Owner Pose
Phoebe Beacon     The North Concorse has been adopted as a sort of lab-practice area for Phoebe Beacon. There are a few gurneys still pushed to the side, some cots folded up in case of skirmishes (or far more likely, infighting), at the moment it was all quiet, other than the movement of calloused feet on tiled floor.

    Phoebe, when she is not studying, or healing, or fighting, is training. She has a staff in her hand, similar to Red Robin's extending staff. Her braided hair was pulled back and pinned into place. She was wearing her under-armor pants and a sports top that showed the strange scarring on her body.

    On her right side, the skin puckers in where blades of the afterlife had pierced through. HEr left shoulder, less easily hid by shirts or dresses, was a mess of whorled scars with a puncture and exit wound, looking like some sort of large ordinance. And below the burn scars, there was anumber of what looked to be shortened sewing pins stuck out of her upper arm, irritating the skin, and burned into her dusky form was a circular marking with geometric shapes -- some sort of sacret geometry -- and Heirmatic writing on four sides, boxing it in.

    A magical seal.

    She had both ends of the concourse marked with low-positioned heat sensors, in case anyone should be making their way in.
Bruce Wayne "I don't pretend to appreciate magic on the same level that you do," Batman says from one unlit corner of the Concourse, "But I have studied it, and I know it's not a power you take upon yourself lightly."

How he got there is anybody's guess. He has a way of doing that. Last time he was here he used the front door, but that doesn't mean he was always going to pay the same kind of formality. He gestures at Phoebe, mainly at the staff she holds.

"You're telegraphing the up strike too much on your Chatan Yara No Kon Sho."
Phoebe Beacon     "Appreciation and living with it are two separate things." Phoebe replies, curling her arm slightly as she regards the dark figure, and she frowns, her shoulders drawing up slightly as she looks to the staff.

    "Catan Yara no Kon Sho is karate. This is Ken Shin Kai Jo kata." she states, looking up. "Aikido's my favored martial art, I know bits and pieces of others -- karate, muy thai, capoeira's fun --" Phoebe looks over at Batman, and she winces a bit as she moves her left arm into a different position.

    "... it's not. But I'm the only one who can hold the power without anything going wrong." she adds. "I thought that Detective Pezzini and The Witchblade might be able to..." she drop,s sweeping in a back-heel blow that would have robbed an opponent of their footing, and showing her prowess as she goes up to one hand in a halted cartwheel.

    "... but the power has an unexpected effect. So. I'm the only one."
Bruce Wayne "Hm."

Batman doesn't react to the correction, instead standing perfectly still and watching. Listening. He regards the kata. Reserving any judgement he may have. Sometimes it doesn't want to be heard.

"Are you certain it isn't going to harm you?"
Phoebe Beacon     It was specifically to show off the capoiera move. Phoebe springs back to her feet, and she reaches for a flannel shirt that was abandoned down here.

    "No." she answers back, in honesty. It's not something she would have told Tim -- or even Jon. She might have fibbed to Zatanna, but you can't lie to Batman. "There's a certain threshhold that I should be able to contain. The angelic energy isn't so much... isn't so much a soul, or presence. It's more just Will made Manifest. Like if you had water vapor and quickly skipped the liquid state and made it ice." she explains, and she reches to her left arm.

    "The pins are from a voudon poppet. They agonize the area around the burn so that it won't heal. My hand's not steady enough to use a tattoo gun on myself, and the only person I'd trust with the work..." she gives a slight sigh of exasperation, and pulls the shirt over her scarred torso.

    "Well. He's busy. And the other one's being a door." she replies, turning to regard him.

    "... you can say what you want, you know. My feelings are still locked up by Sandalphon's gift."
Bruce Wayne "I'm not here to hurt your feelings, Phoebe," Batman answers plainly, the cold and taciturn mask falling away a little to let some warmth radiate through, "I'm here because you're family. You're owed the same care and concern as the rest."

He looks at the pins with a frown, shaking his head.

"If it has to be a tattoo, then let me do it. You shouldn't have to walk around with pins in your flesh."
Phoebe Beacon     Phoebe's mouth opens as she turns to regard Bruce, behind the mask, and she looks to what expression of his shows through the mask. "Don't... I'm just..." she turns her face away, apparently Sandalphon's Gift doesn't block everything.

    "Don't say that. Terrible things happen to my family; never again." she states quietly, looking to Batman, and she looks to the way the pins stick out.

    "I don't think I could sit still enough. It takes Time. And we don't have the Time. I didn't..." she curls her fingers.

    "I can hold it. That's the important thing. And if I can hold more of it, and keep it in store and maybe... maybe I can fight them on equal footing."
Bruce Wayne "Nothing terrible is going to happen to me," Batman answers pointedly, "I've trained my entire life to be prepared for any enemy I would ever face. Your friends fear Michael, but I know he can bleed. I made him bleed. That which bleeds can be hurt. That which hurts can die."

He takes a step forward, reaching out one gloved hand to place it firmly on her shoulder. His eyes meet hers through the cowl he wears, his expression one of seriousness.

"I'm your family, Phoebe. As much as anyone is going to be. I won't let you go into this alone."

He reaches into his utility belt now, producing an A4-sized envelope with her name written on it in cursive.

"That's for you. When you're ready. For now, I suggest we make time. Make you ready. Eliminate the maybes."
Phoebe Beacon     Phoebe's lip moves as Batman sets his hand on her shoulder, and her dark eyes draw up to his. She hitches her breath a moment, and she breathes out. She's tense, shaking under his hand, afraid of the weight. Afraid of touch. She sucks in a breath, and she looks up at BRuce.

    "They're not you." she finally whispers, a little hoarsely. "They don't train, or plan. They don't have a dozen sub-plans and don't know how to strike the same way. Jon's had six months of his powers." she takes a breath out. "They keep thinking their kum-bai-yas are gonna set these guys up to be receptive for a non-violent response, but that's not going to *work*." she breathes out, though her shaking hand goes to the envelope. It's almost a snatch out of his hand, and she blinks a moment, lifting the flap with one hand, and she bites at her lower lip.

    "... I can set another round of circles up. I have it down to a literal science. I need fifteen minutes and my fire spell gloves to set the circles." she breathes out. bringing her staff to the crook of her elbow, and she looks at the papers.

    "... so. If we shake your couch, *do* spare Orphans just fall out with the hundred dollar bills?"
Bruce Wayne "I don't want people to grow up like I did, Phoebe," Batman answers plainly, letting her take away the envelope and returning his arms to his sides, "Feeling rage and pain at loss with nothing there to temper it. I don't do this out of compulsion. I do it because there's more to being Batman than fighting criminal in dark alleys. It's about holding those who deserve it above myself and enabling them to climb out of the mire that I never could. You're one of those people."

He takes a breath, looking around the concourse thoughtfully for a second.

"That's why I'm here. I'm not trying to lead them, but I'm here to provide the force that's needed when diplomacy fails. They seem convinced Doctor Sims is the one to solve this problem, but as I said to him, I've never been one to believe in prophecies or destiny. We are the blade and smith in one. We forge ourselves."
Phoebe Beacon     Phoebe looks up at Batman. She curls her fingers a moment, unsure, and she softens her expression. "I don't feel like one of those people." she replies quietly, though she looks down at the envelope. "... he was pretty psyched when I got the room next to his, though. Happiest I'd seen him for a while." she looks up, and she shrugs her right shoulder. "He worries." she states -- and of course, she's talking about Tim.

    She takes a deep breath, and she looks back to some of her notebooks.

    "But you're right -- they don't really have much of a plan if their kum-bai-yahs fail and Mikey's not convinced that we deserve to continue to exist." she states, clicking and condensing her staff -- and very carefully setting that A4 envelope inside of a book -- A Gotham History book, to be precise, called 'Made for Crime'.

    "I had a couple of different possibilities. Making myself be able to stand toe to toe with an angel -- I mean, we're not all as ready as you to train to take on Angels, so have to come up with something elsewise, that's where the energy had come in."

    Adreniline is running through her now as she explains, "The Light that usually permits my healing magic, is made of the Same Stuff as Michael. He said so when he traded places with m- Chas -- I want to knock him down and kick him in the bollocks and pay him back for making me feel like an insect. If I can capture enough of the Angelic Essence, then I can try to trigger an ascention -- basically become a god, for at least part of a fight. Then I can stand toe-to-toe, enough solidified Will running thorugh my veins, I could rewrite existence in a short area." she states, and she hits a blacklight.

    She maybe hasn't slept. The wall is covered with notations, Latin, Egyptian.

    "I haven't shown anyone this."
Bruce Wayne Batman turns to look at the wall. His knowledge of magic is purely academic, having learned about it at the foot of one of the last Homo Magi. He's spent many hours applying logic and reason to it, trying to codify the science behind the definitively unscientific. He recognizes bits and pieces of what she is showing him, and the languages are some he learned long ago as part of his training.

"Temporary apotheosis," he muses, stepping closer to examine the glyphs, "Phoebe, this is dangerous. I'm not a practitioner like you, but you can't risk your life here. You can't be their sacrificial lamb."
Phoebe Beacon     If Phoebe had gone into physics rather than magic, she might be regarded as a fine mind, fit for MIT. Instead it's all risky notes, half-applied, madness.

    Phoebe looks at the workings around her, the black-light marker showing on her fingers and arm as well.

    "I'm not a sacrificial lamb if they don't know about it." Phoebe replies, turning and looking back to Batman, her shoulders rising up, the flannel dragging against the pins "I told Jon it's a hostage situation. I'm holding the energy so that they aren't reformed in Heaven and sent back. But Angels... they're not like us. It's not a soul. It's *Will*. The minute they're absorbed, I think they're gone. The more powerful the angel, the more energy I can use."

    She looks up to Bruce.

    "... they have Chas. /My/ Chas. If they had Dick, or Jason, or Tim -- wouldn't you do everything within your power to get them back?"
Bruce Wayne "I'm not going to stop you," Bruce replies, shaking his head, "It's not my place. If I try to keep you from this, you're just going to find a way to do it. I just need you to make sure you're prepared for this, and you aren't shouldering a burden alone that can be shared."

"If you want to talk about will, then let me help you. Willpower is a speciality."

He takes a deep breath, stepping back and away from the writings on the wall.

"If you need me to take a step back, then I will."
Phoebe Beacon     "No... no I don't... need you to take a step back," she looks back to him. "Tim /can't/ know. Zatanna would flip her tophat. I don't think..." she licks her bottom lip in concern. "... I don't think they would understand. You might." she states, and she turns to face him head on, and she looks up to him, face hidden in cowl and shadow.

    "... but if you would help me with the Willpower part... I'm all ears."