drug in hand, she let his body fall to the ground. His eyes still held a little life in them and she decided to reveal herself in earnest in his last moments. She placed the vial in her coat and retrieved her hood. She dawned it and watched as his eyes widened. His body didn't have the strength left in it to flee, but the panic was clear in his face as he mouthed the words, "The Feral," at her.

Beneath the hood she sported a wry grin even as she watched him fade away. She savored the fear that others had from her alter ego more than she would ever admit outloud to anyone but herself and her lover. Maybe Pam was rubbing off on her or maybe this was just something that she had suppressed for too long. Whatever the case may have been, she had come to terms with it long ago and it no longer kept her up at night. An old friend had once told her that she enjoyed taking lives and she had promptly denied it back then. Now, though, she knew it was true and if she had the chance she would tell her that she had been right, that she was right. The lives of people like this man had ruined countless others and they deserved no mercy or sympathy. She was the hand of justice for those who would never receive it, be they dead or alive. She carried the weight of this burden with pride and would continue to do so for those that couldn't for themselves. She was an executioner and a damn good one at that.

Her prize secured and her job done, she turned to take her leave. She stopped and decided to investigate the desk the dealer had procured his goods from. Inside she found needles, baggies of varying substances, and a handful of the same vial she carried with her. She snagged an extra one just in case and destroyed the rest. Once she was done she left the decrepit building and the corpse of the peddler behind. Now she just had to get cleaned up and get this to her forensic contact. With any luck, this would prove to be the missing piece of the puzzle that had been vexing her. She walked back into the darkness and pulled her grappling gun out and fired it onto the nearby rooftop. She was soaring through the night air once again and heading off to meet with her contact.



Jake walked down the street with his head hung low. Rebecca had sent him out to run a few errands and he was honestly thankful for the break. He wondered if she knew he needed a break or if she just wanted the space to study up on the spell tome that he'd mistakenly allowed her to discover. That night had been a ride of emotions and for a time it seemed things were looking up, but it wasn't long before she started to fall back into the same pattern. The only difference was that now he understood why it happened a bit more. This knowledge was of little comfort to him in the heat of the moment though.

She had taken to studying the book and rather than teaching him, she simply took over as she was prone to doing. Granted he now had several sets of blessed birdarangs that were imbued with some kind of holy magic that was supposed work well against undead or creatures like what Goth had transformed herself into. That was one upside, he supposed. She was willing to arm him with a means of combating the monster from his nightmares. That was assuming, of course, that she was telling the truth. It was difficult to tell with her, more so than ever these days.

He listened to the sounds of his city as he walked down the street. He missed his time as Birdboy more than ever on nights like tonight. The sky was clear and the air was ripe with the sounds of life and crime. He knew that Beth was handling things well enough in her own way, the headlines about The Feral were proof enough of that, but he felt like he needed to be out here and contributing. This was his home and he had taken it upon himself a long time ago to protect it. He knew, however, that he was in no shape to help anyone, let alone himself. The more he thought about it, the more his head started to spin. His mind wandered back to his defeat at his Goth's hands, Aurora's, and that wretched creature that she had managed to transform into. It made him feel anxious and his palms sweat. It simply confirmed his fears that he was indeed broken and far from ready to be back in the field.

A familiar and sultry voice called out to him, a voice he hadn't heard in years and one that chilled his bones and set his blood on fire, "Jake, I've been hoping to speak with you for some time now. I see your witch has finally allowed you to roam free."

He froze and turned to look behind him. The figure of a woman shrouded in the darkness of the night stood a few feet away. She stepped forward, but he already knew who it was. With a defensive stance and a hostile tone, he greeted his old acquaintance,



"Ashley, how and why are you here?"