by Michele | Aug 5, 2018 | Chronicles
Batman: “Hold on. Let me see if I understand you correctly. Your friend, Mr. Freeman, went off to get himself involved in for what amounts to a purely geo-political war in Kahndaq. He sent word to you that he could use the help. He sent the same call out to several others. Including the Flash. A man who happens to be roughly six times faster than the actual jet he wishes you to pick him up in.”
It might ordinarily be hard to make out the features of someone beneath the Bat Cowl, but it’s fairly easy to read them right now. This is Batman’s incredulous face. I have long accepted that the motley crew Tim was putting together are eclectic, but this borders on outright insanity and I’m not giving her the benefit of being attracted to her enough to buy in to it. She may be a Goddess, demi as it were, but I’m not nearly as impressed to let go of my good senses to buy in to that.
In fact there’s a very demonstrative cross of the arms over my chest that isn’t hidden by the cape to say it for me. “If you’re actually going, tell Wally to power walk, he’ll still be there faster than the invisible jet.”
“As to your offer to me, I’m afraid there’s a lot in play that we must consider before I can give you an answer. Despite all of our most fond wishes, there are times when it isn’t as simple as ‘Do the Right Thing.’ In this particular case, I’m looking at the facts. Just the facts. None of it makes sense.”
That’s the good news at least, I’m here. Now. Meeting with the Wonder Woman before she leaves. Even as we’ve been talking, I’ve taking to working at the console of one gauntlet. Behind me the Invisible Jet’s large wall-mounted television is starting to display the news feeds from Brother Eye.
“Bialya’s attack was unannounced. Furthermore since it was orchestrated multiple intelligence agencies have confirmed that there was not so much as a whisper about it before hand. That’s telling. Because in any military unit there is a chain of command and orders to be processed. For a military that was nothing more than a loose knit group of mercenaries not long ago? That’s a level of secret keeping among the rank and file that is basically super-human in itself. So the reality is more likely that someone. Someone highly placed. Planned this and executed it. Either the moment he got permission or… is someone in position to give such an order without needing permission.”
“That’s just the beginning. We know that Bialya bought arms from the Russian Black Market, but they’ve essentially fielded a Army -and- Navy. The regime in Bialya doesn’t have the money to afford this size of an army. Much less a Navy at all, given that there’s no ship yard on satellite imagery. Where did the bulk of their equipment come from then? How was that also kept secret.”
“Then there’s the one thing every crime has, that this attack lacks. Motive. There is always a motive. So most likely in this situation we simply don’t know what it is. Again, given the sheer proportions of this undertaking, how is it that we haven’t so much as heard a word from anyone. About why this happened. None of the Ambassadors are talking. The leader of Bialya isn’t speaking. There’s just an attack. Then a retreat. Immense casualties on the Kahndaq side and now mounting casualties on the Bialya side thanks to this Adam individual. But we still don’t know why this is happening.”
“Or. Rather the world doesn’t know. I find that to be extremely informative. Because it means that the reason for their entire siege wasn’t accomplished yet. So they’re keeping it a secret, in order to stop Adam from knowing what to defend. Also it stops the rest of the world from stopping them from getting it.” Before Cassie has spoken I’m already shaking my head. “No. It isn’t some random act of violence of a despot wanting to take more territory. There are other countries with far more to -take- that neighbor Bialya. Countries that lack a resource like Black Adam to rush to their aide.”
“This was calculated risk. Superior planning. With a pathological bent towards secrecy. Nothing about that suggests Random anything. Bialya wants something.” Turning my head to look at her over one shoulder. “Which brings me to the real question. What if they want you. All of you. There in Kahndaq.”
Wonder Woman: There’s not a single member of the ‘Bat Family’ that doesn’t know what my real face looks like, at least not those that I’ve met. They probably knew ahead of time, but if not they certainly do after my recent surge in powers had led me into placing an SOS call to Tim. We’re not even going to get into whatever it is that’s going on between my Mother and Alfred Pennyworth because I just really can’t right now. Even if Conner was joking about the whole thing in the first place, there’s just enough to make me want to wonder, and my mind needs to stay bent towards other things right now. I’m still wearing the Wonder Woman face though, and not just because I already had it on after my sadly unproductive seeming meeting with Terra. Or. Not Terra.
I can hope that something I said sunk in though. Or that at least she’ll take the offer of help if it’s needed. But I’m expecting Wally to turn up, and he also doesn’t know who Cassie Sandsmark is. So here we are. My call to the Flash, which had been after trying to return Freddy’s call hadn’t worked out, was then followed by ringing up the Batman. Doesn’t that sound moderately fancy? I’d briefly considered calling Tim directly, also not calling at all, but we’d worked together before and that united ‘front’ is something that seems worth continuing to show the world, if nothing else. Especially for something I’m hoping will be mostly humanitarian in effort.
There’s a shrug of my shoulders, no longer covered in the hoodie that I’d worn to the bar, and my expression and tone of voice is a whole lot more amused than his is.
“I told him that he could meet me here if he wanted a ride. Running that far uses up a lot of energy, apparently, and he’s kind of a diva when he’s hungry. But, yes. You seem to have all the lead-up points covered. And I am going.”
If we’re being 100% honest, I hadn’t really expected this man to come along, or whomever was actually wearing the Batman cowl if it’d changed in the last week. Gotham City has more than its share of problems in the best of times, and lately hasn’t exactly qualified for one of those ‘peaceful’ periods. As was made abundantly clear when I was in Wayne Manor. They have other things to do, but I’d wanted to extend the offer regardless. This isn’t a ‘thanks for the jet, the gear, and the hookups, Tim, now make way for the superkids to try and do their thing’ situation. It shouldn’t ever be, if for no other reason than Gotham’s resident heroes make it pretty clear that heroism doesn’t require powers. I’ve also more than enough examples of the other side of that coin, too. Powers often don’t make for virtuous motivations either.
Blue eyes move from the mostly hidden, but still clearly judgmental face in front of me to look at the monitors. I’d caught brief footage when I’d stopped home before the bar, but I hadn’t really intended to cross the Atlantic at first. Not until I’d gotten the call from Freddy. I know Conner’s already over there, and likely the rest of his team and that’s not something I want to push if I can help it. On the same note, however, I think there’s very, very little that can be told to me in the way of ‘facts’ that’s going to keep me from taking my jet over there, or just flying myself. Because no amount of extenuating circumstances can actually change the fact that there are people in Khandaq that need help. Their protector can’t be everywhere at once.
“And without having worry about any kind of repercussions for giving that order. Black Adam has been enough by himself to keep most threats away. It wasn’t worth the push back. So either they’ve found something to make it worth it, or they’ve been pushed by someone scarier than Khandaq’s leader. Or both. And someone’s paying on the back end to make them the pawns.”
It’s my turn to fold my arms now, though I don’t have a black looming cape to hide the action as I walk closer to the displays and look up at them. Even with the added couple inches of height I gained last week, I’m still not tall. He has found something, though, that at least has made me think.
“We were all together on American soil not that long ago. I’d think that a person, or group, with the resources to magic up two military branches for Bialya basically overnight could have moved on us then, while we were fighting someone else if we are really the goal. You’re thinking NOWHERE. Aren’t you?”
Where stepping a foot wrong would be an international incident, not just a localized one, and the timing as we’re starting to gain public support for our presence…
Batman: “I’m thinking Luthor,” comes the immediate response.
She’s known Tim long enough to know that we have a tendency to play things close to the vest. We don’t give out information that we don’t deem necessary to the vital parameters of whatever mission we’re on at a given moment. Bruce was the King of that, Tim isn’t that far behind, but I’ve never been one to keep people in the dark about every little detail. Not people I’m supposed to be able to trust. I understand why Bruce did it, I think I know why Tim does it even now. Not only was it a measure of control, but it also let them see the honest reactions of the people around them. Bruce always wanted to see if I would reach the same conclusion, unassisted by his own. Check and Balance. Cassie takes the points I’m making and follows them to the source, but she stops a step away from what I’m getting at.
I take a second, just a second, to let the information sink in before I put my hands upon the screens and begin to move them. “You’ve heard of the ‘Justice Society.’ A group of so-called ‘Mystery Men,’ who came together when the world needed them most to help win the second World War. After that time the President commissioned what would eventually become Nowhere. What most people don’t know is the identities of those ‘Mystery Men.’ The Batman knew.”
“This is that Society,” upon the screen I’ve brought forth a grainy black and white picture of the Justice Society and more specifically, I’ve zero’d in on one in particular. “I’m sure even you recognize a couple of them at this point. The Society existed in secret for a long time, empowered by a mandate of President Eisenhower. Then the tide began to turn against them, until they were given a choice. Enlist in the Project or retire. This is all history that Tim has shared, I’m sure. If not, you knew it from other sources. Such as your boyfriend.”
“What you don’t know, because neither of them knew, is that the Society saw the changes coming. They took steps to insure that their ‘Society’ of Heroes would persist. That is why some of them joined, hoping to guide the future of Cadmus and Nowhere towards more noble goals than they feared would happen without their involvement. Others took deals for retirement that guaranteed the survival of their progeny.”
“Others.” Another motion of my hand brings the image down to the very edge of the Society’s phone, where you can barely make out the man’s bare chest until my computer’s augment the image to reveal a Hawk crest. “Were lost. Perhaps killed. Maybe taken. Regardless of how, they all disappeared.”
“Most of them stayed that way.” Another shift of my hands and the screens begin to show a series of articles. Written articles, not big enough news to have made it to television. “Until recently. A series of thefts across the globe. Each one more or less unrelated. A museum in England. A private art collector in Bolivia. The Chateau Rennard in Spain. Seemingly random items. A harness. A mace. A helmet. Pieces of armor. International police have not connected the dots, because each piece that has been stolen was from a completely unrelated point in history. So their only commonality is that they were A) stolen and B) historical relics.”
Again the image is shifted, from the articles back to the obscure man at the back of the Society’s picture. A man who’s wearing a harness, sporting a helmet and holding a spiced mace. “Hawkman. According to the files we have from the original Society, his super power is being an asshole and re-incarnation. He is otherwise armed with a series of weapons crafted from a substance that according to Wesley Dodds is called Nth Metal.”
“All of which brings you to the question of what significance this has upon Kahndaq? Perhaps none. Perhaps everything. Given that these thefts are recent and that one of the known incarnations of this ‘Hawkman’ were from Ancient Kahndaq. It’s my suspicion that these thefts are more significant than we know. Someone is reacquiring Hawkman’s arsenal. I suspect that his doing so has motivated what is going on in Kahndaq. If I’m right, then their motivation for attack may be another piece of Hawkman’s armor. But that only creates additional questions.”
“Which is why I’m going. Whomever is stealing these artifacts is a thief. You need a detective to find him. I will track this thief down. You will take Wallace and help the civilians. While also assisting Freeman find his way through this whole affair. You’ll need to do it with one eye towards the fact that we know Luthor helped Bialya somehow. So we know there’s something in all of this for him. I suspect it’s the Nth Metal. So our goals run at cross purposes, Wonder Woman.”
Wonder Woman: There’s this brief, brief moment where the expression that crosses ‘my’ face could almost be considered rolling my eyes, while lips purse slightly to the one side. Most people probably don’t roll their eyes at Batman, and I generally don’t roll my eyes at anyone except my boyfriend, but I don’t seem to be able to stop myself right now. It’s only because Luthor was, more or less, exactly what I meant. In my mind they’re one and the same, and you really don’t have one without the other. He might not be publicly acting with them, because they’re secret for one thing, but without him they don’t have the power they currently possess.
“Yes. Luthor.”
He certainly has the money. He definitely has the means. NOWHERE has a veritable array of metahumans at their disposal the likes of say. Kelsey who could communicate messages without there ever being any sort of paper trail, and she could look like anyone. I don’t know the range or breadth of either of her skill sets there, just what Conner’s told of me and that’s not factoring in Rachel and what she does, or any other number of people on their ‘payroll.’ Though. Conner’s made it pretty clear to me that they, some of them like Kelsey… M’gann…, and even he believes that they’re doing something good to an extent. How would it be justified to them, to start an unprovoked war between two countries, in order to get them to participate?
So maybe he’s got a means outside of ‘just’ NOWHERE’s scope, too.
“I have. My Mother was always really interested in them. At the time I just assumed it was the same level of interest she had in telling me stories about the old myths and pantheons but…”
Hindsight’s 20/20 right? With what I’ve been told at this point, and what dots I’ve connected with her clearly knowing Alfred before I had, I assume the interest and knowledge was much more personal than Hercules and his Labors. Or maybe it’s exactly the same thing. Arms still folded in place, I am listening to what he’s telling me, and showing me, despite some of it being things I was already aware of. Being a know-it-all never really gets you the best results. Even if you are, but I learned very, very quickly that Tim and Company know a whole lot about things that you wouldn’t think they have any business to know in the first place.
“What if the thief is this Hawkman? You said his powers… erm. Power is reincarnating..” I’m not going to call being an ass a superpower, otherwise my darling other half gets another to add to his already too impressive roster. “.. so maybe he has, and he’s the one rounding them back up again. Is it really theft if you’re reacquiring things that were yours in the… sorry. That’s more stray curious thought than actual moral question that doesn’t really matter.”
He’s correct about it making more questions though. That delve into multiple lives (which, seems weird even if you’re a demi-goddess), questions of whether heroic motivations persist or if the person may have changed. If there’d be motive to trigger this war, when they’ve clearly had no problem acquiring the other pieces in a much more sly matter… my twirling thoughts and considerations are interrupted by something he’s said fully clicking in my head and my eyes regain focus as I blink in surprise.
“You are? Well. Great. Welcome aboard, Batman. If you pull that vanishing ‘trick’ again with him on board he’s probably going to disassemble my jet though. Fair warning.”
There’s finger quotes made, as I unfold my arms finally, because I know fully well that Batman was never actually on this jet the last time. I’d seen Red Robin pull the stunt before so it was an easy conclusion. I just hadn’t mentioned it to the rather frantic Flash at the time. My expression sobers again rather quickly though, because I haven’t ignored his warning. It’s just emphasizing thoughts I’d already been having as far as the NOWHERE team already being in Khandaq.
“I’ll be careful. And make sure that he is, too.”
Batman: “That’s my hope, in fact. That the thief actually is the reincarnated version of the man in that picture. If he’s the one that has been collecting his arsenal, then there’s a chance he remembers. Which leads me to hope that there’s a chance I can recruit him to your side in the coming conflict. You need all the help you can get.”
There’s a very purposeful choice of my wording here. Not my side. Not our side. Her side. She’s the one that needs help. Despite believing, as Tim did, that this is very much an effort of a team? I’m not convinced that my place is among them. My family has a lot on their plates. Even more blood on their hands. Being part of this little thing they’re doing may be good for the immediate purpose of removing Nowhere’s influence, but in the long term?
Once more though my expression isn’t all that hard to read, despite the mask. Clearly I can buy that magic exists, but there’s just a look about me that says the entire ‘Reincarnation’ thing is malarkey. “Assuming it is, in fact, the original Hawkman reincarnated and reclaiming his lost arsenal or not? If his arsenal originated in Kahndaq, then it is likely that there is more of this Nth metal there. It is our most likely motive for the entire ordeal. In the absence of ‘alternative facts’ we must base a theory upon the ones we have in evidence.”
“However, in the unlikely instance that this actually is the original Hawkman? Then whether he is stealing or re-appropriating, he’s still in possession of what may have just become the most valuable resource in the world. If Bialya went to War with Black Adam for it, then what do you think the people behind all of this will do to procure the artifacts that have been stolen. Assuming they’re not the ones stealing them in the first place. Either way, I’ll need to find them in order to get us answers. Leave that part to me.”
“Mm. As much as I appreciate the sentiment, Wonder Woman. I’ll be taking my own ride.” Thumbing over my shoulder toward exit of her plane. Almost on cue the Razor Wing jet descends from the Heavens to display itself. “There are two other things you need to know. First, Timothy was injured. Out of costume. He’s not.. like you. He needs surgery, but he won’t stop because he wants to be like you. So unless you’ve got a magical cure for a torn rotator cuff, the next time you see him, could you bat those baby blues and get him to go the doctor?”
“And second. Your Mother. The big dig she went on that you were upset about not getting to go on with her? Its in Kahndaq. Like I said. Someone is orchestrating this. Bringing everyone together.”
Wonder Woman: “I usually seem to.”
Delivered with all the irony due for a statement like that. I’m fast, strong, incredibly durable. A literal demigod, and yet I don’t seem to be able to pull anything on my own. That’s how it feels anyway. As droll as I might sound with my remark, however, I don’t actually think that it’s a bad thing. I was all in for Tim’s plan of recruiting more people, because I think going at any of this alone has more drawbacks than benefits. A prime example being the last iteration of public heroes, who had only really come together when the situation on the Earth absolutely required it. I can’t speak for how well they worked together, but maybe if they’d been a real team, someone could have seen Coast City coming and acted to prevent it. There’s strength in friends, but there’s also accountability and different points of view and approaches.
On a smaller scale, I can look at the way life has gone for me with Superman. He pushed me into being a hero, and I suppose in a manner of speaking I had as well. Despite my thoughts, I haven’t missed the emphasis in Batman’s word selections. It’s why I hadn’t thought he’d be coming. I wasn’t going to not offer, but I just expected he’d stay separate. Gotham manages to be it’s own little corner of the world, despite its lack of sovereignty. Official sovereignty, anyway.
“Even if there isn’t, it’s a logical sounding conclusion for them to have drawn as well. I still just don’t understand why this was the best method unless, like you clearly think, it’s shaping up to be a two birds, one stone situation. Or. Three, if they think they might manage to draw Hawkman in as well. With what Nth metal he has, if he even has any at all or if it’s him but… the off chance might be reason enough.”
The first real look of displeasure on my face comes with the two additional things, on top of all the others, that he wants me to know. No longer the expression of commitment to this plan that I think is right, even if it’s maybe a trap, which is enough to make me resolute on it, but an almost sour one of concern as I rub fingertips against the side of my nose. It’s a much more ‘Cassie’ gesture than ‘Wonder Woman’s.’
“I knew he was hurt. I didn’t know it was that bad, and if I do that’s a power I haven’t figured out how to tap into just yet. I’m not really sure why you think he’d li…”
I’m not going to discount the potential for more powers, because frankly I have as many as I can handle right now, and I’m still learning how to capably use what I’ve got. But with the way things have gone for me lately, who knows. Two weeks ago I was half as strong, half as fast, and two inches shorter. Zeus made it very clear that I’m essentially still an infant. Why would Tim listen to me that would involve me flirting with him? Dumb question, Cassie. It’s also not an angle I’m actually wiling to exploit because despite knowing it’s there? I think it’s cruel. And Tim’s my best friend. I’m more upset about not realizing how hurt he apparently was, despite being actually face to face with him, than a lot of other things going on right now.
Like him apparently airing my dirty laundry of the fight with my Mom about her not letting me go on the dig. Which. I’m now going to after all.
“I’ll try. And maybe my Mom had some sort of inkling ahead of time I just… had started to assume it was related to a separate problem. Or maybe it’s not separate at all and then… as you said. All the help I can get.”
Moving away from the panels, I go to find a seat and set up to wait for Wally to turn up. Clearing room for Batman to get to his own jet because. Of course he has one. For someone who runs as fast as Flash does, he seems to turn up a bit… late a lot of the time.
“I’d say I’ll see you in Khandaq, but I imagine I probably won’t. So I’ll leave it at stay safe.”
I don’t think any of them are the ‘good luck’ sort of guys, so I don’t say it.
by Michele | Jul 7, 2018 | Chronicles
Red Robin: “Stanford? And you’re saying that it was his idea,” the way in which a gloved hand strokes squared jaw tells a story. “Hrm. So many questions, but this wasn’t a social call this time.”
At this point in Cassandra’s life she should be getting used to a great deal many things. However I’m fairly sure that I just managed to scare the bejesus out of her. If it wasn’t when her phone came alive on the hotel dresser and grew wings with which to flitter across the room to where it could cast a hologram of the Red Robin next to Cassie’s bed? Then it was probably rousing to find Red Robin next to her bed.
“He’s not here,” the reassurance is as much about how we know he would react to my presence, as it about cutting her off in the immediate search for her boyfriend in the bed next to her. “His handlers summoned him earlier this morning to be Honor Guard for what’s going on in Khandaq.”
“Fortuitous, actually, because you won’t need to worry about misleading him this time. I’ve sent a file on your next assignment to your phone. It’ll also be a good chance for you to make an impression at the Tower, since she’s there. Unlike Freeman, this isn’t a cake walk. She doesn’t know it, but your next assignment is in trouble. You might not have to deal with Conner, but if she’s within the Tower’s incomplete sensors then you know Nowhere is aware of her too. If she’s not already been made, she will be any time now.”
“No training wheels this time, I’m still recovering and Batman says he doesn’t think you need a babysitter. If you need Backup, your phone has the Flash’s emergency card number. But for now… he is your only backup.”
It’s then that Cassie will realize that this isn’t a call. It’s a voice mail. The digital hologram variety. Because it repeats. Over and over. Until she actually touches the phone to turn off the message. Properly marked as ‘Urgent’ in her inbox. It will take slightly more time getting Razerbeak to pull in it’s wings and resume being her cellphone.
Cassie: Wonder Woman’s not a morning person.
Actually, a better assessment would be that while I’m not really a morning person, I can manage the rise and shine part just fine. It’s being woken unceremoniously that I happen to be struggling with, in the form of my brain not being able to process what project it should get to work on first, getting tousled blonde hair out of my face so that I can fully see, or the moral question of what’s more important: making sure I’m between Tim and any eye lasers that are about to get shot at him, or getting anything that’s uncovered that I don’t want him to see covered. If my brain moved at the pace that Conner’s does, then I probably could have come to a couple clear conclusions a lot more quickly. If I was actually awake I probably could have managed in a more respectable fashion.
What it actually looks like is some semi-undignified thrashing under the sheets of the bed. I haven’t been asleep nearly long enough, which explains why my boyfriend leaving didn’t wake me up at all, and neither did the phone doing what it apparently does now. It’s only the familiar voice that had jerked me awake and sent me into a befuddled, panicked whirl of motion.
“What the Hell, Tim!”
Hearing that ‘he’s not here’ soothes me a little, so we’re back to just being a touch grumpy about being woken up, and the intrusion. I want to ask how he knows where we are but, that’s a stupid question. That and he carries right on past my objections in a very Tim Drake sort of way, because the mission. Leaving me to snug the sheet up under my armpits and fold my arms across my chest for good measure, mentally attempting to suppress the blush. There’s not really a good reason for it because it’s not like our best friend, of all people, doesn’t know exactly what we get up to. Mostly because Conner Luthor has less than zero shame, and he’s a perceptive guy anyway.
“You actually think I’m going to need backup? Giant crocodiles was fine but…”
I already have realized at this point that Tim’s not really there. Why would he be? Other than a very brief emergency trip to Gotham, and a mission to Central, it’s the only way that I’ve ‘seen’ him since he left Metropolis after his father’s death. It might be a family thing for all I know, holograms, not the death portion. Ugh. What a morbid thought. It hadn’t occurred to me, however, that it was pre-recorded, so there’s a moment of confusion when he begins to repeat himself. Though, I suppose it explains the talking over top of me. Leaving me grumbling, and poking and prodding the very fancy phone, while still keeping the bed sheets up because, well. The media likes to pretend that our cell phones are spying on us but… they have no idea.
“…I’m putting you in the drawer next time…”
Terra: Standing in front of the jukebox in the back of the bar she had wandered into only moments ago, Tara ran a recently manicured fingernail along the upper selections of songs and paused almost immediately. Tapping her finger a few times as if carefully considering her options she reaches into her pocket and finding a quarter removes it. Sliding it into the slot and then another and still another Tara begins to move to the beat as T.N.T by AC/DC begins to thump through the bar much to the chagrin of the late night patrons who when she had entered the place seemed more interested in sleep then anything else. The mood had been rather somber and that just wouldn’t suit Tara at all.
“Oi…oi…oi..oi!”
Each one was a little louder then the first as she began to sing along to the words and make her way back toward the large and well neared man manning the bar, without even asking he slid an overflowing beer toward her. Perhaps he hoped drinking it would at least put an end to the singing. Snatching up the beer and drinking most of it in a few deep gulps Tara spit out a little of the beer as the chorus kicked in again.
“T…N…T…come on Metropolis….live a little..”
Shrugging as not a soul moved to join in her antics Tara begins her dance again and moves back toward the jukebox, she had had a good night and was determined to make her mood infectious. It had been a month or more since she had stopped those muggers with her abilities and her eyes had been awaken to just how much fun she could have with them. She had been warned against just this sort of thinking, but Slade had been absent for months, years even.
Really what’s the worse a little shaking and sliding to her benefit could bring down on her?
Cassie: Whether or not Superman’s on the other side of the planet, I know how very little time that takes to change. Logically, I also know that Red Robin thinks I’ve got enoughtime, otherwise I would probably have been roused as soon as Conner was out of earshot. Getting dressed doesn’t take much time, and other than a brief glance in the mirror over the state of my mop of blonde hair I don’t need to do much else to prepare outside of reading up on what information I’ve been given. The latter of which I do while deciding that bedhead for me doesn’t look a whole lot different than post-flight, wind ruffled hair and just leaving it be.
Where I actually lose a little bit of time is in my brief trip to Coast City. He hadn’t been wrong about the appearance where the Tower is being erected, even if there’s only so much buzz I’m going to generate in the middle of the night. It’s a very short trip by air from Stanford, where Conner and I had actually been visiting for the weekend to do a little research. Not on Coast City, or the Tower or any of what Wayne Enterprises is doing out there. Very mundane scoping of housing, actually, in the normal teenage rite of passage that is preparing to apply for and hopefully attend the college of your choice. Very little doubt of getting in, full of myself as that sounds, because of my grades and test scores and zero for him because he’s a Luthor who pretends to be just good enough at basketball to be incredible but not superhuman. I guess normally we’d have a parental escort and not be shacked up in a hotel together but… my Mom’s apparently an Amazonian badass, and his Dad’s President for Life. Not factoring in my God Dad, and his Kryptonian one. There’s nothing normal about that situation at all. I spend a little bit of time zooming about as I finish reading the dossier.
She used to be here, but not anymore. For more current whereabouts I have to go back to Metropolis. Clear on the other side of the country. Thanks a lot, Tim, you couldn’t have given me this on Monday morning? But I believe him about the time press. He wouldn’t have said it otherwise. It takes me a shade over fifteen minutes to get from California to the East Coast, rocketing through the dark sky, and finding myself wishing I had more time to enjoy the night flight than what I’ve got. Mostly because this? Is the best part about my new life.
A little more time wasted in a brief trip to my house in order to grab clothes. Not to change more to… cover up. Because I’m not trying to out this girl, but I also don’t want to out myself. Hopefully the spangly red of my suit passes for leggings under the skirt I pull on, and the hoodie that gets settled over my upper half, and hair as I’m pushing my way into the bar.
Believe it or not, this is a first for me. A bar. Unlike the girl I’m here to see? I actually look old enough to be in here, but that’s only because the Wonder Woman suit comes custom made with facial alteration hologram technology. Adding at least eight years to my face, and subtly altering the structure so as to make me unrecognizable. I bypass the bar proper, instead letting blue eyes wander over the patrons. There’s only one option here to fit the description.
“Terra?”
Terra: Tara had made her way back to leaning on the jukebox at this point and her concentration had fully been given to it. Her hands sat with a loose grip atop the box as she slowly moved her hips to what by now had changed to Judas Priest. Her eyes closed Tara moved her head now to the song as one of her favorites choruses kicked in prompting more singing.
“Breaking the law….breaking the law…YES.
The volume of the song combined with her own off key additions to the harmonies nearly muffled the sound of her name, or at least one of her names being said by Cassie. Nearly, but not entirely and having heard it her grip on the jukebox tightened considerably.
Her head turned slowly to face Cassie, confusion quickly overtaking her features, and maybe just a little fear. Had that girl Sublime told someone about her?
“My name is Mackenzie…you must have me confused with someone else.”
With that says her eyes move back to looking through the songs on the jukebox.
Cassie: I may not be the ace detective of our little… conglomerate… but I’m still observant enough, especially when I’m already wary about how this may, or may not go. Beyond that, my vision’s sharp enough to notice the flexing, if not whitening, of her knuckles on the top of the juke box. I don’t close between us, so much as sidestep closer to the wall, if not closer to Terra herself. Letting the overly loud English rock band compete with my words to reach anyone else’s ears past the two of us, as well as trying to not make her feel cornered. This is so very different than my last solo attempt. Because it’s more personal, a one on one instead of a battle-forged connection. Then there’s also the danger of exactly what I want to try to prevent and… why this needs to be done while Conner’s busy with whatever is going on in Khandaq.
“Okay. Mackenzie, then, if that’s what you prefer.”
It doesn’t matter to me what I call her, it’s more about her comfort. Besides. I’m currently wearing a disguise, over top of a costume, and wearing a face that’s not actually mine. Who am I to judge on this particular front? Pushing my hands casually into the pockets of my sweatshirt is a non-threatening posture as I lean my shoulder into the wall, but it also exposes more of the glittering gold of my gauntlets.
“But I don’t have you confused with someone else.”
So, Cassie. What would you have wanted someone to say to you, after that first time you ripped the gym door off the hinges like they were paper? Or when you tripped and powdered the concrete into fine dust and you were confused, and scared, and felt so very, very alone? I still had the anchor of my Mom though, and while I can’t know for sure, her moving around the country and being in a bar in the middle of the night tells me this girls’ probably way more alone than I ever thought I might have been.
“It feels good, doesn’t it? Using something that’s scary about yourself to stop something real and scary out in the world?”
Terra: Dropping her head down her eyes shutting tight for a moment before she pushes off the jukebox and turns to fully face Cassie. Her eyes move quickly over the girl in front of her as she takes a step closer looking down to the small hint of gold on Cassie’s arm.
A quizzical expression moves across her face as she sees the strange object. Leaning in for a closer look she turns her face a bit closer to Cassie’s and begins speaking in a low tone.
“Well aren’t you a regular After school special…I don’t know who you think I am…
Stopping a moment as she gestures to the door.
“But you have the wrong person…I’m just a normal girl next door type. Mundane in every way. Now you skip away to a Pep rally or something I’m busy.”
Cassie: There’s a brief moment, very brief, where I want very badly to look down and double check which skirt I actually put on when I left my house. I don’t exactly have a lot of them, I’ve always been much more of a tee-shirt and jeans kind of girl but I still own a couple. A solid chunk of them, however, are cheerleading skirts, or the plaid of Saint Mary’s blue and grey prep school uniforms. No. I wasn’t so tired after my flight as to have made either that tactical error, or fashion fashion faux pas. I’m a little taken aback by her defensiveness but I recognize pretty quickly that I shouldn’t be. I more or less tried a similar denial when I was first approached by my abilities.
I’m being a lot nicer than Conner was to me, though. Or at least, I was trying.
Pursing my lips, I change tacks, pushing my hoodie back off my forehead enough to expose the golden tiara that’s the newest addition to my Wonder Woman attire, thanks to my Mother.
“We both know that’s not true. I’m not going to push you. But if I know? Then so do people who are not going to try to be your friend and will skip straight to detain and neutralize. Especially here in Metropolis. You were safer in Coast City.”
Terra: If Terra were to be perfectly honest her first impulse when Coast City is mentioned is to drop the entire bar into the sewers underneath them all. This decidedly stupid course of action is tempered by the fact doing so would likely kill everyone else in the place and while she was a lot of things Terra was no murderer. So rather then make herself a headline she instead burst into laughter her arms crossing her chest as she nearly hits the floor from the giggles now coming over her.
“OMG…what is that?!
Taking a deep breath and visibly forcing her bellyaches away she composes herself and holds up her hands in apology. The immense grin on her face however seems unable or unwilling to leave.
“Okay..okay…what the hell let’s talk Princess…my god a tiara…”
Cassie: The burst of laughter takes me a little by surprise, easy enough to tell by the widening of blue eyes, though that expression doesn’t turn to annoyance so much as an arched eyebrow of amusement at what Terra’s found so darn funny that it has interrupted her denials and attempts at getting me to leave her alone. Does it really look that ridiculous or is she just…stressed? Defense mechanism? If that’s going to set her off into hysterical giggles than it’s doubly good that I chose to put the skirt and hoodie on over the rest of my outfit. Which I thought was pretty ridiculous when it was first presented to me, too.
“It’s an heirloom. Probably an antique. I didn’t ask, didn’t want to offend the person that gave it to me by implying…”
That my Mother is an antique herself. Which she may very well be, no matter how she happens to look. One of the many facets of who I am, that I know now, that I haven’t fully wrapped my brain around yet. Going from your biggest concern being prep school bullies, to hiding superpowers, and then straight on to Gods are actually real and your father is one was a lot to take in. And clearly, the info dump hadn’t been about to just stop there.
But. Clearly it hadn’t been the identifying mark I had hoped that it might have been. I suppose it hasn’t exactly been part of my ‘uniform’ for a long time. Or maybe I was reaching with the assumption that this girl would even care, or pay attention to, who Wonder Woman is. Moving away from the wall, and the jukebox, I sweep a hand towards one of the back booths.
“Unless you’d rather go outside…?”
Terra: Tara took a moment to compose herself taking care not to glance back up to the tiara. Cassie wouldn’t know this but seeing it had actually put Tara at ease as she knew the men who likely still pursued her would never have sent someone like this. No those men favorited all black everything and did not announce their presence in such a well mannered way. So it would be out of curiosity that Tara would entertain the woman standing before her.
“Riiiiight….the only heirloom I was given was a battered postcard from a place I barely remember.”
Giving Cassie a shrug of her shoulders that said she really didn’t have any fucks to give she turns and begins walking toward one of the unoccupied booths closest to the back and right up against the wall. The man who had taken her from Markovia had insisted often and loudly that she always maintain proper site lines in case she had to run. While it could not be said she listened to everything he said this she had retained.
Sliding in on the side closest to the wall she holds up a hand with two fingers up for the bartender to see, once he nods she aims them at the table.
“I appreciate the beer by the way…you do have money in that thing right?”
Tara says with a devilish smile across her lips as Cassie moves to sit across from her.
Cassie: I feel a little silly, I suppose rightfully so given my attire, but I’d been left with two not so great options. Show up to speak to this girl in my normal clothes, using my real face, and I’m not anymore old enough to be in this bar than she is. Or turn up in full Wonder Woman regalia, drawing attention to myself and therefor her. So I’d gone with this hybrid of the two. I’ve been spending more and more time in the red, clingy spangles of Wonder Woman but usually it’s when I’m fighting, or doing something that doesn’t give me time to second guess my attire. This is a little… different. I let her have the seat she wants, because which one I sit in doesn’t matter to me. Not only because I haven’t had it drilled into my head tactically as the lesser of the two options to have my back to the room.
But because I don’t really think anything or anyone in this room is really going to be a threat to me that I can’t deal with. Maybe that’s cocky of me. Maybe Conner’s rubbing off on me… sliding into the side of the booth that’s left, I pull my hood back up over my hair, and the tiara as I look at Terra with interest.
“Oh? Where’s that?”
I used to love collecting postcards, from all the places I went with my mother on her digs. But that’s Cassie Sandsmark’s childhood past time. Not Wonder Woman’s. The first real look of concern that crosses my face is when she signals for drinks, and my lips purse. She’s not old enough to be drinking I don’t think. I’m definitely not old enough to be buying, even if I might look like I am at the moment. And this outfit doesn’t exactly have pockets, except for the sweatshirt that I’ve brought nothing in except my phone. Well. Hopefully Tim made the thing with all the usual capabilities of a phone.
“As long as they take Apple Pay. Is this a normal… thing for you here? Because he doesn’t seem to mind bringing them for you. But none for me, thank you.”
Why am I thanking her? She wants me to pay for both of them. And I probably should just refuse but… I don’t know. I want to do this ‘job’ that I’m still not sure I’m fully equipped for, or capable of. So. I just go on winging it, like so much else.
Folding my arms on the edge of the table, I turn my attention away from Bartender With No Problem Serving Minors, and back to Terra.
“Do you have somewhere safe you can go? I don’t want to assume, after the way you’ve moved around the country but..”
Terra: The expression on Terra’s face only widens at Cassie’s reaction to her ordering drinks. She holds up a hand while the other reaches into the purse she had previously had dangling by her side but now sat on the table. Sliding out a card rectangular object that as she slides it across the table reveals itself to be a drivers license.
“Why would he mind? I’m twenty one as of…”
Taking a moment to glance back down at the card on the table she then continues.
“A month ago. Apple Pay.”
Tilting her head to look to the bartender who only shakes his head at the unspoken question about if they accept that particular form of currency. This causes Terra’s amused veneer to fade for a fraction of a section while she fumbles around in her purse for the cash to pay. Finding it she quickly hands it over and takes both beers.
“It was…nowhere important I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Sliding one of the beers closer Terra let’s her eyes fall down a moment as if something sad had just hit her memory and she could not easily shake it. With the beer close enough to sip she does so once then again.
“I have lots of places to go, if any of them are safe is anyone’s guess. No ones found me yet.”
Cassie: Tilting my head to the side, my eyes drop to the driver’s license that she’s slid out onto the table thinking that perhaps I had misjudged exactly how old she appears to be, but after a partial squint at the identification in question, mixed with her having to look at the thing to know when her own birthday is? It’s surely fake. Which takes me back to the bartender probably doesn’t really care. As for me, I’m left shrugging my shoulders in the apology that I won’t actually say on the matter.
“Uh huh. I didn’t expect to find you here. Or to be making any… purchases. But I can…”
Give you money like a charity case? Already she doesn’t exactly read like someone who would go in for that, and I don’t want to push her away now that we’re sitting here and talking, so I quickly course correct that thought.
“…go get money to repay you.”
I don’t miss her reaction, especially with the backtracking on the subject and that makes me not want to press the matter. At least not right now. I don’t really want to make her uncomfortable, or to shut me out any more. So I let the conversation be steered along with the original purpose of my visit.
“I did. And someone I work with found you before I did. There’s another group out there. NOWHERE. That could have, too, already. I’m trying to help people like you. And me. To have options that aren’t just government detention and conscription.”
Terra: Terra reaches out for the I.D with the the one hand not yet clutching a beer. Catching it just at the edge of the table between two of her fingers she brings it up closer to her face and quickly looks it over. Barely restraining the urge to roll her eyes as more then one typo reveals itself in the inspection. Still it had done the job up to this point, so it would be placed back into her purse.
“Well you got me there I guess…”
Bringing the beer up for another series of sips as she listens to Cassie try to convince her of just how much trouble she was in. The only problem being that Terra had been in trouble since the day she had left Markovia. As if she had been given a choice in the matter. Terra hated being told what she had to do because for as long as she could remember someone had been telling her what to do.
It had started with her mother a scientist, and then it was Slade the hired killer and now it was some girl wearing a tiara.
“You want to help me? Well aren’t you just a regular saint….what’s in it for you and your friend huh? I don’t know you or Nowhere and I don’t much trust you.”
Cassie: The corner of my mouth tugs upwards as I fight a smile at her admission. I have no way of knowing if NOWHERE is onto her or not, but I have to just assume they are. As Tim had said, if the half-finished sensors on his ‘little’ building project in Coast City had detected this girl, then chances are being so much closer to the center of things here in Metropolis had definitely caught some notice. Especially with her heroics. Which aren’t a bad thing in my mind, just an activity that draws attention.
“No, I’m not. And I don’t pretend to be, either. I’m someone who thinks that people like us can do a lot of good. Do do a lot of good, and could do more if we were allowed. In it for me…?”
I seem startled by the question, and I think I might actually be about to let myself be a little offended. But I remember that conversation with Tim Drake, or rather, Red Robin in my Mother’s office and his correction about my agenda, or lack thereof. Yes. I have one. Maybe my head doesn’t like to think of it in those terms, and the connotations that might come with it, but it’d be a lie to pretend there’s nothing that could be ‘in it’ for us. Blowing out a soft breath, I lean back into the booth and push my hands into my sweatshirt’s pockets.
“You don’t have a reason to. Which I understand and I’d like to be able to change that. I’m looking for more people like you, who might want to do that good in the world, to maybe join my friends and I. But if you don’t want to choose that, then at the very least? I want to keep NOWHERE from snatching you up off the street and taking away what choices you do have. I won’t force you to do something you don’t want to do.”
Terra: Turning the beer up for another sip only to find it empty Terra sits it back and on the table and then moves it to the side. Her eyes move to the second bottle I’m front of her but for the moment she does not reach for it. Despite what her body language might suggest Terra listened intently to each word Cassie had to say. Her expression would paint a picture of disinterest and outright dismissal out of habit more then anything. Terra simply couldn’t help but project the sort of vibe that kept people off balance.
“Look..it’s not like that’s unappealing.”
Throwing up her hands in a small show of frustration Terra now reaches out for the second bottle, but only slides it closer and does not open it.
“But I’ve spent most of my life hiding and for good reason…and what you want to go out and play hero?”
Cassie: Well. This is really going nothing like any of the other pitches had, is it? In my head, I’m jokingly telling myself that maybe Conner’s recruitment/pep talks might not be the totally wrong way to go, except that I meant what I said. I’m not out to force something on anyone. In my eyes, that wouldn’t make me any different, or better, than NOWHERE. Maybe this all just goes better when there’s some sort of conflict in progress, in order to really show where you stand, and who you are… or maybe she’s just not someone who’s going to be impressed. Or let herself be. I don’t exactly need a map drawn for me. She’s talking now about spending all her time hiding, she spoke earlier very, very briefly about somewhere she barely remembers but was important enough to hang onto a postcard for, and the also brief sad look she’d had before it had gotten quashed back under the indifference and attitude.
And that’s okay. No, it’s not how I might have wanted this to play out but that? Not up to me. All I get to do is try my best to make her want to trust me. And I don’t get the feeling that’s going to happen tonight.
“That used to be me, too. I thought I had to hide what I could do, who I am, from almost everyone. Maybe it works out better for you, but I didn’t want to live like that anymore.”
And maybe I also wouldn’t have chosen this life either but once I got pushed out there? I know there’s no going back for me. I couldn’t do it. And I don’t want to either. I also know that I’m lucky. That Conner affords me a level of protection that other people don’t get, and that’s a leeway I’m taking advantage of right now. Eventually it’s not going to hold up anymore, and then I need to be… we all need to be prepared. There’s a faint shrug of my shoulders, as I purse my lips for a moment but otherwise refuse to rise to the bait of ‘playing’ at being a hero.
“How did it make you feel when you stopped those men? Were you just experimenting and decided eh, not for me? Or did it make you feel something else? You don’t have to answer that. Just… think about it. Here. I’m going to give you an address, and…”
Dropping my eyes for the first time, I’m digging out the sleek red phone from my pocket. I’d placed it on silent mode before coming back to Metropolis, though I wasn’t sure that would actually do anything since Tim’s intrusive holo-messages had made it through just the same. I suppose he’s probably got some super-access since he made the thing. Or it’s just part of the whole Bat-thing of being where you’re not expected to be. My nose actually wrinkles as I cringe in my seat at the litany of missed alerts that seem to have come in, in the last fifteen minutes, and who they’re from but for the moment I disregard them to pull up the information from Red Robin’s database that I’m looking for.
“…ahem. If you want to keep hiding, or need to, that’s your call to make. Not mine. This is a place here in Metropolis that is safe if you feel like someone is trying to push you into something you don’t want. You’re free to use it. No catch. No expectations.”
I’m sliding myself out of the booth’s seat even as I talk, thumb still whirling through screens and information until I find what I need.
“I apologize. Apparently I need to go play hero…”
Okay so maybe I didn’t totally let that one go.
“… but if you want to, or need to, get a hold of me there’ll be a way to do that there.”
by Michele | Jun 24, 2018 | Chronicles
ST: Ra’s al Ghul had not mislead Damien when he provided the boy with the location of his Mother. Sandy Hook: Admiral Docks. This isn’t your average Warehouse district sort of Boat Dock. Considered to be one of the wealthier areas in all of Gotham, Sandy Hooks is most notably home to Gotham Stadium. It is the tourist district of the otherwise gloomy Gotham skyline. You won’t find any homeless people here. No dark alleys. Very little crime.
What you will find is the Admiral Docks, where the wealthiest members of Gotham’s Elite harbor their boats. We’re not talking about an industrial district. This is a well lit harbor, with Yachts ranging from personal pleasure boats to Bruce Wayne’s own super-liner that hosts the New Years Eve celebration each year.
Security for the Admiral Docks is a mixture of personal security provided by the society members who bring their boats in to port and Port Authority, which is the naval portion of Gotham’s Police Department.
Each Yacht in the Port is more elaborate than the next. With every rich family in the City seemingly out to establish their own personal stature in the community, by making their water-bound homes more and more lavish than the next. Searching them all would take days, if not months given how difficult it would be to acquire the proper search warrants.
Luckily Ra’s al Ghul didn’t need to worry about red tape. He provided Damien with the exact Vessel. Destiny. A super-yacht. The 174 meter Luursen-class yacht can accommodate a whopping 75 people comfortably for a six month cruise. Three times that number can come aboard for an evenings party. Even in the dark of night the Destiny can be seen from all angles for miles due to the halo-lighting that serves as both ego-massage and security because the illumination makes it impossible to approve even from -beneath the boat- without being seen even by the naked eye. In fact this miracle liner is known for that very feature, as it actually causes the water for nearly 100 yards to illuminate in such a way that passengers can see the bottom as if it were pristine coastal waters.
Nothing about the boat is amiss, to the naked eye. Though neighboring Yachts have been complaining of late about the loud music and party that has seemed non-stop for almost two weeks straight.
Damien: The harbor wasn’t exactly Damien had in mind when his grandfather told him where his mother was being held. And on board the Destiny, nonetheless. It wasn’t going to be easy, there was no real way to approach the luxury yacht stealthy. If he was going to get in at all, he was going to need help. First, he needed Timothy to get him a layout of the yacht. If they were going to go in, they needed to know exactly where everything was. Everything was going to have to be figured out on the spot. Damien wasn’t going to wait to see what happened with his mother.
Second, He was going to need backup. As confident as Damien was in his own abilities, he knew this was going to require help. Calling Dinah and Richard to come help him was … hard. Damien was much like his father in this regard, not liking to have to ask for help. And when he did, he despised it. It wasn’t going to take long to get towards the docks, going in by air, ground or water wasn’t going to matter. “Timothy.” saying all too calmly as he brought his younger brother on the comm. “Will you be able to turn off the halo?” asking as he started coming up onto the harbor.
“Also. I will require information about this yacht. And do make it quick. I will be onto harbor grounds in approximately fifteen minutes. You will be our eyes and ears, Timothy. The Oracle, if you will.”
Dinah: Normally? There’d be some razzing about the phone call. Maybe more than a little but the tone of voice made it clear enough that I should save the pushing for after this is finished. I don’t want Damien, or any of them, to think that I won’t help. Especially when I’m asked. Because lets face it, normally I’m much more the in your business whether you want me to be or not kind of woman. This isn’t exactly a private matter anymore. Not once the League turned up in the city. Now it’s all hands on deck, or at least all hands that are functional and capable, and I’m still wishing there were a few more to be counted among that number.
Good thing I never let myself get totally drunk. It’s not the night to be off your game in even the slightest.
“Is the Batplane still potentially in kamikaze mode? Air’d be the closest thing to a surprise entrance you can hope for with those lights, and that’s still not going to be a lot.”
Explains so much though. We’ve been over the rest of Gotham, so has the League I assume, and no one had found hide nor hair (Ugh, both have strong potentials with who has her) of Talia al’Ghul. No one thought to check the one part of Gotham that’s usually off limits, and so… of course the Joker would have selected it for his hideout. Insanity doesn’t equal stupidity, unfortunately.
ST: “The ‘Halo’ is unfortunately a hard wired feature. Someone will need to disable it from onsite. Giving you a layout of the Destiny isn’t a problem though. There are essentially six decks. With the upper most deck being a helicopter pad, deck two is the bridge. Deck five and six are maintenance and engine rooms. Deck two is where you’ll find the security system’s main controls, including the hard line for the Halo. Once you’re on the boat, if someone can jack me in I’ll be able to do more but for now I’m essentially your eyes in the sky.”
Timothy Drake-Wayne has been sidelined for the evening due to injury. He’s been incommunicado for most of the last two days recuperating from the brutal beating he received at the Iceberg lounge. Along with his own physical injuries, the hijacking of the BatCave systems have left the Bat-Family with only one functional computer system. The Nest, which isn’t something the rest of them can actually operate in the first place. Leaving him the nature one to play the role of Oracle for the evening.
On the flip-side of this is Dick Grayson, the man currently sporting the Batsuit, “We’re essentially down one Bat-Plane. While we were chasing down a certain Red Hood and stopping him from killing anyone else. The League assaulted Wayne Manor. They ransacked the entire place. PennyOne was controlling the plane remotely when they attacked. He was forced to leave it on auto-pilot. Giving our mysterious Hacker a timely opportunity to seize control of it and attempt to kill us all.”
“There is more than one way to go airborn though,” Grayson is quick then to gesture the two of them to his Cape. “It isn’t just for show… I’d be willing to bet that Damien’s cape still fits too. Maybe he’d like to trade the Hood in for a R, tonight?”
Catman: What has Thomas Blake been doing since everything went to shit? Retracing steps. Checking out old haunts and probably if he did not know any better, contaminating crime scenes, but luckily for the over worked, stressed out men and women of the law especially the CSI techs Thomas knew a thing thing or two about not contaminating crime scenes. For Thomas it was about getting what he needed references, deconstructing what happened, but what was in front of him.
Whether it was a broken table, skylight or anything else that was out of place. Scents that blended together that made for a nightmare for most could be pulled apart by Thomas. It was like looking at after images. He didn’t see people, his brain could fill in the images, but his sense of smell, his olfactory senses were on fire. Things that were familiar and those that were.
Birds of a feather and who flocked and didn’t flocked together could be made out. As could ninjas (he was being kind, because in the beginning it was kung fu mutha #$@%ers.) Those were new, but he was becoming familiar with them and their arsenal of weapons. They certainly liked their smoke bombs. If anything he was looking for clues, clues to help him piece together where to go next, what questions to asks.
The Joker was involved. It was evident by his pirate broadcasts. Word on the street is this is where it happened. He needed to be able to distinguish scents not to go running out into the city, but to add them to a growing and never ending repository of information, but these quiet moments of the lone cat slinking through the night allowed Thomas to organize information in a way that allowed him to ask simple questions. Questions that some would overlook, but others might go hmm.
Of the scents there were some that were unfamiliar. One that was expensive, yet exotic. The fragrance wasn’t anything you would find stateside, it was definitely outside the United States. It had to be the dame. Then there were others that were local could be Joker, but another, this one that was neither ninja, goon or Cobblepot made Thomas wrinkle his nose.
He knew that scent. He smelled it before. He tucked that away. The scent had no name attached to it, but the nose never forgets. Still, this is where the dame was snatched. It’s what he was thinking about as he left one crime scene for the next. There were people to talk to. This was normal. Insurance rates would go out for Oswald, but he’d reopen.
He always did. Why was he involved? Why did it matter? Firefly wasn’t anyone to him, not really.
Perhaps it was the nagging feeling of…where was the justice? If it had been him he’d be in jail, being told what a harm he was to society. Ninjas were in the streets menacing anyone that was caught in their path that happened to have some interaction with those that had been classified as the enemy, because they might know something. Bat’s was an asshole, but he was their asshole and there was something. This…this bullshit was something….Gotham was hitting new lows, even for Gotham and given that he was from Gotham Thomas Blake could say that.
In the middle of all that something stuck out.
Dames!
Damien: Damien had chosen to gloss over the fact that he had killed Killer Moth, but it wasn’t something he regretted all that much. The man was useless. Hardly a match for Damien’s viciousness. But, that wasn’t the others appreciated so much.
“You are not funny, Richard. Besides, I believe Dinah wore it better than I ever had.” Damien said with a complete straight face and deadpan delivery. Did he just make a joke? Gunning it towards the docks, Damien didn’t stop for anything. Dodging between cars, surprising old ladies crossing the crosswalk. You know, what he normally would have done. “The League attacked Wayne Manor? Hmm. Interesting.” pressing his lips together as he continued zooming towards the harbor.
Storing that bit of information for later, Damien concentrates on the operation at hand. “Dinah. I will need you to take care of the lights. If we cannot shut off the lights, then the night will be much more difficult than it will need to be. What about lifesigns, Timothy? Can your eyes tell us how many guards we are expected to encounter? And maybe where Joker is holding my mother hostage?”
ST: “That is where I give you the Bad News,” as if the rest of what Tim had reported was Good News! “There are nearly one hundred life signs on the boat. Scattered pretty randomly, from what I can see. I can’t risk the drones going in close, with the Halo on, or they’ll blow the element of surprise. So I’m dealing with what I can give you from range. More than half of the life-signs are also pinging on the metal detectors, suggesting that they’re armed. But…
“I’m afraid that’s not the worst of the news. My drones are reading high levels of thermite, which isn’t necessarily an explosive of it’s own, but is a catalyst used to ignite explosives,” Timothy’s voice is actually shaky when he finishes speaking. “What I’m saying is. I can’t tell you who is an enemy or an innocent but what I can tell you is that Joker has rigged nearly everyone on that boat with dead man explosives.”
Dinah: “Sounds like a job for someone not named Canary, you lost me at hard wired…”
In reality, I’d followed the rundown of the yacht itself of course, layout and what’s where committed to memory as easily as anything else is. Except the operation, or use, of anything more complicated technology wise than my VCR. I can use computers, we just have a hate-hate relationship and when it comes to ‘jacking’ anything, especially something important, it’s not a job best left to me even if there’s no other options. I’d probably find a way to get his system herpes at a distance. Or just break whatever I was supposed to be linking. But I’m glad Red Robin’s not here. I’d tried ‘grounding’ him to the house that he’s bunking in with me, which had lasted until I’d left myself, and he’d only been briefly back since. As long as he’s not in the thick of the fight though, he can do his thing.
“Ttch. I was hoping to see you in the booties, Hood. I’m sure they make them in your color. And I wore it better than any of you did. But who wouldn’t want to get all up close and cuddly with Bats, here. You drop me in the bay and you’re getting another tally on your sheet…”
Any further comment or commentary about Damien’s plan gets cut off by Tim’s additional sunny information about our situation here, and the corner of my mouth pulls tighter, and tighter to the side in a grimace as he goes on.
“So. We need to get in and out, with minimal side trips for vengeance…” Yes, I’m making side eyes at you, Hood, “In as short an amount of time as possible. I’m assuming if I destroy in true me fashion the controls and lights then Red Robin’s not going to be able to help…?”
Catman: Thomas had been to the Iceberg a few times, it was usually for upscale clientele. He was familiar with most of the female staff in one way or another. He rather not go into how he knew them, but he was familiar with most of their scents and the clothing that Cobblepot had them wear. It was familiar. However, there was something that didn’t stand out, something that was more along the lines Joker’s people.
Quinn. Not that he didn’t have a frame of reference, but anyone that was there that talked said nothing about her. Despite all her problems, Quinn was not a shrinking violet. She was loud, obnoxious and usually draped over the Joker like a cheap suit. At least that’s what Thomas had observed and heard. However, this time there was no mention of her…at all.
Even more, he couldn’t recall seeing her during the Joker’s broadcasts. That didn’t add up. Not one bit. What’s a guy to do? Ask questions. Questions that could get him in trouble if he asked the wrong people, but there were people he could ask. Had they seen the Joker’s best gal. True they had their differences, and they sometimes went on the outs, but there was nothing on the street said that they were on the outs. What he had a was a peculiarity. One ne needed to uncover.
Here’s the thing. He was working at the deductive reasoning business. If the Joker and Harley weren’t on the outs then where was she? There was nothing from the regulars about her being seen or brought into the police department and she’s not someone you would overlook on the street. She stood out just like the clown.
However, everything about what happened at everyone looking at the Joker focused on what he was doing. Their attention was to the left, but what was happening to the right? What was she up to? Why wasn’t she noticed? Because she didn’t want to be. Took of her face and put on a mask.
She blended in. Change of pace. Less asking about Harley and more about Harleen.
Damien: “I will hardwire him into the boat, then.” offering as he listened to Tim. Though, that didn’t discourage him from coming in hot on the harbor. “Oracle. If I am to give you a up close look at these dead man explosives, will you be able to determine if you can disable them, or give us a way to disable them?” the information was bleak, but it wasn’t going to stop Damien from going in. Though, it wasn’t going to be in the usual way.
Getting through the harbor gate wasn’t hard, that was probably the easiest thing he’d done tonight. Coming within sight of the yacht, Damien would narrow his eyes. It was obvious which boat it was. “Do not worry, Canary. There is only one trip of vengeance, And that is ending when I bash my fist against Joker’s skull.” explaining. “And here, We were comrades at one point. Tch. I was thinking of inviting him to Thanksgiving Dinner.” Obviously Damien was suffering from some kind of head trauma to make such a terrible joke.
Or, maybe he was trying to be like them? It was hard to tell. Damien was hard to read at times. “Okay, Oracle. I will be on the boarding ramp to the vessel in…3 …. 2 …. 1” stopping the cycle hard when he gets just inside the halo light, Damien launches himself at the first guard. Hoping to draw the surprise of some the guards to him. “Patch yourself to my helmet to see what I see and advise.”
ST: “Alright, hang on tight then Canary,” Dick’s voice is not nearly so stern as Bruce’s, but there’s a timber to it when he’s wearing the cowl. “Let’s be clear about this, Hood. We’re here to get your Mother out, Damien. That has to be the priority. Saving Gotham for tonight means getting Ra’s his daughter back.”
Bruce would have never agreed to this plan. Not with so many variables. Especially not with Damien in such a strange place as he has been mentally of late. Bringing in help with explosives on every level would have just invited carnage. All but asking the Joker to set them off for no other reason than to take people away from the Batman. The trouble with Bruce’s method, tonight, would have been a failure to recognize that all of this isn’t about the Batman and his eternal fight with the Joker. It’s about Damien confronting his Demon. Maybe tonight that Demon wears the face of a clown, but it’s still the young man’s demons at risk here. The loss of his Father has the Hood going down a rabbit hole and this might be the last chance to pull him out of it.
The Batman’s arms enclose around the lithe waist of the Black Canary only moments before the two of them take in to the air. They were in a lofty spot, across the Docks at the Lighthouse Tower. It was not merely a point of vantage to see the scene before them, but offered an opportunity to take the high ground. With his cowl in place, Dick was able to track the Red Hood’s transit from afar. Making it an issue of timing, that put them in the air only seconds after Damien begins his count down. Their arrival cannot be before the Hood causes a distraction. True to his words the Cape that Dick wears is fully functional, with hardened spines that look to be seams snapping in to place. With the cape then employed as a glider it will allow Black Canary to choose her point of entry.
—
In all of their ears is Timothy Drake, “You’re on my main screen Hood. I’m going to use your helmet line a sonar. As you move through the boat I’ll ping and then cross reference with the blue prints. Your mother has to be on level three or four. Deck four is mostly bed rooms. The films that Joker was sending to the local news showed your mother on a stage. That means deck three. Near the aft of the boat. There’s a theater room there. They have live bands perform for parties.”
—
Now the Boat itself isn’t that difficult to board. Not for the Batman, Black Canary and especially not the Red Hood on his motorcycle. What might be surprising though is the lack of defense put up by the ‘armed guards.’ Even when the engine of the Red Hood’s bike garners their attention? They seem rather flat-footed about mowing him down with a spray of bullets.
Which is a mystery that gets solve in rather quick fashion, when the Halo goes out and the disco lights take it’s place. If you though the Halo effect was bright? This is taking that effect and adding crack cocaine to it. The Admiral Harbor lights up like New Years, in the middle of June. The party music that had been reported to the police as noise pollution before only cranks it up that much worse.
Oh, but that is not the strangest little bit of information that our ‘Heroes’ get once arriving on scene. One has to wonder: How did Ra’s al Ghul know where the Joker was holding Talia? That answer comes quickly. In the form of League of Shadows bowmen laying face down in the olympic sized pool on the main deck. Their blood has turned the pool a sickly shade of brown. The chlorine does very little to cleanse the stench of death from the air. It’s difficult to count how many of the Assassins have died, because their bodies are quite literally piling up in the pool.
Catman: Thomas would not go as far as to say that he cracked the case, but he had something he could work with. It’s not that he didn’t have other resources, but he rather not tip his hand if he didn’t have to. He also was unsure about where he stood. Could this be contained? If so, what then? If not, what then? Gotham hadn’t grinded to a halt, but it felt like a city had seized a bit with everything that happened. The wheels of progress were once again off the track in the worst way.
Even if this had the best possible outcome and Talia al Ghul was rescued there were individuals who weren’t too keen about the way things went down. If the ninjas had been acting alone at the command of their master it would be one thing, but there had been too many reports that the Hood had been at the front. The same Hood who was galivanting around with the Joker.
Everyone saw how long that lasted, in the progress someone last their life and yes everyone knew the Joker was insane, not excuse a fact and he may find his way to Arkham again to repeat that cycle, but what about the Hood? Is this the Justice people should expect now? Are the rules being rewritten? A new order.
The Bat had been seen, but…Thomas told himself to focus. He needed to take a step at a time. Rather than asking if anyone had seen Harleen Quinzel he asked if anyone had seen this woman. If they didn’t think about or she would be a random person.
Anywhere. Somewhere. Someone had to have seen the woman. He was hoping. Whether Gothamites wanted to believe all of Gotham was touched by crime. Some violent, some not so violent some that used the upper echelons of population to bring their operations into the light. They went legitimate , we as legitimate as they could. Others had understandings, which is why he spoke with everyone showing the picture of Harleen from an old newspaper article. They didn’t need to know that she now went about as Harley Quinn.
It was a simple, “Have you seen this woman.” Type of situation. She was running a scam, and someone got burned and Thomas was doing work to track her down, for a friend. It took a little time, because he slow walked it, he didn’t want to tip off the wrong people. If word got around that he was looking for Harley it could quickly get back to the Joker and he wanted to avoid that.
However, he got what he needed eventually. She had been spotted, in Sandy Hook of all places.
Dinah: “So help me God, if you taze me again right now…”
I know he’s not going to, so it’s a hollow and trailed off threat as I wrap my arms around Grayson’s suited form. Up close, it’s very easy to tell the difference between him and when Tim wore the suit, even though he was ‘enhancing’ a lot when he did, and certainly from their father. They’re all built very differently, which could be attributed to what they’re each individually good at I suppose. His ‘fun’ little prank while we were sparring was one thing, none of these guys are going to put down a comrade in the field, especially not when there’s only three of us. It might amount to suicide.
And speaking of which…
There’s a harsh noise not exactly under my breath as we glide over the pool, lit up like a psychedelic murder disco that says ‘Welcome! Party’s Right Here and We’ve Been Waiting for You!’
“So we’re doing Ra’s’ dirty work, in the name of family loyalty and Gotham. Just #$&*ing great. I don’t know if this is a compliment, or a convenient ploy…”
And in the end it doesn’t really matter which one, because clearly the League can’t get this done with the forces he was willing to commit, and the current state of the city just can’t continue. As we approach the helicopter pad, and the inevitable staircase downwards to the floor below, I jerk my head with a suggestive waggle of blonde brows.
“Going down…”
When I’m close enough to make the jump, I just let go and do, tumbling into a booted run across the top deck to make my way towards a whole lot of surely delicate electronics that I’m going to play not so nicely with.
Damien: Damien’s response well, wasn’t a response as Dick told him they were there for his mother, and his mother only. Vengeance will have to wait. That simple fact made Damien’s blood boil. Once again, having to choose. It was the right decision, Damien recognized that, but it didn’t mean that he had to like it. Once he’s on the boat, he’s surprised to see the League of Assassin bowmen laying face down in the pool, upon piles of their own corpses in the pool. It was a disturbing sight, but didn’t faze Damien.
All this would bring Damien down to one knee within the bridge as he reached up to touch the side of his helmet to turn the sound dampeners on. Then something in his lenses to filter out the extra light. Though, it would take him several seconds for the light blindness to slowly fade away. Whatever Joker was doing, it was definitely slowing them down. “Oracle. Can you hear me?” asking, unsure if Tim would be able to overcome the additional sound and light at the origin. When his blindness faded, Damien’s vision would still be hampered. Though, he could only hope that Batman was able to overcome this.
“If you can hear me, Oracle. Can you turn the power off to the vessel? Maybe that will be sufficient enough to turn off the lights and additional music. I am unsure how much longer the sound dampeners in the helmet will be able to suppress the sound before overloading.” It was becoming clear as to why his father had such a hard time defeating Joker. There was no rhyme or reason to his methods. No pattern, just pure chaos. While even chaos had patterns, Joker seemed to defy those laws.
“Batman, Canary. Are you well?” asking as Damien worked on patching a stronger connection for Oracle.
ST: Now our group makes Three. Batman. Black Canary. Red Hood. Gone is the sound of Timothy Drake in their ears. Gone is the sound of one another in their ears. While there are three of them, they are now each very much alone.
The Red Hood has taken to the bridge, that was the plan. He’d volunteered to handle deploying Timothy’s technology that should have given the Boy Wonder access to the Vessel. However none of them had accounted for the instant radio silence that descends upon them at their arrival. Damien most of all was relying on Tim to give him information. Cut off from that he has only his own senses and those of his Red Hood helmet to rely upon. Immediately beneath the Helicopter Pad, the Bridge Deck is actually the smallest area where crew or passengers actually inhabit. Damien can literally see from one side of the deck to the next, with the only impediment to his vision being the singular ‘Room’ where the crew would go to take control of the boat. That’s where the Captain and Crew would be, if the boat was out of the Harbor sailing the ocean blue. Right now the Bridge itself has a myriad of crew members. Each one dressed in their uniforms. Though they’re each showing signs of abuse. Their faces painted, marred with makeup that has made each of their faces a mocking tribute to the Joker.
What’s more immediately recognizable is that Tim was right. They’re all armed. Each of the five man crew that inhabit the bridge is armed with some manner of firearm. And each of them are turning those weapons on the Red Hood.
The Black Canary’s roost upon the Helipad is actually the one place on the vessel with the least amount of eyes on it. But that is actually by design. As the Boat ‘Lights Up’ the Helipad is transformed in to a stage. With the biggest and brightest of the lights turned upon it. Colors of all sort wash over the pad, as blinding as the sounds are deafening. The purpose of chaos is often confusion, but the lights upon the Helipad do not remain all that confusing for once. Their swirling nature last only until each of the lights come to rest upon a single point. A spotlight, such as it is. With a single person standing in the middle of it. A woman. Who’s arrival seems all too timely, especially once Dinah realizes that this woman has put herself right in the path of the staircase off the Helicopter Pad. The red, purple and green tassels that waft in the wind have a similar effect to Batman’s pretty cape obscuring most of the visible sight of what armor and weapons the creature might be carrying.
To those not yet on the boat the sight of the Yacht has drastically changed. It’s ordinary white wash finish has taken on a purple and green hue. The soundscoming from the Destiny can reach as much as a mile away. Circus Music is certainly a way to rouse many a high profile millionaire in the surrounding boats. Anyone within range of line of sight might also notice, strangely, that the other guards are almost motionless all along the exterior of the Boat.
Catman: This was the last place that he thought he would find himself. When people came to visit Gotham it was usually this area that they visited. It is where Gotham Stadium was located. It was the part of Gotham that people wanted to have showcase across the world and it got its fair share of television time sadly Crime Alley and the like also got their fair share. If Crime Alley was the hideous child that you wanted to keep hidden under the steps then Sandy Hook was the one you wanted to show.
In other words, Sandy Hook was Marcia Brady, while Crime Alley didn’t even rate Jan, it was Cousin Oliver.
If Thomas had more to go on he might know where to start in this area of the city, but while he had something he didn’t know exactly what it was. There could have been a number of reasons why Harley had come to his part of town. He could ask around, but that would take time and time had been running out. Though when one thought about it despite the fact that Talia al Ghul had been snatched in the Iceberg, Sandy Hook would definitely be an area she might have been residing in.
It was a leap, but one thing that Thomas knew was that no one had heard anything about the Joker setting up shop in the usual areas. Maybe there was a reason for that. Perhaps to disappear they needed to hide in plan sight in the last place anyone would look for them. It was possible. Anything was possible. It could explain why Harley had been in the area.
Perhaps it was as simple as that. Not only had she removed the armor to appear as a regular person they needed something innocuous and wouldn’t draw attention to themselves. So many assumptions, but now that he had an area there were different questions that he could ask.
Was there anything out of the ordinary. Anything, nothing was too big or small. Was it business as usual in Sandy Hook or was something out of place? That was the question and while there had been no explosions, no terrible threatening people roaming the streets, there had been something.
Noise complaint. Nuisance. Noise pollution. Apparently, all was not well in Sandy Hook. Neighbors weren’t getting along. Perhaps they were having a bit of spat, but as Thomas dug into it apparently this had been going on for quite some time. Two weeks. Two weeks and nothing, but then again, the wealthy tended to handle certain matters amongst themselves. At least that what he was told, but two weeks. It was true that al Ghul had been missing for a week, but perhaps he should.
It’s what brought Thomas to the Admiral Docks in Sandy Hook. The source of the noise pollution. Thomas had seen it before they all had. It was a jewel of Gotham, but by the time he arrived it had gone from jewel to something out of a nightmare. If there was any doubt about where the Joker had set up shop it had vanished. Apparently, the murder circus had set up shop on the water.
Despite what this meant the first thought that Thomas had was, property values are about to hit the basement.
Dinah: The lack of communication and tech feeds? Not actually all that problematic for me. I know what kind of gadget suites most of the other suits run, heads up displays, data feeds, streamed access to the Batputers. Just because I avoid implementing them like the plague doesn’t mean I don’t have a general idea of what they’re all working with. The only thing I’ve used, and probably ever will use, is the earpiece for communicating with my partners, and on occasion some low light/no light lenses. I’ve heard enough bitching and moaning from Tim that I wouldn’t let him ‘set me up’ with something more efficient and top end when he did the latest iteration of my Canary ‘suit,’ not to mention the serious threats of bodily harm he got when eyeballing my bike, but in moments like this? I kind of thing it’s a good thing. I don’t feel crippled, or even that off, when the banter and insight cuts off.
Plus, I have a bit of a distraction in front of me. The lights, and the figure at least. The sound doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Being immune to the concussive force of my own powers doesn’t mean I don’t hear them.
They were waiting for us. Tonight, in fact, because I don’t buy that this one, of all people, was conveniently waiting just so for more than about five minutes. I doubt she has the attention span for it, really. That’s not even factoring in the lovely stage lighting, but I only spend so long wondering exactly how much of our system has been compromised, and where it starts. Or maybe someone just told them we were coming.
“Well, gotta say I’m a little surprised. I figured you’d be all for us offloading your boss’ distraction…”
Damien: When his vision came back, Damien turned around to see five men pointing their weapons at him. This wasn’t good. When they started firing on him, Damien did his best dance to dodge the incoming bullets. They were marred in Joker makeup, which means they might be doing this against their will. Which means non-lethal methods. Unfortunately, that didn’t apply to them against him. Though, he couldn’t kill them. Didn’t mean he could disable him. Diving behind one of the consoles in the bridge, he used it to take cover from the fire.
They were jamming all the equipment. Which meant that Damien had no idea what was going on. But, he had faith in his brother and Dinah to get the job done. There was a hope that maybe Tim could do something. But for now, he had to assume there was going to be no way in contacting his younger brother. It was a slight setback. Right now, Damien had to deal with five armed men, looking to make swiss cheese out of him. Sure, Damien’s armor was bullet proof. It didn’t mean he wanted to rush them and test just how bullet proof it was.
When there was enough of a pause, Damien would make his move. Getting onto his feet and staying low, he pulls out a small blade and runs around the edge of the console. Making sure to make it as hard as possible for the men to tag him. To keep them alive, he was going to have to slice the side of their knees in an attempt to get them to falter. It was the best he could do right now, because if any of them get a good shot in, things were going to become much… much different.
Helena: She couldn’t decide if she was more frustrated or embarrassed over the end of the evening. Frustration she could deal with, the other, not quite so easily. It left a lot of lingering questions she was prepared to answer, or could even answer. It also posed some larger problems and that on top of everything just soured her mood. Being reminded of to many things from her past made a seed of doubt dig its way into her brain, imbedding and growing. To many what ifs were running through her head as she unlocked the door to her dead father’s house and slammed it behind her. Leaning back against it she rubbed the but of her palm into one eye, her head was throbbing again in that knife through the back of the skull kind of way.
Dropping her purse on the entryway table she dug into it, pulling out her bottle of pills. Her hand was shaking, never a good sign, as she opened it and tapped out two of the contents and tossed them into her mouth. Dry swallowing the pills she tossed the bottle back inside her purse, taking it upstairs to her old bedroom to leave among the pile of her things that she’d still yet to go through. Which made her eyes slowly turn to the large locked storage box that she’d shipped over with the rest of her things.
Gotham was off limits. She wasn’t here in any official capacity. She wasn’t here to work. Yet she’d still packed her suit and gear. She hadn’t expected to need it but coming back here with what information she had been given she had planned on gathering more information about the vigilantes in the city. And Dick had left her to go deal with a problem at the docks, which lead to the possibility that those very same vigilanties would be showing up.
An hour later she was perched on the edge of a roof looking down over the harbor, googles down over her eyes as she zoomed in on the yacht just as the lights lit up in clashing colors. A frown tugged across her face and with a thought the air around her shimmered and she vanished from sight. Jumping down off the roof she caught the edge of the fire escape, swinging her around, slowing her descent before hitting the pavement silently. The police radio in her ear buzzing.
Moving further toward the docks she found a new perch on the roof of another yacht, the lack of chatter in her ear making her frown. The silent pop of the radio the telltale sign of a jammer. She drummed her fingers against her knee, the unsetlings sixth sense in the back of her head setting off more than a few warning signs.
ST: “Gee wizz, Mista Jay ain’t so distracticated as ya might think.”
The Cheshire smile is right at home on her sweet face. Dinah’s taller. Seemingly in better shape. Nothing about the heart-shaped face or the even heartier shaped bottom suggests that she might put up a fight against someone like the Canary. Yet there she is. In all of her grandeur. Posing, more or less. Directly in the path of the blonde vigilante. Making no effort to hide or simper. She’s bold and the mallet in her hand, trailing upon the helipad behind her? Is even bolder.
“Listen Tweety, what we have here is a stand-off. Not even the fun Mexican variety. What say we skip town. Couple gurls out on the town. Leave the boys to their toys and games? Maybe we can stop and watch the fireworks. Mista Jay does the best fireworks.”
—
Just below the Helicopter Pad is the Bridge and that is where Damien is encountering a whole new world of psychotic. He’s right to dive for the nearest console. He’s also right that there’s no way of knowing whether or not the bridge crew are acting upon their own volition or not. What he does know, right away, is that they’re trying to kill him. Gunfire erupts immediately.
Now when he emerges from behind the console there’s a selection of targets. The five of them have not spread out like professions. They’re huddling closer to the console than they should and when Damien takes the fight to them he’s quick to take one out at the knee. Immediately he gets a little more information about the crew, because they don’t hesitate. The remaining four simply shoot at whatever is moving. Including each other. He might not be employing lethal force, but the first person he takes out? Is dead shortly there after by the other men not caring who they shoot in their rush to hit Damien.
His helmet is filtering all of the insanity around him, but it isn’t blocking it off entirely. Now that he’s engaged directly, he’ll hear the men. Screaming. Not in rage, but in terror. They’re terrified. Of -Him-. They’re not attacking him out of rage or intention, they’re attacking him out of unbridled fear. Like he was a demon among their midst.
—
Not too far below them comes yet more sounds of carnage. After dropping Canary at the point she wished, Dick Grayson descended upon the boat as Batman. Neither of them can see what is happening, but there is no mistaking the sounds of combat below.
Nor can either of them mistake the sound of the first explosion for what it is either. Easily seen from -off- the boat. Something or someone just went up like the forth of July.
In the relative silence that follows the first explosion comes the maniacal cackle of the Clown Prince.
Damien: Damien can see it in their faces, though he can’t let emotion get the best of him. Did he want this man to die? No. He didn’t deserve this, he didn’t deserve to die like this.In complete terror and being shot down by his friends. As much as Damien wanted to save the man, he knew he couldn’t. It was something he’ll have to figure out later. But, right now, he couldn’t be distracted. Taking them down close wasn’t going to do it. Instead, he ops to use the console again as a shield, but he knows it wasn’t going to take long before their weapons completely tore through the already bullet riddled console.
When Damien heard the explosion, hopefully that would catch the men’s attention just long enough for him to throw over some gas pellets as he ran from the console as it wasn’t providing him with any kind of cover. He’d use anything as cover at this point, hoping the gas pellets would be enough to knock the men out. Damien was a man of order, He liked to do things in a certain way. Much like how Bruce did. There was a method to his madness. The Clown Prince threw all that into the air.
“I do not suppose you men are done shooting at me?” asking, waiting for the sounds of the men falling to the ground before slowly creeping up behind a sofa.
Hopefully Dinah and Richard were having a better time than he was.
Dinah: Here’s the thing about looking curvy and sweet and mostly just female: it gets you underestimated. A lot. Even when you’re carrying a Loony Tune-esque mallet in your hands. It’s one of the reasons that I walk around in glorified fetishwear, or maybe just underwear like I do. Being underestimated is a real, solid, and fairly dependable fighting tactic, especially when you’re aggressive enough to seize upon any and all openings that gives you. I’m not going to underestimate Harley Quinn.
“I suppose not, seems like he’s had plenty of time to plan a real party…”
Cocking my head towards the starboard side of the boat, I sweep a half gloved hand out in an inviting gesture.
“Pick up some margaritas on the way? Sounds great, after you…”
The gunfire erupting below isn’t unexpected, we knew most of them were armed coming in, and it means that someone’s engaged. From how close it sounds it could be either one. Then comes the explosion, that you don’t have to be able to see to hear, and maybe even feel. I don’t have time to stand around playing a waiting game here, so I sigh, and the hand returns to my fist.
“No? Alright then.”
I don’t normally like to give up ground. It’s always better to force your opponent to act so that you can react, and set the terms of an engagement but she’s already called it what it could be. A stand-off. And so I move, charging in on the side of the mallet so there’s less time for a wind up, and more opportunity to dodge its’ inevitable path.
ST: The fight in the bridge room ends up being short, if not sweet. Though the gas pellets do not have 100% effectiveness, they do take the proverbial heat off of Damien. One by one the crew men succumb to the toxic gas they inhale. But once the Red Hood emerges from behind the cover he sought, he’ll see that knocking them out did not save them from a gruesome ending.
One by one as the crewmen began to lose focus and consciousness, they took their own lives. Of the fives that were there when he entered three of them died from wounds inflicted upon themselves. One shot himself, to avoid the ‘Demonic Creature’ that would sure surface from the toxic cloud to eat him. Another slit his own throat in some sort of gruesome attempt to keep himself from inhaling the acidic cloud that Damien unleashed upon them. A third simply died, choking and wheezing upon the gas itself. He lays at Damien’s feet gurgling his last breathe in utter terror of the Red Hood.
Only one remains and he, the Captain of Yacht in fact, lays curled at the base of the doorway. Huddled around his firearm. Rocking back and forth, muttering some strange prayer for the help of God to protect him from these unearthed sea demons.
—
In any sort of real fight between Harley Quinn and Dinah Lance, the Canary wins. The only mistake that Dinah makes is in thinking that this is such a thing. She charges. Quinn ducks backwards, making no effort to truly engage. Instead as she dances back, a hidden switch on the mallet is touched and the floodlights rush to her co-star. The Black Canary gets the lights from all sides. All at once. The sudden unmistakable focus of those ultra high beams, meant to guide aircraft in from thousands of feet away.
She doesn’t attack Canary at all at first. In fact it’s quite the opposite. Blinding the Canary is just step one. Step two comes in the form of a string of fire crackers. Tossed at the pretty bird’s feet. Not just any fire crackers. I mean, they do read “BOOM” on the side.
Her giggling is pretty obnoxious.
—
Once Damien emerges from the Bridge area he’s going to be greeted with those lights and sounds. The circus is in town and it’s apparently right here on the boat. Below him, just a single deck down. Batman is facing an eerily similar situation to what Damien had faced. It’s nearly impossible to discern the difference between Joker’s actual goons and the hapless souls who just happened to be here innocently when Joker took over the boat.
Which has left Dick Grayson fighting a battle from all sides. Bouncing between upturned chairs, that once upon a time had been for use in the art of sunbathing. He fights an ever growing battle. Similar to Damien’s results, Dick has discovered that disabling the innocents merely causes the thermite that Tim pointed out, to ignite.
“They’re all wired! If they lose consciousness, they blow up. We can’t knock the civilians out! It’ll kill them.”
Which means the Batman is bound in a dance between the ones actively trying to kill him and the ones who can’t help themselves. The Chaos has them turning even on one another. Which is clearly what caused the explosion before.
“… they’ve all been juices… I think it’s Scarecrow’s fear toxins…”
Dinah: So we’re back to the crazytown stand-off it seems, and even though my eyes have started to adjust to the bright strobe effect that’s been bouncing and dancing all over the ship, I wasn’t entirely prepared for the intensity of all of those floodlights, all at the same time. A defensive arm isn’t nearly enough, or fast enough, to fully block them from robbing me of the full range of vision. Who needs all their senses in a fight… It’s definitely preferable but you just have to learn to use the other ones to compensate.
Speaking of seizing advantages, Harley wastes little time in an attack of her own, or what looks like one anyway. They could be nothing. They could also be enough C4 to blast me to Bludhaven in bits, regardless of what happens to the boat along with me. Naval safety doesn’t seem to be their concern, if the amount of thermite Tim had spoken of was any indicator.
I just don’t let them slow me down, after the stutter that blinding lights had caused in my gait, I pick up steam again, breaking into a sprint, orienting myself on that awful, grating giggling. That I know how to stop once I get my fists on her.
Damien: This was insanity in its most pure form. Thankfully Damien’s helmet was able to at least filter out the extra noise and strobing lights. “I noticed.” saying as Damien descended onto pool deck to help Batman try and contain and incapacitate them. “Then maybe we should not incapacitate them. Instead, may I suggest rounding them up like cattle in order to stop hurting themselves?” asking. Damien’s blood was boiling on high. But he was trying to keep his cool so that he could go confront Joker and end this lunacy once and for all.
Pulling out some rope, he hands Batman one end and hopefully they’re able to maneuver around the masses enough to try and tie them up without knocking them out. “Do you have any Fear-Toxin Antidote on you?” Damien wasn’t sure what Batman had exactly. Hopefully their plan worked. “Do you think you can get to the engine room, Batman? The bridge is out of commission and the only way to disable the vessel now is through a power switch in the engine room. Though. I have a feeling you may find more of these lunatics on your way.” commenting, Damien would then start towards where the theatre was. It was time to end this, and end it now.
ST: It might seem like a mad dash, but Dinah’s got a lot of things working in her favor. The rush of adrenaline, the sound of Harley’s laughter. Motivation in the form of Fire Crackers that are even now going off with the thunderous sounds of rifle fire.
What she lacks though, is premeditation. Harley has that in spades. Our Heroes have seemingly forgotten that Joker and Harley are each more than insane, they’re also brilliant in their own little ways. Harley, also known as Harleen Quinzel, happens to be a world class psychologist. Knowing for getting in to her client’s headspace in a way that most couldn’t even understand. Right now she seems to know, intuitively, that the Canary wouldn’t just let someone like her win without giving it her all. Why else would Harley be playing a game of keep away.
Which is working, if only because Harley is dancing away unencumbered by the light that threatens to take away Dinah’s vision. Unfortunately for Harley that only works for so long, before Dinah’s almost upon her and the giggling stops.
“Hey! Hands offa da merchandise!”
Dinah manages a single handful of one of those tassels. Now she just has to hold on to it when that Hammer’s handle thuds against Canary’s stomach.
—
Batman and Robin, by way of the Red Hood, are squaring off with a sizeable amount of terror-filled people. As Damien gets in close, he’ll see what Dick was talking about. These Civilians are scared, they’re lashing out at anything and anyone who gets close. No skill involved, but that’s where the actual trained goons are failing as well. They’re frightened as well, terrified just the same. Causing them to surrender their own training to that fear, giving in to it. Putting the entirety of that third deck in to complete chaos.
And the Batman’s already scary appearance is only making it worse. He amounts to a literal demon in their midst, not just ones their imagination conjure up.
Damien’s plan is one that Dick sees some sense in, but there happens to be a whole lot of downside in it. At the moment there doesn’t seem to be a lot of choice though. Bringing the Grappling hook in to play, he sets about assisting Damien in that very thing. Tying up as many of them as he can. At the very least it thins their numbers.
“Standard issue in any utility belt, but I don’t have enough for all of these people. That helmet of your’s should keep it out of your system, I’ve got the re-breather from my cowl. Canary’s unprotected though…”
Leaving Damien here sounds like a terrible idea, but neutralizing the boat’s power is an optimal plan. There’s little doubt that it’s not the best option, but nothing in this mad house is optimal. Finally Dick gives him a nod, he’ll get the power turned off.
“Hood, as hard as this is to accept. We have to get Talia off of this boat. There’s maybe fifty civilians here, but if Talia dies Ra’s will unleash the League on the whole City. Ten times is many people die if that happens.”
Damien: “Turn off the power and attempt to get to Canary. I will get Talia and take her off this boat. I know what Ra’s is capable of Batman. His blood runs within me. Also, maybe call PennyOne after you have turned the power off. Have him drop enough on everybody here.” Watching Batman for just a moment, Richard is Batman. There was no doubt that the cowl belonged to the right person. It was never for Damien to wear, but he would if Richard didn’t want to wear it.
Purging the thoughts from his mind, Damien turns and runs towards where the theatre is. Using their fear against them to create a path.
Talia had to be rescued. In his mind, Damien was working on an idea. An idea he didn’t like, He couldn’t fight the Joker and rescue Talia at the same time. So, he was going to have to go in guns blazing, if you will, to create enough of a distraction to grab Talia and then somehow blow out a section of the vessel to escape with her.
But, honestly. The idea was shakey enough.
If Joker killed Talia? That would probably be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It would be more than enough to drive Damien onto that path and never look back. Maybe even participate in the razing of Gotham. When he reaches the theatre doors, he doesn’t stop, instead he leaps into the air and kicks the door down tucking into a roll before popping back up, sword in hand.
Now, the final phase of this whole ordeal was about to end.
One way, Or another.
Dinah: Here’s the thing. You don’t stay in this line of ‘work’ without learning how to take a good bit of punishment, and being able to muscle on through it. I happen to prefer avoiding getting hit, while doing the brunt of the hitting myself, but there’s moments where things don’t go quite as I like. For instance, when I’m charging more than half blind at an opponent that I can only hear, and even that you can’t entirely trust because… these whack-os are all about show-biz tonight and I wouldn’t have been that surprised if it meant mics and speakers.
“Woooof…”
However, the handful of whatever this is, and the sharp ram to my midsection tells me I actually was heading the right direction. Hanging onto that tassel? Not a problem, if for no other reason than it’s getting a sharp yank as I fold forward over the handle of the mallet. Other hand going forward with the momentum of my run, following the ‘lead’ of the weapon down to the inevitable: one of the hands that is wielding it in the first place, and then a wrist so that when I twist around to that side, I’ve got a sensitive body part to torque along with me.
ST: While they weren’t able to secure everyone on the main deck, Damien and Dick did their best to secure as many as they could. There was only so much tether line between the two of them. It made for a slightly less chaotic venture for the two of them through different parts of the ship.
Dick’s path was less certain than Damien’s. Tasked with the unenviable task of getting all the way to the engine room, Dick understands that he doing the exact opposite of what Bruce would do. Bruce would -need- to go face the Joker. He would rationalize that this always going to be about Batman and Joker. Maybe he’d even be right, but the Joker knows. Somehow through all of his insanity? He knows that Batman is dead. Maybe not -the- Batman, but his Batman. He didn’t believe Timothy’s act as Batman and he’s unlikely to believe Dick’s anymore than that.
Damien on the other hand has a personal stake in this. One that will play out whether he’s involved or not. Losing Talia, without factoring in to the result would destroy him. Leaving only one choice, Dick has to trust his younger ‘Brother’ to do what is right. Because that’s really the only hope he has for the man’s sanity when all of this settles down.
So the Batman goes, not to fight to the Joker, but to find the power system that drives all of this insanity. Damien’s last sight of his brother is the cape and cowl descending a flight of boatsman steps. Sending a clown faced goon down before him, with a kick that jars the man to his very core.
—
“Tee hee. Holdin mah hand? Are we goin steady Tweety? How ’bout you give Momma a little sugar?”
Does that sound like a woman that is being twisted up like a pretzel? No, that sounds like a woman who enjoys being twisted up like a pretzel. Someone who’s had her arm twisted like that for kicks.
And Dinah was right. Sometimes it’s about muscling through the pain, other times it’s about enjoying it. Harley sounds almost happy to finally be in on some of the action. Dinah’s just getting warmed up too, when she undoubtedly hears the click.
That’s about all the warning she gets when the blunt end of mallet fires off like a rocket. Well, not -like- a rocket. It is an actual rocket. Having already been against Canary’s stomach, when the rocket fires it seeks to take Canary. Up up and away.
Oh and that arm? Yeah, well judging by the high piercing shriek of laughter Harley thinks of this like a Roller Coaster. If Canary hands on she gets to go for a ride.
Crazy bitch.
—
Up until now Red Hood has managed to get through the majority of this Mad House unscathed. He got through the bridge somehow without being shot. He made it through with the Batman’s aide, what might amount to nearly a hundred fear-crazed people with knives, guns and explosives. All the way to the theater room, where he makes this super awesome kung-fun style entrance.
This, folks, is Red Hood. Damien Wayne. In all of his glory.
Right up until the Titanium Baseball bat hits the back of that red hood with a ‘ting‘ that sounds like a grand slam hit.
Then another.
And another.
One to the ribs.
That one hits a knee.
One for the pistol arm.
“…stupid… fucking brat… don’t you get it? We are the same! He meant something to us… we needed answers. Who killed the Bat! Who took him from us?!”
Not so far in the distance? Damien can see his mother. Maybe not in the way he’s ever wanted to see her. She’s mostly naked by this point. Still hung to what looks like an over-sized dart-board. Which has been the obvious target of a game of throwing knives. Let’s just say more than few of them found the mark. If, between smacks of the baseball bat, he’s able to focus even a little? He’ll see that she’s actually still breathing. That may in fact be a bigger dishonor than anything else, because she’ll have to eventually awaken to see and feel what -all- has been done to her.
“Well. I know now. I know the truth … it’s the biggest Joke of them all…”
Dinah: Mother *%$&ing rockets.
When this is over, I’m going to go hunt down whomever it is that’s supplying these things to the city, and we’re going to have some words. And by words I mean I’m going to introduce them to every sharp, bony part of my body in rapid succession, and then do it a second, and possibly a third time afterwards. I wasn’t actually out to hurt Harley with the wrist lock. That had been to set her up for the hurt that was about to come when I put her down on our helipad dance floor.
Sorry Harls. No ride-a-long for you. At least not with me on this rocket-mallet. I let go of her wrist, and give the tassel in my other hand a yank, mostly to try to pull myself around and off of the forward movement of the rocket.
SCREET.
It’s short, but with my weight already back and off center, the force of that short burst ought to be enough to not only tilt me downwards, but the face-full of sonic energy might rock my opponent back, too, and maybe with some luck send her aim and her mallet up up and away. Prone isn’t exactly a great place to be, but I’m more than ready to kick anything that comes in range before I can kip back up again.
Damien: Joker didn’t have much in the way of strength that Damien, or even his father had. But, he wasn’t weak. So when the bat struck the back of Damien’s head, it nearly knocked off the helmet, but it also drove Damien down onto the floor where his ribs, knee and one of his pistol hands became greeted by the bat. The pain coursed through his body. Travelling at light speed, incapacitating him. But, every time Damien saw his nearly nude mother, he grew stronger. Grew angrier.
“Kill…” saying as blood dripped down out of his helmet. “Going … to kill you” growling under his mask. His head felt like it was on fire. Whatever was going to happen now, was going to happen on auto pilot now. When Joker stops his beatdown, Damien rolls away. But not before leaving a few exploding beads in his wake. Not enough kill him, but certainly surprise the living hell out of him. If they go off, the small force is enough to push Damien away even further from the psychotic clown.
Damien probably had a dislocated knee by this point, probably a cracked rib or two and a broken hand. But none of this was going to stop him from rescuing his mother. “Torturing the daughter of the demon would never get the answer you wanted, you psychotic lunatic.” pulling himself up, Damien can’t focus with the helmet on, so he tugs it off to see clearly. “You do not know the family you are trifling with, Joker. You do not realize the bounty that is on your head. The Demon will not stop for anything if you kill her.” slowly stalking towards the white skinned man.
“If you think Batman frightened you. Then you have no idea what true fear is. The Demon would kill you, Bring you back. Then do it again, for all eternity. Until your mind is so fractured, You will not even remember Batman. He will be just a memory that has lapsed.” stalking towards the Joker. “I will give you this opportunity to run, Joker. My fight is not with you tonight. Though, I will not hesitate to show you what real fear is.” saying as he changed direction to reach his mother.
“Come, Mother. It is time for you to return home.” Damien would keep his back towards Joker, knowing that Joker might strike him. Or run like the coward that he was. This scuffle with Joker was not over. He will pay his dues. Either by Damien’s hand, or by the League’s hand. This was his choice though. To rescue his mother and to take her home.
ST: What kind of world do we live in where a Rocket-Hammer doesn’t actually win in a game of one upsmanship between a couple of girls? A world full of crazy people, that’s what.
There’s this start of something truly beautiful. A little cheerful laughter, that turns almost mournful as the Canary is about to be sent in to outer space. Then a hiccup of, “…oh shit…” That comes just before the clowned smirk of Harley Quinn is turned in to a scowl of something akin to remorse.
Seconds later the Mallet of Mayhem is spiraling off in to the wild blue yonder. Leaving Harley’s dimpled face twisting in to a pout, that results in a foot stamp of petulance.
“That was mah favrit one! I clobbered Batgirl with that one… now you’re in for it…”
Then those wild, angry, blue eyes flicker to the wavering tassel. To the way Dinah twisted it as she rolled away. To the end that now tapers in a little loop around the …
“….but I didn’t wear mah parachooooootttt…”
—
The Joker might be unaware that his girlfriend is even now taking a short flight over Gotham Harbor, but he has other things to worry about. Beating the piss out of the Boy Wonder for one thing. Right now he’s too busy ranting to have immediately noticed the little beads or even care about what they do.
“… you think Ra’s al Ghul scares me?” His laughter is only interrupted by the beads exploding. Flinging the Joker away from Damien, much as it carries the Hood away from the baseball bat that was coming for him.
Coughing, wiping the blood from his chin, and using the bat as a cane to pick himself up from the wreckage of an overturned television filming stage. The Joker isn’t nearly done. He’s taken more than that in bathroom brawls for the soap. The dry laugh coming from his lungs is serious, not nearly so mocking as before.
“Ra’s is nothing, he lives off of fear. Fear that is over-stated. Look around you Hood. Look at the pool outside. Ra’s is over-rated. He couldn’t save his daughter. He had to send you. You and your second rate bat-knock-off and the blonde hooker. You’re a a regular justice league out there.”
“The only reason you’re even alive is because I need someone to know the punchline.” Twisting the handle of that bat, the fat end drops off revealing it to be a sort of mechanized shot gun. “It’s a joke. Don’t you even see it? Haha. This is why I need him. He’s my only equal. None of you even see it and it’s right in front of your faces.”
“Ra’s doesn’t care about his daughter. He already knew where she was. If was half as scary as you seem to think, why didn’t he bring the full League to rip her away?” Stalking toward the Red Hood, shotgun bat in hand. “He came to Gotham to get back what she stole. The Lazarus Pit you threaten me with. She stole it to raise the Bat.”
“But it didn’t work. Because there was no body. Ask her yourself ‘Red Hood,’ you clod. We’ve all been duped. Batman isn’t dead.”
BLAM!
The shotgun? Blasts a hole in the side of the boat. Big enough for Damien to take his mother and leap in to the Harbor. “… Talia had so much to tell me. I’m afraid I can’t let your friends take me back to Arkham yet. Not when I’ve got so much to do. Go. Carry on my Legacy, as the Red Hood.”
After all of this? The insanity of it all. Damien made it clear that he was letting the Joker leave and the Joker? If what he’s said is true, then he has no reason to stand and have one big last hurrah.
Damien really doesn’t have a choice after all. His back is to the Joker, brazenly. So all he really gets is to feel the Joker’s boot kicking him through the hole out in to the Harbor. He gets to hear the insane laughter. And watch from the Hudson River as the Joker sets the switch. Detonating any of the remaining bombs that can still go off.
How better to cover his exit?
Dinah: On the downside, apparently Harley wasn’t packing a parachute. Seems unwise if you’re going to walk around with a rocket mallet, but that’s just me. The upside? Her trip up, up and away has officially spared her from feeling the brunt of my irritation, and thwarted my plans of ending all that giggling with a couple well placed finger jabs. At least, it’s an upside if she knows how to swim, but that’s not as high a worry on my priority list right now as you might like to think.
Namely because the entire ship is now, apparently, exploding. The usual elegance of me rising to my feet gone all to hell because the vessel rocks, and roils, and moves beneath me. There’s no more attempts at getting to any controls, or lights, there’s just getting off this ship. And hoping that my companions are doing the same. Booted feet beat across the helipad, picking up as much speed as I can get, before launching myself over, and into the awaiting frigid water.
I can swim. Eat that, clowns.
by Michele | Mar 22, 2018 | Chronicles
Cassie: “Ahem. Now. Where were we…?”
Spoken like I’m not perfectly aware of what was supposed to be going on, or at least in possession of a reasonable guess as to the motivations that had brought us here. Here being pulled off the highway to one of the scenic parks that line the distance between Gotham and Metropolis. Like little buffers of nature, to form a lovely moat of trees against the dark and corruption and to keep it from reaching the bright, clean, energy efficient structures of the place I call home now. It’s so quiet here, barely even the sounds of the cars zipping back and forth on that highway reaching into the trees, and that is definitely strange. Maybe less so than it would be if the sun were up. There’d probably be people then, but for now it’s just Conner, me and the red sports car that had whisked us at what I assume was approximately one hundred and forty miles per hour from the outskirts of Gotham. A place I’ve been more times in the last three days than I had in my entire lifetime before then. A place I wasn’t supposed to have come even once, to be fair, so I don’t have much in the way of hurt feelings over Tim’s brother less than politely kicking us out. All of us. Even my Mom.
I’d been left with a lot to process, and I haven’t really been doing any of it. In the whole thirty minutes it’s been at least. Hm. Maybe more like an hour. It’s hard to judge. Leaning over the passenger door, I’m using the visor to fiddle with the golden adornment on my head that I’d been given by my Mother before we’d all be ‘excused.’ I’m not entirely sure how I’m meant to wear the thing, because it doesn’t seem to fit properly on top of my hair. Nor does it really seem constructed to be worn like a headband. Eventually I settle for nestling it across my forehead which.. seems to work. Mostly I’m trying to focus on the fact that it actually looks like maybe it was meant to go with my suit, and not the remaining bright pink color in my cheeks.
We’d stopped here, ostensibly, so that I could change into my Wonder Woman attire and out of the St. Mary’s uniform that I’d been wearing for the last two days straight while unconscious and being monitored by Tim and his family. Our detour had just gotten slightly … detoured. Because. Superman and Wonder Woman? Are more like Superboy and Wonder Girl underneath the holographs that protect our identities and. Well. Teenagers. But there had been a purpose in coming here before we’d been distracted. Conner’d dropped hints, but he hadn’t really needed to. He’d packed the Wonder suit for a reason, stopped here for a reason. At this point, I know when he’s angling towards something. Just in this case, he’d hinted that it could wait while we. Ahem.
“So. What are you scheming, Luthor?”
Giving the upper edge of my red attire a tug, that it doesn’t really need despite the shift in my physiology in the last few days, I turn to face him as I try to master the blush on my face. I’m teasing him though. There’s a big difference between a Luthor Scheme, and Conner trying to make a point. Even if you need a practiced eye sometimes to pick out the subtle cues. This, despite the willingness to delay, I think might be important. Most especially because of how the last couple days have actually gone.
Conner: There had been a point to the detour and for once in my life I’m not the one who called us in for a pit stop. That had been all about the blushing blonde and the fact that she’d been out of commission for almost an entire weekend while dealing with the strange malady that had been afflicting her. No one has really, reasonably, explained what was going on to me. They really hadn’t needed too. It was sufficient to know that Cassie was in peril and that the help was at hand. I was good knowing just that, even if I was less good knowing that for all my power? This was something that was beyond the scope of my abilities to assist with.
Knowing that and accepting it are two different things, by the way. Knowing, goes a long way to understanding. It does. The problem is mystical. I get it. Accepting that I can’t, ultimately, incinerate whatever or whoever is at the root of the problem? I’ve got a long way to go in to accepting that. I’m starting to think a lot of Cassie’s problems resolve down to no one ever trying to just obliterate the root of it. ‘Ancient, Unholy Power of the Gods blah blah.’ Fwooosh. Problem solved. Instead of turning it in to some Mysterious Quest of the Ages that all these magic types do… yuck.
Cassie suiting up? Pretty much the opposite of everything I’ve ever wanted when we’re alone. Ever. I’m more of a peel her out of that costume, guy. Maybe that’s why she let me at her, before getting in to it in the first place? Hah. Would not be the first time she’s gamed me, would it? All I’m really waiting for right now, is that moment when she raises up and identifies herself visually as ‘put together.’ That’s all the clue I really need that touching her isn’t going to devolve us back in to testing the durability of special reinforced shock system in the Ferrari my Father gave me for my ‘Sixteenth Birthday.’
“Less scheming, more of an ‘Up, up and Away,’ sort of thing,” the good nature of that comment makes it all the way to my eyes that are truly vibrant now and not even because of my looking through that costume as I might normally. “Can’t risk being followed or monitored though. So… it’s a very Up, Up, before Away, kind of moment really.”
Stepping in to Cassie is never a problem, but this is actually something a little different. She likes flying so much I normally never invade that space, but the mumbled words ‘Hold Tight,’ are the only real warning Cassie gets. All it really takes is for me to be in contact with her and she’s not going anywhere. Except where I go. Which is straight up. Higher and Faster than she could ever hope to achieve on her own. Beyond the skies, in to that sweet little spot where you can actually begin to see the curve of the world. To the point where it’s easy to tell that the only air to breathe? Is what remains in the little bubble of red telekinetic energy that surrounds us.
That’s the up, up… but the ‘away’ is almost as fast. Science says that the straightest line between two points is the fastest. Aerodynamics redefined that and Cassie gets to experience it first hand with the sight of the heavens that she’s never seen. Along with the actual speed with which the world beneath us passes. Green forests become blue ocean, which in turn transitions in to white ice… and before she’s really had time to ponder the sight of the universe to be beheld beyond Earth’s Atmosphere? We’re descending as quickly as we got there. To what makes for the strangest date I’ve ever taken Cassie on. Which is saying something all on it’s own. Because the only thing to see? For miles. Is the largest key she’s ever seen. Settled right in the middle of a whole lot of glacial ice. Though from the ground there’s a certain latticework to the ice. Making it take a sort of crystalline appearance.
Cassie: I know he doesn’t like it. Any of it. That’s not really even some sort of deep insight on my part, he’d more or less said as much a year ago when I’d been having issues with my half-brother invading my dreams. Conner’s got a lot of tools in his ‘kit,’ so to speak and it’s pretty rare that one or all of them can’t resolve a situation to his satisfaction. Note. Hissatisfaction, not necessarily mine or anyone else’s. In that instance, when he couldn’t fix it for me, he’d found someone that could. Which had been my official introduction to the rest of his team. Now? It’s easy to imagine that it may actually be worse, and that is partially my doing. Because I’ve been leaving him out of so much of what’s been going on. Which we’ve argued about, and discussed and… we’re working on. Figuring out who you are? Is hard. Figuring out who you are, with someone else, with superpowers and the fate of the ‘world’ on the line? Yeesh.
“Oooh, my favorite. Well. Almost favorite.”
I love flying. It’s my worst kept secret, and not exactly kept at all from him. It was the power that I got to use least up until recently, too. These suits? They’re like a green flag waving to say that suddenly it’s okay to be seen doing this sort of thing. Cassie Sandsmark can’t fly, but Wonder Woman? She’s supposed to. Blue eyes round just a little at the conditions he lays out there, though. I don’t need to ask what that means. It means going even faster than I can manage on my own, and that means it won’t be me doing the flying. Maybe a little disappointing normally, but I’m curious and never really mind being close to him. And holding tight? That I can do. Literally. Without any worry of crushing anything important like a rib. Or spine. So when Conner steps in, I wrap my arms around him, looking upwards towards the stars in preparation for the takeoff.
Not that there’s really any time for that. It’s more of a one moment you’re there, and the next instant you’re not. Were it not for the field he’s projecting, I’d be feeling it. I do when I take off on my own. Higher, faster than I’ve ever taken myself and everything changes. I tip my head back even further still, exhaling loudly at the view, for the moment it’s there at least. We’re moving much too quickly for any real sightseeing. I’d ask on the return trip for him to take it slower, but I’d have to assume the not wanting to be tracked will go both ways. Wherever we’re going? Is a real secret. Not just from any ordinary folks that might be watching us. He doesn’t really need to lay out the ‘who’ for me.
I’m exhaling again once we’ve slowed, in surprise, amazement. Whatever. What on Earth… or… maybe not Earth actually..
“…what is that?”
Conner: The trip isn’t for sight seeing. Otherwise I’d be more than happy to let her take it all in. We’ve flown together more times than I can count. I’ve encouraged her to explore this aspect of her powers as much as I’ve encouraged everything else, maybe even more so. I like to see Cassie happy. She is, by any reckoning, the only thing in my life that I’ve got at least one unselfish feeling for. I genuinely want her to be happy, for the sake of nothing more than seeing her that way. Taking her flying lessons was one of the first things we did as a ‘Couple.’ I mean, outside of those tutoring sessions, that she still denies as being our first dates.
“That? Is a key,” oh yeah I’m maybe milking this, but really. She got Olympus, right? I’m entitled to a little moment or three or indulging. “But, it didn’t take me to tell you that. That’s the key to what we’re here to see.”
That look on my face? Cassie has seen it before. I like things. Mostly I like things of value, truth be told. Material Wealth suits me well, because I’m an indulgent personality. What she’s looking at though just doesn’t fit in this place. It’s gaudy, gold and out of sorts with the tapestry of the Arctic Iceland around us. That is all part of the allure though, because it’s distinctly out of place and massive. Easily as large as a 747 jet, which we both know she can lift with ease. Yet that key isn’t going to move much even under her enhanced strength. There’s no trick, no test of worthiness. It’s simply too heavy.
“You’re a history buff right? Isn’t there a story about a God’s weapons that were forged in the heart of a dying star?” Making a little gesture to encompass the key. “This is made from the substance found in the heart of a dying star. Krypton’s Star to be exact. The original Superman made this. Because he believed that only another Kryptonian could lift it.”
“The problem is. He was wrong. So he did what most Americans have done since the 1960s. He bought an alarm system to go with his fancy Key. You gotta be able to pick up the key, to unlock the door… but you also need to know the code to get turn off the alarm system. It’s a whole thing.” Gently tapping a fingertip upon the big S at the middle of my suit. “The battle-suit I’m wearing? Came from in there. I think, if we can get Nowhere out of this suit. I can get in there.”
Cassie: “Well. Yeah. Okay. Sure. I can see that. Maybe you should consider putting up some kind of giant, Magritte-esque sign in front if that’s meant to be a secret, though.”
It looks like a key, after all, but maybe the massive size of it had made my brain just assume it wasn’t literally that in function as well as form. Keys, generally, are of a certain size in relation to the locks that they open. Mechanically speaking that’s just sort of how it has to be. So in order for this to the the ‘key’ to what he actually wants to show me? Means that it has to be massive. But. Why not, right? What else is there out here other than space, and ice. And us. He looks very pleased. Maybe even more pleased than when I was given my car, which I still have never driven because I’ve also never bothered to get my license. It’s probably a good thing he didn’t make the Olympus comparison out loud, though. It’s not exactly fair. I had to sneak in, and promptly got told to leave. They let me stay in Gotham longer, with more welcome.
But. Back to the key. How no one has noticed it by now… well, I guess that’s a testament to exactly where we are right now.
“There’s more than I know I’m sure. People like that kind of symbolism, and the power that comes from it.”
Pushing my hair back from my face is more an absent gesture than necessary, and my fingers settle into drumming almost restlessly against my circlet as I study the thing. Taking in what he’s telling me, as the thoughts and what those things could mean spin through my head. Had the original Superman, then, meant for only himself to be able to enter? Had he held out some sort of hope that there were other survivors? Does that mean that he knew of the female Kryptonian that’s here even now, or did she come after he’d left?
“…do you know what happens if you can’t turn off the alarm system? I assume something…huge and dramatic and messy, given what our friendly household guard-dog is capable of by himself.”
Turning away from the key finally, to face Conner once more I purse my lips. It’s only a precursor to the resolute expression that sets my jawline, though.
“So what do we need to do to do that?”
Conner: “Honestly, I’m not actually sure this was meant to be a secret, so much as secluded. I mean, I’m pretty sure he never meant for it to be a tourist site, but I think he actually went this route because he hoped that there were more of his people.” My people. Our people. Those like the girl on the News that I’ve yet to manage to track down, because my girlfriend was sick and the Alien Princess needed to watch Gilmore Girls to know how the world works. “Which kind of plays with the idea, that I think he wanted someone else to be able to get inside. Just the right people. People who were meant to have access.”
“While keeping out the people who probably don’t belong,” another long look at something, other than Cassie, as I take in the sight of the key and lattice of Crystalline structure in the distance. “From everything I’ve been taught -and- researched on my own? I actually doubt the big and messy bit. Honestly, old-Supes seemed like a little bit of a pussy when it came to big and/or messy. I’m thinking something a little more like ‘Eternal Damnation in a completely harmless stasis field of Doom’ sort of punitive measure. He didn’t really do Lethal.”
“More importantly though, every fiber of my being says he wouldn’t make this something dangerous. So much as make it something that put you in time out until he came to deal with you. In any case, the only reason I know about the alarm system? Is because when I tried to use the key? It stared sending out this ultra-high frequency signal… and the next thing I knew… Krypto wouldn’t stop growling at me until I put the key back and played fetch.”
“… what?” Opening my hands plaintiffly. “You never asked where he came from. I’m not the origin story kind of guy. I’m more of a ‘My Story’ type, y’know?”
What do we need to do? That I’m not entirely sure. Which is about as honest as I’ve been about anything. I really don’t know. So I start with what I do know and maybe we’ll go from there. “My new friend Kyle, from a couple weeks ago when you sent me to France so you could sneak off and go fight bad guys? He’s a Green Lantern and I think he can help me, get this suit ‘unlocked.'”
“Cass, this place isn’t exactly secret from Nowhere. They know about it already. My Dad knew about it a long time ago. I think one of the myriad of reasons I’m alive? Is because he wants in there. Coming here the way we did wasn’t about hiding it from Nowhere, it was about hiding the fact I’m showing it to -you-. I thought, with everything you’ve got going on, that we should start putting all of our cards on the table. I thought, with everything y’know, that I should go first…”
Cassie: “He definitely picked somewhere not easily accessible.”
Unless you can fly, of course. It’d be a serious expedition to even get equipment of any sort out here, let alone attempts at erecting any sort of amenities. Which explains why it isn’t also swarming with NOWHERE and their ilk right…well. Other than Conner. But he does have a point about the original Superman and the levels of permanent harm which he was willing to inflict, or not inflict. So his assumptions make sense to me. Something to delay, or hold an intruder.
“And since he’s not around anymore to un-spring whatever the trap might be… it’s a very bad idea to spring it in the first place.”
Waving a dismissive hand at Conner, for once this time I’m not actually even grouchy at him over the belated revelation of something I should probably have heard before now, especially since Krypto has been watching over my Mom since he joined the ‘family,’ too. Maybe a little unnecessarily but still.
“Given the eye-lasers and the fact that his name is Krypto I actually didn’t think I needed to ask. Believe it or not, that actually makes me feel better about him or would if he hadn’t already proved himself as A-Ok.”
The options were pretty slim really. Either NOWHERE had made the dog, like they had made Conner, or he had come from somewhere else. Not that hard to guess which option I liked better. I can’t help smirking a little about ‘his new friend Kyle.’ The designation is a little humorous anyway, more so coming from my boyfriend. Folding my arms across my chest, I should be doing it to ward off the cold but I’m simply not. Cold that is. It’s a pose that is a heartbeat away from a full on ‘thinker,’ with a fist nestled under my chin.
“So we have to make sure that they either don’t know you unlocked it, or that they can’t get into it once you have. I mean. I assume it’s not a one time, disposable lock so… maybe that last part isn’t a problem…”
So much as making sure they don’t do anything to Conner because he got into it and didn’t promptly hand over whatever tech and goodies may be hidden inside. If there even is anything. But. One would assume. You don’t lock up a place like that if there’s nothing of any perceived value, even if it’s just to you. When my eyebrow hitches upwards this time at his phrasing, it’s because my brain even now is starting to try to read ‘bait’ into that, that I don’t actually think was there. So I make my face a little pouty and apologetic for a moment.
“If you’re wanting me to take you to Olympus, no can do I’m afraid. The only door I knew of got obliterated when I came out. They’re actually even less inviting than Oh-Gee-Supes was. Very join the team, or get off of my cloud. I’m kidding.”
Which. Boy. I hope he knows. Not that everything I just said wasn’t truthful, but more that I didn’t really think this was what he was angling for. I get it. Or at least, I think I do. Because anytime he’s worried? It puts Conner Luthor into a little bit different gear than his normal, and our status quo which had been working so well for us for the last year has definitely been upset lately. Revealing that I couldn’t trust him, even if only in a very specific situation, maybe had hurt him a lot more than I’d intended it to. I don’t know. He wants to help me with my problems, so he’s showing me ‘his.’
“We kind of… touched on this back in Gotham but. The hamburglar problem.” My mouth curves a little at that private joke, but only a little because the entire situation makes me uneasy. And unsure. “If what I was told can be completely believed. We’re… connected somehow. Because of what Ares did. Tied together somehow, and that means that as he’s going around stealing power for himself it’s bleeding over to me. I. Don’t know if he knows that, but if he succeeds in going all Highlander on the Gods? That isn’t going to mean anything good for anyone on Earth.”
Conner: Telling her of my first meeting with Krypto had never really been the plan anyway, but having her actually be comforted by the knowledge of his origin? I don’t know, it sort of makes me a little more pleased that I’ve taken this step with her. She and I never did secrets before. Not the sort of secrets that were harmful to one another. In fact the only secrets I’ve ever managed to keep were the sort that kept her safe, the opposite of harmful. My problem has been, and probably will always be, that I share a bit too much if anything.
Her thoughts are running in tune with mine on all of this. Keeping it a secret isn’t an option at all. So we have to focus on the things we can control. Namely the Battle-Suit. My being outside of their control when we do get inside? That’s paramount to me. It has been for a long time. Where Cassie and I differ? Is that I’m still not convinced that Nowhere is the problem. People like that Terrorist Kid in Gotham? They’re why the world of normal people need a group like Nowhere to exist to keep them safe. Is that necessarily a good thing? Hell no. But this brings us back to why the Oh-Gee-Supes left, isn’t it? What do you do, really, when you’ve because the root-cause of the very evil you want to put a stop to?
“Heh. I’m still not convinced you didn’t dream your trip to Olympus, I mean that’s how you visited Hell too isn’t it? I’d need to sleep to visit and I’m all about maximizing my time…”
Right away I can tell that something has changed here. Between the two of us. It was barely a week ago that I was enraged by someone hugging her while she wore her cheerleading uniform. Today I’m actually listening to her to talk about being connected, bound even, to someone else. Maybe it’s different because the person we’re talking about is a murderer and therefor I’m reasonable sure she won’t spare a second look at him. But aren’t I a murderer in some sense too? No, I think it’s different because Cass went out of her way to convince me that jealousy isn’t my biggest fear with her.
“So. If this person is out there. Connected to you. Killing other Gods. Which is causing this bleed over. Then why don’t you trace the link? That’s what Raven did to help us find you in the first place. When your powers first started to manifest. She traced your very first outburst, right back to you.”
Cassie: “The ridiculously large amount of jewelry piled in my bedroom right now begs to differ. Unless I’ve got a new round of powers that involve manifesting my unconscious thoughts…in which case we have an even bigger problem. But. No. I was there. I went to the place that Raven stopped Black Adam and just sort of… followed my proverbial nose from there. I could feel it. But it was gone again when I came back out, and while I’m sure there’s other doors I’m not supposed to find them.”
I wasn’t supposed to find that one either, or go there, and each time I get more answers I’m not really sure I wasn’t better off before I had them. It’s hard to continue to go with ‘just doing what feels right’ when there’s so much at stake. I guess I don’t fully trust myself either, which is going to be an issue. If I can’t, why would anyone else?
“But. I did. Which means they can, too. I don’t know how many potential targets they have here, but once those are exhausted… I’m not sure how my ‘teacher’ knew the plan, but I don’t know the benefit in lying to me about it. Or telling me if it’s really him and…augh…”
Throwing my hands up in the arctic air, I pace in a little circle, the crunch of my footsteps sounding so very loud in the otherwise quiet solitude of the area around us.
“My kingdom for the days when the most complicated part of my day was avoiding Kelsey’s baleful glare.”
Though, honestly, that’s really not a trade I would make at this point. For all the frustration and doubt, I’ve gotten a lot of good things out of it, too. Knowledge. Love. Purpose. And those are, I have to keep reminding myself, are what’s important. Finishing my little bit of pacing, I round back to face him again.
“…two good ideas in one day? Who are you, and what happened to my boyfriend? Maybe that would work. We know he was in Fawcett. Or. I think that was him. So there’s a chance that…”
Wait. How long was it between Fawcett, and the surge in my powers? It was hard for me to pinpoint, really because at first… the changes had been gradual. It was only the other day when the surge had been so strong.
Conner: “Hey, I’m full of good ideas,” comes the response of one very uppity looking Superman, who’s put his hands upon his hips in awkward judgement of her statement. “They’re just very obscured by ideas of assorted eye-lasering and sex. And for the record, you tend to like the latter of those too.”
I’m going to kindly avoid any discussion of her problems with Kelsey, because I’ve never really been sure if those problems existed in reality. Or part of the role that was being played. Or even if they manifested out of my ex, disliking my current. I’ve never really felt that I needed to look in to such things any deeper than the surface issues. Kelsey was there to test Cassie. It was the Job that Megan was tasked with by our handlers and she did it, just as she did everything, to the very best she could. Whether or not it actually came with a sense of gratification in the end was happenstance in this situation.
Though with M’Gann, there’s very likely a lot more gratification than most people are aware of. “Look, this magic stuff is not my wheelhouse, but if I’m understanding things? Then you found this road home through some sort of connection to it. That more or less confirms the theory right there. Whatever connects you to this Killer, should be traceable too. Maybe it’s a matter of proximity?”
“Also. Speaking as a Luthor, have you considered that while there’s no benefit to lying to you, there may be a benefit to saving you? How does this teacher benefit from playing the role he’s cast himself in? I mean. This whole idea of being Superman, you came up with it because you wanted the world to accept me. So even if this teacher of your’s is doing it for good reason, you’ve shown that there is always a motivating factor. What’s his Game?”
Cassie: I shouldn’t laugh at him, but I can’t help it. He looks so affronted, and to have it followed up with honesty about why it might seem like he’s not as smart as I actually know he is at times, only makes for a second snort on the heels of the first. Which turns into another before I’m almost helplessly laughing, hands braced against my knees as I try to work my words out around the giggles. God, it feels really good to laugh, even if it feels a touch on the hysterical side right now.
“I do… I do… sorry. Sorry, Con…ahem.”
It’s not the only thing that feels good, though. Laughing. But letting go in general. I’ve been letting myself get so wound up and pent up, and no. Not in the way that he would surely seize on with eyebrows waggling suggestion if I was saying this part out loud. Words. Feelings. Not anything else. What I thought I had to keep to myself, or even keep from him, for whatever the reason might have been. Like all the rest of our … arguments… lately, though this hadn’t been one of them, once I let it go and started talking despite the misgivings and reasons? I’d felt better. Secrets had just never been a thing for me before the powers and the strangeness entered my life. I don’t like them. I’d liked them even less when I’d started having to keep new ones from the one person I hadn’t had to before. So whether or not this is his wheelhouse (and I don’t think it’s mine either, but it needs to start to be), the sounding board is wonderful.
“Maybe. Because unless he’s only just started his Godly Serial Killer thing, I would thing I’d have been getting… extra in noticeable amounts before now.”
And I don’t think it’s new, because otherwise why would my teacher be braced to warn me, or help me. That’s a whole different hitch in my ability to just take what I’d been told at face value though. A question of motivation, and timing, and knowledge. Suspicion that it’s just all some twisted game, while wanting to believe that it really isn’t. Finally straightening fully, and a little sobered again from my laughing, my hands take up place on my hips. A little less judgy looking than his own had been, though.
“Outside of hoping I’m going to keep him from being on the chopping block? I imagine Olympus is a pretty limited dating pool, without a lot of fresh meat. Maybe he’s trying to make a good first impression on a very long, long game.”
Conner: “Now you’re laughing at me? Who laughs at Superman when he’s having a good idea? This is highly undignified, I’ll say.”
That’s about where I leave the act of teasing her over the wording she’s chosen. I know I’m not the planner of this particular little circle of trust. More of a doer. If anything, I’m the eye-laser first and come up with a plan after sort of guy. In our little group of friends, I’m what you might call a tank. Jump in to the fray, get it’s attention. Take the lumps. So that someone else can figure things out. I do a good job at the role I’ve been cast in to.
Which happens not to be ‘Come up with a Plan,’ or ‘Work out the Mystery’ guy. I punch things, while leaving the detective work to the Detectives. But that has never meant I’m less intelligent than a man born of the genes of Kryptonian and Luthor DNA. “Hold on. You’re right. It’s possible he only just started, but it seems unlikely. Wouldn’t it be more likely that he’s done this before… and what is new… is the connection to you?”
“What changed? What’s new? What did you do that could have opened such a connection?” My eyes go to that little lightening bracelet for a second, before darting back to her eyes. “Was it when you came out of the proverbial closet as Wonder Woman? After that? Fawcett City? Before or after your trip to Olympus?”
“…nice. You just totally took me from trying to be helpful to back to ‘Eye-Laser’, Grunt and Scratch my balls.” Scowling at her. “Long-game. Ugh. Now I have to beat your teacher up. I’m sorry. It’s in the manly handbook.”
Cassie: “Wonder Woman does. Apparently.”
Wiping at the corner of my eye with a fingertip, the sigh I let out is mostly just a remnant of my giggles, and me trying to keep control of myself and my mood. I don’t remember that being such a difficult thing to do before, nor was I really prone to such swings and while these have all been shifts in emotions on the positive end, they’re still shifts. The power, and what it’s doing to me? Maybe linked to those as Conner had suggested to me before now, or maybe I’m just getting to that point of my godly-terrible twos. Ugh. I better not have to do puberty again because I’m still not entirely over feeling coltish and awkward.
“That seems a lot more likely. Because killing someone once, awful as it sounds, is something you maybe get away with. Especially when that person … God… is separated from the rest of them, and laying low or outright hiding on Earth. Or. Wherever. So if it’s started to get noticed, it’s probably not the first. Maybe not even the second. I didn’t notice it until … after all those things, actually.”
Absently rubbing the bracelet, and the power that is mine for safe-keeping and, hopefully, ultimately bestowing, when Conner’s look draws my attention to it. The timeline something I’d thought of in regards to what I was feeling, and how I was behaving but not necessarily in these terms. Of a connection formed somehow. If it was really because of Ares’ meddling in my head shoudln’t I have felt it sooner? So maybe it was proximity then. And maybe the proximity came because of the temptation of the power I’m carting around.
“The dreams started before Fawcett. We know, or assume anyway, that our Godkiller was in Fawcett before that from the camera footage. I didn’t know something was wrong until a few days ago but… I mean. Looking back I can see a lot of not normal me behavior cropping up in between those two points.”
Blue eyes roll slightly like I don’t have the time, or patience, for the ego right now but my tone’s light. At least, light as it can be with the things I’m ruminating over at the moment and the seriousness of them. Teasing.
“Or you just have to live forever. Possibly get yourself ascended on up to Godhood along with me. I’d think you’d probably enjoy that…”
Conner: “Living for ever starts with getting this suit fixed,” comes the all too honest reply, because she’s hit upon part of why we’re here at this location in the first place. “Or at least, living in to your mid-life crisis years.”
The way she’s rubbing at the bracelet now tells me something even more. I’m not a detective, sure, but I know my girlfriend. She’s nervous that she’s overlooked something. Now she’s starting to question things that she hadn’t questioned before too. That’s good. Questioning everything is something that I learned while trapped in that Virtual Reality training simulator. Only by questioning everything about that World did I ever find my way out of it and in to this one. Even now I question almost everything and everyone. People mark that up to my being a Luthor, but it isn’t genetic, that’s a learned behavior. I actually quite like the fact that normally Cassie doesn’t.
Which is why I’m also quick to intercede there too; “Start with the things we know. We know that the Dreams began before Fawcett City. We also know that the Amulet from Raven would have stopped such an intrusion, if the intent behind it was dangerous. We were also told that Magic isn’t as precise as Science, so there is a much broader sense to how spells work. Because the Amulet would innately work based upon what -you- considered Harmful. Tying those things together, we know that your teacher’s intentions are not something you’d think of as harmful.”
“So I think that eliminates him as a suspect, in the mystery of the Godkiller. Even if it doesn’t eliminate my new found desire to break him in half.” I’m counting these things off on my hand, as I walk nearer to the giant Key. “We also know that someone was manipulating Freddy’s Trials. We know that before you got the Amulet from Raven, someone came to you in a Dream in the visage of Black Adam. Who you now believe wasn’t the actual person. So someone wanted you to be oppose Adam. All of those things complicated the situation with the Witch, the Trials and would resulted in you taking part in the killing of a God. If not for interceding factors. I’m not Batman, but I think someone wanted you to have blood on your hands, God-Blood to be precise.”
“Getting your hands dirty could serve a lot of purposes, but what if it’s meant to make you Unworthy?” The hand I’ve been counting on is gently laid upon the Key, which I’d just spoken about Superman wanting someone Worthy to be able to open the door with. “When you came back from Olympus, you said your Dad had said something about leaving you the tools to overcome anything. These Gods of your’s, they’re big about stuff like Trials, Quests, and crap like that. What if the killer is part of one of them. What if this is some game you’re playing, without knowing it and the edge you have is because you’re ‘More Worthy’ to win than he or she is?”
“That’s what I’d do, Cassie. If I couldn’t beat someone fair and square? I’d either cheat or level the playing field.”
Cassie: “During which I’m sure there’ll be no living with me, if the last few weeks are any way to judge what’s that far down the road, so probably a great time to bail anyway…”
Welp. If I wasn’t already generally motivated to help Conner with anything (nearly anything) that he could even potentially use my help on, that right there was a way to get me there. I hadn’t known that it was an issue to worry over for long enough to really get myself worked up and anxious. He’d only just told me, on the drive from Gotham and up the coast, and then I’d gotten distracted on top of Conner’s trying to reassure me. If he’s got any reason to believe, any at all, that a means to make sure I don’t have to worry about losing him is inside whatever this key actually opens then I’m in.
“Especially when I didn’t even think they were,” Here comes the finger quotes. “Real in the first place. I didn’t really find anything odd or out of place about them until after I came back from Olympus. So. Like you said. The intentions weren’t outward, or immediately, harmful even if they may not be harmless.”
I don’t trust him. My magnanimous, timely teacher. It’s all too convenient, honestly. A year ago I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but then a year ago I probably wasn’t ‘worth’ the attention. But I’ve been pointed towards a problem that is a problem, regardless of who has told me about it. I could make a pretty good argument that Olympus’ problems aren’t myproblems, but I’m also not some butthurt juvenile who holds the radio silence from that half of my ‘family’ over them. Because I get it, I’m even glad for the time I had to be left alone. Olympus’ problem would very likely turn into Earth’s problem whether or not I was here, but I am and… so here we are.
Nodding my head in agreement with his summary and assessment, I watch Conner approach the enormous key, once again folding my arms across my chest though I stay in my place.
“I think if Black Adam had been the one messing around in my head, he would been sneery and honest about it. Just. Kind of the vibe I got, along with believing he really didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. It hadn’t made any sense for him to plant that Amulet on the woman in Fawcett in the first place. So this Godkiller was aware of me, and starting to set me up to distrust others long before even Fawcett.”
Unworthy of what, though? Zeus not saying anything about that doesn’t really matter, because he was cryptic and why would he? There’s some things that were just… understood. Especially if you knew anything at all about mythology of any stripe. Conditions that had to be met, or could not be met for those heroes to keep what made them special. And were I to no longer be ‘worthy,’ what would that mean? That Zeus’ chosen champion was corrupted for one thing, at which point do the broken trials become downright unsalvageable? And without knowing what’s at stake, either. We already know Ares is an asshole, and not happy with the current arrangement. And now his ‘son’ is going to to be up against the daughter of the one that made those rules.
“Bottom line, really then… is figuring it out and taking care of the problem before he does much more killing. Because I couldn’t hang onto the extra power. If he can, and gets too much stronger…”
Isis basically pimp slapped me. Someone with even more powers? But then, I’m not allowed to interfere with Freddy. Who says I can’t ask for help?
Conner: “Oh, Cassie. It’s adorable really. Almost as if you never realized how hard you were to deal with when we first met, but I loved you anyway.”
That time? It’s impossible to miss the look of pure pleasure that comes with turning our entire life on it’s head to make that joke. I’ve been insufferable one since day one and I’m aware of it. Though, there is some truth to what I’ve said. She made everything as difficult as possible. If she’d have just given in from Day One just think of where we’d be? ( Probably not where we are, to be honest. Part of what makes Cassie special to me, is that she is the first person to ever be genuine with me. )
Another little pat of the Key, for sake of symbolic gestures and then I’m moving forward, putting myself right in front of her again. How many times have we stood like this? Yet this is so very different than all those times, because maybe for the first time it is not Conner Luthor and Cassie Sandsmark, but actually Superman and Wonder Woman. Even if it’s really Superboy and Wonder Girl still at heart.
“Who told you that you couldn’t hang on to the extra power?” There’s this tone to my question, that imparts a dislike for someone telling Cassie that she can’t do something. “Just because you weren’t ready for it, doesn’t equate to ‘can’t.’ A year ago you would have told me you couldn’t save the world without me. Two years ago you would have said you couldn’t throw down with a bunch of Crocodile Men. Three years ago you didn’t think you could fly. Stop thinking in terms of can or can’t. You’re Cassandra Sandsmark. Daughter of Zeus.”
“You’ve never let that define you, Cass, but now I think you need to remember that more than ever. It doesn’t define you, but if Zeus doesn’t define you then why does anyone -or- anything else? Stop telling me what you can or can’t do. Stop telling yourself what you can or can’t do. Just fuckin do it, let the Historians sort it out later.”
Cassie: “Okay, pot, I’m kettle. Nice to meet you..”
I know he’s teasing me. Partly. Doesn’t for a moment slow the tart reply, though. It wouldn’t be me and him if it did. I made things ‘difficult’ because he’d swooped into my life, literally and figuratively, and wormed his way into my life while I was trying very hard at first to not let him. The big jerk had my mother on his side from the get go, too. From having to tutor him through playing dumb at history, to ‘suffering’ through his version of the best method of revenge against my private school ‘rivals.’ I just wanted them to leave me alone, and somehow ended up the ringleader. Wallflower, to poster girl, with a side of fighting with him for months over whether or not I was his girlfriend. Were they obnoxious? At times, yeah, definitely. Would I change them? No, not really. Especially not now that I know everything I do about him. It was really where I learned how to manage Conner Luthor and his ego and his ideas. Best as I could anyawy.
And here he is. Telling me off. Riot acting. Okay not really, but it’s a well meant equivalent. Despite our nearly incessant bickering and jibing and teasing? There’s a distinct difference when one of us gets to where we need the other to listen, and listen good. Like the very few times I’ve put my foot down on some scheme of his. I know he can be a SuperJerk, but honestly he’s encouraging of me. Even when I don’t want to be encouraged. Or pushed. Or to step out of my comfort zone and onto a stage in a bright red, spangly outfit and declare myself to the world.
“Okay, okay. No one told me I couldn’t. I didn’t like who I was with it though, and that’s different. I know.”
Crouching in the snow, I balance on my heels with my arms resting across my knees. Watching my breath mist the air in front of me. Just because I don’t feel the cold doesn’t mean that it isn’t. Kind of an appropriate symbolism for so much going on in my head, and around me actually. It turns into dragging my fingers through the snow which would probably be more hard packed glacier than powder but it’s not solid enough to resist my fingers. When I rise again, it’s with a resolute set to my jaw and mouth, and a snowball in hand. Which promptly gets zinged at his head with far more speed and force than I had dared use the last time we had a chance to have a snowball fight, in my front yard.
“The historians won’t get to sort out crap. I’ll be there to write it myself.”
Conner: “Oh hoo. I was easy to get along with. In the grand scheme of life, I’m pretty easy to manage. I don’t sleep. Barely eat. Give me a little sex and I’m basically a big puppy. You’re high maintenance, Kettle. All this bolstering your ego and building you up, when you tear yourself down or letting insignificant people do it. There’s dating, hand-holding, dancing and movie watching. Not to even mention this whole Superman thing. You’re a lot of work, Pal. So I hope you know you’re worth it.”
Watching Cassie is easy, I do it all the time. But there’s watching and then there’s observing. I’m better at one than the other. Because she’s way too easy to look at. Shorter than your average long-legged cheerleader type, she makes up for the lack of height, by packing the entire Amazon package in to five feet nothing. That leaves most people, including me, looking without watching what she’s doing. Ordinarily that’d be quite enough to be caught flat footed. Being splattered in the face with a snowball? Acceptable payment for the enhanced view of her breasts in that top as she kneels to scoop up the snow.
Except. That Cassie isn’t quite fast enough to have a real concept of how fast my perception of the world really is. In the time it takes her to lift the snow, cock her hand back and let it go? I’ve already looked from her hand to her breast sixteen times. I might not be as smart as Freddy or Tim, but being as fast as I am I’m able to apply my intellect to a solution faster than they can their own. She’s barely let the snow out of her hand, when I’ve taken aim for the purpose of eye-lasering.
The fact that I -don’t- hit it with Heat Vision. That the snowball isn’t turned to heated water that splashes all over and turns her already nice looking costume in to a wet swim-suit version? Is really telling of how much I’m invested in to what I was teasing about. Bolstering her. Letting the snowball crash in to my chiseled features? Is a good segue in to getting her back in to good spirits and distracting her from the problems we’ve been discussing. While I’m happy to ‘take one for the team,’ I’m pretty sure that Cassie knows where this was leading and expects me to ‘fight back.’
“Gah, cheap shot, Kettle, I was distracted by bewbs.” I’m moving now though; in to the air and over the edge of the key to use it for cover that is needed to build a supply chain of snowballs, which will be used to splaterize her with.
Cassie: “A big, aggressive, eye-lasering puppy. But you’re right.”
No, this is no trap. Those two words in conjunction aren’t things that usually come out of my mouth, in regards to Conner Luthor. Don’t get me wrong, all my feelings for him aside he just doesn’t need to be told that. He already thinks it’s true, and boy has ego for days that needs no polishing. Sometimes, I do it anyway though. Especially when he’s being sweet, or is extra deserving of a Cassie Cookie for a job well done. Positive reinforcement is basically my job. Sometimes negative ones are, too. What he’s right about though, judging by the smirk I’m not quite controlling isn’t that he’s the low maintenance one.
“I am worth it. So are you, though.”
I’d argue he’s complicated my life a lot, but he simplifies it for me in so many ways, too. Like just now. Squashing down all the many, many concerns and worries and complications in my head and bringing it to one important point. Not just that I can do this, but that he believes in me. The person that knows all my flaws, and the ins and outs of Cassie Sandsmark and still is counting on me to do all of this. Plus he gets brownie points for letting me hit him in the face with an ice ball. Which I am very aware, despite roughly doubling in speed lately, is not nearly quick enough to have gotten the drop on him. I’m not sure anyone could, except maybe Wally.
“No excuse, Pot! Eyes on the prize! No, not those…”
It’s like the laughter. It feels good. That impulsive throw, and what it leads into. Not thinking about what I should be doing instead right now, but just instigating, and throwing myself into, a fight that I know I can’t win but that’s not the point. It’s the game. And the fact that it’s just me and Conner at the literal top of the world, and how free that makes me feel.
by Michele | Jan 21, 2018 | Chronicles
Dinah: What’s the only thing worse than being stuck in a city that’s rapidly spiraling out of control, and towards imminent war-torn destruction? Being a person with the means, and a place, to bail on it for and being unable to leave because of assorted personal issues and hang-ups. Morals. Vigilante sense of justice, mixed with feelings of stewardship. Ownership. Whatever. Another step worse? Being the kind of control freak who’s used to being able to control the people around them either through skill, smarts, or wiles, and in that sort of situation. Frankly, it’s a wonder that Bruce didn’t have a coronary long before someone killed him. Still. I’d say he probably could have/would have handled this.
If it weren’t for the fact that none of this particular ‘this’ would have been happening if he were here in the first place. Of all of the things that have set Gotham to be the colliding grounds for so many forces, I would never have guessed Batman’s death would have been the cause of all of it. Not like this. What I’m most struggling with, however, is how everything wants to line up so neatly into one small package in my head, when logic says that shouldn’t happen. Not here. And yet…
Not rushing my ass back across the city to my bar and apartment isn’t actually that difficult. I’ve got a lot to think about. The fact that Tim’s not actually there anymore, apparently, dampens my sense of urgency quite a bit. Sure, kid can handle himself. He also went down a flight of concrete stairs with a ninja, and I know how his shoulder looked after. Probably only gotten worse since, and stiffer. Finding out he’s ‘undercover’ somewhere with Spoiler makes me feel better, but only because he’s not in the same building as Deathstroke. Not because I have faith she can look out for him well enough to make up for the shoulder.
With myself down one Red Robin worry, that leaves me with the people in the building. My technical employees and customers. If Slade was interested in murdering the lot of them, he probably would have already started to use that to get my attention. Once I’ve gotten back, it’s up the narrow stairs, the comm tucked back into place where it belongs, and the quick effort of de-Canary-ing. Which actually involves putting more clothes on, right now. A short skirt tugged up over my hips, a slouchy old Pantera shirt pulled over my head. The boots and fishnets may be the same, but I’m not exactly going for high quality disguise before I wander down the connecting flight of stairs to the well bolted connecting door.
It doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s often enough that no eyebrows are raised when I slink through the kitchen, slap together a sandwich with what’s out, and pick up a bottle of cheap-ass whiskey. This is why I don’t bother stocking my kitchen upstairs. My eyebrows are also not raised when I find him much where I expected him to be. Probably should. That’s my day though, right?
“Slade.”
I keep going past him, shoving a bite of my food in my face, as I make my way to my favorite corner booth. It wasn’t empty. It gets that way real quickly though, with a demonstrative jerk of my head. Clearly the look on my face makes the two guys that had been using it go from ‘ooh, our lucky day’ to ‘oh $%* run.’
Slade: Gotham City isn’t a tourist destination for normal people. Maybe the occasional loon wanting to get his brush with death in the form of a Rogue’s Gallery scare or someone wanting to catch a glimpse of Batman. What Gotham lacks in tourism as an industry, it makes up for in being the heart of commerce for most of the Eastern Seaboard. Sure, other ports might be safer, but few of them are as large or as well fitted with various levels of Wayne Industries technology. Outside of the Port there’s a certain amount of other industry attached to the city, most of those conversations almost always end with the same family name as well though. Wayne.
The one thing that that Wayne Family don’t control in this city is perhaps the one thing that booms even further than Technology, Shipping or the Labor Industry. One word. Crime. Once upon a time New York, even Chicago, were the hubs of the Mafia-world. True enough that have their fair share, but here in Gotham the Mafia has not been quite as harshly hit as the rest of those cities. Something or someone has always kept them at the cusp. Never quite defeated, never quite dragging the city in to total chaos. Using their means to control the levels of crime, so as to keep the Federal Government from ever truly being too interested.
In most recent times, since the ‘Death of Batman,’ the City’s fine line has been crossed often. As much by the likes of Joker and his insane telecasts, as by the veritable horde of Assassins flooding in to the City, but also by the likes of it’s own protectors who court the interference of the Federal Government with their own defiance. It all seems to be reaching a boiling point, doesn’t it? Like one of those old Indiana Jones movies, where everything that could possibly go wrong does. In catastrophic order. Until the Heroes are faced with the impossible, no-win, situation. In those films something always happens to give Indy his one chance at victory.
“Dinah.”
When you’re in the line of work that Dinah Lance is in, there are a handful of people in the whole world that you just know on sight. Her connection to the Police alone would have given her all she needed to know in order to recognize the Deathstroke in uniform. All of the other things in her life have given her the ability to recognize him out of that uniform. Sitting at the end of her bar, being attended by a veritable litany of fanboys who are clamoring to hear another story. Dinah’s bar is frequented by all types. From friend to foe, from vigilante out of costume, to crook looking for a safe place to grab a bite to eat without being gunned down by a rival. Not only has Wilson made himself at home, but he’s clearly been here long enough to have garnered some attentions.
And then there’s his tone. So cordial, with that hint of accent that speaks of being well born and raised, yet borders on being too familiar when he’s spoken only a single word. A tip of an empty shot-glass sends the bar-keeper for more, but as he does Slade is turning toward the only thing that’s stolen attention from his tales all evening.
“Finished with the bird bath. Figured you’d be down. Guessin you took a trip to the ‘Berg? Or maybe you had to talk to the Demon’s grandson, to stop him from picking a fight with the U.S. Government? Seriously. Alien Princesses. Gotham’s a lot more Fun now.”
Dinah:
“Little of column A, less of column B.”
At least he missed my brief interlude with the not suited up Superman, also known to almost no one as Conner Luthor for very good reason. Namely the enormous shitshow that would probably result in, were the news spilled by anyone other than President Luthor in a finely controlled fashion that fit his narrative in a finely groomed sort of way. If ever. It doesn’t take much in the way of paranoia to know that that is the kind of secret that can get you killed, even if you’re not a previously untouchable meta-human with the power to whistle slightly louder than your average person. Had Slade seen that, it likely would have gotten mentioned, too.
“Must be something in the water, which is why I’m sticking strictly to alcohol from now on. Really. You’d think people in Gotham would have better sense than to attract Government attention. Only so much temptation can go on before they’re going to stop pointedly looking the other way and pretending we don’t exist as a blight on… blahblahblah…”
Oh. The irony. Maybe less ironic since. Well. I have a feeling he knows that, too. Else why the pointed comments about me missing all my boyfriends, lately? I’d say maybe there’s a possibility it is paranoia causing me to read into something, because Star City’s been my stomping grounds the last few years, putting me, in Gotham, away from my usual company. The way things have been lately? It’s not really a possibility I’m going to allow for. To be on the safe side. And because Slade Wilson is here. Sitting in my bar. After being a little huffy about my not wanting help freely offered to me.
Mostly because it wasn’t free. I know better. And you know. Murder. Throwing back a swallow from my bottle, there’s a satisfied sound as I sink down into seat, sliding around into the curve of it lets me kick my feet up on the other side. It’s also the only booth in the joint that’s not fully bolted down, so I can kick it over if the mood and/or need arises. Also points my screamer a little better in his direction. Or lets me look at him while we’re talking. That second one sounds like better manners. Which we’re apparently pretending to have.
“But here I thought the only kind of fun you were interested in was the paid kind. Unless that’s gotten old finally?”
Slade: Another shot glass filled, another one emptied. This is how the story goes as Dinah speaks. Nothing she says is wrong, but it’s topical. She’s making chit-chat. Standard fair sort of stuff. Ordinarily that might be a cause for tension, but tonight is a different sort of night. Apparently Slade isn’t here to question her or try to get information. As she and Grayson had discussed, you wouldn’t send the Deathstroke for an interrogation. Wrong tool to be applied. No, he’s not bothered by her words or her lack of direction. In fact he seems to embrace this little time of talking, while saying nothing. Perhaps even taking this as opportunity to show her that he can play that game, should it suit him to do so.
“Not a bad plan, actually. Because something is definitely in the Water around here,” a moment’s hesitation leads him to reaching past the single shot glass for the entire bottle that other man’s holding. “Most everything gets old eventually. Being paid isn’t one of them, though. My ex-wife would always try to tell me that you couldn’t buy happiness. One of the many reasons I had to kill her, always lying to me.”
Taking not one but two of the shot glasses that the bartender had put in place, Slade runs the bottle across them. Not minding the mess on the way to filling each of them. One of which is offered to Dinah once he’s risen from that solitary stool and approached her booth. Nothing fancy, just a simple bottle of vodka. As cheap as the whiskey she’s drinking, but twice as hard to down. Such is the nature of those pesky Russians who invented the stuff.
“One of the nuances you always missed, is that there are other currencies to be paid in. Money isn’t the only commodity that I’m willing to take a contract for.” There’s no flashiness to the turning of the shot glass up and downing it, but it is a demonstration to show her that nothing was done to the drink. But then she likely knows poisoning her isn’t how it would likely go with Wilson. “You’d be surprised at the things I’m given in payment. Weapons. Favors. Secrets. Sometimes I’m even willing to trade the things I have, for things I want.”
“You know we don’t have to keep dancing, right? If I was here to kill you, I’ve had ample opportunity to make the attempt. You’re hoping I’ll slip up and give you a clue, but we don’t need to play that game. I’m willing to just tell you, if you’re willing trade answer for answer.”
Dinah: “There usually is, I guess. To be fair. Just a question of whether it’s a body, mind altering chemical, body altering chemical, kerosene…”
I’d be twirling a finger to indicate the list goes on, and on, and on, depending upon which of the Rogues is responsible, or if it’s one of the crime groups, or just your average run of the mill corporate not-caring-pollution. Only one hand has a bottle in it, and the other my sandwich so I just end up gesturing vaguely with my dinner/midnight snack. This is kind of early to be dinner or my mid-night though. Like I’ve said. Gotham’s gone all weird lately, and I guess I’m going along with it.
“Depends on the kind of happiness I guess, and your definition of it. Some people think it only comes in that satisfied, peaceful soul kind of application. Pfft.”
The laugh comes out about the time I’m sipping from my elegant glass/bottle, right before it gets set down to take the offered shot glass. Am I worried about what he’s giving me? Not in the least. We’re in my bar. It’s ‘my’ booze’ and ‘my’ shot glasses and frankly that’s not really his style.
“Not in this job, amiright?”
Not that our jobs are exactly the same, except in the broad stroke label of ‘violence.’ That. We definitely both do. I’m not so high and mighty that I don’t recognize the similarities, but there’s also some very, very big differences. Mostly that come down to the fact that I don’t kill. And also that he gets a whole hell of a lot more money to do what he does, than I do to do what I do. Probably technically more thanks as well. Just in the dollar sign variety.
“See, I know about those other options, I just didn’t know you did. Learn something new every day.”
I don’t like Vodka all that much, personally. Not by itself. I’m sure someone out there would argue I don’t have much in the way of a refined palate for alcohol, especially given what I’m currently swilling, but I still have a preference. Vodka just tastes like a bare step above rubbing alcohol to me, and I don’t make a habit of drinking that either. That said? I was at college for the last three-ish years. There’s not much I can’t chug. So this, too, is thrown back. With a wrinkled nose look of disgust, and chased with another bite of corned beef and ham on mismatched types of toast.
“Oh, sure. I’m aware. Most likely before I, or anyone else that might get uppity (and we know how the Bats are) over you taking a hit in Gotham, knew you were even here. Not that the thought didn’t still cross my mind. I mean. You’re you. I’m me. But then there was you being so gosh darn persistently helpful.”
Hmmmmmmm. I don’t make the considerate sound out loud, but the way my blonde head dips from side to side, it’s a pretty clear contemplative debate going on here. Do I have answers and information? Sure, I have a lot of them. I know a lot of people, who have a lot of secrets, and then there’s my own. A lot of those answers and information not only aren’t mine to give, but even if they were I wouldn’t jeopardize the people they’re about even to sate my curiosity about why the hell Slade Wilson’s sitting in my bar.
“That sounds like a game that could be worth playing. But only if you ask your question first, and if I don’t give you your answer, I don’t get mine.”
Slade: “Hey, in Gotham? It’s just as likely to be all of the above. Bodies, Chemicals and Kerosene sounds like the start of a good night with Harley Quinn, from what I’ve heard.”
Banter. It’s easy to fall in, even for two people that aren’t exactly chums. In this case though, the banter is about recognition. Two people with similar backgrounds, even similar mentalities. Separated only by a thin perception of morality. In this case she has some and Slade doesn’t. At least, Slade would have people believe that normally. Dinah has seen it herself though, that the man does actually have a code. The Contract is everything. In any normal situation he won’t violate a deal once brokered. Though how he chooses to interpret the terms seem to be solely at the discretion of Deathstroke. A nod of the head tells her that she’s entered in to just such a bargain right then and there.
“Oh, Birdy. Don’t tell me you bought in to the Deathstroke mask, you of all people should know that reputation is something to be created. It isn’t necessarily always the truth. I buy, sell and trade in anything that gets me closer to the things I want at any particular time.”
The other side of her booth might look cozy, but Slade makes no effort to take that seat. Joining Dinah might be what any other male would do if given the right opportunity, with enough liquor at play, but not him. He’s all to aware of what proximity does for a girl with her particular set of lungs can do. He saw it first hand not so long ago. Instead of joining her at the table, he pulls one of the stools away from the bar in order to sit outside of the booth. Close, but not confined. Though at that same time, Slade’s making several mistakes if he were jockeying for tactical position. He’s leaving his back exposed. There’s no effort made towards eliminating her line of fire with that voice of her’s. Both of which are mistakes that he’d only make if he were doing it on purpose or already too drunk to be keeping up a conversation. Maybe not even then. So it should be fairly clear that a fight is not what he’s here for.
Chances are he could rise to the occasion quickly enough though. “This isn’t a game, luv, but your terms are more than fair.”
With a cluck of his tongue, Slade takes only long enough to speak again as it takes to pour another round of vodka in to the two shot glasses. “Do you actually remember how we first met, Dinah?”
Dinah: “Or a bad one. Mostly depends on whose body it is.”
It is what I do. Bantering. Chattering. There’s different reasons for doing it, depending upon who my particular sparring partner is. I might be trying to put someone at ease, to humiliate, tweak a nose, or glibly make a point. And that’s just in the ‘Bat’ cave, whichever one it might happen to be. Then there’s distraction and misdirection. More likely to be the case right now, except that I think we both know exactly what this is, and what it isn’t. At least at this moment. The Iceberg was sort of a testament to what our two particular brands of ‘living weapon’ will do if provoked into use. He knows I could scream at him. I know he could put all manner of sharp or shooty things in me just as quickly. If he had a reason to kill me, like he already said, there’s been time and opportunity. And I currently don’t have a good reason to provoke him.
Again. See example: Iceberg if you want to know how that goes. I’m cocky. I’m not stupid.
“Well, if that’s your question…”
I don’t think he’s being sloppy, drunk, or that I’ve successfully charmed him into letting down any sort of defenses. This might not be neutral ground, but I don’t want to hurt anyone in here, or rip down my own building. I would if I felt I had to, though. All things which Slade surely knows. Just like I’m probably the only even potential threat in the building, so there’s no risk in turning his back on everyone else, and a lot more to gain from doing what would normally be exposing a weak point. Picking up my shot glass again, it’s twirled for a moment as I consider exactly how much food versus liquor I’ve had tonight already. And decide I’m okay to down this one, too.
“As we were inevitably going to at some point. On opposite ends of a fight.”
Not my fight, mind you, but one I stuck my nose in anyway. I didn’t have the same initial stake in the game on the West Coast, not like I did here in Gotham where my whole reason began. But I couldn’t not go out there at night, and that lead to meeting Green Arrow. New playmate to learn. And tease, and antagonize, until we fell into being something other than foils. Then his fights were mine, because I wasn’t about to sit by. One of those fights brought me up against the third person in the world that I’d ever met that could kick my ass. Not in rankings of danger/ass-kicking, just chronological order.
“I don’t think you were there for the fight, I think Green Arrow and Shado’s little…spat… was mostly just in your way.”
The ones that suffered most in the offing were the Yakuza, frankly. The other two’s distraction with each other left at least Ollie thinking that wasn’t the case, but what little we’d really engaged with Deathstroke that first time? We lived through, and that meant he wasn’t there for either one of us.
Slade: Another little cluck of the tongue, this time it’s not so clear as to why it’s happened. Either her comment about a time with Quinn being a ‘bad one’ or maybe it has something to do with the way she took the last snifter of vodka. Though, in reality, it doesn’t really matter why he’s done it. So much as it matters that he has. This might not be a game, but there’s a hint of playfulness about it all. Is he testing her limits, in something other than a fight?
“Mmm. That was the first time you met Deathstroke, you don’t remember the first time you met me then.” That isn’t a question, she’s confirmed something that he was looking for.
Moving as carefully as you might expect someone with the man’s skill, the bottle of vodka is lifted and deposited back upon the bar. With the table before Dinah now mostly free, there is plenty of room for him to fish something from the only pocket the loose fitting silk shirt has. This isn’t part of the game. There’s no question being asked. In fact, by the terms of her own making it is now her ‘turn’ in this little back and forth. Though even as she’s being given a chance to ask whatever she likes? Slade has set a small item down in front of her. It looks harmless, for a microchip. Anyone who knows Dinah Lance would know that she’s unlikely to recognize such a thing at a glance, but the way Slade’s fixed upon Dinah’s features? Suggests that he very much expects her too.
“Something tells me that the question you wanted to ask fifteen seconds ago, isn’t the one going through your mind now.”
Dinah: It’s probably a good thing that mostly the only person’s opinion on what I do, and how I do it, that matters to me is my own or I might be trying to read something into that tsk. I may not like vodka, but I’ll drink it, at least as long as I’ve got something else to get rid of the taste with. Besides which, Tim may have ruined me for life when it comes to what whiskey should taste like. I didn’t even feel bad when I found out the relative sticker price of that particular bottle, either. My answer to his statement is a shrug of barely covered shoulders as I finish off the first half of my sandwich, flicking crumbs off the edge of the table as I chew. Obviously I don’t remember, if that wasn’t the first time. When did I meet Slade Wilson?
I’ve got a pretty good head for faces. My father always said it was a must have quality for a Detective, right up there with being willing and able to dog leads, and navigate your way through a crime scene. But he’s right. I don’t remember a time before that. After? Sure. That was the first time he registered for me though. Somewhere that I was training maybe? I’ve been all over the world, and studied under a small collection of other masters (which is where number two on the kick my ass list came in). Or it could have been somewhere innocuous seeming.
What’s he doing? Presenting me with more questions that can be asked. Ones that I think are going to be more important than the one that’s been burning in our collective minds tonight? Or something more personal and curiosity piquing? With my fingers cleaned off, and my mouth mostly clear of food, I pick up the microchip like it’s some nasty, ugly bug that may very well bite me. Do I know exactly what it is? No. Do I know that it’s a piece of electronics or tech? Yup. Which means that it falls squarely into the realm of someone else that stays in this building besides me.
“When you’re right, you’re right. What can I say… and yet…”
What is this? Where did I meet you before and why don’t I remember you from that time? Is it because I was too young, or because of something else? Those things are so much more personal, and immediate seeming. But that doesn’t mean they’re the most important.
“What were you trying to get out of Penguin tonight, Slade?”
More specific than my general question. But then. I know how I’d answer a general question like ‘why are you in town, Dinah?’ With something very general, and vague, and fulfilling the requirements but not really giving anything away that couldn’t be gotten through some other means. Like observation.
Slade: “I was contacted by a ‘blind client,’ about a contract with a peculiar target. Normally I don’t bother questioning, but this time I wanted some further details before decided whether to accept or decline the contract. Oswald has been asking me for months to work protection for something ‘big’ he had going. So I was allowing him to believe we were negotiating terms for that job, in order get information from him.”
There’s no hesitation in Slade about answering her question. Though it seems like he might be hedging, given that he doesn’t immediately tell her the precise ‘What’ he’d been after. In fairness, though she was specific in her question, his answer could be where he chose to leave it. He’s answered well enough and left it where she could follow up with more specifics. Yet after barely a moment to gather a breathe, he continues…
“It isn’t every day that you get asked to kill Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter and if you’re going to accept that contract it means you’ve made an enemy for longer than just life.”
Answering Dinah in such full terms may not be the first surprise of the evening for her, but Slade isn’t quite finished yet. As she’s looking at the first microchip, he takes another from his pocket. Then another and another, and another… until the number of them set before her is five. Once they’re lined up, all but the one in her hand, Slade casually tilts his head in her direction. His gaze is pretty intense, but there’s a sense of him sizing her up. More so a determination of whether she’s being honest about not remembering, nor recognizing the hardware she’s being shown.
“Fairchild. Bronson. Trevor. Waller. Wilson.” Each time he says a name he points at one of the chips, until the only one without a name is the one in her hand. “Lance.”
Once he’s said the last name on the list his hand shifts once more. This time it’s to the back pocket of his pants, where a small cut out of a newspaper clipping is held. It’s from the Daily Planet, years ago. An article written by Clark Kent about the ‘Department of Extranormal Affairs,’ being founded by the newly appointed Secretary of Metahuman Affairs. An African-American woman that Kent names ‘Amanda Waller.’
“Dinah, why did Talia al Ghul build a Lazarus Pit in the Penguin’s night club?”
Dinah: Part of me would wonder if that makes it easier. Not knowing who you were doing the wetwork for. Not having to wonder the ‘why’ of the motivation, if the person might be justified or not. I don’t see him being someone to be kept up at night one way or the other. It’s the job, right? He’s got his supposed code, and otherwise what matters is the contract. Ultimately, I suppose, it’s the person putting out the hit that’s setting things in motion. Except. That it is still murder. There’s been any number of people I’ve come up against that I am fairly sure I could have ended, and been justified to do so. I don’t. That’s a path that Bruce Wayne steered me off of. Now if only we could correct Damien’s outlook just a hair.
Is Oswald’s ‘big project’ the Lazarus Pit he’s had hiding there for who knows how long? That couldn’t have been months though, something like that I don’t think could have stayed quiet there for that long. The blonde eyebrow that hikes up on my face could be for a number of reasons, and I suppose it really is. Like the amount of information I’m actually getting here. About half of which is basically voluntary though…boy… I’m not about to stop him. Or maybe because someone asked him to take out Talia al Ghul. He said if you take it though. Which raises another question in the line. Did he? What happens then, if the Joker does it before he does? I don’t know where the boys are at as far as tracking her down. I do know we don’t have a lot of time either way, now.
Ooh, look. More doohickies… if I”m being un-Dinah-like levels of quiet, it’s because he’s giving me a lot more to chew on than the sandwich did, and laying out more and more of those little chips. This time, with names. Some of which ring obvious bells. All but one actually. My lips purse at my own surname, and I lean in across the booth’s small table to get a little bit of a closer look at the clipping.
“I’ve only really got assumptions there.”
And after what happened to said Lazarus Pit? Either she’s succeeded already, or she’s not going to get the chance to. At least from here, either because it’s gone, or because she’s not going to be in any fit state to do such a thing. Even if I felt like being as openly sharing as he’s being right now, I can’t be. Because I don’t have much. Talia and I aren’t exactly shopping buddies.
“I assume she intended to try to bring Batman back. As for why in the night club? Definitely about the last place I would have thought to look for a pit, Lazarus or otherwise.”
Talia. A contract. Which he may or may not have taken. And may or may not have found out who was actually behind it. The potentially separate issue with these chips. The article. His comments in Penguin’s office earlier, and questions about our first meeting. So many dangling threads and my head wants to seize on all of them. So which do I choose for the answer I’m due, and how long do we get to play this game that’s not really a game so much as an oddly amicable exchange of thoughts with a paid serial killer before he wants something I’m not willing to give? Puts a sort of priority on the questions one might want to ask.
“So. Where should I have remembered meeting you first?”
Something tells me that? Is going to tie into all of this. No, not necessarily Talia and the Bats and Gotham, but what he’s so carefully laying out for me here like breadcrumbs to follow into .. or out of…something dark and dangerous.
Slade: Again, as with before, the answer comes so quickly that it’s crystal clear that I’ve been awaiting the question. It was only natural for Canary to follow up on the things that have been plaguing her and her cohorts, but sooner or later she was going to have to ask about the reasons I was here. Here in the sense of ‘at her Bar,’ more so than here in Gotham. One may lead, even connect too, the other. Ever the Detective, she can’t really let it slide. It’s a thread, one that has very clear connections now that she’s been told the names.
“Two thousand and seven. Ra’s al Ghul was attempting to purge Gotham. The League of Assassins came here with the explicit purpose of destroying the City. Few people actually ever learned of the League itself or it’s intentions. Most believed the press. That it was just one more of the lunatics inspired by the Batman’s presence to rise up against him. The press painted the League as just another serial killer’s following, a cult.”
“Only a handful of people knew the truth about the League. Even fewer knew the truth about why they wanted to ‘Purge Gotham City.’ That Ra’s was trying to eliminate a rival. He failed and the repercussions were harsh,” lifting a hand to gently tap one finger upon those chips. “No one. Maybe not even the Batman, knew that he had some help that night. You and I met ten hours prior to the breach of Arkham. Inside of an airplane, that was in route to Gotham City.”
“Those other names were there with us. These chips? Were in our skulls.”
Dinah: “Let me guess. A rival group that somehow no one else had ever heard of, or managed to guess that they even existed, and likes to keep a certain sort of status quo in Gotham. And that even now apparently scares the demonic piss out of him.”
I was here for the breech. For No Man’s Land. It was a little bit before I started venting my spleen on Gotham’s police department, and the criminal element of the city, for my Father’s murder but I was still here. I’ve lived in Gotham more than I’ve lived out of it, and just because my family’s home was in the suburbs, it doesn’t mean that kind of next level crap doesn’t effect basically everything about your life. There wasn’t a day that it wasn’t discussed in school, if we even had school at the time, and I spent most of that time period with my grandfather because Dad was obviously busy with his job.
While that’s nice information to have, because backstory can be important for motives and methods, and how you’re going to interact with someone that you’re facing… I’m waiting for how it ties this all together. Because I’d been joking with Dick about this all being one neat, nice bloody package tied with a red ribbon. It was both too simple a solution/answer, and yet made a perfect sort of sense anyway. Gotham can be chaos incarnate. But then you look at the pieces that make it that way. The way they work and build off one another. Finding out there’s some group that’s been sitting in the shadows for maybe as long as there’s been a Gotham?
That neat bow? I’m kind of getting this sense of…dread. Because it’s being wrapped up here, in front of me, when the question I’d asked was about how Slade and I had actually met. And his answer?
“Hah.”
There isn’t a whole lot of actual humor to that laugh that sneaks out, it’s more startled, maybe with a hint of disbelief to the tone.
“Someone decided it’d be a brilliant idea to put a barely teenage me, an I’m assuming you were already merc-ing you, and a handful of other shmucks on an airplane to go help Batman…”
My incredulity isn’t actually at the potential for my involvement. I was probably fourteen. I was an early bloomer as it was, possibly thanks to the fact that my meta-gene kicked in when I was in kindergarten. I’d been training with Ted Grant for just as long as I had tutoring from the original Black Canary on how to use and control my gift. Add in both female figures in my life being dead at that point, and my having a whole lot of aimless rage from that? Even at fourteen, I was a highly lethal, highly developed Mean Girl. I just hadn’t consciously thought to use how powerful I was that way. Not until when my Dad was killed. Doesn’t mean I didn’t have the potential. I just don’t remember any of this.
Tetch made me lose ten minutes or so of my life not that long ago. Maybe it makes it that much easier to think that someone with the means, and reason, to make me forget a whole night? God. Why am I able to accept that so easily? Or maybe I’m not. I’m going back to my bottle of whiskey now, for a longer drink than just throwing back a from the bottle shot.
“I should probably apologize for the fact that teenage me was very angry, and hadn’t learned to be the charming vixen I am now…and people think I’m blunt force trauma at this point in my life… except obviously. I don’t remember any of this. So. If this all really happened. And I’ll admit I’m drawing a blank for what possible benefit there’d be in it for you to lie about it. Why do you remember this fun little trip and I don’t?”
Slade: The way in which one eyebrow climbs upward suggests that Slade is a little surprised at how Canary reacts to all of this. Throwing the ‘rules’ she set up out in order to ask another question, therefor putting her on the debt side of the equation. His head cants off to the side, but like before he answers almost immediately. There’s no reason to stall or hold back, because this discussion feeds in to why he’s here and is in turn getting him additional information, if only in the form of her clearly having no memories of what he’s speaking off.
Though, that’s a lot less surprising than you might think, given than… “I don’t, actually. Remember it. At least not all of it. Flashes here, broken dreams there. Fragments that might not be memories, but my own body’s way of compensating for what my brain can’t reconcile. What I know, now, comes mostly in the form of information I’ve gained. I told you, I don’t always deal in money as my own commodity.”
“Every time I’ve found answered, I’ve also found more questions. We were part of some sort of suicide squad. Expendable assets that wouldn’t be missed if things went south, nor trusted overly if they went sideways. I’ve been unable to ascertain whether the lost memories were from our handlers or from the people we were sent in to stop.” The news clipping is once again the source of Slade’s attentions, as he draws Dinah back to it with a tap of the fingers. “Ra’s and the League were intent upon purging the City, cleaning out this Rival of the Demon’s. Someone. Very high on the political food chain, made the decision to oppose Ra’s al Ghul. They set her in motion.”
“She was just a handler back then, but now she’s a player herself. You? Too young, no reason you’d have the memories if everyone else lost them. I wasn’t going to even approach you. Your morals will only get in the way of what I’m planning. At least. They would normally. But then I got word from a source that you’ve recently gotten Waller’s attention again. That you now know first hand, that they can make someone disappear. And maybe you’ve got motivation to not leave a highly skilled, but innocent, operative in her hands being forced to do who-knows-what.”
Dinah: “Suicide Squad? Now if that doesn’t have an alliterative ring to it, I don’t know what does…”
Yes, that was a bit of a slip up but… frankly if we were playing this strictly by any set of harsh rules he’s already given far more in the way of answers than I have. He has a lot more to tell on the matters than I have had. As he’d said. It really isn’t a game anyway. I think we’ve taken a step past that now, haven’t we? In fact, it sounds a lot more like ‘common problem.’ Slade made a point of his not only trading in death and coin. So to have something like this, involving yourself, and actions that you took that you have no memories of and were potentially not of your own free will? That’s got to rankle.
It sure does me, and it was half a lifetime ago. I also don’t have a livelihood or reputation quite like Deathstroke’s. I mean. Sure. We could have volunteered. If you asked me tonight to storm Arkham because Batman needed me to? I’d be in. He probably wouldn’t be, not out of the goodness of his heart. But chips planted in someone’s brain, and a shadowy group pulling government strings? Christ. I don’t even need to know what I do about NOWHERE to have that make me get my guard up. Fairchild. Waller. The former I’m just going to assume is Conner’s ‘friend’ and not assume any kind of coincidence. Not anymore.
“That I did. Apparently you don’t get to scream down someone in Metropolis and stay off their radar.”
I’m finding myself sitting here, bottle still in one hand, chip in the other, while my brain starts working up its own sort of chicken or egg conundrum. Was I an asset because I wasn’t on the lists, thanks to my Grandmother? Or was I not on the lists anymore because of what we’d been thrown in to do? Clearly it was a success. He’s still here. I’m here. Waller. Fairchild. The last name Trevor I recognize, though I don’t know the man personally. The last one was really the only mystery. Not enough of one to make me ask, though. Not right now. Leaning back against the seat of the booth again, I let out an exaggeratedly long sigh. Giving up my hold on the bottle, to push a hand through my hair, tousling blonde locks as I scratch.
“Well. You’re in luck, Wilson. I was already set to show them that there’s people you don’t just get to mess with, and make sure it was a lesson that stuck. Somehow it’s actually even more personal now than it was before.”
I’d say that I’m past personal grudges and kicking people’s asses over them. This one? Isn’t just about me, though. And if it’s about Gotham, too? Bruce. Tim, Damien and Dick. All of them? That’s an entirely different kettle of fish.
Slade: “Luck is one thing I never trade in, Lady Bird, but it has it’s place,” just not right now, there is nothing lucky about Slade Wilson being here right now this second.
The comment about screaming someone down in Metropolis seems to merit no notice, though Slade’s one of those people who files things away today and brings them up again in ten years. He very clearly doesn’t have all of the pieces to all of the puzzles. Just enough to tell him which way to point the gun, who to the sword too. Knowing just enough about Penguin’s operation to lure Canary in to a talk, because she had questions. Then just enough about Dinah’s situation to know that she’d have a vested interest in aiding him. Maybe, as an outside chance, she knew something more than he did and would share it once she realized that they did in fact have common enemies at the moment.
With a sweeping gesture of his hand the shot glass he had filled for himself is finally snatched up and downed, with barely a ‘salute’ to remember it by. Dinah’s keen, she knows when something has happened even if she doesn’t know what it is. She can see the wheels in Slade’s brain turning over and over as he processes what he knew, versus what he knows now.
“You’ve got some things to work through here in Gotham, obviously. Gives me time to pull a couple last bits of information out of my contacts. I’ll reach out as soon as I have a location on where they’re holding Oliver,” placing the shot glass down in the same motion that his hand scoops up all of the extra microchips. “Look, I don’t give a rat’s arse about Gotham but what’s going on here? It isn’t just all connected here, it’s connected everywhere.”
“Ra’s al Ghul made a play a decade ago to wipe them out. He failed and from what I’ve pieced together, he was punished for it. It seems pretty clear to me that whoever he was trying to wipe out had the cajoles to pull strings in the White House. The juice to green light Waller’s whole career and now this Clown is stirring them all up again? Sounds to me like the Batman had the right idea. Time to get out of this shithole.”
Rising to leave, Wilson pauses long enough in doing so to give Dinah another look. “I meant what I said before, Pigeon. If you need my help with all of this, the price is negotiable. You just have to ask. I’m sure you know how to reach me, if you really want too.”
Dinah: Maybe there’s nothing lucky about him being here. It might be lucky that I’d already, as I said, had my mind set on an outcome that came from NOWHERE messing with the people close to me, since they couldn’t apparently get at me directly. Does that, too, tie into this? Because why not just come after me? Clearly they’ve done it before, with no provocation required. Screaming in Conner Luthor’s ears was, as he’d told me himself, more than reason enough. What I did tonight at the Lounge was maybe more necessary to save lives, but still the equivalent of thumbing my nose at them. Except it had come after what they did to Ollie.
Which is why I haven’t done anything yet. I’m no genius, that’s my roommate, but I’m smart enough to know that just finding where they have Oliver Queen isn’t enough. Maybe it would have been once. It’s bigger than a one man rescue op though, especially now. The scope’s too big. There’s too many people in the offing to be effected, and so many more potential players. My plan had, until tonight, been a two step work in progress. First? I need to have said genius roommate work his magic. He already was, to a degree. The only way to really end all of it is exposure, and that takes more than me. Second step? I’ve been doing a lot of practicing in basement. Gotta get my lungs powered up even more.
“It was big enough when it was two separate problems. Knowing it’s one? Shit. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.”
Knowing that Ra’s was scared of them, scared enough to tell Bruce to run? That had been one thing, too. Learning more, finding out the scope and the reach? Knowing that Bruce was trying to work it alone and what happened to him for just maybe disturbing the balance of htings, or at least threatening to? I’m doubly not satisfied with Tim’s backup being Stephanie Brown right now, whatever it is that they’re playing at. I’m also not giving that chip back if he’s not asking for it. You know what they say about gift horses and their mouths.
“I’m a little better at playing with others than Batman was. And that means that unless they’re all migrating? Well. Guess it’s time to show what loyalty to the shithole means.”
It just probably doesn’t include hiring Deathstroke to take care of my problem for me. That’s the line we don’t go over, right?
“Thanks, though. Not so much for the offer but for bringing the rest of this to me.”
Me and my bottle, and my half a sandwich, are getting up, too. Both surely to be finished upstairs in privacy. Everyone else has eyes on them tonight, so God help us all if they end up needing mine, too. It is Gotham though. So we’ll see.
