Leaps and Bounds 8 : Dark Wings

[phaineofcatz]

She had been making great progress on catch up work. She’s basically already caught up with all of her homework and she only had a few quizzes and one test left. The combination of already having taken the classes and her and Tay being able to do homework in parallel had legitimately cut the load down to half. It hadn’t hurt that a few teachers actually had dropped some assignments for her, saying that they were pretty much covered by the other work she was doing anyway.

End result is, she can stop spending every moment of her free time on school. On the one hand, great, she would have probably burned out if she spent too much longer doing triple duty on the same thing over and over like that. On the other hand, she now has free time. Free time and nothing to do, plus everyone she knows is busy with their own stuff. Just an open schedule and her layers of thoughts and worries about her life and all the lies and complications it’s made up of. She is in desperate need of a new distraction and soon if she doesn’t want to go crazy.

Well…more crazy…

And who can complain if she happens to overhear such a distraction while just going along on her way?

In the rotunda of the cave they can hear Bruce having a meeting with the bats. They’re probably not supposed to listen in, but no one technically made a rule about it sooo…

“Before we head out, there are still some open cases we need to discuss. First up,” a picture of a man paragliding in a green and gold suit comes up behind Bruce. “Kite Man is on the loose. Who wants to take point?” The cave sure can be quiet sometimes. Sounds like no takers. “Anyone?” Actually kite man sounds like an easy mark, and kinda fun to take down? Maybe not if you have to worry about falling, but since she figured out she can glide and grapple with her shade that just sounds like a dogfight to her. “Fine. Stephanie, Kite Man is yours.”

“Hard pass. Kite Man keeps trying to become my nemesis, and I’m just like, ‘Why are you so obsessed with me?’ No means no, dude.”

“That’s not a valid reason.” Oooh, Bruce learned some of Alfred’s eyebrow game over the years. Not quite as impressive, but he’s still throwing some serious shade.

“HARD. PASS.”

“We could take him.” Oh, shit, Tay isn’t just listening in. Before she can stop them the shell’s already confidently stepping up into the main area. Aww, this won’t end well…

“What? Tay, you are not a member of the team. And even if you were, you can’t go anywhere without dragging Phaine along.”

She sheepishly follows her sibling into the discussion. “Okay, I like, know all that is true, but like, if Steph doesn’t want to take him we can. Kite man kinda sounds fun to take down for us? I could practice my gliding more and it’s not like he would know how to deal with us.” Tay can’t be punished without punishing Phaine, so she might as well go all in.

“This is not a question of ‘fun’ Kite Man is a serious threat to public safety.”

Steph snorts, not quite containing her laugh.

“All I’m hearing is Stephanie begging for this case.” Bruce is pretty hard headed, but maybe there’s a play where everyone wins?

“Ah come on, I just said I don’t wanna.”

“So, hear me out a sec. I know, I know, just like, listen! Steph doesn’t want to feed KM’s beef,”

“But someone’s gotta take him, yeah?”

“So like, Tay and me, we’re actually pretty well matched for the fight. We don’t need to change gear to go from ground to air and back again. And he has a history of small arms fire when cornered, which like, we’re pretty resistant to from jump. Buuut…”

“We’ve never been on a case before and wouldn’t even know how to start tracking him.”

“So why don’t we compromise? This is Steph’s case, she takes point and we shadow her. We learn some on the job, we have someone keeping us out of trouble.”

“And when Steph and we catch up to Kite Man, we can do the take down, blocking his beef with Spoiler.”

“You don’t have to like, accept us on the team or anything, this can be like a one off thing or a field trial.”

“You said it yourself, Kite Man is a serious threat to public safety. You know what it’s like having power and knowing people need your help. Sooner or later we’re going to be out there. Would you rather it be now, with someone keeping us in line, or when something serious happens and you’re all too busy to stop us?”

Bruce is losing control of his eyebrow game and has to pinch the bridge of his nose to try and get back on track. “I am having enough trouble getting Stephanie to accept the case, do you really think having to babysit a rookie will make it any better? You don’t have ANY training.”

“Actually, I’ve seen them working on stuff together down here, they’re pretty alright. And I just don’t want to get stuck with Kite Man as a nemesis, Tay taking him down solves that for me.” Steph shoots her a grin and she can’t tell if she’s being supportive or if she is just being a brat. Either one plays to their favor though, so she presses her advantage.

She gives a tug to the shell and squeezes her ring and middle fingers in on her left hand. She and Tay have been building up a language of silent signals and this one is pretty basic. Tay walks the shell over towards her as she talks, “Bruce, we don’t even know if we’ll find him right away, it’s an open case for a reason. And besides,” Tay walks directly into her, wrapping around and forming into a suit as their hair flows out into the loose, flowing white of their highlight. It was a motion they had practiced in a mirror, not just cause it was bad ass, but like, for safety, you know? “If something happens, we’ve always got each other’s backs.”

“Come on, Bruce, she’s literally already fallen out of the sky and been fine. Twice. Aaand, I really don’t want to have to deal with Kite Man any more than I have to.”

Bruce sighs. “Fine. We’ll come back to Kite Man.” The image behind Bruce changes to that of a rather portly dude in yellow with a question mark. “The Baffler has been causing problems by the docks. Gordon asked us to intervene.”

“Knock-off Riddler? Seriously?” Oh Tim…

“Thanks for volunteering, Tim.” Bruce isn’t smiling. Not quite.

“What? No fair!” Tim turns to Dick, “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you take this case.”

“Sorry, Timmy. No deal.” Yeah, called that. Dick looks VERY smug about it, because he doesn’t know what case is coming next. Phaine and Tay do though. They recognize this conversation, and if this much has played out how they remember then there are good odds…

“Which brings us to our last case.” Here it comes. The screen changes one last time, “Condiment King.”

“UGH, not him again!” Poor Dick. Poor, poor, smug Dick.

“The worst.” Cass looks like she legit has chills.

“Tay already agreed to take Kite Man with me, Condiment King will have to go to someone else.” If Steph didn’t have her back before she sure does now.

“Fine. But they’re your responsibility the whole way through, Steph. You have to get their gear set and make sure they follow protocol to the end.”

“Oh, shit SERIOUSLY!“ They both jumbled over each other trying to speak out of the ‘mouth’ of the suit at the same time.

“Just don’t make me regret it.”

Dick and Cass both looked at each other pointedly, “Then that leaves…”

“Cass—”

“No.”

“You owe me—”

“NO.”

Dick gave up his begging and the two started staring each other off. Phaine never understood why Dick gave up in the comics, but seeing it in person there was no question. Dick’s most intense glare is just puppy dog eyes compared to the death stare Cass is putting out. She had never wanted to be on Cass’s bad side, but seeing her look right now reaffirmed that several fold.

Dick sighed and slumped in defeat. “Fine, I’ll take Condiment King.”

“Bet Baffler’s looking real good to you right now.”

“Come on, Tim, there’s no need to like, gloat.”

“It took me three weeks to get the mustard smell out of my uniform last time. Three WEEKS!”

They’re all having a chuckle at Dick’s expense, but Phaine hears Bruce mutter under his breath, “Thank god that worked. I hate fighting Condiment King…” as he walked off to prepare for his own work.

“If it like, makes it any better, Grayson, I’ll help you clean your suit if you need. I have a trick that should at least give you a head start.”

He sighs. “You can’t make it any worse…”

Spoiler walks up to her looking more serious now. “Okay, Tay, but if I need to get you geared up, what equipment do you actually need? You aren’t really trained on any of the gear we have, so I’m not sure what I can give you on the spot.”

“We could use another pair of these old cameras cause the batteries need to charge in this pair and I use them as eyes. I can get by with one, but two is better, yeah?” They slip the cameras out of their suit to show to Steph.

“No explosives, limited electronics. We already have like, displays and a comm. A utility belt would be totally convenient to hold stuff. We probably should carry some basic evidence gear, bags, tweezers, that kind of thing.”

“The biggest help would be two spools on runners and some very thin cable. Doesn’t have to be anything intense like your Grapple guns, just like, a regular unpowered spool with maybe twenty to forty meters of line on it that doesn’t take up a lot of space.”

“OH! And a some yellow suit material!”

“I don’t…Oh! Okay, yeah, the yellow material for an emblem. I thought you were gonna be a good girl, but I guess you’ve been planning this for a while, huh, sis?”

Steph looks confused, but leads them to the gear and starts picking stuff out. “That’s actually pretty specific. I kind of expected you to ask for all the flashy bat tech and not know how to use any of it, like a kid in a candy shop.”

“Okay, I know our paperwork says we’re thirteen now, but just gonna remind you that we’re actually seventeen, in case anyone’s forgotten.”

Steph hands her utility belt without the utility. “Yeah, yeah. See how that fits you.”

Phaine wraps it around her waist. She adjusts it to be loose, but to not fall down, even without her shade. Tay fiddles with it a bit and gets it to hang at a slight angle hidden under their sash. “This is probably where we need it”

Steph takes it back and removes the extra links then pulls out some other components. “So, the way we do these is the belt and gear are all modular. You bend the belt back to expose the sides of the link, and then you can slot in a component. Any slots you don’t use, you cover with these plates so it doesn’t get hung up on anything. These pouches are preloaded with forensic basics, evidence bags, tweezers, a blacklight, and a UV-reactive powder sprayer for prints.”

“Oh, that’s cool. It makes sense to aerosolize that actually.” She slotted two of those onto the front of the belt.

“We don’t have any of those older camera models set for belts, but these have the newer model. They are smaller, have slightly better range, a zoom function, and night vision mode. Also, the pouch is a charging station with about double the charge that the old cameras had on their own. Only downside is that the cameras themselves only last a little more than an hour to a charge, but they recharge to full in the pouch in about ten to fifteen minutes.”

“Huh, that’s maybe worse for long training sessions, but probably better for us in the field by miles. Is it okay if we grab two?”

Tay slotted those towards the back, one to each side. “Okay, your spool request is a bit harder. Bruce has some long cable spools, but all the ones I know of are powered for quick retract.” She pointed them to a drawer of pouches that each were a little different.

“Do you mind?” She asked before touching the stack.

“Uh, go ahead?”

As they touch the container their shade flows into it and through the different spools and wenches. She and Tay feel around, checking for gauge, length, and mechanism. It looks like most of them have mechanical quick release latches that allow them to ignore the powered wind, and it doesn’t hurt to have an auto-wind available for when they need their focus elsewhere. They select a gauge they’re confident will support their connection and grab two that are the longest length they can find.

“I think we want these, but I don’t know how long they— Oh! They have the length and gauge on the back! That’s helpful. Eighteen gauge eighty meters, nice! Oh, this one is clear and this one is black… I guess when we shade it everything is black, but clear means it’d be pretty hard to see with tint. Let’s see if we can find another clear…”

“Just so you know, the tensile strength of the clear is way lower, legitimately a fraction of the black steel cables.”

“It’s whatever, we can like, shade it if we need strength. We haven’t tested tensile strength of the shade yet, but if it’s anything like impact strength, shade is probably about as strong as the steel cable or more. Clear gives us more options.” They find another clear and add both to the belt, slightly towards the back, but near their sides.

“Are there any empty pouches that would fit our phone? The cameras are useless without it.”

“We usually have a specialized base device for actual fieldwork, but we don’t have time to train you on it, so you can use this for now.” She pulled out a pouch that was vertically longer and designed to hang slightly loose on the belt. It went on her right hip, slightly forward. “Anything else you can think of?”

“A knife of some sort would be good. Supposedly we can make our PK sharp, but Nix never actually taught us how.” Steph produced a pouch with small folding knife that opened out into a bat wing. “Huh, kinda form over function. I might have some notes for your next knife model. The bottom half being serrated gives you a lot more options, and there is a change I would recommend for the opener. At least it’s a back lock, liner locks are a good way to lose a finger.”

“I’m starting to see why Jason gets along with you. No smoke bombs or anything?”

“I guess I could figure out smoke bombs, but I don’t want my first attempt to use them to be in the field.”

“I would actually feel more comfortable taking you out if you had some. They aren’t too difficult, so why don’t I train you on those real quick and you can stock a few.” She hands them a pair of pouches and grabs a third for demonstration. “Last is suit material, do you need any properties in particular?”

“It needs to be pretty stretchy, like, this stretchy.” She pulls the suit away from her skin an inch or so to demonstrate. “We don’t actually need it to be armor or anything, we do that with our shade and stuff.”

“So I’ve heard. We keep spare material over here, and I think the yellow is over in this cabinet.”

Phaine finds what she was looking for and some thread, then she cuts it into two sets of stylized letters. E C C O with the O’s hole filled in. She arranges them on the suit to be read top to bottom, almost imitating ribs. She tack stitches one to each layer of the suit, giving them a distinct look. Probably no one would actually read the letters, but it’s still a unique emblem that people can use to tell her apart from any other shadowy figure as long as she isn’t shading them.

She does a couple test stretches as she follows Steph out to an open space for a smoke bomb crash course. The bombs are easy enough to use, they just have to be crushed to activate, then they disperse an opaque smoke into the air. This can be accomplished by throwing them at the ground hard enough, or crushing them in your hand. The more complicated part is actually the pouch.

It’s a weird, almost PEZ dispenser kind of device with a hidden opening that only lets you take one tablet out at a time. She shades it to get a feel for how it works and how many are in each pouch. Looks like twelve of them. Steph advises to use two to three for cover if she’s in an open area with air flow, but one is sufficient for closed spaces.

Phaine and Tay split up to watch from both inside and out of the effect, and then try one out. It smells terrible, and makes Phaine choke and gag a bit, but she gets a pretty good feel for the range and density. She uncoils her boots to spring herself up out of it and catch some fresh air.

“Oh gawd that’s horrid.”

“I mean, it could be better, but you get used to it. The point typically isn’t to hang around in it anyway, it’s cover. Half the time we throw it in between us and gunfire and either dive through at them or grapple out over. You wouldn’t want to sit still up there on stilts like that, but your spring heel trick is a pretty good example of how we throw it down and exit.”

Phaine pushes off and does a flip to land near Steph outside the range of the dissipating cloud.

“Huh, that one actually didn’t last as long as they usually do. Maybe it was a dud, or maybe there’s a draft. Whatever, that’s why I recommend using two or three at a time.”

“To be fair, it has pretty good coverage with one for such a small capsule. Uncle Lenoir showed us what he used to use in world war two and to get a similar effect he used something the size of a golf ball. Way harder to carry a dozen of.”

“Yeah, bat tech’s pretty slick. Alright, come here and I’ll walk you through the plan.”

Steph skipped telling her who Kite Man was and went right to her plan of attack. They had a few known previous safe houses and targets. He specifically had nests in tall buildings with roof access, often using that as his escape route. They looked over a map of those, as well as tracked sightings of him, and what jobs he’d pulled lately. All together it was pretty easy to sort locations by priority. They just had to go do the actual knocking on doors part.

Spoiler had a motorcycle for long transport, and they could do the standard swing and search over an area once they were there. It all sounded pretty easy when they were standing in the bat cave, and Phaine was absolutely loving the motorcycles. She had liked them alright back home, but something about riding through the night as Ecco was just more. Shame that could only carry her enthusiasm so far.

They’re about three hours and fifteen hide outs in when she’s pretty sure she’s getting sick of it. They’d managed to pick up the pace when Tay pointed out they could probably pick any tumbler lock by touch using shade, and a lot of doors they don’t even have to pick if they just undo the latch. Spoiler was genuinely impressed, so that’s neat. But if you’ve seen twelve dusty maintenance areas in a row, they sorta start to blend together.

She unceremoniously pops door number sixteen and they start digging in. Dust, tools, machine parts, work benches, some old files, a hammock, that last one’s a pretty good sign. Only about half the place’s they’d checked looked like he might actually be able to sleep there. Tay’s got a camera on front and back, recording just in case. They quietly dig through the space, pretty sure it’s a bust, but then her suit stops her from moving, Tay forcibly removes the shade over her right ear.

She hears it too, and does a knocking motion with her fist to indicate she understands. They turn on comms and whisper to Spoiler, <Spoiler, we hear someone working in that room over there.>

<Are you sure?>

<Yeah, we can hear a heartbeat and everything.>

<You can…right. You’re powers are kinda broken, you know that?>

<There’s a reason what they call people with powers back home implies that we’re less human for it. So, how we doing this?>

<We don’t want a shootout, let’s take it slow and quiet.>

<You want us to shade the bottoms of your boots so they don’t make sound?>

<…Yes. Yes, I want that.>

They sneak together towards the room. Almost an arm’s length away from the door Phaine hears a change. <Their heart rate— THEY’RE ON THE MOVE>

“Pop the door!”

Phaine unlatches and throws it open in one move and they have just enough time to see a foot slip out of view and a trapdoor slam shut above them. They hear a hissing sound and the edge turns red hot.

“He’s flash welded it shut, come on!”

They run back the way they came, busting out on the roof and seeing him leap of the edge with a glider.

“Hah! You bats may all be masters of the night, but I am a master of riding the wind!”

“Shit, he made it to the air. We have to try and chase him on my bike.”

Ecco doesn’t stop running. “Bike’s faster with one rider.”

“What about—”

They shoot out two bands to the edge of the roof, grabbing firmly, and leverage the full length as a catapult arm. Then they toss themselves. Just before the apex they let go and unfurl their cape. <If he wants to glide, fine. We can play that game too.>

They pull up their GPS overlay and get a quick gist of their surroundings while they keep him in their sights. They may not be quite as experienced a flier, but they have other advantages they can leverage. For starters, they threw themselves higher and faster, so it isn’t long before they start catching up to him. It’s pretty obvious why this was the hideout he was roosting in now, he only had a couple of blocks to reach Gotham Park and then he had clear skies and no buildings for the bats to swing after him through. He wasn’t expecting Ecco though.

<This is Ecco. We are tailing Kite Man through the air over Gotham Park. We are gaining on him while he is unaware, but I don’t know how long we can hold that advantage.>

They dive, gaining just a little more speed to close the gap, but he swerves at the last moment. They’re able to reorient themselves after him, but then something comes flying at them through the night. They catch it in the wing, and it isn’t quite enough to pierce, but it throws their glide off.

<Well, that didn’t last long>

Another comes flying at them, but this time when it hits them they grab it with shade. And little fussing around and they have it in hand and make it glow so they can see it. It looks like an umbrella crossed with a lawn dart. Or probably a ‘kite’ with a spike. Like some sort of aerial mine it uses the speed of anything unfortunate enough to run into it to drive it through. A stationary projectile.

As they finish examining it they have to dodge another. He’s surprisingly good at targeting her with them. Maybe chasing him makes her movement more predictable? She’s lost some of her speed and is now only just keeping up with him.

<Oracle, if you have the time it would be great if you could find us a kill box to harry him into and direct Spoiler to the other end of it.>

<If not we’ll figure something out, but he is shooting some weird darts at us and I don’t know where the ones that we dodge end up.>

As if to punctuate the statement, another dart comes flying at them. They aren’t hitting hard enough to really hurt her, but they do slow them down each time. Dodging is maybe slowing them down more though.

“Hey, I think we should just tank these, he slows down more to shoot them than we do getting hit, but dodging—”

“Is slowing us down even more, yeah. I agree.”

They do their best to keep an aerodynamic form and just stay on him, but then they get a little blip on their HUD. <Ecco, kill box located, Spoiler needs about two minutes to get into position, do you think you can keep the pressure on that long?>

<I think it’ll take us nearly that long to even get him there, let’s go for it!>

They see another spike coming at them, but Tay lashes out with a band and collapses the kite on it before it hits them, effectively neutralizing it. “Good catch, how’d you think of that?”

“I noticed the one we caught was collapsible, I bet he’s actually got some kind of harpoon gun and that’s how he’s getting so close to us.”

“Oooh, that’s kinda slick. Even if he’s shooting them forward they still probably are a threat.”

After a minute she figures Spoiler’s almost in position, so she starts trying to redirect Kite Man. She lashes bands out grabbing at him. He’s definitely able to dodge, but that’s kind of the point. They can control where he goes by striking at the opposite side. They make sure to play with him a little, not just directing him, so he’s less likely to catch on, and they keep catching his darts. At this point they’re actually starting to catch up again, and they use that to pressure him.

They manage to force him back towards the buildings, and then they can gain little bursts of speed by whipping out a band in passing and giving a little shove. They’re really right up on him by the time they get close to their kill box, so they send a tendril out on the side they want him to go, getting him to push away from it, then send several tendrils to the opposite side in kind of a sweeping wall.

Like they thought, his slight dodge to the left being interrupted by a showy grab makes him panic and he swings hard to the right, directly between two buildings. Phaine quickly holds out two fingers separated and points them towards Kite Man. Tay grabs the corner of the nearest building, swinging themselves around in an arc and tailing Kite Man even harder. A black mass flies out partway through the arc, difficult to see in the night sky.

They keep lashing out at him, forcing him down and making sure his focus remains firmly on the thing bearing down behind him. They don’t even bother turning or slowing down as Spoiler finishes lining up her shot, and launches a wide area bola net at them. They just let it happen and crash into him, trapped in the net as well. They fall in a tangled mess, but Tay manages to send out two bands to the buildings around them, slowing them to a safe speed and lowering them to their feet.

Technically, Spoiler is still the one who did the take down, but they feel pretty good about being able to tail him and direct him into a kill zone. And they didn’t even need to use any of the holdouts or fall backs they prepared. Almost anti—

They feel a sharp point press against their temple. “I don’t know why you’re after me Shogot, but you’ve got to the count of five to get us out of this net or I’m gonna get a real good look at what’s under all those shadows.”

Oh, neat, it was a modified harpoon gun. Tay will get to be real smug about that later. But for the moment they let their PK creep along the spike to silently jam the gun.

“Who’s ‘Shogot’? We’re Ecco… And what makes you think that shot is gonna do any better than these ones did?” They hold up a handful of the darts they’d caught while in the air, and let them drop out of their hand one at a time.

He watches them fall. “What? I thought you dodged them?”

While he’s distracted they grab his gun, and quickly fold themselves small enough to slip through the holes in the net. Reforming themselves on the other side, once again holding the gun and darts.

“You might be a master of riding the wind, but an Ecco flows through the air itself.”

“Nice one Ecco! You even managed to disarm him.”

“Ah! Spoiler, my NEMESIS. So this is YOUR doing.”

“Ew, no. We are not nemeses. Take a hint and step off.”

“We’ll see if you can still act so cavalier when I’m flying off into the night!” He does something and his glider shifts. Blades flick out along the front edge and a rocket booster reveals itself at the back.

“Oh. Actually, I should have remembered he can do that…”

The Booster kicks up, launching him into the air and the blades easily slice through the netting. Oh well, she came up with this fall back plan for a reason. She gives the shell a tug and squeezes the ring and middle fingers in on her left hand. Tay zips away into the shadow of a nearby building. Unseen from the street is they ride the powered retraction of the cable that still links the two of them. Phaine stands on the edge of the roof, looking down on the scene as Tay catches up and they join back together. Now armed with their full kit, and still looking down on an unsuspecting Kite Man, they leap out over the street.

<Spoiler, get some distance.>

They catch him completely unaware, landing on him only five or so stories off the ground. They don’t take any chances this time, instead letting their shade sink into his flight suit and glider. They cripple the glider and toss it to the side, slinging a tendril at a wall and swinging themselves to a light post. They gently slide down the post, spinning around it holding Kite Man in one hand and then tossing him to the nearby wall, sticking him to it a few feet off the ground.

“Consider yourself grounded fly boy.”

She steps down the last little bit from the light post and checks to make sure Spoiler got clear of the wrecked glider. The street is…a little bit of a mess, but Spoiler and her bike look good.

“So uh, what’s next, do we just leave him like this for the cops?”

“No, we wait for the cops. Or at least, YOU are going to wait for the cops, they give me a hard time about motorcycle licenses if I have the bike around when they show up, so I’m gonna go stash it and be right back. And Ecco? Good job. Seriously.” Spoiler revs the bike and heads off into the night, leaving Ecco alone with themselves.

Well, almost alone. “HOW! You were right there, I saw you, how did you get above me?!”

Phaine feels something malicious welling up inside her. She’s not sure if it’s coming from her or Tay, but she knows exactly why it’s there and what she’s going to do about it. “Let’s try a different game.”

She holds out a hand towards him and flick their clawed fingertips down. As if in response, Kite Man slides down the wall and crumples onto his ass. They walk towards him slowly, holding out a hand, fingers splayed wide, and letting the claws grow out into several inch long points. They press two of those points under his chin, tipping his head back as they lean over him.

“We will be asking the questions—”

“—And you will be answering.”

“Do—”

“—you—”

“—un—”

“—der—”

“—STAND?”

“What the—” She presses the claws ever so slightly harder and he cuts out. “Y— yes, I understand.”

“Good. You called us ‘Shogot’. Why?”

“I— I thought that’s what you were! It’s some new player on the scene, real creepy shadow powers and tentacles. I haven’t seen them in person, but I’ve heard stories. They say it’s some kind of alien or something.”

That’s not good. “When did people start talking about Shogot?”

“I don’t know, just a few weeks ago, maybe a month?”

That’s kind of what she was afraid of. But maybe it’s info she can use on Bruce if she plays her cards right.

“That’s all I know, I stay away from the creepy stuff.”

She’s got all she expects to out of him, and is just about to leave him alone but she feels Tay hold them there.

“Oh, we believe you. There’s just one more thing.”

She feels herself lean in even closer as Tay whispers harshly. “Spoiler is my friend. If I find out you’re bothering her, you will have to deal with us again.” They lean back and drag their claws out from under his chin.

“I— I” They flick their wrist and a strip of material flicks free of the suit and wraps itself over his mouth, silencing him. Then they let their shade creep down his helmet visor, blocking his vision and hearing.

They step back, pulling up their hood and leaning against the lamp post. Just a calm, dark figure contrasted against the light.

On the outside anyway, inside their mask they are throwing a freaking PARTY!

“HOLY SHIT that was amazing!”

“Which part, the bit where we won an aerial battle against a guy who’s specialization is flight? Where we had a contingency in place for his escape? When we nailed a femme fatale intimidation tactic?”

“ALL that, and so much more!? The way we split mid swing and he couldn’t tell? I’m SOOO glad you figured that out I totally came up with that at like, the last possible second. And the spike drop? A work of ART!”

“He totally fell for it too, never even had time to pull the trigger, less likely realize his gun was already jammed. The look on his face when I slipped through the net, we recorded that right?”

“OOOOH yeah! I didn’t clip the recording until we finished interrogating him. GAWD! I know this is super serious stuff, but wow, what a rush.”

“Haha, yeah… Should have probably locked his suit when I crashed into him instead of waiting till he broke the net.”

“Oh. Yeah, actually that’s fair. And I probably should have had a backup plan for in case we didn’t land on him perfect.”

“And I hope no one got hit by any of those stray spikes. As hard as they were hitting, they’d have put a real hurt on just about anyone else.”

“Oh GAWD! I didn’t even think of that. I’m so glad we were the ones chasing him instead of Spoiler. Even with armor those would have been dangerous.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how they do it. We should probably—”

“Hey Ecco, still got our perp nice and cozy?” Spoiler is walking around the corner nonchalantly, but she’s got a singsong tone Phaine can’t figure out.

They wave a hand at Kite Man on the ground. “Bound and gagged. How far out are the cops?”

“Close. I figured you’d already hear the sirens.”

They pause to listen, and she’s right, they do hear the sirens. They’d been a little too in their own head to notice right away. Maybe she should come up with a way for their ears to be protected without always having shade up over them? But she doesn’t have long to contemplate that as the cops pull around the corner.

“Alright, let me handle introductions. They get a little trigger happy when they don’t recognize a new suit.”

“I mean, cops in our world are just ‘a little trigger happy’ all the time…”

Several cop cars pull up and cops start piling out, some looking over the glider, others converging on Ecco and Spoiler.

“Evening officers! Someone lose a kite, by any chance?”

“If I’d know you were going to bag him with in twenty four hours I’d have asked Batman to turn up the heat on Kite Man sooner.”

“Commissioner Gordon! Did you come all the way down here just to see little old me?”

“Delightful as always, Spoiler…and Ecco… Still just a, what was it, ‘concerned party’?”

“We uh, kinda got stuck.”

“Unless YOU figured out how to get Kane’s gear working again.”

“But while we’re in the neighborhood…” She shrugs.

Gordon looks over at Kite Man, covered head to toe in black, and the two officers standing on either side of him who kinda look like they don’t want to touch him. “That your work?”

“Yeah, I helped, but this was Ecco’s catch.”

“I mean, mostly we just chased him to you.”

“Yeah, you ‘just’ chased an aerial target twenty blocks and directed them into a trap. Plus, when they sprung a surprise and escaped the trap you single handedly grounded them a second time before they could hardly get air born. Well, as single handedly as anything you do is.”

Gordon clears his throat. “I more meant the black…whatever that is.”

“Oh, right, We can drop that whenever you want, but do you want us to strip his gear first? He had this harpoon gun and these crazy darts he shot at us, and he’s got some other stuff in his suit I don’t know what some of it is.”

“You can strip his gear?” Gordon looks thoughtful about this.

“You can tell what gear is on him?” If no one else in the bat fam is on board with her being out here, she at least feels confident Spoiler would be willing to work with her again.

“It’s all just material to us. What say we leave him in his skivvies for you to do what you want with and you can bag and tag his gear separate just to be safe, yeah?”

Gordon nods, “It’d save us the search. So, which of you should I talk to you for the report?”

“THAT, Would be me. For now. I get the feeling they might be able to handle it on their own before long.”

The two of them step aside for a more technical discussion while Phaine goes to help with Kite Man. “Which car do you want him in?”

They walk him over to one of the vehicles and peel him out of the helmet and suit, giving his gear to one of the cops and retrieving their scrap of material from over his mouth. As they slapped the material onto their arm and it seems to become a part of their body again one of the cops shivers.

“That’s freaky, what are you some kind of alien?”

“Ya-huh!”

He looks taken aback by her immediate and forthcoming answer, but sidles around her and cuffs Kite Man regardless. The other officer accepts the darts and gun from her, but even with gloved hands he looks like he’s worried she’ll infect him. Probably not a good plan to make the cops dislike her, but having the cops not want to touch her is alright. She doesn’t really want them anywhere near her either. She doesn’t really like cops, personally.

Police violence and corruption are quite common in her world. Even when they are doing their jobs to the letter of the law, law in her world is…not always kind. Police often considered themselves the arbiters of justice, and those they were policing as an enemy force. Gotham has some very obvious and serious threats that need stopping, but it is kind of scary to think that as Kite Man gets driven away in the back of a cop car, she has chosen to be a part of that system…

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