STORYTELLER ; tim drake

( one )

ONE || a few fighting rings later

about seven months later...

— GOTHAM, CRIME ALLEY
november sixth

Anya took a deep breath as she bandaged her knuckles one more time.

The brittle homemade mask sat on her face, leaving holes just for her eyes. It itched, and wasn't comfortable—considering she did not know how to sew and that mask was made only of her incomptent stitches that still hung out from the ends; one strong pull and it would surely fall apart.

Not that she could do anything about it now, she'd be called out any second now.

No matter how many times she sat in the makeshift 'dressing room' for fighters there, her stomach still churned with something she'd recognised as a mix of anxiety and adrenaline, that both held her back and pushed her for this.

She didn't know why she was doing this.

If her aunt would come to know, Anya was sure she'd die from worry. Recently, Veronica had been over protective of her, and it wasn't as though the seventeen year old didn't appreciate it, she really did, but sometimes it was just suffocating.

However, she didn't really have the heart to tell her aunt this, after all, Anya may have lost her parents but Veronica had lost both, her older sister and her best friend and then suddenly got an extra child to take care of that wasn't her own son alongside running a business and working overtime.

Thank god for her cousin though. If it wasn't for him keeping the windows open, bandaging her up or even lying for her, she would have been caught long ago.

She didn't have the time to think of this though, because the announcement had rung. The curtain that acted like a door began shaking violently, that was her signal. She took a deep breath and for the last time she took in her dressing room. It was just a bunch of curtains put together to give the fighters privacy, it wasn't firm or steady, and once again like her makeshift mask, it would come undone at a strong tug.

She didn't need to worry about that though, they didn't know her as Anya here.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's match! Between our reigning champion, the Scorpion and the new rising star, The Little Red Riding Hood!"

She hadn't thought of the name for herself, it was a side effect of her wearing the red hoodie all the goddamn time, but it stuck and Anya didn't feel like changing it, at all.

She took a deep breath and removed her hoodie, jogging outside.

The match between her and her opponents usually lasted for an average of a minute, her entire game was ending these rings from the inside instead of as an officer like her parents would have wanted her to.

She did this the Anya way; becoming a street fighter and then tipping off the vigilantes or the commissioner before she went to fight. If she timed this right, then they'd arrive once she was done with beating the dude and in the midst of the chaos, they'd easily take down the rings and she'd slip away.

She'd successfully taken down over ten rings in the six months she'd been doing this, and Anya was so sure her parents and a certain someone she didn't speak to for years would be mad at her beyond bounds.

However, over the months she'd been doing this, Anya had realised a few key details.

One, show off, especially if you were against men. Their ego couldn't take that shit and they'd usually end up pissed and blindly fighting which gave her a slight advantage.