[indent][b][u]August 3rd, 7:53 PM
Kasimir Castle, Gotham City[/u][/b][/indent]

[color=IndianRed]”No, eye slits won’t work. They’ll impede my vision, plus it might make the visual displays in my goggles wonky. Hmm… just a visor then, the lights can be mounted to the side like usual. Oh, satellite receivers on the sides? … Fuck, that makes it look like dog ears. Jaina will make fun of me.”[/color] Zoey Kasimir couldn’t help but huff, turning her pencil around to rub the eraser against the diagram.

… After a moment she re-added them.

[color=IndianRed]”Fuck her, the dog theme is her fault anyway.”[/color] The notebook was rather low-tech compared to her usual methods, but there was something soothing about the glide of graphite against paper. Her initial diagrams were always done this way. As it was for the latest draft that she had been working on. The last couple pages were filled with with the same thing, a body of armor - a suit, nearly. It was only recently she had begun filling in the specifics, as the close up of a helmet currently provided.

… Well, mostly provided. Zoey wasn’t a very good artist, but that’s what the multitude of notes were for.

An alert on the computer drew those steel-blue eyes from the pages of the graph paper, going to the screen beside her. Zoey’s feet were propped up on the metal surface of the desk, leaning back in her chair in her favorite ‘lounging’ shirt - a threadbare light green science camp shirt from her teenage years.

Cheerleaders could go to science camp, that didn’t make them nerds.

Zoey had a multitude of alerts set up on her computer, from current large crimes being committed, to simple reminders about mundane things - like field trips for David, or refilling medication. This one, however, made the firm muscles of the billionaire tense up, coiled as though ready to strike. Her feet slid off the surface as she sat up straight, taking in the title of the news article.

… No, it wasn’t anything current. Zoey huffed, almost throwing the notebook to the side of the large desk. Her pale arms crossed as she couldn’t help but glare darkly at the article that had popped up, published less than a minute ago. It was obvious which of her alerts picked it up.

[center][u]’Anarkee: Insane or Freedom Fighter?’[/u][/center]

Spoiler alert, she was insane. Zoey really needed to filter out some of these more radical websites.

To be honest there was a tidal wave of people talking about Anarkee’s latest crime when Grim had returned from the middle east, once again having been away when she had struck. It had made Zoey … paranoid. More than usual. This was twice in a row that the criminal had struck as soon as she was away from Gotham, with very high profile crimes. Did Anarkee know her civilian identity? At least Zoey knew that there was nothing watching her hangar doors.

Of course, she knew this since as soon as the thought had entered the billionaire’s head she had scouted the entire area around the doors with precision over the next thirty six hours without rest. Well, there was one rest - David brought her a coffee and she had checked over his homework. Her boy was so smart. Maybe he’d be a doctor, if she could get his mind off vigilante work.

Bit of a hypocrite there, Grim.

Anyway. Anarkee. It had been nearly a month so the … [i]hype[/i] of what happened in Gotham City’s most prominent bank had died down mostly. There were so many people speculating what the message could mean once it was released, some had even gotten it right. Carved into the faces of each victim were letters, or Anarkee’s particular symbol. 

Seriously, which one of those police officers released that message anyway? … Well, not like there was an end of options for [i]that[/i]. Gotham City was nothing if consistent in its corruption. Fuck, Zoey hated this city. The only good thing that ever happened to her here was the mural to Grim, and finding her son.

A swipe of her pale fingers on the keyboard had the screen switching off the news article, after a moment her own notes popping up. The bank was swarming with police officers, paramedics, news vans, and busy bodies even when Grim got back from the Middle East. Jaina had kindly forwarded all the files they had on the incident to her so she could get to work on figuring out what was going on behind Anarkee’s fucked up head, but seriously? Zoey was an engineer, not a psychologist! At least the message wasn’t hard to decode, not when compared to the message left on the stadium before.

March 13th, painted across the wall of the stadium for everyone to see, “BEWARE the rise OF the GRAVES”

July 7th, encoded across the faces of twenty victims, “Graves Are Watching”.

Graves, graves, [i]graves[/i]! What was it with graves?! Zoey was starting to think Anarkee was a necrophiliac! Maybe Jaina’s theory about her being a necromancer made some sense! The internet was alight with people wondering if Anarkee was somehow related to Killian “The Wraith” Graves, the leader of the old Actor Activists, or just a really fucked up fangirl. Zoey had dug through everything about him she could find, even some of her grandfather’s records from working with The Impossibles. Nothing that she could find.

[i]Nothing![/i]

Zoey cursed, snapping her pencil in her hand. She angrily tossed it into a trashcan full of other snapped pencils before grabbing her phone to send a text message.

>Nicole, have someone bring some more pencils over. I’ve snapped my last one.

The redhead dropped her phone on her desk and huffed, crossing her arms. This week - this entire [i]month[/i] had been a mess of fuckery. From what had happened in the Middle East, to finding out Karen’s little secret, fuck, she had even found out one of her old friends apparently had a metagene! Was everyone in her life going to have this shit?! At this rate Jason was going to rise from … the … grave …

… The grave.

Jason Graves.

Emma Graves.

Old friends, siblings, one dead, the other disappeared. Not related to The Wraith, but still holding that last name.

Slowly Zoey’s slender fingers rose, her hand covering her lower face as she stared off into space. Her already pale visage only became whiter. No, no it was impossible. Completely stupid, there was no way. Jason… Jason had died. She knew it, because he had followed in [i]Grim’s[/i] footsteps of wanting to help others! Venturing in the streets, trying to turn the tide of corruption. Zoey had hunted down every single person who had a hand in his … his [i]horrific[/i] death.

Yet Emma had still disappeared. She had lost her older brother, the last pillar of support in her life. Zoey had looked for her, both in her civilian guise and as Grim, but there was nothing.

… Who else would be obsessed with Grim [i]and[/i] Graves?

No.

[i]No![/i]

Emma was sweet, and kind, she fucking volunteered for a charity organization for fuck’s sake! Jason’s death had broke her, but not - not that badly. 

… Had it?