The Woman From Budapest

When last we left our heroine, Minerva and her gang had left the Caped Crimefightress unconscious, her mind completely erased by Minerva's Eggplant Vitamin Jelly Scalp Massage device. Now, several hours later, the vegetated vixen is regaining consciousness as…!

A twitch of her fingers was the first sign that Batgirl was regaining consciousness after hours of lying completely motionless on the floor where she had fallen. Then a low moan broke the silence as Batgirl's eyes flickered open. After several minutes, the groaning Caped Crimefightress pulled herself to her feet using the heavy chair she had been strapped into for support. Catching her reflection out of the corner of her eye in the restroom mirror, the mindless heroine staggered over to the counter to look at her own features more closely.

Batgirl began to study her reflection intently in the mirror as she twisted her head slowly from side to side. Leaning in closer to the mirror, shaking hands slowly rose to her face and head, as if exploring. After several moments, Batgirl's hands found the edge of her mask, lifted her cowl up off her head, tipping it backward to reveal the face of Barbara Gordon…and something else!

"My God!" Barbara groaned as her hands began to explore the thick black rubber swimming-cap she had worn on her head under her cowl. It was the one she wore as Barbara Gordon to keep her hair dry when she swam laps at her fitness club. Looking closely at it as she began to gingerly peel the ruined cap from her head, Barbara could see that the thick rubber was thoroughly blistered and cracked, actually being burned or melted completely through in several places.

"Good thing I thought to put this cap on under my cowl in case I got captured after Dad told me Minerva had been using her brain-tampering devices again. Still, I never anticipated her Scalp Massager having such a powerful setting. I'm lucky that thing didn't completely fry my brain to a crisp!" she thought to herself as she dangled the cap from one finger and continued to examine it. "Luckily for me, my cap protected me from the worst effects of Minerva's brain scrambler."

"Owww! Owww! Owww!" Batgirl cried out suddenly, dropping the cap and gripping her head in both hands. A tattoo of sledgehammers had begun beating inside her skull as flashing lights sparkled before her eyes. She had incautiously spun her head too quickly and her image swam before her in the mirror in double and triple vision.

After the pain subsided enough that Barbara could think straight again, she spied her Batgirl utility belt laying on the floor and carefully made her way over to collapse to her knees by it. A fumbling search brought out the small container of Batgirl antidote pills to speed relief from her monstrous headache. When, after about fifteen minutes, the incredible headache subsided to a faint throbbing, Barbara regained her feet and replaced her cowl. Buckling her utility belt back around her waist, Batgirl staggered out the door to search Minerva's office for any clues to her whereabouts.

The place was completely empty, the laptop computer that Minerva had been using was gone and even the trash can had been emptied.

"Trash? Emptied?" Suddenly, Batgirl had an idea. Rushing outside to the dumpster she had parked behind, Batgirl peeked inside. Sure enough, there sat a plastic bag full of trash at the bottom of the otherwise empty trash receptacle. A quick dive into the dumpster and Batgirl was spreading the contents of the bag across the bottom. After a minute of searching, Batgirl climbed out of the dumpster clutching a scrap of paper to examine in the late afternoon sunlight.

On the paper was an address, 1313 Mockingbird Lane, written in Minerva's handwriting. Batgirl scanned through her memory; that address sounded familiar. "Wait a second, that's in the Munster district of town where Northeast Gotham High School is located!" she recalled now from attending athletic events there in her teens. Northeast Gotham had been her own school's arch-rival. "What could Minerva possibly want there?" Then it hit her. Northeast Gotham had the best-equipped sports and fitness facilities of all the schools in Gotham. Minerva was a health and fitness fanatic. Recalling the comment Minerva had made about leaving town, just before she had tried to barbecue her brain, Batgirl realized that Minerva would want to hide out where she could get a good workout before leaving town. Being that it was Saturday, the high school would make a perfect place for Minerva to simultaneously hide and workout undisturbed. Batgirl was on her Batgirlcycle in a flash and heading for the school. She had a score to settle with Minerva…and Bane too.

Peeking carefully down from the balcony seat entrance into the gymnasium below, Batgirl knew she had found her quarry again. There stood Minerva, dressed in a skimpy athletic outfit and expensive court shoes. She and her five henchmen were engaged in an intense game of 3 on 3 volleyball and, as Batgirl watched, Minerva spiked the ball into the opposite court for the point. Of Bane, however, there was no sign.

"Where can he be?" Batgirl mused. "He's gotten the drop on me twice now and it was definitely a mistake for me not to locate him first last time. I won't do that again." A loud metal clacking behind her gave her the answer. "Of course! Bane has to be working out in the weight room!"

A trip around the corner and down the hall brought Batgirl to the door to the weight room. The door was propped open. Peering around the corner, Batgirl gasped in surprise. Bane was doing a bench press and Batgirl did a quick mental calculation. Incredible! Bane was lifting just over a half ton of free weights, vigorously pressing the barbell up and down as if it were nothing.

"He's in a very vulnerable position right now doing his bench press," she thought. "If I can take him out now, Minerva and her other men will be no problem."

With that resolved, Batgirl crept into the weight room, gently pushing the door shut behind her to keep any noise from the upcoming fight from reaching Minerva and her men. She had crept to within ten feet of Bane when he suddenly finished pumping, sat up, and saw Batgirl's reflection behind him in the wall mirror.

Immediately, Bane was on his feet and facing her. "Batgirl? Well, well . . . you are just full of surprises!" Immediately, Bane began to move toward her. Batgirl started to back toward the entrance, but due to the layout of the weights and machines in the room, Bane was actually closer to the door and blocked her off from her retreat. Taking a key from his pocket, Bane locked the door, trapping Batgirl inside with him. "Now you cannot escape, Batgirl! I am going to take care of you myself…permanently!" he laughed as he pocketed the key.

Immediately, Batgirl fled to the other side of the room to the outer double doors that the weight machines had been brought in through. "Locked! My God! I'm trapped in here with this monster!" the words shouted in her head as she futilely pushed at the crossbar on the door then spun and dodged out of the way just as Bane's huge hand flashed over her head.

Spinning to look behind her, Batgirl saw Bane pressing a switch on the device mounted on his arm. Green fluid appeared to be circulating up the tubes on his arm to the back of his mask. Was it her imagination, or was Bane getting even bigger?

Now Bane charged after her as Batgirl ducked and dodged around the equipment, occasionally launching a kick or two at her pursuer. While before, Bane had shown some pain from her kicks, now he was shrugging them off like nothing.

Once Bane trapped her against the wall and launched a vicious punch directly at her head. She had managed to duck out of the way as the blow struck the cinder block wall and sent chunks of masonry flying. His outcry had been one of rage at missing her instead of pain.

Suddenly, Bane completely changed his tactics. Rather than chase her through a maze of machines and equipment, Bane instead isolated her in the corner by the outer doors. Then he began to move machines and equipment around, slowly clearing the area around Batgirl and stacking the equipment behind him in a makeshift barricade to trap her inside. Soon, Batgirl had nothing left to hide behind and Bane advanced on her once more, sopping up several more of her kicks as though they were bug bites.

Again, Batgirl ducked under a massive grasping arm then fled toward the wall of stacked machines, her intent to climb over them to escape. Her luck turned bad, however, as Bane's hand flashed out and caught a handful of her cape. Batgirl gave out a strangled cry as Bane roughly jerked her backward by her cape into his waiting arms.

"Now I have you!" Bane growled in triumph while Batgirl struggled frantically in his grasp. With that, Bane lifting the struggling crimefightress into the air in a powerful under-the-arm bear hug and began to squeeze.

"AAAAAGGGHH!" Batgirl screamed out in pain as she dangled in the air, while massive arms like pythons contracted across her chest with bone-crushing force. Before she could react, Bane was pressing her body into the wall, sandwiching her there to bring additional leverage from his body weight and to block her flailing legs to the sides to keep her from kicking him.

"Now, I snap your ribs and spine like twigs, Batgirl!" Bane taunted behind her in her ear. With that, Bane ruthlessly increased his crushing grip across Batgirl's chest as her vision swum before her.

Fortunately for Batgirl, Bane had underestimated his ability to crush her. Batgirl's frame was quite a bit smaller than those he had done this to in the past and the surprised villain found it was much more difficult to bring his leverage to bear. As Batgirl felt her ribs creaking in her chest, her hands flashed back behind her and attacked one of the few locations that Bane was truly vulnerable. She cuffed him hard across both ears.

Instantly, Bane cried out and dropped Batgirl to the floor. He staggered backward several steps clutching his ears and shaking his head. On the floor gasping for breath, Batgirl's chest ached from Bane's near-fatal embrace as she struggled to her feet and backed away from Bane toward the double doors. Before her, Bane had shaken off her attack and was again advancing on the cornered heroine.

"Now you die, Batgirl!" Bane said as he launched his huge fist at her head. Batgirl ducked out of the way of the swift blow in the nick of time. Bane's fist flashed just over her head and smashed out the small wire-reinforced safety glass window on the door.

"Perfect!" Batgirl thought as she spun to face the trapped villain. Surprised, Bane had driven his arm out the shattered window with such force, it was now wedged in the small window frame up past his elbow. Batgirl immediately took advantage, spinning in place and driving several hard kicks up into Bane's belly. Bane grunted in pain and doubled over slightly at the powerful kicks to his stomach as he tried to free his arm.

Seeing her kicks were still ineffective, Batgirl spied a pair of heavy Indian clubs lying on the floor against the wall. Picking one up in both hands, Batgirl began beating Bane hard across his back and shoulders, driving him to his knees with grunts of pain as his arm finally pulled free of the window, trailing trickles of blood. On his hands and knees now, a last powerful blow actually cracked the club in her grip, but finally drove Bane to the ground unconscious. Feeling like Jack the Giant Killer, Batgirl could not resist planting one foot across Bane's massive shoulders and raise her arms in victory. "The winner!"

Quickly, Batgirl pulled a set of flex-cuffs from her belt and secured Bane's hands behind his back. Then for added measure, she pulled another set of cuffs from her belt to double cuff him. "There! That should hold him!" she thought as she rummaged through his pocket for the key to the door. Finding it, Batgirl unlocked the door, slid outside and headed back downstairs toward the main floor of the gym. "Now, it's time to deal with Minerva and her other henchmen."

The killer volleyball game was over, but sounds from the boys' locker room told Batgirl the henchmen had just finished showering and changing clothes. As she approached, all five men came out of the locker room with gym bags dangling over their shoulders. They stopped short at the sight of her. As one, their jaws all seemed to drop to the floor.

"How the…? It's Batgirl!" one cried in stunned surprise. Instead of the classic pose she normally used to confront crooks in, Batgirl had chosen to turn her body slightly away from them and hold her cape out to one side in her hand. "Get her! Get her!" another cried. Instantly, all five crooks dropped their bags and attacked. Immediately, Batgirl dropped her cape and tipped over a rack of various sports balls into the path of the charging villains. Three of the goons went flying; their feet had come down on baseballs and shot out from under them. Spinning to pick up a heavy medicine ball, Batgirl launched it directly into the face of the fourth attacker, dropping him groaning to the floor. Spinning away from the grasp of the fifth man, Batgirl snatched up a baseball bat and struck a home run…right into the stomach of the fifth felon as he collapsed to the floor doubled up in pain. "HA!" Quickly, Batgirl set to work flex-cuffing the villains together. In no time, Batgirl stood back to admire her handiwork, grinning mischievously in her classic fists-on-hips Batgirl pose.

All five of the groaning criminals were now secured together in one mass. Batgirl had twisted and locked their wrists and ankles around each other's bodies with her cuffs…in a rough parody of Nora Clavicle's Siamese Human Knot.

A sound behind her, spun Batgirl's head. There was Minerva. Dressed in black stiletto-heeled knee boots and a black leather trench coat, Minerva had fled the girls' locker room and was speeding around the corner, headed toward the swimming pool.

"Don't go away, boys," Batgirl called over her shoulder to the captured crooks as she gave chase to Minerva. Behind her, Batgirl could just make out the chorus of angry cursing replies as she turned the corner and sped toward the pool. Arriving at the pool, Batgirl stepped inside and shut the door behind her.

There were actually two pools. The one in front of her was long and shallow, used to swim laps. The pool to her left was the deep diving well complete with low and high dive boards. "There's no place to hide in the pool area. Minerva must have gone into one of the offices or locker rooms down by the dive well," Batgirl thought. Cautiously, Batgirl crept down along the side of the pool toward the dive well, her heels clicked loudly on the tile floor.

Batgirl tried the door to the first office. The door was locked and the screens were down across the windows. Trying the second door, Batgirl found it locked, too. "That leaves only the locker rooms," Batgirl thought as she turned and stepped away from the door toward the entrance to the locker rooms.

Suddenly, the door behind her flew open. Minerva charged out and gave the surprised heroine a vicious shove, sending Batgirl tumbling into the dive well with a loud splash. As the gasping crimefightress broke the surface, Minerva reached down and gripped a handful of Batgirl's cape, drawing her backwards close to the edge of the pool. Now, Minerva spread out Batgirl's cape on the edge of the pool and knelt down on it, gripping the struggling Batgirl's cowled head in both hands.

"I don't know how you keep coming back from oblivion, Batgirl, but this time I'm going to take care of your meddling for good!" Minerva growled. With that, Minerva dunked the struggling crimefightress' head under the water and held Batgirl there to drown her.

Batgirl thrashed frantically under the water, memories of nearly drowning in caviar that time at Egghead's hands flooding back into her head. "My God! I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I'm drowning!" the words shrieked loudly in Batgirl's head as she struggled under water. Her utility belt suddenly felt like it weighed fifty pounds and seemed to be helping to pull her down to her death.

Above the water, Minerva knelt at the edge of the pool, laughing over the drowning damsel. Batgirl's fingers were clawing frantically at Minerva's hands and wrists, trying to get free to surface for even a momentary breath.

Under the water, Batgirl suddenly had an idea as a roaring began in her ears. "Minerva's kneeling at the edge of the pool, but she must be leaning far out over the water to get enough leverage to drown me. If I can just get a good enough grip . . ."

With that, the drowning heroine's hands flashed up out of the water and gripped the startled fitness guru by the lapels of her trench coat. Before Minerva could react, Batgirl was jerking her forward and downward.

"Aiiiieeeeee!" Minerva cried as she suddenly found herself flying into the pool headfirst with a splash.

Behind her, Batgirl's head broke the surface, sucking in deep lung-fulls of delicious air for several moments. Spying the dive well ladder a few feet away from her, Batgirl climbed gasping from the water, stood up, and assumed her best Batgirl pose facing the pool.

"Looks like you're the one that's all wet now, Minerva," Batgirl laughed at the angry floundering felon. With that, she picked up one of the long-handled safety hooks that are standard equipment around pools and stepped toward the edge. She had a rat to fish out.

The police had arrived, taken Minerva into custody, and were getting quite a laugh as they releasing her grumbling men from their bondage. While this was occurring, Batgirl had gone back up to the weight room to get Bane ahead of the police.

Batgirl stopped at the door, stunned. The room was empty and the double doors to the outside were hanging wide open! Going over to where she had left Bane, Batgirl found the remains of her flex-cuffs. They had been snapped through!

"That means he's free and escaped," she thought shaking her head as she turned to go back down to the police to report Bane's escape. As she stepped out of the weight room, however, there was a loud crash from the service closet across the hall.

"Bane!" she thought. "He's still here!" Quickly retrieving the unbroken Indian club from the weight room, Batgirl crept up to the closet door. Steeling herself for another fight with the big bruiser, Batgirl suddenly threw open the door and leaped around the corner, prepared to bash Bane with the club.

Instead of Bane, however, another sight greeted her. There was Minerva's Yorkshire Terrier. Somehow during all of this, the little fellow had gotten himself locked in the closet!

Discarding her club, Batgirl reached down to pick up the dog as he raced into her grasp wagging his tail. He was glad to see her! Cuddling the dog in her arms, Batgirl turned and headed once more for the police. She wondered what Barbara Gordon's building super would have to say about another pet in her apartment.

Crouched on the roof of a building across the street from the school, Bane lurked in the darkness brooding. He supposed he could have tried to free Minerva and her men after he had freed himself, but by then he had heard the sirens of police cars approaching and had chosen to escape himself instead. "Minerva and her men underestimated her," he thought of Batgirl. "So did I, for that matter." Looking across the street now into the sea of police cars and flashing lights, he could see Batgirl. She was just getting onto her Batgirlcycle, wearing a borrowed backpack with Minerva's dog peeking out from it. As he watched, Batgirl started her cycle and sped away into the darkness.

Bane leaned back against the wall and though a bit about his own reasons for originally agreeing to work for Minerva and coming to Gotham City. He had considered Batgirl, as well as Robin, to be mere nuisances; minor annoyances to be swept away in the early stages of his master plan. Now, he re-evaluated his assessment of Batgirl.

"The Batman must find someone as resourceful as Batgirl to be a powerful ally," Bane thought as he regained his feet and turned away from the scene. "That's what I'll do! I'll make her defeat an integral part in the destruction of The Batman!" With that settled in his mind, Bane lumbered off into the darkness, his mind turning over his plans for taking control of Gotham City.

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