Sir Lurksalot — Roleplayer Guild

Ya know, it was times like these that made Duncan realize he had it pretty good.

Sure, his car was a piece of junk, he came home every day covered in grease, soot and diesel and whatever wages he brought home were gouged to absolute shit by both the Federal and Provincial governments... but that was alright. Because he was lucky enough that anytime he so wished it, he could come sit here in his Granddad's garage and have a fucking beer.

Doubly lucky today, in fact, his Dad had just got back from the Labrador coast and actually had the energy to stay awake and talk to the two other generations of his blood he was sharing space with at the moment... well, mostly. It was pretty clear that if the big damned family dog wasn't stealthily, but consistently trying to worm it's way onto his lap on a chair that very clearly was not going to be holding them both, he'd be passed right the hell out right now. 

It was pretty damned entertaining to watch, truth be told. He stifled a chuckle, even as he took a drag from his cigarette and went back to pretending to listen to his Granddad tell that same old story about how Wildcat had saved him and his entire platoon from an elite Battalion of Nazi SS hopped up on super-human drugs in the Ardennes. It wasn't that he was ignoring the old guy, far from it infact- It's just that he'd heard it so many times in his life that he could recite it word for word; dramatic pauses, colourful profanity and all.

No, what Duncan was paying attention to was the old man himself.

The scars on his face gained over the course of two separate wars, the way his eyes got all bright and fiery when he slung expletives or sang praises about people long since dead, how he sometimes paused and tried to hide that little smile whenever he caught the muffled sound of Duncan's Grandma walking through the house singing to herself in Acadian... that's what had his attention.

The guy was getting old, and even if he was, as a typical MacAodhan, too damned stubborn to even acknowledge it, the fact remained that our man Duncan probably didn't have that many of these moments left with his Grandfather, so he wanted to burn every moment and everything about the old man he could into his memory.

Though very suddenly, he found his attention diverted by the sound of the garage door opener coming to life, and after a few moments, in entered his Mom, right on queue, holding two big bags of food she brought back from her diner... and closely followed by Freddie Fucking Mercury who entered holding a two-four of beer under one arm and big damned carton of smokes under the other, grinning in awesome benevolence as a triumphant chorus of guitar chords announced his presence like the arrival of a fucking GOD.

"...Wait, what?"

Very suddenly, his grandparents' house, his family and all the warm feelings associated therewith were gone, leaving only his room at the Metro tower and the few lights coming in from the still-sunless city of Metropolis. Freddie was still there though, over the radio at least, signalling that it was four in the morning and time to get his ass up.

"Awww, shit..."

Yup, this was still his reality. 

And he still didn't like it.

Episode 3: Training Day

Looking like all kinds of hell, what with the bloodshot eyes, the nasty shiner he was sporting that engulfed much of the left side of his face and the way the old, slightly too big for him JSA tracksuit Green Lantern found lying around haphazardly garbed his body, Duncan, or rather "The Rookie" (as somebody had scribbled into his file) half-walked, half-dragged his sore and exhausted self through the deserted corridors of the Metro Tower at an hour even death would find a bit excessive, headed for the kitchen. It had taken him a solid week just to wake up after that sound beating Metallo had bestowed upon his skull back home in Halifax. Enough time for his now-least-favourite bat-themed acquaintance to thoroughly study him and come to the conclusion that, although he could spin a full-sized family sedan around on his pinky finger, was very literally as weak as he was physically capable of being.

He didn't like that much.

And Duncan learned not to like him much for that opinion. Mostly because it led directly to three days now of having his ass handed to him day in and day out by another freakin' robot in a training room equipped with a gravity-well so powerful it made his intestines feel like they were gonna exit his body stage-rear.

Speaking of which...

"Good morning, Mister MacAodhan."

The lad blinked blearily for a few minutes at the rough, synthetic voice, but responded all the same as he flopped down in the seat across the table from the matte-blue robot.

"Mornin', Ajax"

Ajax, (or A1-AX, if we're being rude), was one of Superman's older bots, the first one he built specifically to help him in a fight, in fact. Built tougher, leaner and a helluva lot meaner than those tinfoil things Solara tore through for kicks when she was having a bad day (which, as far as he could tell, was every day), he'd been the second part of the greater headache that had been ripping the inside of the Rookie's skull apart since he woke up here.

Partly because most of the time Duncan saw him, he was punching him in the face. 

And partly because he was too damned nice.

Seriously, if science-fiction is to be believed, superpowered warmachines who achieve sentience on their own are supposed to go on murderous genocidal rampages or at least burn an orphanage or two. Not tend gardens, cook food and dispense oddly-sage advice with a distinctly robotic voice, and definitely not read Mark Twain in the kitchen whilst humming a jaunty (yet still robotic) tune at four-something in the goddamn morning.

The Rookie couldn't help but just stare at the relaxing machine before him. Not the craziest thing he'd seen recently, by no means, but still just slightly left of centre.

"Couldn't you read that whole thing in a matter of seconds?" Duncan inquired finally, yet flatly. "Why even bother sitting down?"

"Now where would the fun in that be?" The machine in question replied with a slight shrug as it pushed a glass toward him. "Now drink up."

The glass in question, of course, contained the beginning and end of Batman's diet plan for him; a thick green sludge that looked like beer-shits, smelt like roadkill and tasted like Satan's toe-jam. Apparently it was good for him, though his gag-reflex usually disagreed quite vehemently on that.

Delaying the inevitable, the Rookie found something new to talk about.

"So... " He began, subtly sliding the glass off to the side "What's on the agenda today?"

"I have some cherry trees to plant in the greenhouse." the machine responded, just as subtley sliding the glass right back to where it was "You may go take it easy and do some warm-up exercises for a few hours until your instructor arrives, you are probably going to need it." 

"...Wait, Bats brought in someone else?"

Again, the glass slid away from the Nova Scotian.

"I am informed that it is to be a surprise." And again it slid back, a tiny umbrella and a straw in it now. "Now please drink your juice."

Sometime later...

'Holy shit, is that fucking Wildcat?'

"The Rookie eh? I appreciate the humility."

'Holy fucking shit, it is.'

It took physical contact with the man for said Rookie's brain to fully process that one, leaving him to subtly glance down at his hand with a small expression of disbelief as the feline-themed crime fighter traded (slightly less friendly) greetings with the other recruit in the room and goodbyes with Batman. Sure, he'd had some weird and new experiences this past week and a half (fist-fighting robots and going to a baseball game with freakin' Superman among them), but meeting and shaking the hand of the guy who'd saved his Granddad's life back in the day and thus allowed he and his Dad to exist in the first place pretty well topped all that.

"Alright you two, let's see what I'm working with here, why don't you two go a round or two and then I'll step in."

That snapped Duncan back to reality, as he blinked in surprise for a few seconds but quietly obeyed and headed for the centre of the room with his taller, more hairy companion, before facing him and taking on the stance Ajax had drilled into his head these past three days. That said, he did look visibly unsure he should be doing this in the first place on account of not knowing much about his opponent or, more specifically, whether or not he might accidentally reduce the guy to a red paste with a poorly timed right hook.  

It wasn't that long ago he was brawling with Metallo, he saw what his fist did to that guy when he actually managed to connect, so he had a fairly good idea what would happen if he cut loose and hit someone made of flesh and blood.

Still, this was the Justice League, so maybe he didn't have to worry about that. 

Worth asking about, either way-

"Hey, uhh... don't take this the wrong way, but... how tough are you, exactly?" He asked, opening his hands and shrugging, though still holding his stance "Because there may be a few... ground rules... we wanna lay out before we do this."
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