[ OPEN ] So, apparently, it IS a small world after all.

[the_hit_list]

Who Tim Drake and OPEN
What Tim arrives in the arena.
Where Main Street towards Tomorrowland
When Week 2
Warnings/Notes None so terrible. Punchy has grievous head wounds.



When his body raises up over tube, Tim runs. It's the beauty of the fight or flught response in the absence of an aggressor - just go; you can panic later. He doesn't wait for the platform to stop, doesn't study his surroundings for more than the instant that it takes to verify that there is, in fact, ground aside from the platform.

Other things click into place quickly as he moves along a street. The long abandoned stores. The absence of people. If this really is an arena, he doesn't see or hear his competitors yet, but he's not stopping to really observe until there's some room between where they put because it's obviously where they want him to be. Sticking out like a sore thumb, a lone target in the open.

It's unnerving, having so very little to go on. He should have fought more on the way in. Too late for that now, he thinks. Work with what you have.

The arena is old, crumbling in fact. Has it been used before? Is it real, broken down by time? If it's a facade, someone wasted a lot of time reclaiming materials for... What? Some place that unknown assailants throw their kidnapped victims and force them to battle to the death? It doesn't make sense, and almost everything makes sense once you know enough about whose behind it.

Well, he hasn't seen anything clownish, so that eliminates the almost. But what he does see still stops him in his tracks.

Tim catches as his breath, alternating staring at the large, domed structure ahead and checking his six. He remembers that building, remembers promising that he's not too little or too scared, just please one ride.

It's Space Mountain.

This is Disneyland.

Which means that he needs to add 'when he is' onto the growing list of questions that he has. None of which will ever get answered if he continues to stand around gawking like a mint green dope. Space Mountain is as good a place to start as any - if he can climb it, he'll have a good view.

He starts towards it, because that's better than letting his mind waits while it works out if he's now spiraling through time like Bruce was, and he's moving quickly but with more purpose now, keeping close to any buildings and debris and generally trying to stay out of the middle of the street. Get to the mountain, see what there is to see, find out if this is a real death match, then worry about the big picture.

Comments

[the_hit_list]

His lingo for a lot of things is stuck in the 80s, maybe the early 90s. Tim is having a hard time taking him completely seriously, and it's seriously hampered by Punchy playing with a doll. Named Judy. Punchy and Judy. Punch and Judy.

So now Tim's in a dim, confined area with a teenager that has a height and probable weight advantage, possibly negated by a grievous head wound. He's talking like he learned English by watching Boyz in Da Hood, and he's playing with a doll. A doll that is named after half of a very famous puppet show about a serial killer and his first victim, which isn't coincidental because he named himself after the worse half of the act.

"Uh. Hi, Judy." Tim gives a miniscule wave, barely flicking his fingers. He is wondering just when all of this got out of his control. "Why not try to receive the signal first? Fine-tuning the wavelength could give you a positive result that way. You're never going to be sure, otherwise, if you attempt to jam first."

[nunpunching]

"She's named after my sister." Punchy says that with a strange sort of reverence, a seriousness that rivals the gravity he expressed when talking about the Cornucopia. It matters, to him. It's the only connection he still has to her. "Usually I get her some Catholic threads, you know, like a nun, but I ain't found any in this joint."

He sticks his hand in the puppet and makes it wave at Tim, before putting his feet up on the roller coaster car hood and stroking his chin.

"I can't figure out how to get it to play anything but just sound right now. You shoulda heard it a few hours ago, it was nothing but jams from Cinderella on loop. It doesn't receive by anything but tape." Which, Punchy worries, makes this all a worthless endeavor. "I got a chip from one of those marker things, and I know it's for broadcasting, but it doesn't match the speakers."

He sits up, suddenly determined.

"I need more parts. I know what to do."

[the_hit_list]

He picks up on the reverential treatment of Judy immediately. He thinks of uniforms in sterile glass cases, of holograms and stone memorials, of costumes changing color and code names changing. All in memoriam.

Tim does not ask about Judy, the nun or martyr or young maiden who merits such a strange tribute, to be recreated as a puppet more than once. "Usually" dressed as a nun. How scarred is Punchy by the loss, that he needs to have her effigy with him in such a violent place?

"You got it to stop playing Cinderella. Even if you can't figure out how to get it to do anything else, I think you can chalk it up as a success," Tim points out. The trouble with Disneyland is that it was, well, Disneyland, and it was bound to get irritating after awhile. "What do you need? I can keep my eyes open if you're specific enough."

[nunpunching]

"No shit. I should be getting mad props for that from those baller with the cash, but..." he gestures to the skylight, where no parachutes full of gifts have recently landed. "Maybe they use some other kind of music when they's editing this shit up. Or maybe they just got bad taste. I'd be thinking they'd want some beats with a little more aggro on the bass for a murdergame."

Punchy looks back over at his little pet project.

"I need a receiver. Some sort of broadband or wireless. All I got is what you can jack in, which is only tape input right now."

[the_hit_list]

He just blinks at the mad props, baller with cash statement, glancing up at the skylight which... is just a skylight. Tim can manage most of Punchy's lingo; that isn't the problem. He's obviously missing some connecting thread.

Or it's just more of the puppet crazy bleeding through. Forget about it, for now.

"Main Street," Tim said automatically. "Didn't they have those bullhorn looking speakers on poles to broadcast sound for the parades? Those have to be receiving."

He had no idea how it was that he remembered this, but it seemed as likely a spot as any. There were other places, rides heavy on VR, that might have similar tech, but Main Street was the friendliest option. How could anything go wrong on quiet little Main Street?

[nunpunching]

Punchy snaps his fingers. He doesn't like congratulating other people, because success is a bit of a zero-sum game for him, but he has to admit Tim has a point. "Mighta had cables, but shit, best opt-in before the train hauls out."

He sets his stuff to the side, then tucks the puppet in the waistband of his pants. "You gonna play mailman or should I?"

[the_hit_list]

"Think you can manage it yourself?" He regrets this immediately. What was he thinking, suggesting that the guy with a head wound go out in the open and climb poles without any gear? He might as well paint a target on Punchy's chest. Tim rushes to change the response. "Actually, I'll get it and bring it back here. I want to get a better look at the place anyway."

He scrambles back over the handrail because, friendly or not, Tim's still nervous and on edge with everything about this place. He doesn't want to have his back exposed longer than he has to. "How many do you think you need, provided I find even one?"

[nunpunching]

"Fo' shizz, I can manage it myself." He gets back up, but admittedly he's a little lightheaded. The lack of clean water and blood loss has left him just a bit dizzy all day. He sits back down. "But you can go get it if you want."

He strokes his chin as he thinks about that for a moment. "Three. Two to bust up laying down the experiments, one to use when we got the sitch figured."

[the_hit_list]

Tim nods at this. Three would be a safe number, but he's not sure that he'll manage that. Disneyland looks, as Punchy would say, busted. Finding three intact pieces of equipment will be tough. "I'll do my best."

He's not sure why he's so eager to help. Probably due to the injury. Anyone who was badly hurt and still focused on sabotaging a common enemy, the one who kidnapped them, has his allegiance.

Unless this is all an elaborate ruse, and Punchy is the real enemy, secretly hired by the League of Assassins to gain Tim's trust and... what? The theory springs a few leaks here. Anything that he can come up with that would be worth this setup - there are easier, cheaper ways.

"I'll back as soon as I can." Tim starts walking backwards towards the tunnel.