tushanshu_logs | I am the terror that flaps in the night

Characters: Oliver, Jason Brody, Bruce Wayne, Jack Frost, Rikki Barnes, Connor Hawke, I THINK THAT'S EVERYONE???
Date: Around now and over the course of a week, the encounter with Jack happening last for obvious reasons. If you're character's getting arrested we can pre- or post-date as necessary.
Location: Various
Situation: Oliver solves his problems by punching other, unrelated problems.
Warnings/Rating: Violence likely. And vigilante road rage.

Nothing processes the way that it used to. He remembers the used to. He remembers tension registering on something more than a physical level. He remembers anger coming and going instead of existing constantly and in degrees. He remembers singing in the shower for no reason, sleeping without interruption, giving his twelve-year-old sister piggyback rides in the back yard, barefoot in soft grass.

"Before" stays behind glass. Remembering is like running his fingers over the surface of an old television playing an older tape on a loop. A static prickle of familiarity.

Now is easier to deal with. He doesn't care about the turtle or the sewers or the Emperor. He hasn't processed this place to a degree where the long-term problems they have here are even on his radar. Right now, all he wants is to find a few skulls to crack together until the noise inside his own settles a bit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Try again. He stays close to home this time, off of the rooftops and on the tail of the apparently suspicious. The kedan move differently, their social signals aren't the same, but it seems that some patterns of behavior cross between species.

When a group of thugs break away break into the back of a clothier, Oliver gets there first, splintering one of his batons across hide as tough as rhino skin. He ducks a blow that lands on one of the other kedan.

Then it's just movement. Simple, glorious movement, ahead of the enemy with every twist, every blow of the baton. The splintered one snaps in half and he drives the broken end into a set of gills that have already started to shift to something else, making the kedan shriek at a pitch that makes his ears hurt.]

[ The whole side of the alleyway ices over as Jack descends, using the hook of his staff to drop him down next to Oliver. He's seen how fast the man can move and he's ready for it this time, grasping the arm holding the baton with a grip that's cold enough to pierce right through his tough layers of cloth. ]

Stop it!

[He catches himself fast enough to go into physical lockdown, remaining baton raised to come down on Jack's head. The frozen burn sends his adrenaline punching upward. He exhales, watching steam curl out in awful fascination.

Jack could probably freeze him to death just by thinking about it.

The kedan scatter, taking the worst-injured with them.]

What is wrong with you?!

[ Jack whips the staff around, the long weapon far from unwieldy in his hands, the wood unnaturally strengthened by his ice-- bringing the butt of the staff up towards Oliver's chin. ]

[He brings the baton down against it with a crack, not backing off, tilting his head back enough that the staff doesn't quite touch him. He doesn't know what it would do. He doesn't know what Jack will do, though Oliver doubts death is in the cards.

Part of him wants to test how far he can push a spirit's patience.] Stay out of it.

No.

[ He brings the staff around again, sweeping it low at Oliver's feet this time, forcing him back and deeper into the alley, away from the direction the kedan took off in. ]

I stayed out of it the first time and I told you not to take out whatever is wrong with you on the kedan!

[He's being herded.

There is no part of him, none, that thinks beyond defensive impulse. Oliver moves, kicking off to hit the closest wall and rebound so he skids back to his feet behind Jack, at the mouth of the alley. Ice makes the footing chancy, but his landing is good.

He can't win. He should run. Regroup.

He's really tired of running.] Nothing is wrong with me.

[Oliver practically spits the words, and then he's on the attack. If Jack wants to take this into the alley, fine. Oliver isn't aiming to land a real blow - he's going after Jack's staff with his own baton, making the attacks look direct, a flurry of back-and-forth blows that hopefully won't give the kid a chance to do more than back up.]

You're a terrible liar.

[ Slick black ice snakes out to coat the alley from wall to wall, adding the extra element of instability. Jack moves fast with the staff but it's all he can do to bring it up each time to block Oliver's baton, each blow ringing up the length of the staff that would have shattered the old wood into splinters if not for his magic. Bare feet moving steadily backwards as an angry wind pushes at the green-clad man's back, driving them both deeper away from witnesses. Jack's blue eyes are hard but they lack the fire that have, cold instead as his namesake. ]

Maybe where you come from you're allowed to do this sort of thing and no one cares who it hurts, but you can't do it here! What if someone starts coming after you the way you're going after these kedan?!

[Oliver wraps a hand around the staff, the cold biting into his palm. His tone is flat.] Then I kill them.

[And that's it, isn't it. For a few seconds his jaw twitches around things he can't figure out how to say, and then he lets go of the staff. It takes all of a breath to find a grip on the un-frozen wall and start climbing.]

[ Jack sucks in a breath when Oliver grabs the staff and his lungs don't expel it when the man's implacable statement fails to echo in the frigid air around them.

Only when Oliver leaps away and starts to climb, Winter takes over the Guardian. Ice slams up the side of the building, coating every inch of the brick face and to crest like a wave coming down on the hooded one, a hundred pounds of tundra enough to dislodge him from the wall.

Jack's there where he lands (crashes) and floats above him, breathing out icy mist and cold light to steal away the man's consciousness. ]

Wrong answer.

[For a second he thinks he's drowning.

The roar, the cold, its like digging nails into a scar, remembered pain - Sarah face -

And then he's on his back with the dark rolling in, and this time it's a relief.]

I am the terror that flaps in the night

I am the fingernail that scrapes the blackboard of your soul. [Jack Frost]

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