Summary:
Sept 14, 2012: Batgirl meet The Spoiler for the first time. (Backdated scene)
Gotham
An alleyway.
Characters
NPCs
None
Mood Music:
None
Night time, and Gotham rooftops, some men in the alley below unloading a van. Their faces are covered by masks, the coveralls hiding their clothing. Above them, a figure is perched, staring down at them. Her face is concealed by a mask, her expression concealed. The figure is covered by a purple cape, the outfit homemade, a black outfit beneath the cape.
The Narrows. The place is like a maze. Or a rat's warren. So many places to hide. It's so bad that most people don't even try to help out those who live here. It truly is a bastion for the hopeless.
While this isn't part of Batgirl's regular 'beat', because it would take a dozen of her to even start to clean it up, she does swing through on occasion. If nothing else, it's a show of Bat Pressence. The van catches her attention first, and she hauls on her decel cable to change direction and find a perch of her own higher above. The flash of color amidst shadows catches her attention though. Shifts her focus.
The man below are joined by another man, his clothes recognisable. The Cluemaster. The figure above shifts position, staring down at them, listening to the conversation below. The voices carry upwards, "Have you got it?"
"No, but I can tell you where it is. Do you have the money?"
An exchange, the words dropping to a quieter level, and the caped figure edges along the roof, one hand around the chimney, leaning forward.
As the purple-clad figure leans forward, the Batgirl can make out the costume. Even if it is homemade. She works her way closer, slipping through the maze of wires and impromptu structure. She's still keeping an eye on the goings-on below, but so far all she can tell is that some kind of exchange is going on and so the new face in the city, especially this part of the city, is of far more interest.
The men in the van hand over the money, and the Cluemaster bows, an ironic gesture, before he whispers a few words, the listener straining to hear them, a hint of blond hair escaping from the mask at her nape, as the cape falls back for a moment. That hand clasped around the chimney slips a little, and she scrambles backwards a little, sitting back for a moment. Then, as the van pulls out of the alleyway, she withdraws a rope, a homemade mockup of the bat decel cable. She throws it, catching the side of the building the other side of that alleyway, preparing to leap.
Batgirl fishes out a tracer from her belt, and thwips the little magnetic beacon down, down, down to tag the van as it starts to leave. Should could have stopped them now, but she has no real idea what the crime is. Even what she's picked up from their body language hasn't given her a whole lot of insight. She waits, patiently, to see where the purple one is headed to now.
The figure lifts her cape up, covering her head, the slither of hair vanishing. Then she jumps, sliding down that cable, heading for the wall opposite. Then she drops, aiming to land on the Cluemaster, her booted feet together. The back of the Cluemaster's head is the target, and her cape flies out behind her. "Uhngh." The sound of a man's head connecting with boots, and then they are fighting, trading blows, the lithe figure faster, but unarmed.
Batgirl slides down her own line, keeping to the shadows even as the vigilante dispenses her justice. From what she can read, the young woman isn't trying to kill the man, so that gives her the luxury of sitting back. She can also read that… there's a lot more involved here. That things are… complicated.
As she finally reaches the alleyway's soft, squishy floor from decades of dirt and offal and who-knows-what growing between the tightly-spaced buildings, she gets it. She sees the girl is trying to 'say' to the man. To her father. But he doesn't hear her.
Batgirl steps out of the shadows, letting the dim, flickering light of the Narrows wash over her cape-clad presence.
Complicated indeed, the anger behind the strikes they blow more complicated than the Cluemaster knows. Steph, the Spoiler, parries, dodges, and she twirls to kick him, aiming for his head, her cape an eggplant shaded swirl behind her. The kick connects but the joys of being out armed is obvious, as he strikes, a button pressed on the front of his costume, and a flare of light blinding the smaller figure, her foot slipping on the dirt and other stuff in the alley, a thunk of a landing on her bottom. Less than dignified.
Too wrapped up in themselves to notice her apperance, Batgirl lingers there a while longer until the bright flash sends the Spoiler down to the ground. She moves forward then, stepping over and in front of her and in front of Cluemaster. Though dimniuitive in size, she stands straight and confident, the tilt of her chin inviting the Cluemaster to attack her.
The Cluemaster glowers, his hand lifting to the buttons once more, and he plucks one off, throwing it at the two caped figures, before he turns, making his escape on foot, at least as far as the alley entrance. Behind Batgirl, the scrambling to her feet can be heard, and Steph swears, her reaction to her father's behaviour unsubtle. For moments, there is silence in the alleyway, and then the explosion.
Batgirl looks down at the button and she doesn't need to know what it is. She could tell what Cluemaster expected it to do. Spoiler has just enough time to get to her feet and then she's being tackled back down into the muck by Batgirl as the thing explodes, the walls of the alley causing the sound to echo and roar in the confined space.
More dirt. Oh god, please let it be dirt. It doesn't smell like dirt. Then the explosion, the echo of the sound lost to her ears as her hearing becomes muted. She blinks up at Batgirl, her blue eyes bemused, confusion reigning for a moment. Then, unable to hear herself, she mouths the word, "Thanks." She lifts a hand, removing something long, unrolled and rubber from her shoulder, the look of distaste obvious. "I can see why we do this. The glamour, right? You are Batgirl. State the obvious, right… "
Batgirl gets to her feet with little of the awkward grimacing that Spoiler does. Of course, her costume is probably designed to shed dirt and grime a bit better than hers… Perks of having a Batman do (and pay for) the design.
Her head cants over to one side a bit, the gesture almost birdlike and the tone quizzical. Finally, she answers in a flat, almost monotone, "Yes." Now, which question she was answering? Isn't terribly clear.
Spoiler scrambles to her feet, wiping her hands on her cape, the wrinkle of her nose speaking. "Yeah, it was the whole… bat costume. Subtle but I'm just that sharp." The snark is there, directed for once at herself. She offers a hand, her lips curving into a grin under the mask, "I've seen your stuff,… " She hesitates then, uncertain of her own ground.
Batgirl just watches Spoiler with that featureless mask in silence for what is probably an awkwardly long time. The purple-clad ones body langauge says one thing but her mouth blah blah blahs another!
Finally the darkly clad one shakes her head, answering the question that she reads from the other girl far better than inferring from words. "I… don't know. You." Her manner of speaking is a bit odd. Flat, without much tone, and oddly stilted.
A heartbeat's pause and she replies, her chin lifting for an instant, "You can call me the Spoiler. I am Cluemaster's nemesis." She shifts slightly, dusting her hands clean of the ohgodletitbedirt. She lifts the hood on the eggplant coloured cap, giving a grin behind the mask. "We haven't met. I'm new in town…" Only days before, in truth, and she has spent much of that time fixing up a costume to wear.
Batgirls' head turns, looking off in the direction of the Cluemaster. She's not as up to speed on all the named baddies in the city as the other Batfolk. She tends to be the more beat 'em up sort. "Daughter." She says, looking back to Spoiler.
Spoiler goes still, her fingers pausing at the point of adjusting her hood. Her body is utterly still, and she stares at Batgirl, in that long moment of silence. "You don't know anything about me. If you spread that rumour, I'll find you." The quiet assertion is speaking, her body language perhaps saying something softer, something more pleading.
"Don't need… to know." Comes Batgirl's reply. "Can see." She nods back towards the alleyway's entrance. "He… doesn't hear you." Not that the statement is likely to make much sense to Spoiler, who isn't familiar enough with Batgirl's speech patterns, let alone her abilities.
The 'threat' gets the faint crease of a smile beneath the full mask. "Don't… talk much." The words might be reassuring… If she had the range of emotional tone that normal people do.
A slow nod comes in reply but she doesn't know for certain, "Yeah, well, you don't know anything about me, so … don't talk at all." She turns, her hand reaching out for a window ledge, to lift herself up, her booted foot giving her a bounce upwards. A swing and she heads towards the rooftop, letting Batgirl follow as she will. She crouches there, staring after the Cluemaster, her eyes narrowing behind her mask.
One moment the Batgirl is standing there, watching Spoiler climb upwards. Then the younger woman looks away, off towards where her father was last seen, and when she looks up towards her climb again the darkly clad figure is perched there. Watching.
"What does… 'The Spoiler' mean?"
Spoiler pauses, and then settles on the rooftop, dangling her legs over the edge. Her hands lift, pushing the hood back, the hint of the blonde hair showing at the nape of her neck, where the gap between mask and costume. "It means I spoil his fun." The words are quiet, the emotion hot behind it, "I'm going to stop him."
There's that tilt of her head again. That quizzical manner. Her booted feet rest on the short parapet wall, knees flexed and forearms resting on them as she continues to watch Spoiler. The words… a lot of them still escape her, but the intenstity of emotion helps to clear up the meaning for her. "Going… to get hurt."
Spoiler turns her head, looking at Batgirl, the bodylanguage flat, angry, and she replies slowly, quietly, "I'll get him first. If I get hurt, it won't be because I wasn't trying hard enough." Her voice is flat, angry.
"Batman… might not…. approve." Batgirl can see some of the stubornness in the younger woman, but the skill to back that up? Well… At least in the world that Batgirl lives in, this Spoiler is going to get herself hurt. So she plays the 'Father' card in the form of Big Daddy Bat. Though, she has the feeling it's not going to deter Spoiler any.
"Well, then he should try harder to fix this." The words are flat, her body language as angry, as heated as her words. "It is my choice, Batgirl. I'm going to do this, I'm going to stop him. It is my responsibility. My job." Angry words, with hurt and heat behind them.
Batgirl's presence is an odd thing. Her body language, like her actual language, is virtually silent. She doesn't tend towards twitches or the myriad of small movements that most exhibit even when sitting still. But nor is her manner expectant, like she needs someone to fill the space with anything other than their presence.
Finally, the dark-clad figure rises up to her feet, the scalloped edge of her cape brushing the parapet. "Not… Your fault." She says then, almost out of nowhere as she reaches down to get her grapple line. She fires it off with that soft *PAFT!* sound and looks over to Spoiler before she hits the trigger to let it pull her away. "Be careful."
And then she's gone in a flap of leathern wings.
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