i_imagine Exploring [For Connor]
Kyle was pretty sure that the 6 train went down to The Village. Not Gotham. Definately not Gotham. Because the 6 train was a New York subway and it didn't even leave the island, much less go to an entire other city. He'd gotten on uptown, by the Met where he'd spent the day sketching and fine tuning some techniques, and after a twenty minute ride, he'd gotten off at St. Marks... well what was supposed to be St. Marks.
He hadn't really noticed anything odd at first (Kyle counted the number of stops rather than listening to the speaker) but then he'd finally gotten up the steps and out into what was supposed to be St. Marks, but it wasn't. NYU was gone and after a bit of walking around he couldn't find known landmarks like Washington Square Park or the small things like The Peanut Butter Factor. He couldn't even find his apartment.
It was Gotham, or more to the point, part of Gotham. He saw Gotham State University (a building which moments later he couldn't find again) but at the same time parts of the building looked like NYU, which Kyle knew wasn't the case in reality. GSU was a stony gothic looking place, not like NYU at all. He kept walking through the streets getting lost more than once, as he didn't know the Gotham layout well at all.
The darkness of Gotham was lost in a few blocks time and Kyle found himself in New York again... though as Gotham had been, it was only partly so. He saw some familiar building in the landscape, but interspersed in between were buildings he'd never seen before in his life. It was confusing, especially from the ground.
He glanced down at his right hand and ran his thumb over the green ring on his finger. There was a better way to explore. And as the saying went, you were safer in the air than you were on the ground.
At least the allyways hadn't changed. They were still dark, dingy, disgusting... and extremely convienent changing areas. Kyle created a backpack for his sketchpad and suplies and then suited up, slinging the pack over his shoulder. Surrounded by a slight green glow, he took off, shooting quickly up into the sky before slowing down and coming to rest on the nearest roof.
Connor was looking for a city on the opposite coast. He was looking for the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, the Transamerica Pyramid. SBC Park. The War Memorial Opera House. He'd thought he'd seen that, at one point - it had pretty distinct architecture, but when he'd gotten closer, it hadn't looked like it at all.
He was looking for cable cars. Thought he'd seen one of those, too, and it had turned out to be a bus with an unfamiliar logo. He was looking for a giant body of water called the San Franciso Bay, which could not have just disappeared off the face of the planet.
Connor was certain that he should've been standing on a street with a view of it, and there was nothing but cityscape to be found before him. It was disconcerting, and he rather wished that he'd changed into Superhero Mode(tm) before leaving his apartment. Not having a quiver and bow out wasn't making him feel any better.
A pair of green binoculars up to his eyes, Kyle looked out upon the landscape. It was definitely a city, but it was looking like three or four of them fused together all surrounded by some sort of ongoing wall. He would have flown to take a closer look if a certain blonde head hadn't popped up in his lense.
Kyle quickly abandoned his search for the Empire State Building (which, damnit, he could have sworn he'd seen and sky scrapers did not just disappear into thin air) and tucking his binoculars away in the bag, he took off from the roof.
He really hoped it was who he thought it was; if not this whole situation ran the risk of being embaressing... or just dangerous, if he were lucky. He flew two blocks over and set down, crouching on an awning above the blond headed man.
"Hey." Kyle leaned forward slightly and hissed down. "Connor?"
His first reaction was to reach for an arrow that he didn't have. The second was to stare. The third was to be confused because he was being addressed by a stranger. All three of these happened in less than five seconds.
Connor stepped back, towards the street, and looked up at the man, curious and wary. "I... who are you?"
Usually Kyle loved jokes, but now was just not the time. He knew for sure that it was Connor now that he'd turned around he could see his face.
"Right, you're so funny," Kyle said sarcastically, still perched on the awning. "I'm going to be really upset if I'm not the only Green Lantern who you know up close and personal. It's me." He wanted to avoid saying his name... as he understood it secret identities got out really easily when names started flying.
"I don't know any Green Lanterns," Connor corrected. He relaxed a little, because at least the guy didn't resemble any criminals he'd come across, and he wasn't being attacked. Not that he wouldn't have been able to defend himself in that case, even without a bow, but the fact that he was only being talked to was reassuring.
"What, did your memory get erased along with the rest of the city?" Kyle stared at Connor hard, trying to determine what was going on with his friend and why he wasn't recognizing him.
Connor was one of the few superheroes whose bad side he hadn't managed to get on right off the bat (though, in his defense, the whole Metropolis incident was all Superman's fault...). He and Connor were supposed to be cool with each other, bonded over the fact that they were both Californians. What the hell was going on?
Kyle decided to try one more time. "You are Connor Hawke, right? From San Fransisco... lived with some monks for awhile. Help me out here. You know me."
Connor blinked. "Yes, that's me. But, you don't understand," he corrected, stressing every word. "I don't know you. I have a good memory for people, and I'm fairly certain that I would remember someone like you."
Actually, he was completely certain that he would. It wasn't everyday that you ran into someone calling themselves Green Lantern. Even if you were someone who ran around calling yourself Green Arrow. San Francisco had been a solo vigilante city, as far as he knew.
"Okay." Kyle got up from his crouched position, hovered for a bit to stretch his legs and then landed beside Connor on the sidewalk. If this city was anything like his world then people wouldn't take a second glance at seeing a superhero standing on a street.
"So you don't know me, I'm gonna let that slide for now." He said, raising an eyebrow behind the mask. "Because I seriously think your mind might've been wiped when the dimensions went all wonky. I'm looking for New York, by the way, have you seen it?"
Connor was certain his mind hadn't been wiped, but, of course, if it had, there was no way he was going to remember it, right? That line of thought was threatening to become very, very confusing, so he just shook his head.
"I don't know... I woke up in San Francisco, and now I can't find anything that looks like it." You'd think it would be difficult to misplace the San Francisco Bay... but apparently, it was feasible. "So, how do I know you, then?"
"Don't worry, I lost a river," Kyle said was a shrug. He hadn't seen the Hudson River from his perch on the roof, just one more notch on the list of the weirdness. "And my apartment, and New York University, and my job."
Kyle still thought Connor must have been mind wiped, but he answered his last question anyway. "In Gotham one night. One of the guys I was chasing got out of New York and hopped a train to Gotham. We met up when I was looking for him and you ended up pinning him to the wall. Remember that night? We got the whole, 'Get the hell off my lawn' lecture from Batman."
He wasn't aware that he knew Batman, and Connor was sure that something like that could not have been forgotten, mindwipe be damned. "Oh. No, that hasn't happened yet."
Yet, because maybe this Green Lantern character was from the future. He didn't particularly like the idea of missing part of his memory, and time travel seemed - not more harmless - but less distressing, to him.
Connor fell silent, then. There wasn't much he could add, especially when the other man seemed to know more than he did.
"Yet?" Huh. Connor didn't look any younger than the Connor Kyle knew, but then of course if he wanted to think about this in a time travel scenario, then it was possible that this was Connor a few months or even year before Kyle had met him, meaning his looks wouldn't have changed. "I guess you'd kinda remember that, I mean it's not every day you get yelled at by Batman. You must really not know me. So we've switched dimensions and times then. When'd you get here?"
"Here? This morning, I guess. I woke up here, but it might've happened during the night." Connor's expression became contemplative, and still slightly confused. "Here is a complicated place. My apartment is the same,but everything outside of it isn't."
Where was his apartment now, anyways? Everything kept twisting around, and now he wasn't sure he could find his way back.
Kyle pointed behind him, not that it was the same behind him as it was when he'd come from there. "I got on the subway up at the Metropolotan and was supposed to be headed back down to The Village, but when I got off the train and out of the station I was in a Gotham that wasn't Gotham, if that makes any sense what so ever."
He looked up and down the street and shook his head. "Every thing's changing at once. And have you been up on a roof yet, forest for miles. Speaking of rooves... I don't suppose you have your... y'know? " Kyle pantomimed shooting a bow and arrow. "Being in costume is the only to go right now."
It sounded good (and safer) to Kyle, so he nodded in agreement. "Nowhere specific... thought maybe seeing how far that wall goes would be a good idea. I don't like the idea of being trapped in a city that can't make up its mind about where it wants to keep my apartment. How do you feel about suiting up and flying?"
"I - well," Connor glanced around helplessly for a convenient restroom, or an enclosure made by four walls (ceiling not terribly necessary, but appreciated), and instead, spotted a very familiar building.
"I think," he started, taking a few steps towards it, to confirm, "I think I just walked in a very large circle." He pointed, still sidling away. "That's where I live. Come on."
"Well at least one of us knows where he lives." Kyle followed Connor towards the building, trying not to obviously stare at him as they walked. He still didn't look any different... definitely some weird ass time traveling going on here.
"Know any bad guys who can displace entire cities?" he started up again, conversationaly. Might as well try to soss out as much information as they could. "Evil geniuses? Space aliens? CEOs who fell into a vat of radio-active waste?"
Connor didn't turn around to reply. "No. Yes. No.. well, possibly. Yes. At least, they act like they did."
He tried the front door doubtfully, as if he expected it not to work, but it opened, and the security guard inside was the one Connor saw every day. The elevator didn't stall, the hallways didn't spin, and it wasn't until he had unlocked his own front door that he really accepted that things weren't going to suddenly fall out from under him.
He gestured at the couch on his way to the little bedroom down the tiny hallway of the apartment. "You can sit down if you'd like." Inside the bedroom, his costume, and a one-piece longbow waited, along with a fully-stocked quiver. Excellent.
Kyle had never seen the inside of Connor's apartment before when they'd known each other, so he couldn't tell if this had changed along with the rest of the city. Connor seemed to know where he was going though, and he took this as affirmation that everything was as it should be.
He waited for Connor to come back out and amused himself by creating little green elves with his ring. That got boring kind of quickly though and he started thinking that they were going to need some way to travel.
"Hey Connor!" A green glow errupted from her ring and a surfboard, a skateboard, and a hover pad appeared on the floor. "How do you want to travel?"