Master Bruce — Roleplayer Guild

<Snipped quote by Master Bruce>
I mean if I keep post 3-4 posts every 1-2 weeks, I think I could get a lot done by that point. That said, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised. These games have traditionally [on superherohype] run for ten months at a time so to condense it down to two-to-three is a little shocking. It’s not a bad thing, but I was expecting to tell a lot more “year one” stories then the current timeframe will allow – and that’s presuming I keep my current pace of writing for this RP. I’ll be still trying to make things work, though I do have one question.

Will you be planning the Silver Surfer Arc to be written in late August or early September?@Inkarnate

Running for that long was never intended by us in any of those games, and to be honest, is part of the problem of why so many games burned out over there. We would say "Oh, it'll be a six month game, for sure."... only to end up being ten, like you said, because people (myself included) didn't commit to the idea of treating the game like it had a beginning, middle, and end. So part of why we're gonna try out three with this game is to see how it affects post stability, because we're riding a high right now and I want to make sure the game remains this fun. 

As for the so-far-absent Surfer, his first big appearance is being plotted at the moment. But the endgame for him (and his master) will appear in-game closer to the actual date, for sure. I'm not going to mention a specific date on that, just because I want to know where the game is whenever we get closer to September to determine when certain things will happen. But I'd wager that it's going to be within September's approach, as sort of a "Third Act" to signal the end is a'comin. 

Gotham City, The Rooftops
The Narrows
8:10 PM

"You know, it's really nothing personal against Dent. I'd have plugged any politician for half the cost."

Studying the enemy before him, remaining stoic and motionless down to even the slightest lingering twitch, The Batman wordlessly scans Deadshot's movements and studies the possible pressure points that could render both of the assassin's arms immobile before he could even attempt to squeeze the trigger to the RPG. What's even more noticeable, however, is the fact that with every word laced in condescension and misspent bile, the mercenary for hire takes one step backward - inching toward the very edge of the rooftop. The vigilante takes note of this, and peers at the finger latched onto the weapon. There's a slight hesitation. A telltale sign that, even to a layman, the threat that was given is an empty threat and the giver knows it. Batman's fingers align themselves with the blades of the three batarangs at his back - and then switch to a different area of his belt. Preparing himself for a very different outcome than expected and hoping that he's right.

"But, hey. Job's a job. And I'm still on the clock, so it's been nice knowin' ya."

With a defiant glare, Batman takes a single step forward. Deadshot flinches, but there's no explosion. No immediate blast that renders the masked vigilante into a skeletal mess of ashes and fire. With his hand still hidden by his cape, the vigilante smiles to himself as his enemy realizes that his own number's up. There was never any danger of a blast to come because the weapon held a dummy grenade. A cheap, dramatic tactic to buy himself some time. Leaving Deadshot with nothing to save himself. 

"Crap."

"I'll say."

As Deadshot tosses the large weapon towards Batman's head, the vigilante springs into action with a roll and dodges, pulling out his intended weapon - the utility gun. Firing a grapple line that immediately hooks and recoils with what amounts to an ensnared large metal prop, Batman heaves his shoulder forward and rams the harmless RPG into Deadshot's back as he makes a beeline for an escape. Surprisingly, the mercenary is quick to leap to his feet, indicating some level of high-tension armor underneath the overcoat and vest. 

Readying his wrist-mounted guns once more, Deadshot dodges as Batman leaps downward with another intended kick and rolls, readying himself into position. The Dark Knight, however, is immediately onto his tactics, kicking himself off of the door to a rooftop entrance, spinning mid-air, and slamming the razor-sharp fins of his gauntlet across the barrel of the gun, instantaneously jamming it and rendering the firing capabilities useless.

"Not this time.", the vigilante warns, swooping into a brutal haymaker. "And never again. You were finished the moment you stepped into my city."

Deadshot falls to Batman's attack with obvious pain, but laughs heartily to himself regardless, aiming the other armed gauntlet with a wince from impact.

"Really? 'Your' city? Who the hell talks like that? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that even sounds coming from a grown man wearing pointy ears?!"

"This city was bought and paid for by at least a hundred guys waiting to mince everyone below them into ground chuck long before you ever hit the scene, Dracula."

BA-BLAM! BA-BLAM!

Having leapt to a narrow corner of the roof to protect himself from the gunfire, Batman pushes his back against the brick scaffolding and readies the three batarangs from behind cover. Whoever this Deadshot is, the vigilante notices, he's relying on distraction. Talking exclusively in a barrage of insults and false bravado, utilizing facade weapons in the same circulation as genuine ordinance, keeping his attacks at close range and in short bursts. It was all the makings of a hitman who hadn't been doing this for very long. And definitely not the type of man who had endured any sort of successful military career, given real snipers knew when to talk and when to shoot. 

But as bullets flew by just inches above Batman's cowl, he realizes that it doesn't matter. Deadshot had still acquired the skills to backup his namesake, which made him lethal regardless of his background. Were it not for something holding him back, there'd have been at least three opportunities for a man of this level of marksmanship to put a bullet into the vigilante's armor. The best that the mercenary could land, by contrast, was a swipe from a hidden blade. There was something about this encounter that felt off, and The Batman was starting to sense it. 

BA-BLAM! BA-BLAM!

"But I guess I'm one to talk, huh? Pulling that whole bait-and-switch act. It's really kinda beneath me, usually. I guess you Gotham idiots just have an... influence."

An eyebrow raises underneath the vigilante's mask. This seemed to confirm his suspicions, because now there was something almost downright deliberate in the way Deadshot was speaking. As if he were trying to communicate something else entirely that betrayed the current scenerio. With another bullet richocheting off of the scaffolding directly ahead of him, Batman decided that if he were going to figure out what was really going on, he'd have to engage his opponent in an entirely different form of battle strategy. 

BA-BLAM! BA-BLAM!

"I guess we do, don't we?"

Leaping out from behind Deadshot, having maneuvered his way ever-so slightly to the right of the assassin as he frantically scanned for his target's position, Batman tosses the batarangs from up high and pierces both of the assassin's free hands. The third batarang digs into his knee, causing Deadshot to yell out in pain and drop to the ground. Before he can recover, Batman brutally dropkicks him across the face, somersaults, and spins to connect a roundhouse punch to the back of the assassin's neck just as he stands. Deadshot stumbles forward, allowing The Dark Knight a brief moment of relief from the barrage of gunfire.

"Then again, you get used to it after awhile. Gotham's... influence."

Leaping into a sprint, Batman lifts his knee high and grabs the back of Deadshot's skull, making sure the two connect with just the right amount of force. The assassin falls backwards and begins to gasp, showing a clear spot of blood beginning to stain the fabric from behind an area of his mask. A broken nose, throwing his opponent's senses into a whirlwind of trauma. Almost by instinct, Deadshot weakly lifts his arm to fire off another round, but the vigilante quickly dashes the effort with a quick snap of his cape, delivering an unexpected blow to the assassin's wrist through titanium-tipped scallops. Immediately, Batman is ontop of the downed mercenary, reigning down blow after vicious blow. 

"TELL ME WHO HIRED YOU! TELL ME WHO WANTED DENT SILENCED! WAS IT ONE OF THE FIVE FAMILIES?! ANSWER ME!"

Deadshot coughs up even more blood, prompting Batman to reach down and rip the mask from the mercenary's face. Beneath it is the broken and bloodied, but still grinning visage of a man in his late thirties, with only a pencil thin mustache and a series of facial scars rendering the otherwise less than noteworthy appearance slightly more worthy of committing to memory. Clearly trying to force another laugh, Deadshot instead hacks up a freshly loosened tooth. 

"Six... seconds..."

Quizically, Batman stares back without a clear course of action to take. He didn't know what the assassin meant, and he wasn't interested in riddles. He knew that there hadn't been an explosive charge or other trap planted during the struggle, so it wasn't as though Deadshot was counting off a timer to something ready to explode. Grabbing the collar of his coat, Batman lifts the clearly defeated man into the air. 

"ANSWER ME, GODDAMMIT!"

"Four... nngh... seconds..."

As Batman's rage grows louder and his pulse starts to race, the vigilante suddenly noticed that his vision is also starting to blur. Fearing another episode of his own mental handicap at work, the surprised vigilante drops Deadshot to the ground and stumbles back himself, feeling his breath shorten as colors begin to lose their vibrance. Immediately, Batman recognizes these signs, looking down at his own shaking hand. This isn't a hallucination. This is a toxin working it's way through the vigilante's system. Realizing that the area where Deadshot cut him is starting to burn, Batman begins to piece together the real hidden attack. 

"Two..."

This entire fight was a distraction to buy time. Not for Deadshot's own escape, but for Batman to succumb to a poison that had been placed into his system from the tip of the mercenary's hidden blade. Holding his forehead in his palm, The Dark Knight struggles to maintain balance as he tries to make out the scene of Deadshot crawling towards an escape on one knee. Fight it, he thinks to himself, trying desperately to avoid passing out. But the toxin overwhelms him and he hits the back of a wall, slowly sliding to the ground. Leaving the mercenary that tried to assassinate Harvey Dent free to escape. 

"Should've... paid... more attention... freakshow."

Batman reaches up at nothing as Deadshot disappears over the edge of the roof, gone in an instant. Reaching into his belt's first-aid pouch, the vigilante produces a potent anti-venom capsule that's generally reserved for rattlesnake bites and wounds that accelerate minor toxicity. It isn't enough to fight whatever's in his system, he wordlessly surmises, but it's enough to at least stave off the effects of it long enough to retreat back to the underground bunker beneath Wayne Tower. 

Forcing the capsule down, Batman looks up into the air... only to be met with a bright light that immediately surrounds his position. Suddenly made more alert and agile based off of the adrenaline coursing through his system, the vigilante wipes a mountain of sweat building across his exposed mouth as his hearing goes from a loud whine of white noise into a loud, familiar whirring of helicopter blades. Whenever his vision briefly forms back into place, Batman recognizes the clear insignia of the GCPD on the chopper above him. His eyes widening, he immediately pushes himself past the point of physical endurance to stand. 

"BATMAN! YOU'RE UNDER ARREST! PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD AND LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND! THERE'S NO WAY OUT!"

It was expected that a police presence would eventually arrive on the scene, but The Dark Knight hadn't considered that he would still be there for them to spot, let alone miss the escape of the actual perpetrator behind the attempt to kill the city's District Attorney. His hand clasped around the handle of the utility-gun, Batman subtly switches the dial on the barrel's side to a different setting. There were six settings in total to the weapon that Lucius Fox of Waynetech had only recently completed. 

One shot rubber bullets, designed to disperse crowds. Another shot the high-tensile grapple that he'd been learning to use as a default. The third shot the same type of tracker bullet that had permanently ruined Salvatore Maroni's kneecap. Fourth was a two-pronged bola projectile, making it simple to bind an enemy's feet together when running. The fifth shot a single live taser that acted as a homing disc, sticking itself to the nearest enemy combatant and sending a high current of non-lethal electricity through their bodies. 

As members of the GCPD's SWAT unit descended via rope onto the rooftop with assault rifles trained onto him, Batman ensures that the gun is set to the sixth setting before lifting one hand above his head. The five members of Gotham's most elite squadron of officers took a good look at the man that Commissioner Loeb had personally ordered to be shot on sight, each expecting something very different than the last based on eyewitness reports. The man standing before them wasn't a demonic creature spawned from the depths of hell, nor was he a living shadow that swept criminals up into the night with a mere thought. It was only a man in a heavily armored costume.

"Hey! Hey, we said both hands! Get 'em up, fucker!", the squad leader demands, steadying his gun. "Get 'em up now or we spray the roof with your brains! You're under arrest for the attempted murder of Harvey Dent!"

Batman narrowed his eyes. He was unsurprised by the assertion that he'd been the assassin all along, and had to admit that the situation was damning enough to warrant such an assumption. Dent was, after all, shot during a rally attempting to decry the vigilante to the public. To the uninitiated that believed Batman to be as much a criminal as the people he fought, that would be just enough cause to try and kill any man, let alone one with a seemingly public and professional vendetta. Of course it wasn't true, but the vigilante knew that attempting to explain that to the men who likely answered to thugs like Maroni and The Penguin was a waste of effort. 

So instead, The Batman merely smirks, finally moving the second hand from beneath his cloak. In it was the utility-gun, but the officers were caught off guard by the fact that the gun was aimed at the ground and not at them. With each preparing to fire, The Dark Knight makes sure to fire first, instantaneously blanketing the area in a thick layer of the gun's sixth setting: a potent tear gas. A protective rebreather instantly slides down from beneath Batman's cowl, locking in place over his jaw and he switches his cowl's lenses to their heat-signature mode. 

"SHIT! OPEN FIRE! OPEN FIRE! HOSTILE HAS ENGAGED!"

Diving ahead and sweeping one officer's legs out from under him, Batman briefly considers taking them all on just to prove a point to their superiors. But in his weakened, poisoned state, he also knows that it'd be an unfortunate and disastrous attempt and that the GCPD would have him in lock-up by the night's end. So instead, The Dark Knight backs away as the random gunfire begins, allowing himself to fall off of the roof and into the night's sky. 

Got to... get to the... cycle...

It was a narrow escape, but an escape nonetheless. Unfortunately, he hadn't been the only one to escape justice this night. Silently cursing the events of the evening, Batman descended into the darkness of the rooftops below and completely disappeared from sight.

Then... Deadshot's mine.

Master Bruce Member

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