19612/Will you follow me down

Will you follow me down
Date of Scene:	04 December 2024
Location:	Alley
Synopsis:	Stephanie Brown discovers White Rabbit and two drugged officers in a strange, dark alley in Old Gotham. She nearly loses her quarry after a brief chase, and is left with a decision to make. Turn back to safety, or follow White Rabbit into a rabbit hole?
Cast of Characters:	Jaina Hudson, Stephanie Brown

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Jaina Hudson has posed:
It's a truly shit day in Gotham City.

Not that there are a lot of great days in this place. This is, after all, the land where parents are murdered, and the Joker shows up in a Hawaiian shirt to put a bullet through your spine. But at least, in this context, 'shit' refers specifically to the weather. And, mercifully enough, it's entirely proverbially.

It's raining. Hard. That sort of rain that manages to blot out even the sound of police sirens and honking horns. The kind that makes traffic pull over to the side of the road and wait... and wait... and wait for a reprieve. But Gotham City never sleeps. The criminal underworld never rests. The rot runs deep, and alleyways churn. Police blotters crackle about a 10-60 (suspicious person) and possibly a 10-82 (suspicious person + gun) in Gotham's oldest district. Police Blotters that someone in the Bat-Family (like Little Miss Stephanie Brown here!) might very well pick up on.

It's not exactly the sort of thing that many members of the Bat-Fam would follow up on, and yet... there's something particularly offputting about this one. Something feels off. The panic in the voice of the police officer who called it in might have something to do with it.

The suspect is, according to him, the woman who had shot a police officer. It's untrue, of course. The officer was shot by his commanding officer, but these things matter little in the context of ferocious police loyalty. So maybe, just maybe, Batgirl decides she is on the case.

Except, on the corner of Hope and Lincoln, where the possible suspect was located... there's nobody to be seen.

Just a long, ominous, dark alleyway tucked between two buildings that looks a little bit like a rabbit hole.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Steph's been getting really used to the shit days in Gotham.

Which is to say just 'days in Gotham' for her lately. Longterm engagement broken off, effectively crashing in her room at the Clocktower and avoiding Wayne Manor and memories of living in the Boathouse the last two years.

Oh, and slipping up because she was distracted by all that personal drama when a bunch of pig-themed lunatics attacked an open air market and kidnapped her friend and comrade in costumed vigilantism.

Which has made her redouble her efforts in said costumed crimefighting, and having shifted her from bubbly ray of sunshine in a Batgirl costume to something a little more intimidating and spooky, what with the full face-covering mask with opaque lenses (Full of tech, we assure you).

She might be a little more 'Jason Todd-riffic', especially in that if she registered that thought, she would not even snort at it. No, she is a SERIOUS CRIME FIGHTER and is in no way burying her emotional trauma in wildly irresponsible actions.

She very responsibly swings through the air on a grappling line, closing in on the reports of the suspect. Perhaps less because of a burning desire for vengeance and justice, and more for a burning desire to distract this inner monologue.

Wait, wait, no, definitely the justice thing. Who's ignoring what? What's trauma?!

Jaina Hudson has posed:
Thankfully for Stephanie Brown, she's just one of many in a storied Lineage of Bat-Family members who bury their emotional trauma with violent vigilantism. It's basically a tradition, or rite of passage, at this point. And where better to bury something, than down a hole that's already been dug?

A brief survey of the area will reveal precious little to Batgirl about the whereabouts of the suspicious person (with gun?), nor the officers that called it in. Which would lead it all back to that single, long, dark alleyway. Which would, of course, be a lot more intimidating were it not for the thousands of dollars worth of optics and equipment threaded into that batsuit of hers. So it's easy to have the confidence to slip into the darkness. Bats are nocturnal creatures, after all, and it's when vigilante justice is the most productive. This is hardly the first ominous alleyway that Batgirl has stepped (or swung) into. And it certainly will not be the last.

About forty feet into the alleyway, the scenery starts to change. It's a slow sort of warping of old brick buildings. Evidence of a fire older than Stephanie Brown herself, that probably claimed some portion of the two. The solution to maintain structural integrity was, apparently, to fuse the buildings together. A sudden ceiling, instead of cloudy sky. About eight feet off the ground.

Cramped. Narrow.

It's about fifteen feet beyond that, that Stephanie will encounter the pair of officers that she'll likely presume were the ones who called it in. They're sitting across from each other, posed upright with faces forward towards where Batgirl makes her approach. Their eyes are wide, and pupils dilated. Their faces are frozen in some sort of abstract horror.

But they are alive, as evidenced by the way their lips sort squirm together and their teeth chatter inside their skulls. They're... murmuring something. Words that present themselves the closer and closer Stephanie gets.

"Mmm..ummm...ummm" one officer says.
"Ssss...sto..." the other babbles.
"Mm.. mommy.... wh... where... please..."
"St... stop it... get away... get away from me..."

They're tripping. /Bad/, by the looks of it. And judging from the way their eyes dart around and swivel inside their sockets, they see Batgirl -- amongst other things. A series of pink kiss-prints can be seen on each of their faces. A trail of three, that starts on a cheekbone, and trails down, where it ends right on the corner of the lips.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Really, Steph would probably be very appreciative of the pathos and drama of being part of the Bat-Family and also dealing with trauma related to a dark alley. Very heavy themes and all.

But she hasn't got time for themes or pathos, she's busy stalking forward through the alley, as stealthily as one can when not so well trained as the Batman himself.... meaning she's really fairly noticeable in her eggplant costume and cloak, but she's watching her corners and keeping cover in mind in case gunfire rings out.

But she's also rushing, unable to hold back impatience and youthful zeal, and also presumably there are people in danger.

And then she's got eyes on two officers, and she's springing forward with smooth motion and direct intent. Wide-eyed, terror-driven rictus... yeah, those are telltale hallmarks of Gotham villainy.

Not, like, specific Gotham villainy between Joker, and Scarecrow, and so many others. You need more details than 'Did not say no to those drugs' and 'Looks scared as shit', because the devil's in the detail. Clown paint? Whatever weird psychiatrist schtick Hugo Strange uses... does he use a schtick? Gotta check that.

But then there are those lipstick prints and she frowns. "...Is someone trying to frame Poison Ivy? I don't think she actually kisses people..." She frowns under her mask, eyes darting up, around, someone's set these two up as a calling card.

So they're probably watching. "Hey! Criminal! I promise I'll listen to your manifesto if you just come out and give up!"

Hey, it might work.

Jaina Hudson has posed:
Indeed. It just might work.

"Help!" comes a voice from further down the alleyway. A woman's. High-pitched, and airy. A little ethereal. The way it bounces off of the bricks and the mortar of the increasingly-sloping ceiling seems to push its way past fancy little helmets, and earpieces. The rasp of it is velvety enough that one can almost feel the breath tickling their ear, as if it's being purred into.

"Help me! I'm lost!" comes the voice again. Any and all pretense that this is truly a lost, innocent creature is abandoned now, when a series of sweet sounding giggles bounces off those walls nice. And out of the shadows steps the White Rabbit.

She's beautiful... almost unnaturally so. With long blonde hair, and even longer legs, and an hourglass figure. And she's dressed up like a... Playboy bunny, of all things. A white bodysuit, pink over-the-knee high heels. Fishnets. Collar. Little cuffs. The ceiling is low enough where she emerges that it actually presses her ears back -- not quite flat against her head. And she's got a pair of gloved arms, lifted above her head, that scraaaaaaaaaaape fingernails against that ceiling as she walks. There's no sound of those heels on the concrete. Each step is quiet as a mouse.

There's something wrong about her. Her hourglass figure. Her big, pretty pink eyes. Those soft, Cupid's Bow lips that are pulled up into a coquette-ish smile. She looks a bit like what your imagination might conjure up, if you were thinking of a stereotypical, bikini model Playboy bunny.

She looks... a little made up.

"My manifesto? Don't be gross..." she says, head cocked delicatley to the side.

"Mom...mommy... I want my... I want my mommy..." says the officer as he begins to slump. The other has lapsed into quiet, but his face is still one of abject, you know.

Horror.

"Egh, how embarrassing. I mean, I remember my first tab, but I like to think I took it a bit more gracefully than this nerd," she says. Beat. "Hey! Shake it off, loser! You're on drugs, remember?"

"Momm... mommy!" he cries out, falling over and clutching his head.

White Rabbit shrugs, and looks back to Batgirl now. She slowly starts to twirl, planting one finger in the ceiling above her as an anchor to spin about her axis.

"No manifesto, but how about a poem?~" she chimes.

"The little girl,
just could not sleep
because her thoughts
Were way too deep."

And as she turns herself a full one hundred and eighty degrees, the White Rabbit begins to to run. Deeper, deeper, deeper into the darkness.

Will Batgirl follow her?

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Oh good. This is really a great situation, and Steph is definitely not kicking herself for not waiting for, or really, demanding, backup. But Gotham's vigilantes are stretched too thin for Steph to bother them with her crisis of confidence. She can totally handle this.

Even if it does mean she's well on her way to rushing further down the alley when that voice shifts and changes and... becomes oh so achingly wrong. and then White Rabbit's in front of her and Steph's brain is racing because... okay, she skips around the Bat dossiers a lot, skims and sort of half-remembers things she was reading while watching Youtube videos.

but there's an inkling there in the back of her head that this woman should be instantly, stunningly recognizable.

Except this woman's just... spellbinding. Or insane. Both? Almost certainly both. She glances back over her shoulder, ready to remark that maybe those drugs were... not the best choice for someone to /not/ be having a bad trip.

Except the blonde's running deeper into the alley after a painfully accurate poetry recital!

"Oh, that's it! NO ONE MAKES A POEM ABOUT ME!" Steph blurts it out, which... really dents the intimidation factor of that faceless mask.

God, she's bad at this grimdark serious thing.

Jaina Hudson has posed:
Chasing a White Rabbit is how Alice found her way to Wonderland, you know. And as Stephanie Brown chases White Rabbit further and further into the darkness, the space she's navigating becomes more and more oppressive. It squeezes tighter, and tighter, until even Stephanie is forced to sort of stoop her head, or crouch, to move further. It's black all around. The smell of... mold and mildew and clay and concrete. Which way did she come from? Where did her quarry go?

Somewhere, from out in the dark, the voice calls out again.

"Her mind had gone
out for a stroll
and fallen down
The Rabbit Hole."

And then... quiet. Stillness. A sense of returning direction, following disorientation. The path does lead deeper, but the way out is clear. Just follow the sound of the screaming officers.