2013.10.09 - You're the Man Now Dog

It was eating corpses at the cemetery. That wasn't enough to sustain it. It went after Amethyst because--magic? Magic is the most mundane answer. It went after Rain, too, and Rain didn't appear to be an incarnate magical goddess of order. It was probably magic.
Amy has been walking for hours. It's three AM. Spooky time. She doesn't really know where she's going; to anyone who sees her, she's probably just another lost drunk, runaway, or recently homeless. Then there's the guys that pull up beside her, roll down the passenger window, and ask how much. Gotham is charming like that.
The last one pisses her off too much and she ducks down an alleyway to get away from the street. It's dark and foreboding, sure, but isn't everything around here? She's not looking at the alleyway. Amy is in her mind, staring at an Eye ringed with Teeth.
A tooth caresses her neck. She freezes. No, wait, that's a knife. "You got anything to give me?" a voice breathes on the back of her neck.
"Am I seriously being mugged right now? Damn it, Gotham, really?"
The knife presses tighter and a hand grabs her wrist. "Seriously," the voice exhales, amused.
Amy clenches her fists. "This is probably going to be the low point of your year, dude."
The sounds that had carried across most of the city had been easy to detect. Finding the source would have mostly been a matter of going to where they were loudest, but not everyone had the luxury of responding immediately. Now, hours after the fact, one of Gotham's various crime-fighters is finally able to start investigating. It's all over the police band. Some kind of fire-fight in a cemetery. When she actually gets close enough to check it out, it's already been cordoned off by GCPD. From her perch a ways distant, she observes through a pair of binoculars with various optical enhancements. Night vision, thermal-imaging, infrared, ultraviolet, light amplification, even some stuff the general public aren't aware can be miniaturized enough to fit on binoculars yet. But she mostly just sees desecrated graves, bodies -- or parts thereof -- seemingly exhumed by some clawed instrument, and whatever evidence of gun-fire and ordinance wasn't already cleaned up before the police arrived. Some people said they heard or saw helicopters. Something definitely went down here.
But damned if Batwoman can figure out what just based on initial observation. The red-haired heroine lowers her binoculars and thinks about it. Someone digging up graves... Were the graves being used to store something, maybe? Illegal goods? Was it the bodies themselves? Something about them, or at least one of them? Was someone looking for something? Was there a disagreement over who should be in possession of such? Or just an objection to the exhuming in general? She wanted to get closer, but she wasn't quite on as-friendly terms with the police as Batman. Gordon might let 'the Bat' walk off with police evidence, but Batwoman was less likely to get such cooperation.
She'd have to wait until they weren't looking if she wanted to pick through the scene of the crime. And she couldn't discount the possibility this was something other than just crime-related. Those howls and screams probably were NOT just a coincidence. An escaped lab experiment? A magical monster of some kind? She has some experience with that sort of thing. Ghosts in particular. But it's still not her area of expertise. Folding the high-tech binoculars up and putting them away in her belt, Batwoman turns and leaps from the steeple of the run-down chapel she had been perched atop, and makes her way towards street level. As she's climbing onto her motorcycle and checking in with a certain someone via radio, she catches sight of a teenager walking down the street. Maybe 'just another runaway' is a possibility, but Batwoman watches her the whole way, until she ducks into an alleyway. Half of it is just something to do with her eyes while she lets her father know she'll have to check back here later but that for now it appears some serious military firepower was unleashed here. The other half of it is being cautious on another's behalf. Which turns out well when she sees someone break off from whatever he was doing and move to follow the black-with-pruple-stripes-haired teen into the alley with a surreptitious glance over his shoulder to make sure no one is watching.
"I'll have to call you back," Batwoman lets out in a semi-hoarse rasp she uses when 'on the job', in place of her usual voice. The voice sounds dry -- like some ancient vampire explaining oh-so politely and reasonably why you should remove the nails from her coffin and let her get intimate with your neck.
Moments later, there is a fluttering noise as something leathery descends and then lands behind the mugger. Unless he reacts very quickly, he may find the situation reversed, as one red-gloved hand gently cradles one half of his face, while the other presses retractable blades (currently extended) to his own throat. "I couldn't agree with the girl more," Batwoman rasps.
SHIELD's gone by now. They weren't supposed to be here, anyway. The helicopters they flew off in were disguised as belonging to the state's National Guard. Charon is quiet again, that foreboding kind of quiet that it does so well.
The man--hat pulled down low, jacket collar turned up, the mugger's uniform--goes stiff as he has control wrenched away so quickly. He reflexively jabs his knife into his victim's throat, but the girl is stronger and faster than she looks. She breaks free with a surge of motion, whirling around and backhanding her attacker with a single fluid motion.
The mugger goes limp, dropping his knife and sliding out of Batwoman's embrace unless she catches him. The teen skips backward, light on her feet, hands raised. She's had a few self defense classes, maybe.
It's dark. It takes Amy a second to see the dark figure properly. She plants herself on the ground, lowering her guard. There's some recognition in her eyes. "You're... um. Who are you?"
Perhaps she underestimated the ability for the 'victim' to defend herself. Batwoman changes her grip quickly when the mugger goes limp, so that he doesn't cut his own throat on her glove-blades, and yet keeps him restrained. Eyeing the teenager somewhat suspiciously given the ease with which she knocked the man out, with such a simple motion -- a backhand, no less. Not exactly well-known for its stopping power, but she wasn't necessarily in a position to see all the details. Now holding the man up by his arms being twisted behind his back at an angle that would likely be painful if he were more aware, she takes a moment to kick the dropped knife out of range so it can't be picked up readily, and then ties his wrists together tightly and efficiently before tossing him against a wall. Not important enough to bother cuffing at this point, but Batwoman wants to keep him out of the way.
"Batwoman," the heroine identifies herself. "This isn't a great time of night to be wandering down dark alleys." Understatement. She stands with her cape hanging about her, but standing off to the side somewhat so that it doesn't seem like she's blocking the way out. She has a boot-heel pressed against the bad guy's groin so that she can make sure he stays put if he comes to and starts trying to cause trouble. A little pressure should convince him to stay where he is. "If you're trying to get somewhere, I can try to get you directions for a safer route there."
The teen grins, though she quickly hides it behind her hand, as she watches her rescuer efficiently sort, package, and store the mugger. It must be reflex for Gotham vigilantes.
"Batwoman," Amy says, trying the word out. "Okay. Cool."
She steps forward, shoving both of her hands into her jacket pockets. Her expression is unabashedly curious. The mask does that to some people. "Actually, um, I was just kind of... well, I was about to say 'thinking', but that sounds like a really dumb thing to do in an alleyway."
The teen rolls her eyes and exhales. "Are you here for..." She points over her shoulder, in the direction the graveyard would be in. Her face turns dire. "It's a little weird. A lot weird. I don't know what kind of stuff you usually do, but I wouldn't recommend it."
The alleyway behind the teen is tinged green, faintly. She doesn't notice it. The light flickers, as if it were a candle.
Batwoman's lips turn down slightly as she notices the direction that Amy points. She's no longer trying to leave the way out of the alleyway open. Turning and stepping closer, the practically vampiric-looking heroine allows her cape to spread out as she stands in the way. "And what do you happen to know about that, hmm?" she inquires, her mouth turning into a small, self-contained smile that doesn't reach the rest of what's visible of her face. "I can deal with weird," she confirms. "But if it's something you'd rather I not look into any deeper, I'll need to hear a REALLY good reason why I shouldn't." The green tinge is picked up but reacted to quite yet. She's not really necessarily sure what it is. But if it's dangerous, she should be ready to respond appropriately based on what happens next. "It's okay," she coaxes. "I'm only interested in finding out what's going on and keeping people safe, not getting you in trouble."
Amy is terrible with a brush. She's painted herself into a corner again, leaving the door on the other side of the room. She frowns.
Really, there's no reason to trust someone just because they're wearing a costume. Even if they're wearing a bat costume. Maybe especially if they're wearing a bat costume. One of these days, this is going to bite Amy in the ass, she can feel it. Hopefully it's not today.
"Well let me make sure this dude's really out," the teen mutters, raising a hand and gesturing. Nothing seems to happen, but she seems satisfied nonetheless. "It's kind of a long story, but basically--"
The green light brightens, the candle turning into a bonfire. A shape throws itself out of a second story window, plummeting to the alley below. It's pale and manshaped, draped in a disposable medical sheet. It rises with unsteady, jerky motions, looking in the opposite direction for a moment. It turns around: it is a man. A dead man, by all appearances.
It snarls and barks. Like a dog.
Amy spins on her heel the second the window breaks. "Is that really--?!"
Unclear on this teenager's capabilities -- psychic? Magician? Jedi? -- Batwoman gives her room and lets her inspect the consciousness of the would-be mugger. Once that's over, and the explanation starts up, the masked vigilante listens and keeps her eyes on Amy. If she can knock people out with a back-hand and do brain-mess-uppery with gestures, she could potentially just knock Batwoman out, run, and not have to answer any questions. At this point, at least, she doesn't seem like a bad sort based on body language. Amy's not acting GUILTY or anything. But she doesn't know the girl, and she can't assume.
Then that green tinge builds into a much brighter light. As a window breaks overhead, Batwoman moves forward and calls, "Watch out!" She tries to grab Amy with one hand to pull her aside, while her other hand lifts her durable cape to hopefully shield both of their heads from the falling pieces of broken glass. When someone -- or something -- hits the ground seemingly without injury and then gets up and turns around... Batwoman mouth tightens. "A friend of yours?" she asks not-really-sarcastically. A walking corpse, and a recent disturbance at a cemetery, with some sort of mind-tricking girl in the vicinity too?
When the (seemingly) dead man starts barking, it's really no weirder than there being a dead man walking around in the first place. So Batwoman reacts as she would whether he was barking or not, by dropping her hand from her cape and making a back-handed gesture of her own. A snap of her wrist and something goes spinning through the dark, attempting to wrap around the strange figure neatly and restrict his movements as the weighted tips of the bola-like weapon tie with each other. Of course, maybe Mister Barky avoids the attack. Maybe it's not dangerous. Maybe he really IS a friend of Amaya's.
But stopping to negotiate with strange dead people is not part of Batwoman's motis operandi, so she at least tries to eliminate it as an immediate threat without doing harm.
This young woman may have been fast hitting that mugger a moment ago, but Batwoman is faster.
Amy immediately tenses when her arm is grabbed, but she quickly lets the stiffness flood out of her body and follows Batwoman's forced momentum. This is no ordinary teen. She's been trained, and well.
The bola pins the barking corpse's arms to its sides. It steps backward from the impact, but keeps its balance and lurches forward again. The muscles of its arms bulge obscenely, visibly tearing skin. The cable snaps, but it doesn't lead with its arms. It runs forward, pawing uselessly at the air, gnashing its teeth. It's in a very bitey mood, apparently. Despite being dead, the corpse is very fast on its feet.
Behind Batwoman, Amy wriggles in her grasp but doesn't break free. It's more of a signal that she wants to be let go. "It's a freaking dog ghost possessing a body!" she shouts, clearly annoyed.
"Wait, that means there was a corpse just sitting up there. Damn it, Gotham!"
"'A dog ghost'," Batwoman repeats relatively placidly given the nature of the situation. It has just snapped the cables like nothing, and is now running quickly towards the two. Well, regardless of what the spirit is, and what body it's in, it PRESUMABLY has the mental limitations of a dog. Letting go of Amy, Batwoman says, "If you can do something about this, feel free. Otherwise I'm taking it out." She rushes to meet the charging opponent, closing the distance between them, and then attempts to leap up at the last second, flip in the air, and place her hands on the shoulders of the possessed corpse -- using her momentum -- and the attacker's -- to try to force the dog-ghost in human form off-balance and right towards a wall, and maybe some trashcans or something, hopefully face-first. She doesn't expect this to really stop a possessed corpse, but she can at least try to distract it until she figures out a better solution and gives the sorceress girl a chance to answer as to if she can resolve this.
The alternative is to try to immobilize the corpse by removing appendages. And that's not really something Batwoman wants to attempt if there's an alternative.
Upon landing after her maneuver, successful or not, she's already pulling a pair of red metal throwing blades from her belt, and snapping the foldable batarang-like weapons open. Again, not really expecting them to stop a dead person with a ghost possessing it, but it's better than doing nothing. What worries her is the way the body seemed to be able to force itself beyond its natural limits to break even high-strength cable. She doesn't want to risk restraining the body from behind or something with something like that being possible. Maybe it can turn its head all the way around to bite her! Who knows! But as long as it doesn't have ghost magic or something, Batwoman should at least be able to remain okay if she keeps her distance.
The corpse man dog is strong, and strength often indicates speed. It doesn't say as much about coordination. It snaps its teeth with an audible click as Batwoman nears, but the caped heroine bounds effortlessly over the jaws of undeath. Her well-timed shove ruins whatever rhythm the corpse built up; it takes another step, but twists its ankle on the second, staggering off to the side and going face first into a pile of refuse.
It scrabbles uselessly for a moment, unable to find purchase with its unfamiliar limbs, further confused by the bottles underneath it and the bags tangling its arms.
"World famous gymnast in disguise?" Amy guesses, hands raised before her. She gestures in complex patterns, her head and hands surrounded by motes of purple witchfire. "Olympic gymnast! Skipped your chance at the gold to thwart a terrorist bombing attempt and now you fight crime!"
Amy grins, her face shadowed and lit by the eerie purple light. It brings out her eyes. "Sorry. I'm working on it. This is new."
The corpse claws its way out of the trash, snarling and growling. It gets to its feet again, approaching Batwoman with caution but also purpose. Whether it injured its leg--can a ghost dog possessing a dead body feel pain?--or has just learned to respect its foe, it's hard to say. It finds new use for its hands, reaching out and trying to take hold of any part of its prey it can. It does not react to slashes or pain, making it difficult to dissuade. Its grip is iron tight.
And it still wants to bite.
"Maybe I'm an alien from the planet Gymnon," she rasps distractedly in response, not really caring to deny or confirm anything about her identity, unseen eyes watching the struggling corpse as it eventually works its way back to its feet. "Maybe I'm a were-bat and I have all the abilities of an acro-bat," she tacks on as the dead-man-dog approaches her cautiously. She wants to stay at a distance, as she can see the teenager is working on someting and hears the verbal confirmation of the same. This might take some time. She needs to buy that time. When her attacker starts making grabby hands at her, she doesn't move away exactly, though she does circle to keep from being an easy target. "Or maybe I'm just the goddamn Batwoman." She then thrusts both hands up and under those reaching hands, hopefully getting close enough to drive the pair of batarangs -- one in each hand -- into the corpse's eyes to blind it.
"Bad dog!" she snaps. Of course, being in close proximity like that, even if she's ducking a bit, may mean that if blinding the enemy doesn't work she's going to get grabbed really tightly. And then it would just be her and a bladed forearm trying to wedge itself in the opponent's throat to keep the mouth away from her until Amy has finished.
Which would kind of suck.
"Wow, 'planet Gymnon' hits a little close to home," Amy says, suddenly thoughtful.
The corpse lunges forward, but again Batwoman's reflexes prove quicker. There is no art in its attack, and so it is just a matter of overcoming its natural strength. Attacking his inner wrists messes with its leverage, knocking its arms up and away.
The thing howls. The batarangs cut deep. It lashes out furiously fingers finding purchase on Batwoman's armor and holding tight. Eagerly, it opens wide and leans forward--but its teeth snap down on nothing. It tries again, but is again held back by Batwoman's arm. It leans its weight in and brings its uninhibited strength to bear.
No breath comes from its mouth. Sound, but no breath. Its jaws snap again, inching closer. It repositions its arms, squeezing tighter and tighter, slowly overcoming Batwoman's superior position.
--and then once more, a body goes limp in Batwoman's hands. Amy stands behind the now inanimate thing, holding a writhing, translucent figure in her glowing hand. "Huh."
She flicks it away. It turns to vapor, drifting formlessly into the night sky. "Um, don't worry. It was more of an imprint of ideas and not really sentient. If you care. You cool?"
Straining against the overpowering strength of something that doesn't care how much damage it does to its own body as long as it gets to her is not Batwoman's idea of a fun time, and as blood streams from the gouged eyes and drips on her with the thing leaning in closer and closer, she tries to decide if she should risk yielding to its advance and side-stepping to try to send it sprawling again, or maybe just punch out its teeth so it can't actually do any damage with a bite attack. Assuming she can get her forearm blades out of the dead body's throat. Thankfully, it goes limp as Amy extracts the ghost, and Batwoman doesn't have to risk anything. Instead she just pulls the trio of blades free and allows them to fold back again and contains her displeasure at the blood all over them. Maybe it's slightly coagulated, or maybe not, depending on how long the body was lying there, but it's still not really something she wants to be covered in.
"Good to know," the red-head replies. "And some other ghost or impression isn't going to come along and step back into the body, then? And I'm sure you have some idea of WHY there was a random dog ghost floating around ready to attack. I'll need to know all about that too." She does not confirm whether she is okay or not. She focuses on the matter at hand. And honestly, she's not even sure if she's okay. This was a bit weird even for her. She has had to deal with ghosts before... Even some OTHER things... But stabbing out the eyes of a dead man -- regardless of what was possessing him -- is something she doesn't do every day. So she's letting her mind and demeanor become like ice, smothering the horror for now by focusing on what needs to get done.
But she's probably not going to sleep well whenever she actually makes it to bed.
Amy clenches her fist, extinguishing the purple glow. She steps back, crossing her arms defensively. "I guess not? I mean, I'm not the boss of all ghosts or anything. This is, sort of..." she purses her lips as she considers her choices of description.
"...unusual."
The young woman smiles, at first apologetically, and then sadly after taking a better look at Batwoman. "Yeah. Um. Do you, like, take breaks? I could use some coffee."
She raises her hands, palms out. No tricks here. "I promise that if anything happens at the cemetery, you'll be the second person to know, right after me. I'd rather explain this somewhere else." She frowns. "But you can't really sit at a diner in that outfit, huh."
Batwoman eases off a bit. Just because she's some kind of magic-user who has knowledge of something that transpired at a cemetery involving a lot of dead bodies and possibly some very loud SOMETHING and a ghost dog just happens to be in the area possessing a dead body does not mean that Amy has knowledge of what's going on. Perfectly believable. The heroine allows a smile to return to her, though it's still a tight, controlled one. She's not very happy with what just happened, but she's at least not hostile towards the teenager. "I'm sure I can work something out. But I have two questions first. One, can you tell me your name or at least give me something to call you other than 'hey you'? Two, how do you feel about motorcycles?"
Assuming Amy agrees to a ride, the two would eventually find themselves at an outdoor park. It's still night time, so the picnic tables are not exactly in-use. Maybe sitting down to eat in a diner isn't on the agenda, but they're less likely to be bothered in this other area that is not near a cemetery, and Batwoman DID obtain a hot beverage and some 'noms'. She just walked into a place, startled a dozen truckers and late-night customers, and said, "Give me two medium mochas and a danish." Thus, the two would now be sitting in a cold, deserted park at dumb-o-clock in the morning, with chocolate coffee, and a donut-pastry-thing. The latter is for Amy. Batwoman is not feeling really hungry. Having to clean off the blood with a LOT of napkins was not condusive to having an appetite.
She's sure when that mugger wakes up, he'll similarly be nonplussed by the dead body lying nearby, though that all depends on if the police get there before he wakes up or not. Batwoman placed a call along the way.
Her answer is quick: "My name is Amy and I think motorcycles are awesome."
She's breathless and smiling through the ride and tries but fails to not laugh while watching Batwoman through the store window. Amy is considerably more perky than her host when she makes it to the table.
"Wow, I thought all coffee in Gotham blew. I guess I was going to all the touristy places, huh?" she says, cradling the cup underneath her face. It's cold out. "Sorry if I smacktalk Gotham too much, it's just--I haven't had too many good experiences here. Lots of clowns."
The young woman sets her drink down and considers the pastry, turning it round and round between her fingertips. "Well. The rundown is that there was this weird monster thing--my friend called it a chimera--that sort of... well, you ever play any Katamari games?"
Amy averts her eyes. "Yeah, uh, anyway, it was in the cemetery because it was wounded. It was eating corpses to gain mass. SHIELD was there and brought some serious firepower. They were in National Guard helicopters, though. I guess they didn't want anyone to know they were carpet bombing a cemetery."
The red-head waves off the apology. "I've had run-ins with clowns myself," she assures. One was named Harley Quinn. She tried to marry the mayor and then kill him to obtain his powers. That would sour anyone's opinion of Gotham City. "I see. A Chimera." Batwoman knows what a chimera is. She nods to that, though not the Katamari part. She's not Batman and thus has not become grand master of video games alongside all her other skills. "A genetic chimera, or more the mythological kind? Or something other entirely?" She HAS, however, added a lot of esoteric knowledge on various subjects to her information arsenal, exactly for situations like this. She has no idea who SHIELD is, but she intends to make some inquiries when she gets back to base, and she does not intend to make mention of her lack of information on them.
"And is this chimera dealt with or should I expect to hear more about it killing dozens or hundreds of people and animals all across North Gotham?" She put the pieces together already. It's been in the news for weeks, her own information network made her aware of military-quality ordinance being present in at least one instance, and now this one, and other reports of some sort of huge beast... All of it was just weird unconnected stories before. Now it all makes sense. "Because if you need help making sure it stays down..." she leaves the offer open-ended and then lifts her coffee to her lips to sip at it. It's cold, and the warm beverage will do her some good.
"Pretty sure it was from another dimension," Amy says. She isn't smiling. This is probably not a joke. She lowers her head, hair obscuring her face.
"Yeah. It's dead. SHIELD probably doesn't know that for sure, but I do. It was dying for some reason and it couldn't get what it needed to survive. I'm pretty sure it was after magic, but I don't know. I don't know why it was dying, either. Maybe it just got shot one too many times."
Amy looks up, flicking her hair back. She grins and sips her coffee too. "I hope it's gone. There might be more. I still don't know why or how it came over to our side, and neither does my friend. I need to go speak with her..." she drums her fingers on the table a moment. "...ugh. Sometime. You ever have one of those weeks where you feel like you don't even have time to think? That's been the last year and a half for me."
Coffee banishes her melancholy for a moment. "Do you have a signal I can use, too?"
Batwoman is probably blinking slowly at all this behind her mask, but all that's really evident is her frown as she thinks about this. She's not necessarily inclined to just accept whatever ridiculous thing someone tells her, but her intuition is telling her Amy isn't making this up. Whether it's necessarily TRUE or not, that's another matter. But this girl -- a magic-user herself -- believes it's true. And Batwoman does not presently have any reason at all to suspect it's not. What she has heard so far, both here and previously as she looked into the reports about some awful pack of beasts or murderers running around killing without rhyme or reason and leaving no trace, indicates that she should just be glad it's gone and dead.
"While I've had my run-ins with the supernatural, I'm not an expert in this field. I'll trust your judgement on this. However, is there the possibility that someone used magic or something similar to bring the chimera here, whether intentionally or otherwise?" Her tone is thoughtful, though that rasp is still there. Then she starts to get up off the bench she was straddling, and the light bit of socialness there was to her starts to be subsumed once more in the Job. In the MISSION. She has a lot to think about and plenty to look into. But as she heads towards her motorcycle without answering if there's a way to contact her, she winds up retrieving something from a compartment on the vehicle itself. She walks back and places it down on the table. Some sort of back-up communicator, maybe. It looks fairly straightforward. Power button, talk button, and a radio-like dial. "Turn on the power with the red button, turn the dial to the 6 o' clock position, press the black button to talk. If I don't respond immediately, leave your message with who picks it up. It'll be gotten to me as quickly as possible. Don't give it to anyone else, and don't try to open it up or trace it or anything. The ghost of Hackutron 5000 routes my calls. If you try to trace it he will ghost-hack the radio to explode. You will die in fire."
What? Amy believes in ghosts! Maybe she'll buy that! Starting to head back to her motorcycle, she finishes off her coffee all in one go and then tosses it in the nearest park trash can. "Keep me updated, okay?" she asks, rather than commands, as she climbs back on her bike and turns her head to look back at the teenager. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she says, "And if you need a ride somewhere, I can drop you off."
Amy stays at the bench, tearing the donut into little pieces on the napkin. She lets the communicator sit on the table, amused.
"I do solemnly swear that I will not anger the ghost of Hackutron 5000."
She pops a donut piece into her mouth and waves. "It's cool. I'll catch a flight out on my broomstick. See ya."
Batwoman probably wouldn't believe a flying unicorn story. Broomstick, much more realistic.
Category:Log