thearena | Bat Games

Entry tags:

Bat Games

WHO| Stephanie and you
WHAT| Arriving in the Arena
WHERE| Heading toward Frontierland
WHEN| Start of Week Four
WARNINGS/NOTES| none

Wow, this was way over on the unexpected meter and as someone born and raised in Gotham Stephanie has a rather high unexpected meter. She didn't wait to try and make nice with those who had entered the arena with her. Allies would be nice, but right now she wanted to get her barring.

"Mickey Mouse really let the place go to hell." The little girl inside her was slightly excited at finally being at Disney. The nineteen year old Batgirl come aqua princess was far more disturbed that this place was chosen for the crazy game of death. "Okay, Steph, what would O do?"

She kept her pace slow and steady as she picked a random direction. No supplies, no weapons, and everyone out to kill her. Sounds like home. Too bad this place didn't include a convenient 'YOU ARE HERE' map. She knew from pictures that there was a river somewhere in this place. Based on the state of everything else it was probably less than clean, but she also knew that she could only last so long without something to drink.

Plan in place she sped up her pace and moved more confidently even though she wasn't sure she was even heading in the right direction, but it was better than standing around waiting for something to happen.

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He almost lets her go by, this girl that's so obviously going somewhere.. She's at least a hundred yards away and probably focused on a destination. Tim wouldn't want to flag her down just to find out that 'somewhere' was 'to her next kill.' He could deal without that; he just wants to get back to New Orleans and find a safe place to wait out the night. Maybe he'll find Bruce and get some sleep.

And then it hits him.

That blonde hair streaming down like that.

Moving surreptitiously like that.

That girl.

Tim groans aloud. Why is she here? Of course, she's here. She's always had a nose for trouble. Don't they all? He scrambles to run an intercepting route. He doesn't want to have to shout and have God only knows crash the welcoming committee.

Any nearer to her and she could startle, if she hasn't heard him yet. "Steph," he calls over quietly. How long has she been in here? Why didn't Bruce mention her? Tim hopes Bruce hasn't met her here; otherwise, It had to have been the age thing. Bruce may be too young to know her. That'll go over swimmingly.

She doesn't stumble as she hears her name being called; it's a popular name after all. That doesn't mean she's not curious enough to at least look to where the quiet call came from. The moment she spies Tim dressed as ridiculously as she is she does stumble, but only a little. One of her handlers or whatever they called themselves had mentioned something about the potential for others to be brought in if one should misbehave, but she assumed that sort of punishment would come later and after, you know, some sort of rule breaking.

"Tim. Not that I don't miss the face, but it's not exactly one I thought would be here." This was bringing out that not-good feeling in her stomach. Tim made her think thoughts that she didn't have time for. Thought that she thought would go away after they had ended on a somewhat positive note. No, she wasn't going to let herself go down that path.

Push it away, Steph.

She took in his Prince Charming get-up and half grinned. "You look like you've been fighting dragons. Colorblind dragons."

He shushes her immediately. Dragons, oh my god. He hadn't even thought of that, but, now that the thought has been spoken aloud, Tim's certain that Maleficent's dragon form is in the Arena somewhere, lurking and hungering. He won't be going near the castle anytime soon. "Don't give them any ideas. They have enough of their own."

He looks her over, taking in the ridiculous female costume up close for the first time. The skirt looks cumbersome, but he can't come up with a delicate way to offer to help shorten it. He wished that it was someone else here, anyone else, because Stephanie... complicated matters. Part of the beauty of having a huge chunk of his life taken up by the Red Robin identity was that he never had to completely deal with anything emotionally messy. Lately, any emotion was messy. There were residuals. He wanted to stick to her like glue and forcibly keep her alive.

"Fighting, yes. I haven't see any monsters yet," Tim says, wondering what tipped her off to the skirmishes. Maybe he's not carrying the bruises as well as he thought. He has to distribute his weight more naturally in the future, lest a hostile picks up on weak spots. "There's some definite genetic engineering here. Cannibalistic ducks, for example. Have you seen them?"

She looked too clean to have been in the Arena for the entire round. "When did you get here?"

"Oh, sounds like the Magical Kingdom alright." She can't help sweeping her eyes over Tim. Okay, dorky costume aside he's still a sight for sore eyes. "Handsome even." Her face reddened as she turned away from him to look out at the broken street.

"Just popped in here after a little sideshow performance. Not the most humiliating thing I've done..." She looked back and shot him a grin. "I take it you already have all the information on what's really going on. I mean, death arena? Really?"

"You're the prettiest princess here." He's blushing as well, but he couldn't resist an opening like that. On one hand, it lets him mildly antagonize Stephanie, acerbating her own flush. On the other, he's mindful of the potential that this is being broadcast. If he's not going to entertain through killing, he needs to find other ways to be essential to the director.

He doesn't want to find out what happens when they write you off.

"As much as I can get from inside here. This is my first Arena, too." He's not sure how he can sugarcoat all of this or if he should even bother. "Yes, really. It's a death arena. Last man standing is the winner. According to Bruce, they don't actually let tributes die. I guess we're pulled out at the last second and taken to a trauma center. There are definite killers in the Arena - you'll hear a cannon blast whenever someone is taken out."

Tim doesn't insult her intelligence by pointing out that she needs to be on her guard. He just gives her a moment to take in the confirmation.

She wasn't expecting the line. In fact she was expecting some form of sort lecture about attachment and keeping her head in the game. The blush was just as surprising and suddenly she in his space with her arms coming up for a hug. "I'm glad you found me. Again."

You can't afford this, Batgirl. Hell, she couldn't afford this as Stephanie. They were bad because there was that small possibility that they could be good. It made everything far too complicated for a pair of teens who ran around risking their lives for the good of the world or whatever Tim was up for Bruce.

"Sorry. Dumb, I know." She frowned and stepped back. "Wait, Bruce is here?" That was stressful.

Tim wasn't expecting the hug, but he returned it briefly, wrapping his arms around her and giving her a small squeeze. He stepped back fast, though. This was not the place for long embraces and awkward questions about what they were to her and when she was from.

He could make a guess as to that. She didn't try to kiss him and knew his name. She looked about the same as the last time he saw her. Steph was the right age, but that was no guarantee that they were from the same universe.

Shaking his head, Tim said, "It's not dumb. It's not exactly smart either, but I'm just as bad. I won't tell Bruce if you don't - and he is here, but he's not the right Bruce. He's too young, and the ages of people in his world don't match up with mine. Barbara is here too, but she's wrong, too. And she's only 18."

That was a lot of information to take in. Suddenly this place became more complicated than she had previously thought. Alternate realities or time travel? What kind of technology could do something like that without some heavy magic involved? She wasn't even sure the heavy magic users could do something like that.

"Guess that makes me the senior to Babs." Always looking on the bright side. Her face didn't show much of a smile though. In fact she was too busy thinking about Bruce. "How young is young?"

"Mid-thirties, roughly." Young enough to make Tim keep quiet on a lot of things. He's not worried about destroying any timeline, but he doesn't want to throw Bruce off by telling him how the next five or more years of his life could lead. This means that he hasn't mentioned Stephanie to Bruce, which now looks like a gaping oversight. "He knows who I am, but I get the impression that I'm still a kid on his Earth."

Because 17 isn't a kid anymore. Well, not if you're in this little family, it's not. If you can function solo, you're expected to handle yourself in such a way that nothing interferes with the job. Relationships, diet, exercise, staying informed on current affairs are the tip of the iceberg. Not a lot of adults can balance budgets as complicated as the toy budget, or drive the Redbird without blowing it up.

"He's the same, aside from relative youth. He's already pulled the voice on me," Tim says with the tiniest huff of irritation slipping through. "But Barbara Gordon in his world is the same age as in mine. I don't know how that works, but it means he's not completely the same. The Barbara Gordon that's here has brown eyes, which means she's not his or mine."

Tim pauses, looks away for a second. "We're probably not from the same world either."

Awkward didn't begin to describe the sudden tension. She'd been through a lot and most of it involved Tim, but if this wasn't her Tim...

Maybe it would be easier if that was the case.

"That's, okay, I can deal. So, where do we go from here? Is there a game plan or is this more stay low and stay alive?"

If this wasn't his Stephanie, maybe they could get through this without almost kissing, because that's a distraction that they don't want even when they're not here.

But she looks too much like her to walk away from and not worry about. Tim figures he's screwed.

"Stay low and stay alive," Tim says with a nod, then a shrug. "He didn't really get into details, and I haven't found an exit yet. I found a curving wall - I think it's the perimeter wall. I didn't get too close. I'm working on the assumption that anyone with the ability to get us here can guard a wall to assure that we stay."

"All we need is Roulette's bad voice over and it's just like home." Except back home they tended to have the upper hand thanks to more than a few gadgets. Stephanie never thought she would miss a Batarang more than she does now.

"Okay, I can do that and so can you. Any idea on a civilian count?" Not everyone could be someone from home, right?

"I've spoken to five, besides Bruce. I don't know if you can call two of them civilians - a man came after me with a post for my knife, and the other one is a zombie that goes by the name of R," Tim says, listing off the names of the ones that have given them. "R is... possibly a friendly. I can't tell. He didn't attack and seemed like he was protecting Howard."

Tim condenses the information that he has. "Punchy is about my age, but taller. Possible severe head trauma. Plays with a puppet. He claims to know about electronics and was holed up in Space Mountain. Howard is younger and badly wounded, but someone here is administering first aid. He had stitches. He's resourceful. Blaine - another teenager. He's your average high schooler, and he's running with a Diana who really sounds like Wonder Woman. No confirmation on that."

Shrugging, he tries to put an estimate on the number of tributes. "Given the number of deaths and that I'm stilling seeing people I don't know from a distance, I'd say there's several dozen still in play, minimum. People are finding hiding places."

"Zombies and guys with puppets? You sure this isn't something one of big bads set up?" She wasn't making light of the situation, but the randomness of players and the setting of the arena really felt like something from home. Funny how that didn't freak her out like it really should.

From the sound and look of Tim he wasn't too freaked either. Steph wasn't sure if their attitudes were due to their nighttime gigs or just being from Gotham in general.

"Hiding sounds good but not exactly practical." A bo-staff would be nice. Clean water wouldn't hurt either. "Supplies? They can't expect people to go bare handed Gladiator style, can they?"

"I've considered it. It's not really anyone's M.O. though. Half of them wouldn't be able to dream up something this elaborate, and of the ones that could..." Tim shook his head. "The scale of this place is huge. You couldn't park it in Gotham, and not have anyone notice as you raze a few dozen city blocks. Then, there's the cost... this isn't just a funhouse - it's a full-sized wasteland replica of Disneyland. You'd have to have Lex Luthor money to build something like this and buy the silence to hide it. This isn't the sort of thing he'd do. What's there to gain? Bruce said this is broadcast on TV. Aside from publicly humiliating heroes, I can't see his reasoning. There's always a reason."

A bo. Tim would fight her for it. He would be so much more at ease if he had his weapon. "Supplies? I have a pocket knife. It literally floated down from the sky on a parachute. There are wild crops and fruit trees in Tomorrowland, and there are fish, ducks with teeth like crocodiles, and rats."

There's a reason why Tim was looking rangier than usual. He managed to feed himself, but barely. He's been on a crash diet since he got here, and he never had much fat to lose.

Having an idea on who to lay blame on would be so much easier if it was someone from home. Hell, aside from money factor she would definitely sign her father up for playing host to this weird game.

"Okay, no weapons and little food. Not really into the whole starvation thing, but that's beside the point." She scratched her leg with a frown. Don't forget to add in stupid costume. "Oh, and no plan. Guess it's a good thing I can think on my feet. Am I to assume you've already cased the whole park?"

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