2013.07.17 - Call Me Alice

Night in Gotham City. A faint breeze drifts in off the water, carrying with it a low reek like dead fish and rotten eggs. Even at this time of night people are busy, but not many of those who are busy are worth much attention -- most are simply loading and unloading the ships that have come into port.

But far down at the end of the pier a small motorboat is idling, and two men are unloading boxes around the size of those used to tote office paper while a third nervously watches the shore, hands shifting uneasily on the semiautomatic he carries. "Would you guys hurry the $^&%* up?" he says in a harsh stage whisper. "I wanna get outta here!"

Above them, clinging to one of the automated beacons that warns incoming ships of potential hazards, is a figure clad from head to toe in tight violet Lycra. She's silent, and trying not to let go as she observes the trio and composes in her head, 'Dear diary: Next time I think I have the perfect hiding place remind me that I have never managed to hold a chin-up for more than a minute and a half in gym class...'

Another pair of eyes watches from the darkness, perched upon one of the nearby warehouse rooftops, but shrouded in the protective mantle of his invisibility.

Vorpal's tried his best to shake up the local scum, but he's heard almost nothing worth investigating. Low crime week? Maybe. Or he thouoght so until he heard something sketchy about one of the shipments coming in. It wouldn't hurt to investigate, right? His dance card wasn't exactly full at the moment.

'Dear Princess Celestia,' he thinks to himself, 'Why do crooks always do the dock thing? Haven't they realized they're easy to spot? your student, Twilight Vorpal.'

These particular crooks are dumber than most, to be fair. Spoiler's been tracking them, because they are working for her father -- and whenever her father plans some grand scheme, it means trouble for her and her mother. She knew they'd be here, and she managed to get several photographs of them unloading the boat before she started to get wary about her position. The camera, at least, she managed to tuck away, but now she's getting pretty desperate -- hanging from what is little more than a lamppost is not easy work, and she can feel herself sli...

"Eeeeeeek!" screams the girl as she falls from her perch, limbs flailing as she lands atop the gun-toting thug. On the bright side, she thinks, she's pretty sure he's down for the count.

The sound of the others drawing their own weapons is far less a comfort.

So he wasn't the only cat on the prowl, it seemed. It seemed that a fellow vigilante of the purple spectrum was on the scene.

And that she's pretty bad at holding her balance, it seems.

He knew what it was like to be new and to screw up. So he acted quickly

Suddenly, the shadow of the Bat himself rises from an adjacent rooftop, as a gravelly voice echoes through the dockyard with supernatural clarity: "It's not her you should worry about..."

Meanwhile, Vorpal has jumped down to ground level in his invisible state, making his way towards the young woman to help her. At this point, he reasoned, he was more responsible for Bat-sightings than the Bat himself. He owed him royalties for PR.

'Dear Diary: Call me Alice, 'cuz I think I just got to Wonderland...'

Spoiler stares at the oncoming violet catguy for a bare moment before she manages to scramble to her feet. Dad's thugs are still here, and while they've been distracted by the purple puss, that does not relieve her of her own responsibilities. She shifts back a step or two, then launches herself at the shorter of the two remaining thugs -- a kick snapped to one side of his knee. This causes him to yowl in pain and drop his gun, but even as he does so, the other is turning toward her, ready to fire.

The Batman illusion vanishes, as Vorp has no further need for it. Instead, the cat teleports right to the side of the aiming thug and grabs his gun, pointing it up in the air as he fires. "Didn't your mama teach you it ain't polite to point?" he quips, twirling gracefully to attempt to deliver a roundhouse at his head.

The thug is too surprised by the teleporting hero (Batman doesn't teleport! he thinks...) to counter the blow. The punch lands forcefully, and other than the whining of the other thug, the one Spoiler kneecapped, there is stillness once again on the Gotham docks. The purple-clad girl extracts zipties from somewhere in the voluminous cloak she wears, and quickly binds the three criminals before pushing them all into the boat together. Then, only when she's disposed of them, does she turn back toward Vorpal. "Thank you," she says, trying to make her voice sound like it doesn't belong to a teenaged girl. Mostly it makes it sound like it belongs to a teenaged girl with a bad cold.

"Lozenge?" the cat says, offering one from his secret pocket. "... You haven't been doing this long, have you?"

Spoiler deflates a little, somehow managing to look smaller for a few moments than she actually is. It occurs to her to ask, "Is it that obvious?" but she fell off a lamppost and landed on one of her dad's minions. Yeah, pretty obvious. "No," she agrees, again trying to put a rasp into her voice -- and accepting the cough drop. "Not very long."

The cat takes out his communicator and starts dialing the catch for the BSA "...don't worry, I know exactly what it's like. I assume you're not registered, so you probably want to go somewhere else to talk about this after I dial up the boys? I'm sure you must have... questions."

It's not possible to see the way the girl wrinkles her nose beneath her mask -- it's a flat black that covers her face, leaving only a pair of irregular white spots that must be her eyes. "Questions?" she says. "About what? The fact that a purple cat guy is prowling the docks? I mean, I usually expect more flying mammal types..."

Vorpal smirks "You're new to the 'business' and you have no questions-- think about that.... Yes, this is Vorpal, BSA Number C-9035768... pickup. Docks, waterfront..." he gives the description of the individuals, and adds "I'll give my statement later tonight. I'm escorting a civilian out of the area." He looks at her "... Or we can part ways, I guess, if you know all there is to know." Cheshire grin.

"I'm not -that- new," Spoiler retorts, forgetting to add the rasp to her voice now. She still holds the cough drop in her glove, uncertain what to do with it without removing her mask. "I mean, I've been following these guys around for awhile." She kicks the boat lightly, and her nose wrinkles beneath her mask again. 'Escorting a civilian.' Yeah.

He can tell from her tone that she is displeased. He simply says, "Would you prefer I had said 'I am escorting an unregistered and rather young vigilante in whom you might have some unhealthy interest?' because, really, I can call them back, it's fine by me." Vorpal can imagine she's not comfortable, and so he adds, "You weren't bad. But you could have been seriously hurt or worse if I hadn't been here. I took a bullet on an early encounter, and if it hadn't been for HUntress, it probably would have gone worse. "

Spoiler toes the boat again, her posture taking on that of a sullen teenager. Head hunched forward, arms crossed defensively over her midsection. Shrug. "I was doing fine. They didn't know I was there 'til I was ready to pounce on them!" If 'pounce' means 'fall off a lamppost onto'. After a moment she huffs a deep sigh. "Okay, let's go. I don't wanna be here when the police show up."

Vorpal just gives her a look. And then he heads over to the warehouse and climbs up the wall effortlessly. "Whatever you say. Meet me across the street, Lester building rooftop."

Well, here's the thing about that. Steph isn't so good at climbing up walls. Sure, she can shimmy up a lamppost, but... walls. They are vertical and she can't wrap her arms and legs around them, and she has yet to master that whole 'having enough money to buy a grappler' thing. So. While Vorpal makes his way to the Lester building via rooftops, Spoiler has to find a fire escape and climb up that. She gets points for trying to be quiet about it.

By the time she gets there, Vorpal is waiting. Sitting nonchalantly on the very edge of the roof, legs dangling into the void, he looks over to her. "Had a good trip?"

Spoiler hmphs. "Was that a joke about the lamppost?" she asks. "'Cause I totally meant to do that." She peels up her mask to expose her mouth, pops the cough drop in, pulls the mask back down. "Look, I'm not that useless. I just slipped."

"Tell me what your strategy was," The cat says, seriously. He recreates the layout of the docks in a floating miniature illusion and marks the place where Spoiler was with a tiny little Spoiler. "That's where you started and you dropped on the man here..." she falls on top of the man, and the goons draw their guns. Everything freezes. "Tell me what was your next step?"

Steph hesitates. Truth was, her real plan was to wait for the thugs to go away and anonymously email the pictures she took of them to the DA's office. But she's trying to show that she's not just a dumb kid, so she regards the illusion for a moment before suggesting, "Dive over the side and go under the pier. Yeah, I'd have lost them -- but I wouldn't be dead, and I have pictures of them unloading the boat."

"Do you think they'd have let you go, though? They'd seen your outfit, you can bet they would have tried to put a slug into you."

The cat tilts his head and looks at her for a second. "There's no shame in admitting a mistake... you slipped, didn't you?"

"I said I slipped," replies Spoiler, mouth working under the mask -- cough drops are like hard candies with menthol. Tasty. "No, I didn't mean to jump down on the guy. I was gonna turn over the pictures to the DA. I know who those guys work for."

Vorpal nods, "Let me see your gloves?" The cat says, standing up.

Spoiler tilts her head up to regard Vorpal for a moment before peeling off her gloves and handing them to him wordlessly.

Vorpal examines the gloves, especially the surface of the palms... are they regular gloves?

Spoiler operates on a shoestring budget. These are little more than industrial grade kitchen gloves -- they are, at least, padded and have a textured palm surface. The better to hold on to slippery glass pans while washing.

Vorpal looks at the gloves, realizing she was probably on a budget. "Hmm... I see, you're going to need to do a couple of things..." he ponders, an stands with his legs a little apart. "Take a look at my inner thighs. I've put some gripping textured rubber in those areas. And my gloves, as well..." he holds up the fingerless glove, showing her the palms. "This will keep you from slipping when you really want to grip."

The mask is blank -- it just is. So Vorpal really has no way of seeing the look of irritation on the pretty face beyond it. "That sounds fantastic," she says drily. "There's the little matter of paying for that sort of thing, though."

"I know that quite well. Now, what should I call you?" he says, looking at her. "As far as the grip material goes... I have leftover samples I got from when I had this uniform made. I can give it to you... if you want it."

If he could see her face now it'd be a mask of shame. He really is trying to help. And she's being, let's face it, a witch-with-a-B (because Stephanie Brown still thinks in those childish euphemisms when it comes to profanity). "Sorry," she mumbles, and though it may sound a little grudging, it also sounds fairly genuine. "I'm Spoiler." And is there the slightest extra moment of sibilance when she offers her codename? Perhaps there is.

"Good to meet you, Spoiler," Vorpal says. "As you overheard, I'm Vorpal. You know this life is full of danger. Death is always a chance. That's something you obviously know. I am the last person to tell someone not to risk their lives out in the field... but I do advise that you take a night off and think very hard about that, and about whether or not you can live with not doing this. If the answer is 'no', and you're willing to live with that level of risk... then welcome to the game, Spoiler."

"I've spent three years thinking about whether or not I can live with not doing this," replies the girl, her tone as serious as only a high school student can manage. "I understand I'm putting myself at risk, Vorpal, but I have reasons for doing it." Doesn't everybody? "So I appreciate the suggestions, and I appreciate any help you offer, but I have made up my mind. My skills will improve the more I do this. But I have to do it now."

He flicks a purple card at her. "Then welcome to the club of the compelled, Spoiler. You'll need training. And grip pads. My boyfriend and I will be glad to help you in what we can. Connections are the best thing a new vigilante can have. I know firsthand." The card, of course, has his codename, real name, phone number and email. "Call me and we can set up a time where you can come over to our place and we'll cut out the grip pads for you. And, needless to say, if you ever need backup. That's what heroes do best, watch out for each other, right?"

Spoiler takes a moment to digest this, then nods, a quick bob of her mask and hood. She pauses, then extracts a card from a pouch in the lining of her cape. Well. She calls it a card. It's a piece of copy paper on which she has printed a purple exclamation point and a phone number in Comic Sans MS. This pathetic excuse for a calling card is offered somewhat sheepishly as she tucks Vorpal's card away. "Thanks. I'll definitely call." Because in Gotham who else is she going to get help from. Batman? She doesn't consider that likely.

Vorpal smiles, looking at the card. "Nice trademark, wish I had thought of one," he says- he's not crazy about the font, but he likes the exclamation mark. He tucks the card into his leg sidepocket (gasp! tights, with pockets! that zip up! Zippers that WORK!). "I have to get back to my patrol now... do you want me to mention you in my report, or should I leave you vague?" He always wanted to know how other fellow vigilantes wanted to be credited.

"Just... vague's fine," says the girl, glancing toward the spot where they left the thugs. Her dad is going to be royally teed off tonight. "I should... get back on patrol, too." If he checks on her and she's not in bed... well, dad is a criminal, but he's not stupid.

"Roger. Remember, anything you need? Feel free to call." The cat says, and gives a wide cheshire grin. And then he starts to vanish. First his tail, then his body, and finally his face, leaving the grin hanging in midair until that, too, is gone. The invisible cat steps away... always happy to make a showy exit.

'Dear Diary,' Spoiler thinks as she makes her way back down the fire escape. 'Through the freaking looking glass.'