I am the shadow on the moon at night.

[battothefuture]

WHO: Terry and whoever. That means YOU!
WHERE: Around the docks probably
WHEN: O'dark o'clock, aka between the hours of halfway-reasonable so-late-it's-early some time Feb 1
WARNINGS: Probable... violence...?
SUMMARY: Terry's back in the saddle. So to speak.
FORMAT: I'm starting with para but people come in with whatever you want.

---

Terry had been trying to take it easy for the past few weeks just by necessity - after his encounters first with most of Batfam and then with Supergirl, he'd ended up pretty battered. And, though he could and had) work through worse injuries than the ones he'd sustained, it was still best policy when you had something like cracked ribs to take it as easy as you could for long enough for your body to heal, or at least mostly heal. Since, for the first time in the last few years he'd had the luxury to let someone else take care of it, so he'd figured he'd let them do that and take a bit of time to heal.

He was now feeling that.

He hadn't taken the time completely off, which was good, but he was still out of shape and could feel the difference in how he moved. Well, find the bad guys. Worry about that later. He had work to do.

Comments

[skort]

Monday night was boring, and then Monday night turned into the wee hours of Tuesday morning and it was still boring. And a bored Kara is a restless Kara. Restlessness usually means a flight high above the City so she can fly fast and far, spinning in the air and just enjoying the lack of gravity.

Even flying gets old after a while, though, which lead to Kara hanging out on a skyscraper and thinking. And thinking. And then thinking some more. All this thinking lead, in turn, to a reminder that she still hadn't seen Terry's suit and had said she would find him on patrol some time.

Now was as good a time as any.

It didn't take long for her to find him and to hover a good ten feet above and behind where he was. The real question was how long she could tail him without him realizing he had a tail.

[battothefuture]

The answer there was not very long at all. You didn't take this job without developing a pretty keen sense as to when you were being watched, but in this case he didn't even need that. She was overconfident, it seemed. It was relatively quiet up here, and ten feet wasn't that far, even without the suit's enhanced sensors he probably would have been able to hear her; the fact that his senses had been enhanced by the porter could give him a leg up.

So.

It was someone with a cape, too high up to be Carrie, to still to be anyone but someone who could fly (because, after all, there weren't any handy perches back there, so there wasn't a way to keep so still except to be there under your own power). Which left... well, one person off the top of his head.

All right then.

Terry crouched a little and then sprang into a backflip, utilizing the suit's extra boost as he reduced his own gravity (he'd fallen out of the habit of using that, out of practice, he needed to get used to what he could do again) to flip very high indeed. And perhaps it wasn't strictly necessary, but he did need the practice. He landed on a roof above Kara, and behind her. That was enough to confirm his suspicions.

"Didn't think you worked many nights, Supergirl."

[skort]

If he was aiming to impress her with the flips and shit, it didn't exactly work. In fact, the little display made her roll her eyes at its showiness as she turned around to look up at him.

"Shows how much you know," she replied. "Nice voice. Could be a little more gravelly, though."

A smirk crossed her face as she floated up higher to be level with him. Her eyebrow raised and she gave him a very deliberate once over, taking her time to look over the costume and how he wore it. "Interesting suit. I like the red, but I gotta say, it's just not the same without the cape. You can't loom in the shadows as well without one."

........ keywords

[battothefuture]

"Capes are bulky and get in the way. Streamlining is a little more important than adding another layer of weight. Besides-" he jumped up and forwards, and his wings flicked out, leaving him to lightly flick back over towards her "-what I have instead? They're a lot more useful."

LMFAO

[skort]

She just raised an eyebrow at him. "Oooh, he has glider wings. I'm so frightened." It was hard to resist the urge to laugh (didn't want to damage his pride too much) but she managed it as she went to sit on the edge of the roof.

The other half is -wait wrong series. Also keywords again.

[battothefuture]

"You'd be surprised how frightening it can be, if it's dropping down on you out of nowhere," Terry said coolly. "Besides, the building design isn't exactly the same in about 30 years, or it isn't in my world. You add in the flying cars and you'd have too many people getting away unless you had some advantages."

aflkdsfalks lmao

[skort]

"Hey, I've seen heroes pull off the capes in the future with flying cars and all that," she said and then paused. "Of course, they had flight rings, but."

Kara shrugged and looked back over her shoulder at Terry with a small smile. "You do realize I'm just teasing you, right?"

[battothefuture]

"Uh-huh," Terry said dryly. "And therein is the difference. Anyway, I think the tendency of capes to get caught of things has made them fall generally out of fashion - Superman doesn't have one any more either." He falls silent. "Didn't, anyway."

Terry sighs, very lightly, and looks out over the water.

"It's quiet, tonight."

[skort]

"Kal changed his costume? That's... odd to think about." But not all that surprising, considering how many costume changes people seemed to go through.

Kara hummed quietly in agreement as she watched the waves. "Of course, everything here is quiet. Even compared to Metropolis. It's strange, considering how many super-powered people there must be here."

[battothefuture]

"Well, it's not blue and red like it is in the old photos," Terry said. "Black and white, now. Matches his hair, I guess. The 'S' changed too." Or it was. Superman had vanished, had ever since Starro had been defeated. Terry hadn't thought all that much of it until recently, but since he'd seen the state of Metropolis he'd started to wonder a bit more. What had happened to Kal-El from the planet Krypton? He didn't look like he was home.

[skort]

She didn't reply, just frowned, her eyebrows crinkling as she thought that over. A change in costume she could understand, but changing the 'S'? That was the symbol of the House of El, that wasn't something that he could (would?) just change because it looked better one way than it did another. What had happened to him in Terry's world? Where was she in the midst of all of this?

[battothefuture]

He picked up on that, and he was slipping out of patrol mode, out of Batman mode, back into Terry mode, so he reacted differently. Hopefully losing his focus wouldn't come back to bite him later, but for now....

"That bother you?"

[skort]

"Yeah. It does." Her hand drifted up to touch the 'S' on her own chest as she looked down at her uniform top. "To you this may just stand for 'Super,' but I was wearing this before Kal was even born. It's the symbol of the House of El, our family and our ancestors. It's one of the last piece of Krypton and New Krypton that's left. To think that he just changed it... It's unsettling. Like I'm losing a little more of the place that was once my home."

[carrytheshield.livejournal.com]

Since he was patrolling alone James couldn't cover as much ground as he could with Gerry, but he was making it a point to cover new areas whenever he could to become more familiar with the entire city. It was at least as big as Ultra city, if not bigger.

And had so many more people. James was well adjusted by now to fighting people instead of robots.

He paused to look out over the water. It had been a quiet night for him so far.

this is late i am sorry i have been terribly distracted as of late

[battothefuture]

One of the problems in working in a city like the City was that you could never be quite sure if someone who looked like they could make trouble was looking to make trouble for the troublemakers or not. Costumed heroes and loonies ran around everywhere, new ones arriving all the time, old and new alike being sent back home and then sometimes arriving again, like there was some sort of cosmic revolving door that the Porter got off on playing with. You couldn't always tell by looking either -- slag, Batman looked more like a villain than a hero, he'd been designed that way. Make criminals fear something that was bigger and badder than they were.

It still made things inconvenient.

Now here was some kid -- and he was a kid, young, hard to tell more than that from this distance when his back was turned -- who was hanging out at the docks at night. There were kids here who liked to go be heroes, but weren't they at least in some sort of team? Kid was alone. Terry wondered if this was some sort of initiation. Gang. It had happened before, he might have been about that age when he got sucked in. And kids got grabbed every day.

Well, if it was a hero, they could talk. Do something; Terry didn't know. If it was some villain than he could grab the problem early. And if it was just another punk kid looking to get in with the wrong crowd, maybe Terry could deter him. After all, Batman was intentionally frightening, and he could back up the image with moves. Maybe a friendly reminder of just what he'd be going up against would be enough to send him scurrying home.

This train of thought seemed reasonable enough -- kid didn't look like he had a gun, anyway -- so Terry dropped noiselessly behind him.

"Pretty late to be out for a walk."

[ooc: fff I'm sorry I have no idea how old James is so I'm making everything up. Animated stuff makes it so HARD to tell sometimes! I was thinking he was about 15? Ish? Maybe?]

[carrytheshield.livejournal.com]

[ooc: They don't draw him at what his age should be. 15/16 is where I put him from calculating it.]

James didn't have a gun, but the large metal shield he was carrying could do more than enough damage. He spun around, his superior reflexes kicking in the moment he heard the first syllable. James had completely turned, and halted the reflex to attack, because the guy didn't look like he was attacking, before he stopped talking.

The cowl probably made his look of irritation less clear than it was normally, but he was very unhappy. "Are you trying to get hit in the head? Don't do that!"

He felt all wound-up from the adrenaline that this guy's entrance had just put in his body. James had no idea who he was dealing with here, the costume was completely unfamiliar. He didn't think a villain would waste an ambush opportunity like that, but it was possible.

[battothefuture]

Terry laughed, short and sharp with amusement. "Thanks for the concern, but I can take care of myself." And, though the shield did look like it could be trouble, Terry was relatively sure that it was the kind of trouble he could handle.

Arrogant? Maybe. But he had taken on so much by now that a big metal disk didn't seem like such a threat.

"What are you doing out here?"

[ooc: sob comic ages sob]

[carrytheshield.livejournal.com]

[ooc: he looks even younger in the cartoon!]

The laughing didn't improve his mood. James found it even more irritating.

"I'm patrolling," James answered, rolling his eyes as if it should have been obvious what he was doing out here. He was pretty sure this guy wasn't from James' universe, or any similar ones.

"What are you doing out here? Aside from sneaking up on people."

[battothefuture]

"Sneaking up is one of the things I do best," Terry said easily. "But I'm out here for the same reason that you are. Normally it's a bit busier around this area."

[carrytheshield.livejournal.com]

"This is outside my normal route," James informed him, looking over the suit curiously. "I'm Armiger."

He wasn't too impressed with the guy sneaking up on him. James had almost hit him over that.

[battothefuture]

"Batman," Terry said. "One of them, anyway. I'm in the same position, but I don't really have a normal route. The bad parts, maybe. I just try to cover as much ground as I can."

[carrytheshield.livejournal.com]

"There are a lot of heroes to keep the city safe," James observed. He usually at least saw signs that another hero had been through, if he didn't run into them.

"I usually stick to the same area, but it was quiet tonight. I can't cover as much ground on foot as I can when I have my partner with me."

[battothefuture]

"There are," Terry agreed easily. "It's enough to make me feel useless, which is why I look for the areas that haven't been swept, or that have a lot of problems. Sorry for swooping down on you like that, I wasn't sure what you were doing."

Nor did he completely trust what he'd said, not yet, but hat was only prudent.

[carrytheshield.livejournal.com]

"I don't know, between the two of us you look more suspicious than I do," James said. He did know the feeling, being useless.

"I know the feeling, but it's better than having another robot attack or something horrible. Maybe the lack of crime means we're all making a difference."

[battothefuture]

"Yeah, there's a reason for that," Terry said, tilting his head in an arrogant sort of way.

"And yeah, that's true. Both points. I just... wish I could feel like I was doing something. Especially since I can't get back home."