68/Beyond Good and Evil
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| Beyond Good and Evil | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 22 February 2020 |
| Location: | Midtown - Founders Island |
| Synopsis: | Damian is tormented by a voice from the shadows that questions him, one weapon to another, whether he's really a person. |
| Cast of Characters: | Damian Wayne, Colette O'Connail
|
- Damian Wayne has posed:
Nighttime in Gotham City, across from Gotham General, a boy stands on the top of a building, binoculars in hand. He was staring through them, into the window of a target. One of his underlings was assigned to do this, but failed in the execution. A rifle on the side of him, suppressed and ready to go. He was clad in a unitard, white and black, nothing covering his head.
The air tonight is cold, and the breath that escapes his nostrils shows the quick condensation of its humidity. The hustle and bustle of the streets is the perfect cover for any noise his weapon could give off, and no sign of the Batman or any of his ilk, great time for an assassination.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
She moves from shadow to shadow, keeping to the darkest corners of the Gotham skyline. Night four. On three previous nights, she had tried this same idea; be where the superheros go. On the dangerous streets, at night. She wants to watch one at work. Maybe talk to one. If she doesn't find one, maybe have a go at stopping a crime herself if she finds one of those instead. Or not. Maybe watch the crime. She hasn't decided yet. Day two had been almost a success. She ran into two supers, but really wasn't in a position to ask them anything interesting. Day four she has high hopes of. Day four she chose Gotham. If you're looking for capes, go where the crime is.
Her progress is studious rather than rapid. There's little actual movement for the distance covered. She started with a fire escape, making her way upwards and around, seeking the high ground. She had passed City Hall, explored the numerous levels of the federal court building roofs, almost slipped and fallen from her progress across a steeply-angled buttress of the cathedral. Each rooftop is a brief exploration of undiscovered country - and then she's gone, stepping out of a shadow on the next perch along. Sometimes she looks down the vertiginous canyons of Gotham architecture into the darkest streets below, but mostly she watches the shadows and open spaces of the rooftops around her for movement, for anything suggesting she isn't alone up here. Eventually she sees she is not.
She takes a few moments to study her target from a distance. With the barest movement she slips into a shadow and out of another, closer. She can make out the rifle, the binoculars. It's not something that strikes her as typically superheroic. But then there's the costume, which doesn't exactly come across like central casting hitman. She makes her mind up.
"Are you one of those superhero or villain guys?" The words come spoken softly, perhaps fifteen feet away. The wording is odd, as if she's not asking an either / or, but grouping them together.
"I'm not here to interfere. Just curious." The voice is a little closer now - and from a different direction, behind a vent over to the other side. Speakers planted on the roof? How could anyone have known he would be there in advance to plant speakers?
- Damian Wayne has posed:
As soon as the voice comes from behind him, a hand reaches for a throwing knife on his hip, and thrown just as quickly. He didn't look, his hearing was attuned for such things.
Then again, but closer, and to the side. Another knife thrown. The teenager stands now, all four and a half feet of him seem angered now. He doesn't speak, any extra sounds would cover anything from the disembodied voice.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
"Temper." The voice is quite definitely coming from behind the vent Damian had just killed with a perfectly-aimed throwing knife. "Not here to interfere, calm down. I told you that already."
"Still, I guess that's one way to answer my question." The voice is back where it started, behind a short wall where he had thrown the first knife. It falls silent a moment. "Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?"
And back to the second spot, the vent. "Were you planning to shoot someone?" the voice questions, quietly. "Interesting. Why?" The figure rises up from behind the vent. It's hard to make out details - she seems to be covering herself with a shield, but otherwise everything about her is entirely civilian. A hoodie shadows her face. There are no weapons visible. "Like I said, just curious. If you don't want to answer..." she shrugs slightly and gestures towards the gun. "Carry on."
- Damian Wayne has posed:
Damian picks up the rifle on the ground, which is not too hefty, but it is definitely slightly unwieldy as he pointed it at the shielded one.
That was about the same time she called him a stormtrooper, and he lowered the gun. "I am no Nazi." He says, gently.
"None of your god-damned business." He responds to her inquiry as to why he is about to shoot someone. The rifle's bipod extended, and rested on the edge of the building. He dialed in his sight, looking to the target through the scope.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
"Ah I meant, you know. Star Wars?" She doesn't lower her shield, and doesn't come closer either. For now at least, it seems like maybe she can be taken at her word that she isn't planning to interfere. "The movie? Not Nazis. Nevermind."
She watches silently through his preparations, letting him assemble the bipod and get the gun in position in peace. "I know it isn't. My business. Like I said, just curious. But I have been polite." She's silent again for a little while.
"Most people don't do what you are planning to do." While his eyes were to the scope, she moved back at her first spot. Slightly further away, which is probably good. On the other hand, he hadn't heard her footsteps. "What drives you to do it? Is it a moral thing? For money? How far in ahead do you consider the consequences of your actions? A day, a year, a thousand years?"
- Damian Wayne has posed:
The pop culture reference is clearly missed on him. Damian keeps his eye trained on the scope, and the mafioso in the hospital. "I was ordered to."
A muffled pop, the sound of cracking glass, and at the end of the bullet's target, a 7.62 millimeter sized hole to the forehead.
The rifle is disassembled and placed in a tote next to him. One knife is recovered from the vent, then the other. He starts to make his way away. "I don't." He finally answers her, and luckily he hasn't kept trying to cause her harm.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
True to her word, she makes no effort to stop Damian pull the trigger, no effort to save the life he's planning on ending. She watches him quietly, keeping her distance, making no effort to interfere, no rapid movements. She watches the execution, the disassembly of the gun, the recovery of the knives, in silence.
This time however, there's no doubting one thing. When he goes to pull his knife from the vent, she stands behind the wall. When he recovers his knife from the wall, she's at the vent. She never crosses the open space between them.
She breaks her silence only when he does. "Then you are a weapon. The finger that pulls the trigger, not the mind that orders the finger. Is that all you aspire to be? A gun? How sad." She twists away from the vent, slipping into the shadows beyond.
- Damian Wayne has posed:
Damian stops when she calls him a weapon. It was the thing he had been thinking all this time, ever since he got to Gotham. It was a thought that began the moment he saw Goliath as a pup, when Goliath didn't show anything but kindness to him, even after Damian had killed all the rest of the bat-dragons.
She wouldn't see from her spot, but on the other side of that crew cut, a tear fell from his face. "You do not know what you speak of." He comments, his youthful voice wavering just a bit.
- Colette O'Connail has posed:
"Oh but I do. Better than you will ever know." The voice is almost beside him now. There's a movement in the deep shadow, and the voice is further away again, drifting across the empty roof. "You think you're the only one?" Her voice aches - no waver, she doesn't try to hide the sadness in her words.
The voice falls silent. A siren can be heard in the distance - not police, yet. An ambulance speeding to the hospital. The first few drops of a rain shower start to patter on the roof. "I chose to become a person." Again, the voice moves. By a water tower, her shape silhouetted mometarily against the lights of the building opposite before she steps into shadow.
There's a movement by the staircase, not entering the stairwell, but stepping behind it. "Goodbye, gun."
- Damian Wayne has posed:
Damian'a face grows a frown, deeper than ever. Then she leaves with two words. It struck deeper than any knife could have, right to his heart.
His gloves creak as he balls his hand into a fist. "I am not a gun." He calls to the silence. He couldn't stay longer, he ran off, jumping to the next rooftop, sliding down to the ground, and into the shadows of the street. The first words from someone not in the League in the last three years, and it was so powerful. He would reflect on this later, he only hoped Talia didn't have him followed.
