i_crusade Rising [Open to anyone in the Wayne manor, Batcave, or anyone heading that way or a
Bruce Wayne jerked awake. There was something in his mind, something foggy, but he couldn't place it. Rubbing his temples, he swung his legs over the side of his bed. Alfred was sleeping in the chair across from him. It seemed as if the man had literally fallen over into the cushioned furniture.
On silent feet, Bruce swung into a robe and then stepped to Alfred's side. His hand on the elderly butler's shoulder woke him well enough, but Bruce did not stay for apologies or explanations. The man owed him little, after all this time.
He knew he was not in Gotham. This place had captured him, locked him inside its great metropolis, and refused to let him go. He knew that he was needed. And he had the vaguest knowledge that some of the dark ones he hunted had somehow made it here as well.
But the rest... The rest was blank.
In its place, the sensation that he had to make something right pushed him toward his wardrobe. He dressed quickly. There was something he had to do. Something to fix.
But what?
Feeling confused (and hating the sensation), he headed Downstairs.
From: [info]i_seeall Date: 03/13/2006 21:59:14
Babs was just headed down the hallway towards the sitting room with the grandfather clock. She needed to get down to the cave. Immediately. Something was going down in the city, something so large that she'd felt the need to come back to the manor for her lunch break instead of eating in her office.
As she was making her way down the hall something hit her. Not physically, but she felt almost as if she'd moved into a fog for one quick moment. But then the wheels of her chair moved another inch, and she was out of it. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except that just for a moment she had trouble remembering what she was going to do.
Right. To the cave. To watch The City, as was her job. Babs staid her course, and headed into the sitting room.
...only to find Bruce headed in the same direction. "What, no office today?"
From: [info]i_crusade Date: 03/13/2006 22:13:12
He recognized the voice without turning around. And so, without turning around, he answered her. "I was..."
He frowned. He was....what? Sleeping? It was unlike him. There had been a reason for him staying home today. There had been one... No amount of concentration would bring it to the fore, however. Frustrated again, he turned around --
And stopped short in the center of the hallway. What was she doing in a wheelchair?! His eyes took her in quickly. The indentations in her palms from the wheels. The slight callouses from the repetitive motion. The way her legs were terribly, terribly still. This was not a new thing for her.
It was a new thing for him.
He put his hand out and braced it on the ivory wall to his left. His voice, when it came, was gruff.
"Barbara?"
From: [info]i_seeall Date: 03/13/2006 22:19:23
"Bruce." She responded, a hint of a smile coming to her face. "And now that we've established names, we need to get down to the cave. There's something going on in The City."
Babs gestured to the grandfather clock further in the sitting room. "There's work to do." She didn't immediately notice the slight look of surprise on his face, and her smile disappeared as she remembered just how much work they were going to have to do once they got down to the cave.
She laid her hands on the wheeps to her chair. "There were explosions down in The City Proper."
From: [info]i_crusade Date: 03/13/2006 22:52:08
Who was this? An imposter? A clever disguise? His eyes narrowed slightly. Was she an enemy who knew of his double life, one who could not get to him in the past through noble means? Someone who had to...
But it did not make sense. He took a breath. There was danger in The City. Innocents needed help. Unless that, too, was a ruse.
Something like memory floated into his mind, a thin ribbon of recollection. All was not as he remembered. All was not as it was in his own Gotham. With only the slightest hesitation, then, he chose his course. Falling into stride beside this other Barbara - for that was all that she could be - he glanced once sidelong at her.
"What do you know?"
From: [info]i_seeall Date: 03/13/2006 23:00:25
"Not much," Babs said seriously as she moved next to Bruce. It didn't take them long to reach the grandfather clock and she looked up at him expectantly. She could no longer reach the the clock hands to set them in the way that was needed to open the door.
"I just know that a series of very random explosions as basically thrown the city into complete chaos. The police had only just gotten to the scene when I left the clocktower, so I haven't gotten to hear anything over the police scanners. The cave seemed a better place to monitor a situation like this."
From: [info]i_crusade Date: 03/14/2006 11:41:11
From the lift of her eyebrows when they reached the clock, it was clear that this Barbara certainly knew similar secrets, too. Frowning, he reached up and turned the hands to the blackest time of his life - the moment his parents were killed.
He watched her carefully, falling behind as they moved through the entrance to the cave. She maneuvered the wheelchair as if she had been down here countless times. She knew exactly how to move.
Could she be trusted?
Foolish question, Bruce, he said to himself silently. She's already in too deep not to trust her.
He shoved the issue of Barbara Gordan in a wheelchair to the back of his mind and focused on the task. Random explosions. Possibly a diversion for something else. What important things were happening today around this time? He tried to recall any details he had heard over the past few weeks, but found -- nothing.
What is going on?!
From: [info]i_amsofired Date: 03/14/2006 16:26:46
"Hey, there's the man himself," greeted Terry. He had been inspecting the Batmobile - the one with wheels - but stopped to acknowledge the newcomers. "I've been following the sitch on the monitors here. We have a plan, yet?"
From: [info]i_seeall Date: 03/15/2006 13:09:34
Babs raised an eyebrow, rather pleased to see that the younger man was on the same page without even being properly briefed.
"Anything new happening? It took me awhile to get over. The roads are, understandably, a mess." She moved over to her usual position at the cave's main computer. She left the center consol for Bruce as she normaly did when he was with her.
It was down to business immediately, and her hands started flying over the keyboard. "We can't develop a plan until we know exactly what's going on. It looks like the explosions are staying within a good three or four block radius and--" she stopped for a moment, easily slipping through the cracks in the police department's computers and transmitters and looking for anything new. "And, no, the police haven't gotten anyone yet. Ideas, Bruce?"
From: [info]i_crusade Date: 03/15/2006 16:23:29
There was one thing of which Bruce was certain; the threat to the City was real enough. For now, that would be his concern. The rest -- Barbara, injured, and a young man whom he didn't recognize -- would have to wait. They must be on his side, at least for this. At least for now. He would deal with the rest later.
His strides ate up the floor leading from the entrance to the center console. Access to the latest information proved relatively unhelpful. They were getting nothing more than what they already knew, which was precious little.
Methodically, then.
"You," he said, pointing to the boy beside him. "Concentrate on isolating the buildings that were affected. Make absolutely sure that this is an attack, not a random accident. Check the power grids, rule that possibility out." Bruce paused. This could even be the City itself, if he understood anything of how it worked. It had its own mind; that much, he remembered. " And Barbara," he said, turning in his chair. "Treat it as an attack. Look for any reason that someone would have to make such a diversion. Shipments, shifts in power, anything."
And Bruce... Wild card. Anything else. He turned to his console and began. Night was approaching in a few hours; people were dying. He had little time.
From: [info]i_amsofired Date: 03/16/2006 12:40:47
"Uh, not to insult your 20th century technology or anything, but is it possible to do that from the cave? Or should I take the Batmobile?" asked Terry, indicating the strange flying machine he had just added to the cave's collection.
From: [info]i_seeall Date: 03/16/2006 21:10:41
"Is it possible to do that from the cave?" Babs repeated, and then despite the situation she even let out a little laugh. "I see you've got a bit to learn, come here." The City had a functioning power plant, just like any other place, and it was tied together with a central computer network that Babs had wiggled her way into long again.
"Here you go. Power grids," she said, after pulling them up. "Match them with this map, and you can tell what part of the grid connects to what area of buildings. Look for discrepancies between areas that haven't been effected by the explosions, and the areas that have. That will tell us whether it's a power surge helping this along."
Once she'd finished explaining the process to Terry, she turned back to Bruce. "I checked shipments coming in from the dock areas already, looked at the schedules and everything. Though, the do bare another looking, seeing as how I never know where any of these ships are actually coming from. I'll see if I can find anything else that looks out of place as well."
Babs turned her head back to the computer screen, thinking that, though it was weird, Bruce seemed more like Bruce today than he had in any of the past few months. Why she was thinking that she didn't know, especially since when she tried looking back on those months they were suddenly a little hazy. All she knew was that this afternoon, she really felt like she knew him.
From: [info]i_crusade Date: 03/17/2006 00:05:25
Bruce shielded his incredulous look toward the boy, but before he could explain, Barbara showed the kid where to look, how to look... He glanced toward her, a barely-flicker of warmth appearing in those driven eyes of his. He may not know this Barbara, but he approved of her.
Punching up a map of the affected areas of the City, he leaned over his console and scanned for any connections he could find between the buildings. As he did so, Barbara reported. Again, he was pleased by what he heard from her. She'd already thought ahead, already done valuable research, and was double-checking her work. This part of her, he knew. This part of her, he trusted. Perhaps the history behind that wheelchair meant little in the grand scheme of things.
"Good," he intoned, flicking to another map, this one of the underground sewer systems. "Both of you, tell me when you've found something."
Frustrated, he pulled up yet another schematic, finding nothing, and nothing, and nothing. Over the police scanners, reports of villains and heroes alike were coming in. If the explosions weren't enough to throw the City in to chaos, the additional factor of gleeful, vulture-esque villians would certainly do it. He grit his teeth together and pushed forward.