rock and roll ain't noise pollution

[cowled]

Characters: Batman and open.
Date: The night of the 11th/morning of the 12th.
Location: All over the place!
Situation: He is the terror that flaps in the – wait, wrong caped crusader. Essentially, Bruce is running around being vengeance and the night and all that fun stuff.
Warnings/Rating: Bruce isn't really prone to excessive amounts of talking when he's Batman, so threads might run a little bit short. Rating... expect some violence, maybe?
Notes: Feel free to toss actionspam or prose at me! I'm good however. Bruce is going to be all over the city doing all sorts of things, just ask if you want me to set something up for you/your character, otherwise feel free to jump right in. \o/





[Even here, it feels like fighting an endless war. The city's been quieter after the war and most of the active gang members ended up behind bars, but the problem with that is the power vortex it leaves behind. He's spent the last few weeks fighting that momentum, to ill effect. People are still being robbed in the streets, and the brutality of those robberies has escalated. More than once he's arrived too late on a scene to do anything but damage control.

Long nights. Longer days, too. But the fight goes on, and Bruce wouldn't want to be anywhere else. The front lines have always suited him. Even now, he doesn't think he ever could be a sideliner. Those few months after Bane were some of the hardest in his life in terms of sheer personal inability. Bruce was so accustomed to pushing himself longer and harder than anyone else that finding out that there was a limit even to his tenacity had been terrifying in a way that not much else ever was.

Keeliai is nothing compared to Gotham. Compared to Apokolips. The Source Wall. It's nothing compared to Darkseid's siege on Earth, to losing his mind. To being lost in time.

He has allies here. Family. And although there is an omnipresent threat of danger hanging over all their heads, it doesn't have the aura of urgency or desperation that so often permeates the crises he's faced on Earth.

He wouldn't go so far as to say that Keeliai has made him complacent, because 'Batman' and 'complacency' are as far removed in meaning as any two words in the English language can be, but he is... calmer here, almost. After a fashion.

It doesn't mean he's lost his edge. It just means he's found a little serenity instead.

Lbr, he's still punching thugs in the throat, though.]

Comments

[wholenewstory]

[It isn't like patrolling Gotham or Bludhaven - not even in the Metal Sector, her focus tonight. It's the closest to home, with its gleaming spires and jagged streets, but the difference remains stark in her mind.

Part of it, she knows, is her. She hasn't worn the Bat since arriving; instead, she wears a simple black outfit, tailored for tightness, and a thick scarf to obscure her lower features.

It's not particularly protective, but then she doesn't need much in the way of protection, really. Even her Batgirl costume was tailored in favour of agility over defence.

These thoughts don't cloud her focus; the scuffle, at least twenty feet below, catches her notice instantly. Her eyes narrow, taking in all the information she needs, and then she leaps.]

[cowled]

[Bruce can't be everywhere at once. Would that he could be, but the laws of physics, space-time and simple mathematics say otherwise. He can't be everywhere at once.

It's one of the reasons he took a partner, in the beginning. It's why he built up his family the way he did. Playing with a stacked deck may not be fair, but when it comes to crime, Bruce doesn't particularly care about what's fair.

Cassandra came to Gotham during some of the city's darkest hours, and in the short time she'd been there she'd done so much good for the city--

Even (sometimes especially) when he couldn't see it. He remembers how angry he'd been at her failure, early into her tenure as Batgirl. He'd been completely prepared to give her a complete dressing down for it, but in hindsight it had never been her he was angry with. Maybe Barbara had known it at the time. Hard to say.

Still, when he watches her now, those old emotions are virtually flatlined. Now all he feels (all he allows himself to feel) is a faint sense of pride at how far she's come. And she did so much of it without his help.

Not this time, however. Bruce watches her as she leaps into the fray, and steps out of the shadows on the roof of the opposite building to follow her. They didn't have regular opportunities to fight side by each, but he can vividly recall each time they have. He and Cassandra understand each other's movements in a way that even his Robins never could.

Eight kedan. Three he recognizes as being true fighters, the rest are simple thugs. He drops sure and soundless beside Cassandra, sure in the knowledge that she'll recognize his presence before she attacks and will coordinate accordingly.]

[wholenewstory]

[It's not a smile most could see; the slightest twitching of her lips, the faintest crinkling of her eyes, as she instinctively adjusts for his presence.

Her movements, nimble dodges and swift strikes, quickly puts them back to back. She wouldn't fight with most people this way - she wants to see them, know what they're going to do - but she knows him, trusts him, more than -

More than she ever knew she could.

She's always known how to read people, but it was Bruce, Bruce and Barbara, who first showed her how to know them; how to put her faith in them.

She doesn't need to wonder if her back is covered as she whirls through the kedan - taking out the clumsiest first, hard and quick - any more than he does.]

[cowled]

[Bruce doesn't have her grace or delicacy, and doesn't pretend to. He isn't a brawler only by virtue of training and discipline. Cassandra... for her, this is like dancing. Her first language, elegantly scrawled across a battlefield of landed blows and broken bones.

He twists, catches a kedan in a flying kick aimed at Cassandra by their ankle and slams them hard against the nearest wall, which takes rather a lot of effort given the density of their bodies but puts the attacker down and out.

He and his-- daughter (his mind still stumbles over that word, though the sentiment has always come naturally, he isn't sure how to grasp it and pull it into the light) are oppositional forces. A curious gestalt. Greater than the sum of their parts, when they fight like this. It's a rare thing, but precious.

And he's smiling a little, as they go through the motions of the fight. It's been six seconds. He's guessing it won't last more than twenty.]

[wholenewstory]

[She's always loved watching him move. He's one of the best fighters she knows, and it's because he worked for it. She can see the years of sweat and blood and will in his strikes.

It's not a distraction; it comforts and complements her, elevates her as she weaves through frantic kicks and frenzied punches.

There are two left. They're wary, now, circling them at a distance.]

[cowled]

[They're at fourteen seconds. The distance means nothing. Bruce steps in close to Cassandra, the shift of his body language suggesting a change in their offensive strategy. He could always throw her in behind them, and they can close the distance in a two-pronged attack.]