Earth-52 IC

[Sophistemon]

Lock-Up

Shondra.

She lands at his feet in a broken heap, her body mangled by the fall and bleeding from a dozen injuries, but none greater than the one dealt to her throat. That slender, coffee-colored throat, torn open by the blade of a knife, the wound gaping like a second mouth, red on red, gushing blood in slowing bursts as her heart runs out of fuel. Black Mask is talking, his red eyes glowing, taunting, but he can't hear him because his own blood is rushing in his ears, pounding like waves against the shore. Words slip through, like "Knife" and "Morgue" but the rest are lost in the rising tides of blood. Animal, he thinks.

Mankind is an animal, a descendant first of rodents and then of apes, a violent, bloodthirsty beast that clothes itself in civilization like a vagrant in a patched and ratty robe. He sinks to his knees and cradles her head in his hands. His gloves are stained with blood as he leans down and listens to hear her breathe. And when the robe gets torn away... when the beast is free to prey on others... then they need to be caged, he concludes. They need to be locked up for their own good and when that doesn't work they need to be put down so that they can't tear the throats out of real people like

Shondra.

The name tears through him like a hollow-point, shredding his heart and bringing tears to his eyes, his cheeks, his chin, soaking his mask and blurring his vision. He'd brought her on board because her amazing ability to heal meant that she could patch him up when he came home mangled. But she'd healed more than his body. Talking to her was cathartic, therapeutic. When he was with her, he didn't need the mantras or the meditation. When he was with her, he didn't need to repress the rage because the rage was gone. But she'd healed more than his mind. "I love you," he says, and the prayer pours out of his mouth like a flood: "Om saha nāvavatu saha nau bhunaktu saha vīryaṃ karavāvahai tejasvināvadhītamastu mā vidviṣāvahai oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ." His voice is choked. The gravel is gone. "Don't leave me, Shondra," he pleads. "Don't leave me." If he could patch the wound, stop the bleeding, and get her to a hospital... if they could bring her around, then she could heal herself. She could heal herself and she wouldn't even carry any scars. If it isn't too late.

Shondra...

Actions:

Spoiler

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• Checking for life-signs.
• Just-in-Case roll: (1d20)[15]

[DeafnotDumb]

Katherine Walker

The gun is out of the safe and in her hands with a speed that tells she's done it before. Two years is a long time to be alone with nothing but a gun, and Walker remembers those times. When the thought that Jimmy and Kima were waiting on the other side was the only thing stopping her, because she couldn't stand the looks on their faces if they found out she'd given up after all they'd done.

But now? Now was different. Things were much clearer.

What had she done since that day she'd thought about shooting herself? Tried it, too, until she realized the gun was empty? That hadn't been the divine blessing she'd thought it was. Something infernal, that allowed her to go on to kill many more lives because of herself. Who had she helped? The girl she'd resuced from a burning house didn't realize that Walker might has well have set the fire herself? The woman who should've made Lieutenant got shot in her appartment interrogating a crook Walker had brought to her? The job she'd done which could have been done just as well by the MCU and those masked freaks? The girl she'd sworn to protect who had died, probably blaming herself for somebody else's mistake?

What was the point of a cop who let a young girl die?

Who are you, Walker, if not a cop? Who would you be? What is Lieutentant Walker without a badge?


Think, Walker.

What is she but someone who has walked her way through life, refusing to care for others so it won't hurt when they get hurt? So she can allow them to get hurt and not mind?

I said think, Walker. That is an order!

Without a badge you are Katherine Walker. With a badge you are still Katherine Walker. You are one of the most disagreeable people you have had the pleasure of meeting, and many agree. You belittle your allies and insult your comrades. Your enemies have more in common with you than your friends. You are bitter, prideful and jealous and many other things aside, but you are not stupid

and don't tell me you're going to be stupid enough to kill yourself for the sake of the girl who never gave up.

The girl who is dead. The girl who admired you. The girl who I mistreated and abused. The girl who you helped, the girl who you inspired, the girl who made her own damn choices and would not regret them!

Who made those choices under my influence!

Who'd punch you for saying that. Who would name Allen, Babs-

-Jimmy, Kima -

- Sarah and Jim -

- Davidson, Peterson -

- Marcus, Josephine -

- Montoya, Stephanie -

- Question, Deadshot, Lock-up and, yes, herself. They are the reasons she would tell you to live.

Because you gave Gordon a cake, Walker. Because you eat takeaway with your friends and the freaks too. Because you watched cartoon shows with a little girl, and argued which pony you liked the most.

Like the brat would say, if you don't want to live in a world where something as impossible as that could happen, then pull the trigger. But you will at least do it the dignity of having thought through it first!

You shouldn't have tried to tempt yourself to do it, Walker. You're a detective. You might not have the badge but you were a detective. It just gave you time to poke holes in the story.

You're a bitch, Walker, accept that. You're nasty. But there's love in your selfishness because you want your friends and you want them happy and there's justice in your anger when you control it. There's strength in your pride because you'd rather die than admit you could ever fall. There's protectiveness in your greed because you cherish what you value, and you own the whole damn city no matter what any bastard in the mayor's chair says. You lie to yourself so much that you know what deception is like and can easily see past it to the truth, and you never stop trying to better yourself because you're jealous and won't have anybody else beating you there.

And there's been no action for too long so I've got nothing for lust, but you're a woman of vices, girl. Use them. Ignore your virtues. When your honesty leads you to pushing away people with lies you think are the truth, when your selflessness leads you to think committing suicide will spare others pain, then there's no use to them. Vices become virtues and virtues vices, so do the right thing and be the same stubborn arse you've always been. Celebrate in it. We've been myself long enough to know what I'm talking about.

Lieutenant Walker gave in when she handed in her badge. Don't tell me Katherine Walker's ever gonna do the same.

Spoiler

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JiC (1d20)[5]

[industrious]

It's all going so very well.

One is all but ready to pull the trigger herself.

Another has given into his despair and rage.

And the third...wait. What is she doi....

Everyone

It's like being in a whirlwind. Sight and sound and direction and smell and taste and touch all metaphorically drop out from your feet.

Colors and shapes and noise turn and merge into this strange uni-sensation that one imagines would make even the most hardened junkie turn in his stomach. Reality fades, melds, and...

Dreamtime

"No! No, No, No, No, No!"

You find yourself lying in a formless void, bare of all physicality or detail. Nothingness. With, apparently, a floor, since none of you are falling. Lines of sand trace from your formerly unconscious forms to...him.

The figure before you wears robes of midnight blue-though not the colors of Midnight. His fingers are mere bones, and a skull itself, with eye sockets filled with ruby-red light, serves as his head.

In his hand, the lines of sand that had come from your bodies-had been drained out of your very selves came together at the heart of a single, Perfect...ruby. One whose presence reminds you of Someone Familiar...only twisted beyond nearly all recognition.

"You've ruined it!"

He clenches his other skeletal hand, thrusting the ruby in front of him as his eyes narrow in hatred.

"No matter if your anesthesia has been disconnected. I'll just continue my little...surgery."

Spoiler

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Roll initiative.

[DeafnotDumb]

Katherine Walker

The woman stumbles upwards, blinking. For a moment her skin looks pale, inhumanly pale, and her eyes and hair blacker than black could ever be. Then the effects of the dream are gone, and it's one very angry Katherine Walker standing there.

She does not know whether Stephanie is alive, and that is the worst thing. In a world where she cannot be sure what is memory and what is dream, that is the worst thing. But the anger is fresh, the anger is smooth, and it is her, not the numbness she felt before.

Her swordstick is at her side. She draws steel, tensing. This is a new situation, against a man who has broke into her mind. Bare steel is appropiate.

Katherine Walker is ready. And she is angry.

Spoiler

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int: (1d20+3)[21]
JiC {roll]1d20[/roll]

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

Kate clenched a hand to her stomach as she fought back the nausea. The sensation of everything ceasing for a brief instant and then rebooting is almost like dying and then returning to life. She glanced around, seemingly in an unceasing void. Was this real? Was all of that false? Or was this the illusion, the inevitable break from reality that she had always feared?

Meanwhile, Skeletor ranted.

As she stirs herself to action, rising to her feet - an odd sensation, standing on nothing - a bit of forgotten prose echoes in her mind. Perhaps it was all the Carroll she'd heard over the last however long it was. Perhaps it was the absurdity of the situation. She rose into a fighting posture, and growls, "If I'm only a sort of thing in his dream, what are you, I should like to know!"

Spoiler

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Init: (1d20+3)[14]
JIC: (1d20)[18]

[Sophistemon]

Lock-Up

Shondra wasn't breathing. She just stared up at him with wide, empty eyes as a skull-faced maniac ranted in the background and the U.S.S. Halsey sank into Gotham harbor. And then, in a very literal sense, she wasn't there anymore, and neither was anything else. Reality bulged obscenely, blending sensory input into a single nonsensical collision. For a very brief and disconcerting moment, Lyle Bolton could hear the tears on his cheek and smell the beating of his own heart. It's some time before his senses re-divided and he could think clearly, and this time the skull-faced maniac was ranting in the foreground.

So stunned was he by this turn of events that it took him a moment to conclude that this man was behind the recent horrors.

It took much less time than that for him to get very, very angry.

Spoiler

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• Initiative: (1d20+15)[32]
• Just-in-Case: (1d20)[8]

[Sophistemon]

Lock-Up
Status: Healthy; Enraged.

There is no thought, there is only action. Whether or not Shondra was actually dead, Lyle would never be able to look at her without seeing the gaping wound across her throat, the broken bones, the staring dead eyes. The innocence was gone, torn away like a veil, and it would never come back again. His haven had been invaded, and the safe place he'd always retreated to so as to calm himself down had been despoiled. So: without thinking (or, at the very least, without thinking anything other than Make him pay, make it hurt, make it last!), Lock-Up charges forward from his kneeling position, his head down, his brain buzzing, and attempts to tackle the masked man, as hard as he possibly can, to the nonexistent ground.

Actions:

Spoiler

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• Move Action: Lock-Up is going to barrel towards Doctor Destiny.
• Standard Action: Lock-Up's tackle counts as an unarmed attack (DC22, CT20); (1d20+10)[17].
• Standard Action Cont'd: Should Lock-Up successfully tackle Doctor Destiny, his Improved Grab feat will allow him to instantly initiate a grapple; (1d20+19)[27].
• Standard Action, Cont'd pt II: Should Lock-Up successfully grapple Doctor Destiny, he will force the villain into a Pin and, using his Chokehold feat, begin to suffocate him.

[DeafnotDumb]

Lieutenant Walker

No words, here. There's a time for speech and there's a time for just hitting the bastard, and guess which time it is?

Katherine holds her rage in check, remembering the last time she'd truly lost it, years ago outside Luigi's cell, and swore not to repeat that. Cops did not kill, if they could avoid it. They could use leathal weaponry, leathal force if the situation called for it, but they did not take somebody's life simply because they wanted to.

Katherine brings up her sword, and feels the jingle of a necklace around her neck, not on Stephanie's, with the ankh where it should be. An absurb burst of hope shot through her, and she changed her strike mid-swing to something Stephanie would enjoy more.

A whack with the flat of the blade on the face, to distract and disorientent. And then the edge, down into the shoulder, where it would hurt and cause harm but nothing irreparable. Certainly non-leathal, for a given vaule of nonleathal. Nobody said that nonleathal meant painless.

Or that she didn't have to take sastifaction from this, a little bit.

Spoiler

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Attack roll: (1d20+18)[20] Toughness DC 23. Reserving a hero point to make the doc re-roll if he makes his save, because I have like 12.
Using Favoured Environment (Dreams) for plus 1 on attack roll. Remember Environmental Adaption (Dreams) should it come up.

[industrious]

Doctor Destiny

Lock-Up's rage-filled lunge halts Doctor Destiny's monologue, though not how the man intended. The Ruby is raised to block the large man's advance, and a flash of Ruby Light

Black Mask takes another step towards Lock-Up, his bat arcing towards the vigilante

Disoriented, Lock-Up stumbles and ends up lunging at a space of Nothingness roughly five feet to Destiny's left.

Walker takes advantage of Lock-Up's failure, keeping close to the vigilante and while the big man falters, Walker presses onward, her blade carving into the space where shoulder met neck.

Spoiler

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Toughness Save:(1d20+13)[17]
Also, remember your JIC rolls.

[industrious]

((Spending a Villain Point to remove the Stunned condition))

Doctor Destiny

The blade bites deep, sending arcs of pale, wispy dreamstuff flying into the void.

The Doctor disappears, then, his monotone of a voice, dead of all emotion and passion, coming from everywhere and nowhere.

"If we had but world enough, and time..."

Disembodied laughter.

"But we do, don't we?"

The Void disappears, and the familiar, though eerily empty streets of Gotham replace it. The exact location differs from person to person. It's always a place of tragedy, though; always a place where something Terrible to them, personally, has happened.

He reappears once more, his ruby shining with pale cold red light. His eyes are distant.

"His nightmares are so...interesting. No dreamdust in him, either. Nothing to protect his little mind from me."

The ruby flashes once, and Doctor Destiny is no longer facing them alone.

[ChronicLunacy]

Eeevil Deadshot

"DELIVERY, FOR DETECTIVE GIMPY!"

A chattering burst of automatic gunfire carved a blistering path across the cement toward Detective Walker, bathing her in eerie, strobelight flashes and kicking up buzzing bits of grit that stung her exposed skin. It wasn't intended to surprise and disorient either. The rounds being used weren't sissy little rubber-tips but armor-piercing death-dealers that ripped through kevlar and flesh alike. Following the source of the tracers, one might be able to spot a glowing, ruby-red monocle glaring hatefully down at her from a fire escape about three stories up.

Stepping into the light, Deadshot turned his smoking gauntlets toward the sky. "Like shooting children in a preschool..." he chuckled. "If you're still alive, just give me a scream or two to let me know how I'm doing, Walker. I may just save you for last if it's a good one."

Spoiler

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Blast 8 (Autofire): (1d20+13)[24]

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

Kate grew dizzy as the nothing she briefly found herself in gave way to a familiar area. Her horror grew as she realized where she was.

No.

She was outside an old rundown apartment building, somewhere in the Bowery.

Not here.

Several yellow bands of police tape prevented entrance into the building. A bullethole marred a closed window on a second-story apartment.

Not now.

Renee's apartment.

You bastard. Get out of my head!

The silence in Gotham's streets was deafening. There were no sounds of traffic, no screeching of tires, no distant clacking of the el, not even the cold winds that blew off the bay. Everything was too quiet.

Until the shots rang out.

Kate rolled out of reflex, but the bullets weren't meant for her. They careened off the sidewalk and pavement, striking near Lt. Walker. Kate gazed up and saw Deadshot - so that's where he's gone - aiming his wrist cannons at the policewoman.

"Stay on Mister Skullhead!" Kate shouted, already heading towards the fire escape. "I'll give Deadshot someone else to target!" She leapt into the air and grabbed a drain pipe and started climbing it freehand.

Stay focused. Keep up the pressure. Run interference while they deal with the puppet master. Oh, and try not to get shot. That'd ruin your day.

Spoiler

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Not sure how long I have to climb in order to be in Deadshot's face, but that's my goal. I suspect I will not be able to punch him this round.
JIC: (1d20)[10]

[Sophistemon]

Lock-Up
Status: Healthy

The sudden appearance of Black Mask (so lifelike! so real!) causes Lyle to shift his bulk just enough to avoid the swinging bludgeon... and just enough off course to miss Doctor Destiny entirely. After grabbing for a moment at a bit of empty air, he turns, snarling... only to find himself back on the docks, with Shondra's dead eyes staring up at him, pleading for help he couldn't give her. Melancholia washes over him like a wave of cold water, sapping his will, his strength, threatening to pull him under. And then there is the cracking sound of gunfire, and Question shouting her orders. Yes, he thinks. Take out the Skull-Faced Man and the nightmare's over. "Be careful!" he shouts, scanning the area for Doctor Destiny. "If that ammo's live - !" The rage has subsided somewhat, diminished by the knowledge of the nightmare's inauthenticity, only to be replaced by the clean, pure high of adrenaline. His mind whirrs. He has control over Deadshot. If I can break his concentration... He spots the villain and pulls the nightstick from his belt. He stalks towards the mastermind of the evening's nightmares and swings for his wounded shoulder.

Actions:

Spoiler

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• Move: towards the reappeared Doctor Destiny.
• Standard: attack the wounded shoulder (Toughness-DC25/Crit-Threat 17-20) (1d20+10)[27].
• Just-in-Case: (1d20)[2].

[DeafnotDumb]

Katherine Walker
Defense: 25

There's the sounds of shots and Katherine's eyes go wide as she hears who's speaking a moment before, and moves like the hounds of hell are biting at her heels. She's seen Deadshot shoot, and she doesn't trust her chances, at all, if she even gives him the glimmer of a chance to hit her. She doesn't trust them much anyway.

Bullet rounds rattle behind her, and Walker is about to brace for impact when she stumbles over something that sends her crashing to the side and away from the danger, just briefly. She has barely the time to thank her sheer luck before she sees what she has fallen over, and lets out an involutary yell.

"Christ," she mutters, as the Gotham around her changes to an all-to-familar scene, cold and alone in a desolate building. "Christ, Jimmy, what did they do to you? What did they do to you?"

Katherine stands up, not able to tear her eyes away from her old friend's ugly wounds. She looks to the right and Kima's there, just like she always was, because she chose to walk with Jimmy that night so they could talk about the case. Maybe in that other universe, it was Katherine who walked out that night and didn't come back, and Kima who survived.

She didn't really look at Kima for long. They'd killed Jimmy first but at least it'd been quick, but with Kima time... had been savoured. Because Jimmy might have been the face of the operation but Kima was the one who had made it hang all together, and they had wanted to send a message.

She's been standing still for too long. A few seconds, maybe two, but she couldn't stop herself trembling. The bastard. Was nothing sacred? Was this what he was reducing her friends to? Recurring nightmares with no warm memories, no kind smiles, no joys, just stinking corpses? Katherine looks at where Destiny is standing, and decides that she is going to act now.

Running in tandem with Lock-Up towards their target, Walker remembers Jimmy and Kima and rewards Doctor Destiny with a controlled, cold swing, towards the back of the leg where the hamstring lay.

Let the bastard walk that one off.

Spoiler

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To hit: (1d20+17)[26] DC 23.
[/roll]

[industrious]

Doctor Destiny

Spoiler

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(1d20+13)[29] DC 30

Lock-Up's powerful blow rocks the blue-robed figure, giving Walker the opening needed for her own blow. Steel made from will and dreams pierces the Doctor's kneecap, sending the Doctor to the floor, and causing Lock-Up's projection to vanish into the mist.

The one responsible for the Nightmare that had been the War Games glares at all of you, hatred radiating from his crimson gaze. Wisps of dreamstuff flow from his injuries, sapping his will and causing him to turn transparent.

"I will...return. I will...have...your..."

He vanishes.

[industrious]

The Party

Have you ever had a nightmare so real that you thrashed in your sleep? That the terrors in your dream forced you to fight a losing battle with sheet and blanket, that reduced you to a child scared, of the dark and frightful of every shadow? Have you ever felt the cold specter of dread crawl slowly upon thin legs upon your bag?

And then...and then you woke up. And the nightmare still gripped you for a second, before the conscious mind banished it back into the depths of the unconscious from whence it came. Before rational thought and emotion reasserted themselves.

You worry for a bit that the nightmare had been all too real-so you make sure it wasn't. You open the door to your bedroom, look at the figure still asleep-in her room down the hall, in the spare bed in the infirmary, or in the pull-out sofa, still clutching Park Place and Boardwalk with an iron grip. And you breathe out a sigh of relief.

You return to your room, thoughts still shaken by the visions granted by the mad Doctor. You decide that thought should be put out, that worries ought to be banished by mindless entertainment. So you take out the remote, and turn on the TV.

"...this just in. Cop Killer Richard "Renegade" Grayson has just escaped from Blackgate Maximum Security Prison. Richard "Renegade" Grayson has just escaped from Blackgate Maximum Security Prison."

...and remember that this is indeed reality.

Floyd Lawton

That had been one nasty dream. Amanda Walker had caught blackmailed him into killing all his friends, and he had been really getting into the slaughter...

He needed to stop having Mexican before bed. Still, there was something bothering him...

What was the blonde next to him's name? Charlotte or Denise...Abigail. That was it. Close one, there.

Turning back onto his pillow, Floyd Lawton continues his slumber.

[ChronicLunacy]

Floyd Lawton

Sleep just didn't come back to Floyd. He laid staring at the ceiling for awhile, listening to Abby snore like a chainsaw next to him. He reached over and grabbed the bottle of stale beer on the bedside table next to him, knocking a bra, a pack of cigarettes, and a few condom wrappers off of it, and took a few swigs to wash his mouth out. He put one arm under the pillow behind his head, feeling the cool weight of the pistol he kept stashed under his head at all times like a security blanket and sighed.

He thought about the dream. He could remember it so vividly...taking them out one by one, using their weaknesses against them. Walker was the easiest, since she didn't have a secret identity. He just put a round through her head in the parking lot of the police station as she parked her car in the morning. Lock-Up, too, was simple because of that headquarters boat of his. All Deadshot had had to do was start a little prison break, then shoot him from behind while he was distracted. (Armor-piercing ammunition, naturally.) The Question and her little sidekick, blown up by shaped C-4 charges at the scene of a fake crime they would come running to stop. The Black Crossbow...lured out of hiding by killing a couple mobsters with a crossbow then neutralized with a high powered rifle if the mafia he'd tipped off to the location didn't take him out first. Finally, he'd taken his time with little Spoiler...running her down across the rooftops, winging her just enough that she bled out and got tired, then finishing her off face to face.

He didn't even have to remember the dream because he'd run it through in his head a thousand times before, planning for the future...just in case. Still, the thought of actually doing it left a bad taste in his mouth. Not only that, but that bitch Amanda Waller was the last person in the world he would ever want to see again. She was the one person Floyd had to admit scared him a little bit, because if she wanted to he was sure she could make him do anything she wanted him to do. What scared him most of all, though, was the thought that he might actually enjoy the challenge of taking on such a mission.

Floyd looked over at the blonde in bed next to him and pondered waking her up for a midnight quickie, but decided to light up a cigarette and sit at the window instead. There was too much blood and death on his mind for him to have any fun. He'd let her sleep and kick her out in the morning.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

Grayson. Kate's jaw clenched as she heard that "Renegade" Grayson had broken out of Blackgate. She turned off the television, and sat in the darkness of her own room for a few moments, letting the memories replay.

Grayson. The man that ended Renee's life. The man that tore her life to pieces, but forced her to rebuild it all. She'd often thought - recently, less so - of all the things that could have been done differently that night. What if the con she had taken into protective custody had fought back? What if she'd worn a bulletproof vest?

Grayson. Free again in Gotham. How did a crook like him escape a maximum security prison? She needed the expert on incarceration - she needed Lock-Up. The two of them should be able to track that murderer down.

Grayson. She'd met him, apparently, back in that alternate universe, where things turned out differently for him. If Wayne hadn't withdrawn into himself after his parents' murder, maybe things would have turned out differently for Grayson here. However, there was no rich philanthropist waiting to take in a circus flyboy in as a ward here, and no Batman for him to emulate. He'd had plenty of tragedy in his life - but this was Gotham. Tragedy was its industry.

Kate stood up, and got dressed in her trenchcoat and suit. She was still exhausted from the dreams she'd had - vivid and frightening, like after her mother and sister were killed. And Renee. She needed backup, but she couldn't take Rhetoric. Not after that dream. Walker. Lock-Up. Deadshot.

Black Crossbow. Or, as she knew now, Luigi.

There were words that needed to be spoken to him. Better to have him at her side and in sight than as an unknown.

She headed into the basement of Kane Manor, creeping quietly passed Bette's room so as not to disturb her rest. In the basement, hidden behind several security measures, was Question C&C, a secure room with forensic equipment, a mainframe and her mode of transportation from the Kane estates to Gotham proper - a customized Harley Davidson V-Rod Muscle. Sleek and black, she'd souped it up to get her into the action as fast as she could. Still, she preferred patrolling Gotham on foot, so she usually parked it well out of sight.

She hopped on the bike, roared the engine to life, and sped out into the night.

Grayson, she thought. You'd better run far.

[Terron]

Luigi's Nightmare [In spoiler.]

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“Thang!” The crossbow cried, and fired a bolt at Gino’s feet. A cloud of gas obscured Black Crossbow’s vision for a moment. From the cloud he could see the figures of the two bodyguards, falling one after the other. But the third never came.
A gun fired. The bullet shoots from the cloud, dragging some of the vapours with it. A good shot, had Luigi’s reaction been less, he’d had a new breathing hole in his chest. As the cloud begins to dissipate, the vigilante can make out the smiling face of Gino, the ruby teeth seemed almost glowing. “What are you doing with that?” Gino jumped out of the cloud, and Luigi could see his gun already aimed at his head. That was one of his moves. Again his reflexes saved him, as the bullet scratches his right cheek. “Did you gave up using real man weapons Luigi?” Yes, he had promise to himself to never use a gun again. Not since… that day. Never again. Black Crossbow loads another bolt and aims. But Gino moves ever so quickly, almost disappearing from sight amidst the remains of the stun gas and the already shady room. “Not an easy target am I? Just as you taught me, big brother.” The voice came from his left, so did the fist with the iron knuckler. The hit felt as if **** Grayson would have been the hitter. A flash of memory and pain, Grayson, standing there like a hulk, with his hands bloody. Luigi fell backwards, his loaded crossbow fell to a side, spinning in the ground until it hit the unconscious thug. “No more toy weapon for you Luigi,” Gino added, as he loaded another bullet in the chamber of his pistol with his iron clad hand, and levelled at him.
The gun fires.
But Luig’s still there, the pain, excruciating, coming from his right leg. “This is going to be painful; here I don’t follow your style, he he he…” Gino grinned a toothy smile and aimed to his midsection.
Sudden light invaded the room “This is the Police, put your ****ing gun down!” It was Walker’s voice. Gino shifted his aim and crouched slightly. Luigi knew that move, he knew Gino was going to kill her, one shot. He had done that before; with Walker’s friend.
“NO!” was the only thing he could muster, as his body moved quicker than his mind, and grabbing his throwing knife, he sets it flying to Gino’s hand.
It all happened at once. The gun shoots, the light coming from the door where Walker stud dies. Gino continues spinning as part of the move, and the knife sinks in his neck. He lets deaf “Gruuk!” escape in surprise, before collapsing to the floor.
The eerie silence and utter darkness takes hold of the room, and Luigi feels his heart beating in his chest. His eyes wide open in the dark, freeze in terror. He crawls next to Gino, somehow he can see his face, blood running from his mouth. He picked up Gino, taking his head in his hand. “This wasn’t supposed end like this…” he said softly, tears rolling from his eyes. The dying mobster in his grasp chuckled, half drowning in his own blood. “See.. Grk!... Yer not better than us… Grrk!... yer… still a… murderer…” Luigi felt as Gino’s chest puffed out the last breath. He was gone, another person he had tried to help, to protect and save from an untimely end. And there he lay, lifeless, dead by his hand alone. Lifting his head he can make out the unmoving body of Katherine Walker. He leaves Gino and crawls towards Katherine. His leg is bleeding profusely, and everything is moving around him. Dragging him towards Katherine, he reaches her; but its already too late. The bullet hit her in the forehead, a clean hole. She had saved him, again; but this time, it cost her own life. He grabbed her hand tightly. Why? Is it that he could never separate him from this desiny? Was he set in this world to cause pain, death and despair? No matter what choices he makes, it always leads to the same path! He dedicated his life to make up for the past mistakes, and instead of that, he keeps getting the same results. Was it wise not to embrace it? Luigi’s eyes shifted, sanity at the edge. He never stopped failing. Of failing Gino and Walker, he tried to save both, and caused their deaths instead. Montoya? She was the first to fall before his good intentions. Perhaps Lock up was next, if he kept trying to help people. He had failed all of them.
The Black Crossbow eyed the gun in Katherine’s dead hands. His fingers flinched.
Never again, he said.
But perhaps, perhaps one, only one time. One bullet. It might solve it. The only good thing he would do. Perhaps he was destined to die during that police raid; three persons he cares about would be alive today if that had happened. The gun was now pointing at his temple, his finger starting to make pressure over the trigger. A lone, dark figure; sitting in the dark room, about to join the darkness forever.

....

But who you think you are? He thought. Montoya and Walker gave their lives for you, even if they didn’t intend to; that’s the fact. You have to live with it. Are you throwing away their sacrifices?
The hand with the gun fell over his lap, powerless. The gun slowly sliding off his finger.
He looked outside, through the door. He looked at the stars…

------------------------------------------------------------

[DeafnotDumb]

Katherine Walker

Grayson.

It hurt her to her bones, but Katherine Walker knew that Lock-Up's system was right. If she could, she'd get that man to run the whole of Gotham's prisions, and have something where reformation was not neglected for the purpose of meaningless retribution, where your remaining humanity was not stolen and warped into something dark and deadly, where petty criminals were taught to become career criminals and career criminals became murderers and worse. She wanted to punish and to harm the man who had killed and killed, and hurt her in doing so, but that was not her choice. It was never her choice and it never would be, because Katherine knew that that path of revenge led to salvagable human beings getting destroyed in the wake. She admired Lock-Up, of all things, for doing what he did: not the dressing up in a mask and beating up purse-snatchers in the street, which in the grand scheme of things did zip-all, but admiration for his system, his attempts at taking the worst and unlucky and the desperate and giving them another chance to be with society again.

If only the stupid bastard stopped engaging in so much collateral damage in his masked crusades - or if he stopped wearing such a bloody stupid outfit - she might be able to fully respect him. As it was, the admiration was as grudging as only Katherine walker could make it be.

But either way, putting Grayson in Blackgate was like giving a wolf a new pack. That kind of place was his natural environment, and Katherine had been sure that one day he would get out and cause trouble, if the place didn't kill him. But that would never happen to someone like Grayson - someone who, in an alternate world, jumped from rooftops as part of his job and probably found that to be the easy bit. Grayson was out, and he would not be stopped easy, and she could only pray that he'd be rash, make a mistake, or act early, rather than think as she knew he could. That wdould be disastrous.

The dream still echoing in her mind, Walker checked that Stephanie was still sleeping heavily and went over to the safe in her room. She paused for a moment, and unlocked it and took the gun out. She stared at it for quite some time.

In the dream, she'd argued with herself what to do here. There was no argument now, but then - then she had not known which choice she would take. She had tried to push herself to one way, but she had pushed back just as hard. What would have happened? What could happen?

She puts the gun back in and goes out to where the TV is still running, some other news story now. She turns it off, and looks at the girl sleeping on the couch. It's not the most comfortable of beds, and Katherine is irritated at the thought that she'll have to buy a proper one and find a place to put it if the girl stays here any longer. More work, distracting her from the job she wanted to do. More work, distracting her from the job she was compelled to do.

Gordon had spoken to her on that, once, about the problems it could cause. About, well, working too hard and all that issues stuff. Mental junk, really. He hadn't brought it up again but he'd sometimes mentioned that she had some leave built up, or some vacation pay, or something like that, trying to make her have a life 'of her own' as Josephine put it, even though she'd got that already.

Stupid stuff, and useless. What would she do without her job, anyway?

Katherine looks at the sleeping girl, and sighs. Softly, under her breath, she almost swears. Then she goes to the phone. Gordon probably won't be awake at this time, but even if she gets to only give a message she has to do this now - any later and she'll dive out, forget it, continue with her current ways.

The phone trills. She holds it to her ear, and takes deep breaths. Deep breaths, girl. It clicks, telling her she can speak. She holds herself, and lets out a breath.

"Gordon? You know that leave you keep on telling me to take? I wanted to talk about when would be a good time..."

[Terron]

Drinking in bars in never a good option to shake off nightmares. However Luigi missed the bitter taste of fernet, and the sound of company. He knew none of the people around him, and he was not recognized, at least not that he could tell. The news report started with the usual 20 or so girl speaking in the screen. Her voice was barely audible through the genera turmoil, the drunks trying to show off and being loud. Suddenly, Grayson's face flashed on the screen, and Luigi's eyes widen; the vigilante apparently frozen in time, his drink in mid air towards his mouth. Not again, not so soon!
Inside, Luigi felt he would have another encounter with the murderer Grayson; he had thought that feeling fade away since the dimensional travel trip in which he almost throws himself to attack the wrong Grayson, in that dimension, a crime fighter. But this is his own pretty hell here, it's the Gotham he knew, his city; and that is the Grayson he would not hesitate in blowing the teeth off to. Swiftly, he gets closer to the TV to hear the girl repeat "...has just escaped from Blackgate Maximum Security Prison."
Paying the barkeep, he grabbed his dark trenchcoat, threw it on his shoulders, and walked outside the bar. He had to grab some things at his place, call Walker? Perhaps, she surely knew about Grayson, and was probably on the move already. The same for Question.
Luigi flipped his collar upwards, as he walked the dark streets; eyeing every corner, every shadow casting doubts and flashes of memories; parts of his nightmare replaying on each shade.

[industrious]

So, I need to keep myself from going crazy during midterms week, so here it is. The opening post to the next arc. Have fun with it.

Intro

It's been a month since the Nightmare. Since Grayson escaped from prison. No leads have yet emerged; every underworld connection had ended up a dead end, every scrap of evidence has been combed through to deliver a meaningless stream of data.

The initial hot pursuit dies down; there are other cases, none of which as personal, but still important, still a theft or murder or bizarre scheme by some mundane criminal or insane supervillain. Some cops speculate Grayson's fled to a foreign country; others, that he's died. Still others believe that some criminal mastermind has taken him under his wing, but none of the usual informants in Organized Crime have done found anything.

And life goes on.

Walker

Three "glorious" weeks of vacation. At Gordon's urging, she had left Gotham; he had claimed staying in the city would end up with her taking a busman's holiday. Barbara had had to print out a ticket to Metropolis for her in the end, and had all but kidnapped her trying to get her to the airport.

Airport Security hadn't taken kindly to the cripple with the swordcane. At least she had gotten a blurry, out of focus picture of Superman.

But she had been back for a week, and things were back in their normal rhythm. As much as things could be.

A staff meeting, with Gordon talking to the heads of the various departments. The Head of Internal Affairs, one of Dent's prodigies, was shooting her a nasty look as Gordon begins to close up the meeting.

"...and in short, our net case closing rate has been up by 3% in the past year. Ahem."

Gordon clears his throat, beginning a new topic.

"In other news, I'm afraid I won't be able to make it to this years Charity Ball. My daughter has invited me for a weekend stay in Platinum Flats, and she wouldn't take no for an answer. As such, I am appointing Lieutenant Walker to attend in my stead..."

Floyd Lawton

Some days were just, by definition, lazy. The life of a freelance bodyguard was such that he could go for weeks on a single job, then several days straight watching over various visiting guests and dignitaries...and then have a dry spell or two. Nothing wrong with it; it meant he could do nothing all day.

Damn. He was out of beer. What was he going to do at seven in the evening, then?

Fortune smiles upon him; the buzzer to his apartment rings, and Oliver Queen* is on the other side.

"My ex-wife is going to propose to someone else in 24 hours. You. Me. Drinks. Bars. Women. Let's go."

He pauses for a moment, then says the magic words.

"I'm buying."

*to find out how Deadshot and Green Arrow first met, see last month's Green Arrow #1!

Lyle Bolton

Lucius looked over the top of his newspaper at Bolton.

"You've left me no choice, Lyle."

It wasn't as if Lyle didn't appreciate what Lucius was trying to do. But there were so many problems with it. Lucius needed the two tickets he had gotten to The Ball, to network and hobnob with the rest of Gotham's elite, to make those connections so vital for any business. It was one of the few opportunities for him and his wife Tanya to go out together; the CEO of Foxtech worked long hours, and the two needed time together.

And besides. What if she said no?

Lucius folds the business section of the Gotham Times in two, rolls up the rest of his paper. He takes out his cell phone, taps a few keys.

"In any case, I have some tests to run on a new set of body armor."

He leaves the mess of the Hasley, whistling as he does so. A few minutes later, Shondra comes in.

"Lucius texted me that you had something to ask me..."

Damn him. Damn him to hell.

Luigi D'Amato

Thankfully, Luigi still had his savings from before his time in prison. While they weren't endless, they did mean he wouldn't have to work for a few more months, after which they'd run out, and he'd have to figure out how to sell the phrase "ex-con" in a depressed jobs market. But the future was not yet written.

And besides. He could still afford some of luxuries. Even a few extravagant ones. Tickets to the Ball were the least he could do; a chance to be wined and dined, and for a rather important charity. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

And in the meantime...Don Giovanni was showing at the Gotham Opera. It would be a shame to miss it.

Kate Kane

"It's not fair!"

Some days, Kate was glad she was no longer in high school. Other days, she wished she and Bette had reversed positions. She was pretty sure she had never been as...emotional as the teenager about the various dramas that so plagued the teenager.

"Tim Drake isn't going to ask me out! He's going to ask that stupid blonde financial aid Brown girl instead, and there's nothing I can do! We were going to be Snowball King and Queen..."

Thankfully, Kate was mature enough to know that teenagers will find any excuse for insult, and could let the crack at the other girls pecuniary situation go with the grace that comes from maturity and wisdom. Though earphones also helped.

Bette's musings on the most cut-throat of societies is cut short by the Colonel's hurried arrival.

"Girls! The Ball is in 24 hours, and there's still a lot to be done! I've got the Guest of Honor issue sorted out, but Bette, your first appointment at the salon is in one hour, and then you need to get to the tailors. There's been a mix up with the caterers-for some reason, they thought the food theme was Mexican-and Kate..."

He breaks off from his fast-paced chatter.

"...you still need to visit. You know. Why we have this event."

The Thomas and Martha Wayne Annual Policeman's Charity Ball. Kate still needed to visit the derelict home of what had been Gotham's other First Family, but now was but a shattered remnant of that particular household. Wayne Manor.

[DeafnotDumb]

Lieutenant Walker

The holiday had been nice, sort of, but it was good to be back in Gotham. Much better than a shiny city with no charm to speak of, even if it did have the big man defending it - this city was her home, and it was were her work was. There'd been no luck with Grayson yet, but there was always something to do, from the regular crime on the streets to making sure the MCU was going as it was supposed to to trying to think of a way to make the freaks offically work on their side, like it had more-or-less happened with that crazy bat guy in the alternative universe.

Strange sentance, that.

But work also included meetings like this one, and Katherine was trading glares with the head of Internal Affairs as it drew to a close. Most cops viewed Internal Affairs as a necessary evil at best, and a threat at worse, and pratically nobody liked them. In Katherine's case, she liked them even less, because they were run by one of Dent's golden choices and that man had a pretty shaky grasp of how things really worked, in her opinion. In her completely unbiased opinion.

Anyway, the meeting was coming to a stop, and Walker was only listening with half an ear to what was said. She'd come to appriciate that under a good boss like Gordon that meetings like these were a chance to get stuff done, put forth new ideas, or work out some admininstrative wrinkles and other problems, but no matter how damn proud she was of the MCU the ending speeches always sounded a little to back-patting for her to handle. Therefore, it took her a few moments to catch what Gordon had just said about the Ball.

She frowned, and transfered her glare from Dent's progidy to Gordon, changing it from a 'I don't like you too' glare to a 'I hate you for making me do this' one, which Gordon always got a lot of. What she did not do was yell and make wrath, because there was a time and a place to do that to your superior and it was not right here in a meeting with all her peets. What she said instead, with all apparent shows of calmness, was "Sure thing, Commander. Could we talk about it after the meeting, so you could give me some political pointers?" She smiled politely. "I wouldn't want to end up offending someone by accident, especially if they control our funding."

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

Kate winced as the Colonel reminded her of the unpleasant task ahead of her. "I know, sir," she said quietly. "I'll see him today."

Kate had always dreaded seeing Bruce - their family visited the Wayne estate shortly after the incident in Crime Alley years ago, and her stepmother, the witch, had insisted she try talking to Bruce. It didn't work, of course. He was too withdrawn into himself, lost in some interior fantasy or just unresponsive to the outside world. His eyes were glassy, and he didn't look at things, but past them. She was just a young girl then, but even then she knew that Bruce was lost. Joe Chill might not have shot Bruce back then, but that didn't mean the boy's life hadn't been ended in that alleyway.

It would be harder this time. Previous years were bad enough - you never knew how bad Bruce's delusions would be, or how lucid he might appear. This time, though, was different. She'd been in that alley that night. She'd heard the gunshots, heard Martha Wayne's scream, smelled the cordite, saw the pearls fall from her neck. She could have stopped it. She could have saved him, if it weren't for the limitations of al Ghul's magic.

Might as well get it over with, she thought. She pulled out her phone and made the call. A small smile came to her as she heard the dignified British tone on the other end. "Hello, Alfred. It's Katherine. I've got some free time before dinner today, and I wanted to see if I could visit the estate. Would that work for you?"

Spoiler

Show

JIC: (1d20)[19]

[Sophistemon]

Lock-Up
Status: emotionally discordant

It was getting to be too much, really. Damn Lucius! Lyle already had the Slammer and its numerous inmates to oversee, his security firm to run, and the streets to patrol either alone or with one or more members of the Gotham Knights. Not to mention this whole Grayson scenario, and the nightmares that slipped into his nightly dreams. The slashed throat, the broken bones, the severed finger... And now - now! - Lucius wanted him to some fancy dance with an employee! Talk about workplace impropriety! He didn't have the time for this. He didn't even know how do dance, for Pete's sake!

And... and what if she said 'No'?

She stared at him, an elegantly curved eyebrow arching gracefully upwards as his face grew redder by the second. He wasn't blushing, of course; he was simply simmering with impotent rage that Lucius had put him in this hopeless situation. Right. "I, uhm..." he starts, and clears his throat. "I was wondering," he continues. "If you're not busy - and if you are that's okay - but I was wondering..." She smiles and tilts her head, emphasizing the gentle contours of her face. To Hell with it. Do what always works: power on through and hope for the best. The rest of the sentence pours out of him like water from a faucet: "I-was-wondering-if-you'd-like-to-go-to-the-Ball-with-me?"

(1d20)[15]

[industrious]

Kate Kane
((It's closer to evening, actually. But no biggie))

Alfred sounded exactly as he always had. Dignified, elegant, and with a charm and grace that no one Kate had known had ever possessed. Little things such as the fatigue or responsibility of taking care of a mentally unsound charge for over two decades were incapable of changing such a tone-or such a man.

"Good Evening, Master Kate. I do believe that our schedule is such that you could pop by for a visit. Master Bruce has been looking forward to your visit with no small amount of enthusiasm."

Walker

"It's simple enough, Lieutenant. Shake hands with everyone who approaches, smile, and don't say anything of substance. That's what I do, anyway"

Gordon looks at all of his subordinates.

"If there's nothing else pressing, I have a plane to catch. I'll see all of you bright and early on Monday."

There was this big stack of paperwork she was going to sort the hell out of once she got back...

Lyle

Said delicate eyebrows furrow in momentary confusion.

"I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?"

Dead. Crushed into oblivion like fine powder, then incinerated, and the ashes crushed again and then sprinkled into several different shipping crates which would all be dumped into Gotham Harbor at midnight on alternate Tuesdays for a week. And he'd figure out a way to get revenge on Lucius as well, too.

She laughs then, her lips tilting upwards.

"...Yes."

...Humor. Jokes. Teasing. Right. Those things existed, too.

Wait.


What?!

[DeafnotDumb]

Lieutenant Walker

Cremation. Yes. That was it. She would burn Gordon's body, along with the paperwork, and scatter the ashes and then dance up and down on them to the tune of 'Happy Days Are Here Again'. And then she'd sweep them up and burn them again, just to make doubly sure, and find a dog and feed Gordon to him.

On the other hand, that might upset Babs and she didn't want to do that. Wait-

Katherine drops out of her revenge-driven fantasty as a thought strikes her. A dangerous, dangerous thought. "It's just a ticket for one, right?" She asks. "Just me and my uniform, no... accompaniment?"

Spoiler

Show

JiC: (1d20)[14]

[Terron]

It had been exhausting days. Searching for the ghost of Grayson had reported no more than false leads. Even his most underworld contacts had no clue of the whereabouts of the killer. An opportunity to relax, think things clearly, that's what he needed. Don Giovany was an excellent piece, Luigi remembered his dad playing it most of the nights, as he was sitting on the big sofa with a glass of red wine in his hand, thinking things that were still a mystery to him.
Walking the streets of Gotham, dressed in black suit, Luigi walks towards the Gotham Opera. Under the crimson tissue on his pocket, rests the ticket for the opera.

[ChronicLunacy]

Floyd Lawton

Some days were just, by definition, lazy. The life of a freelance bodyguard was such that he could go for weeks on a single job, then several days straight watching over various visiting guests and dignitaries...and then have a dry spell or two. Nothing wrong with it; it meant he could do nothing all day.

Damn. He was out of beer. What was he going to do at seven in the evening, then?

Fortune smiles upon him; the buzzer to his apartment rings, and Oliver Queen* is on the other side.

"My ex-wife is going to propose to someone else in 24 hours. You. Me. Drinks. Bars. Women. Let's go."

He pauses for a moment, then says the magic words.

"I'm buying."

*to find out how Deadshot and Green Arrow first met, see last month's Green Arrow #1!

Floyd opened the door with empty beer bottle in hand. All he had to do was look down at it then back up at Ollie with a big smile on his face before he replied, "Beer and women, you say? I'm sold! Let me put some pants on!"

After cleaning himself up a bit and getting dressed, Floyd grabbed his coat (and concealed carry holster) and followed Ollie outside. He had enough tact not to mention the ex-wife yet; not until his friend had at least five or six beers in him. So he just rambled on about the local sports team while they hailed a cab/found Ollie's car.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

Kate winced at Alfred's words. The only thing worse than a vacant Bruce was a lucid Bruce - it was painful to see how far the Waynes had fallen. "Wonderful. I'll see you both tonight." She hung up the phone, and ran a hand through her bobbed hair. Get over it, Kate. Be strong. You've fought the Smiler, you've cheated death a hundred times - even made up with Renee in an alternate universe. Don't let this one thing bother you.

It was easy to hear those things in her head, but really, it wasn't easy seeing Bruce. They were mirrors - both of them shaped by tragedy in their pasts. The only real difference was that one of them found a healthier way of dealing with their childhood trauma.

And for that, Kate almost envied Bruce.

Sure, he was insane, and couldn't dress himself without Alfred's aid, but his world was far simpler. He lived in a crumbling estate, with an elderly man as his only companion, waiting for the sweet release of Death to bring him peace. He was spared the burdens that Kate had taken upon her shoulders - protecting Gotham from the encroachment of the night, and the monsters it brought. There were days she thought he really was the lucky one of the two of them.

But not today. She couldn't afford to think that today.

The rest of the day went by in a blur of clothes shopping, helping the Colonel sort out the catering issue (really, how does one confuse 'Mexican' and 'Mediterranean'?), and a sampling of the champagnes that would be served tomorrow. A bit after 5pm, Kate looked over to the Colonel, and whispered, "Can you handle this without me? I'm going to go see him." The old man nodded, and Kate silently slipped out of the estate to go see an old family friend.

Wayne Manor, much like the Waynes themselves, had seen better days. The lawn was overgrown in places, and parts of the old stonework was loose and crumbling. Through the glass Kate could see the mansion's foyer, with its statuary hidden beneath white sheets or simply missing altogether. She rang the bell, and waited for Alfred to meet her there. Be strong, Kate. It won't be as bad as you think.