ya_assemble | [LN] He flies through the air with the greatest of ease

One didn't come across many opportunities in life to sneak up on one of the Bats and that was why, now that Kon had the drop on one for once, he was going to make it count. It didn't take long to find a paper bag to rip so it looked like it had bat ears. He even pulled out a pen and scribbled a grim face on it.

As much as his time at Project Gladiator had been torture he'd still walked away with more skills than he'd had before and a lot of those skills had to do with sneaking. So he hid among the shadows of a nearby building until Nightwing looked away and then silently floated to crouch on the edge of the roof with the bag on his head, in the light of a nearby streetlight.

"You must be confused," he said in a growly, scratchy voice. "Finding yourself here in this dark night. Where it's dark. And it's night. In this dark city." A pause. "Of darkness."

He wasn't wearing his usual costume or the S. Kon had cut a lot of the primary colors out of his wardrobe, opting for jeans, black shirts, black army boots, and black gloves. Definitely much grimmer than he used to dress. But there really was only one person it could be given the silly paper bag and that build - although said build was likely bulkier than Nightwing remembered. Not quite Superman proportions, but getting there.

Edited 2015-05-05 00:59 (UTC)

Dick had, of course, missed the first time he'd pulled the paperbag trick on Tim. But that didn't mean he hadn't heard about it. Or that it had been long enough that he couldn't recognize that voice.

But he HADN'T expected the voice. Hadn't expected anybody to be around. He turned, dropping into a crouch with the sticks at the ready, face gone deeply impassive to keep from showing just how surprised he was.

It took a moment for the rest of it to filter in and Dick's stance loosened slightly and he rose from the crouch. Face still mostly impassive, but there was a slight twitch at the corners of his mouth that said he was trying NOT to start laughing. "You really don't sound anything like him, you know."

"Great scott, little chum! You mean Batman doesn't try to sound like he gargles glass every morning?"

Kon hopped off the ledge and floated down to the ground with a bounce to his step, pretty much confirming he was exactly who Dick thought he was. He was grinning when he pulled off the bag and threw it to the ground.

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you. We've got one of those alternate dimension saving-all-of-existence dealies going on and Cassie and I are grownups but we could really use a grownier up, if you catch my drift. Especially since Wonder Woman got zapped back home."

God, he'd missed Nightwing. But then he'd missed everybody in that painful year and a half in the red rooms. So he came over, his arms wide.

"Coming for a hug, don't hit me. Not that it'd do anything anyway."

Get ready for a rib-crusher.

"I wouldn't say TRIES. Just...kind of ends up that way."

And yeah, there's a moment where he hears the words that Kon's saying, but it's not making sense. Because Kon was dead, last he knew, but this is most definitely not the boy that died to save the world. Worlds. While Dick had nearly died himself.

"Wow. You guys must be in trouble if you're looking to me to be the adult." A joke, of course. He'd been the adult for most of his life, even when he was the youngest of the Titans. Still, he does put the sticks away. "I'm not going to hit you. But...I am really not certain I'm understanding what's going on here. Yet."

There was a hug and a lift off the ground before Kon put him down again.

"First things first, hold onto this." Kon tossed him a strange little stone with runes carved into it. "Magical protection. There are oogety boogeties here that like to hunt newbies down and it'll keep them from tracking you until we can get one of our mages to mark you with one of the semi-permanent charms. Then we'll pull up a roof, we can compare notes and see if we're from the same timeline, and I'll give you the DL."

Just another random adventure in another random-ass dimension, deedly deedly doo.

He started to float back towards the building he'd been crouching on.

"You want a lift or do you wanna be all impressive and flip off junk?"

Luckily, Dick was used to that sort of treatment. Even Superman did it to him from time to time.

He caught the stone, opening his hand to take a curious look at it. "Does it have to stay next to skin or I can just keep it on my person?" He didn't have a belt with pouches, but he kept most of the things he needed in his boots. They were made for that, after all.

Still, he snorted at what was almost a dare, kneeling to put the stone in his boot. Because, really, there were stranger things he'd done. And for this, he needed both hands. "Now when have I ever turned down a chance to be impressive?"

Besides, it was only a couple of stories high. He did higher than that on a regular basis, after all. It did take a moment for him to stand back and plan out the best way up before, yes, he was climbing and flipping off of things to make it to the top. Because he could.

"You just need to keep it on your person," Kon said and then he rolled his eyes affectionately and grinned at the jumping and flipping.

"I'm the last person who should be calling people on being show-offs given my storied history of announcing the name of my cool power every other fight but here I am doing it anyway."

He was smiling as he settled down on the edge of the roof, though.

"Okay, to start with, what are the last few major events and/or assorted crises you remember? Let's see if we're even from the same universe."

Edited 2015-05-05 22:17 (UTC)

"Too much anime." Dick raised an eyebrow and grinned, still managing to be silent across the roof. Not that he realized it wasn't necessarily his own doing. He sat down beside Kon, frowning as he looked out over the neighborhood.

"Well. I guess the easiest way to go with this is to ask if you know about Superboy-Prime and Alexander Luthor, Jr." Because that was probably the easiest way to go with it. "If you do, that was a little over a year ago for me."

He's not even certain why he's taking this so well. Other than the fact that 'cross world shenanigans' wasn't exactly a new thing for them. Especially not with the fate of the world in the balance. "Which includes the dropping of Chemo on 'Haven."

"So you're from my past or a version of my past. We might be from the same world then. I'm from a few years later. Maybe four? I've lost track a little bit in this world because the months were different when we came in and we've been here for a while."

Yes, four years.

He smiled at him.

"Yeah, you heard that right. Four years. Although I didn't age for one of those since I was taking a really, really long nap. In the dirt. Lucky for me, I got to go through that big ol' revolving door some of find us our way through. The Legion found a very, very complicated mad science way to revive me. It took three Brainiac 5's, Kal's chrysalis thing that revived him, and some time travel, but here I am."

Swinging his feet slightly on the edge of the roof, clearly happy to be there.

Edited 2015-05-05 22:43 (UTC)

Dick paused, raising an eyebrow at that. It...really wasn't something completely out of the realms of possibility. Especially when adding in the Legion in the future.

Still took a moment to process, though.

"I...can honestly say that's probably some of the best news I've heard in a long while, Kon. And I'm pretty sure I know of a couple of people who must be thrilled."

Tim had taken Kon's death hard. Given everything else, though, that was hardly surprising.

"I don't care about the timeline and all the stupid rules, tell Tim I come back. Apparently he went completely off the rails when I was gone. Tried to reclone me and cut a deal with Ra's Al Ghul to get some juice from the Lazarus Pit to revive me, his dad, and Steph."

He didn't care if there were risks if it meant his best friend was in less pain.

"Tell Cass, too." A pause. "And Kal and Ma and -"

He closed his eyes tight at the thought of Pa. Who'd he'd never gotten to see again. "And we're already treading on 'do I tell you what happens to someone to save them or don't risk changing the timeline?' territory."

He reached up his hands and tugged at his hair.

"Just tell Cass and Tim. The others will understand."

Edited 2015-05-05 23:26 (UTC)

It wasn't like Dick wasn't known as the second (or third, now, thanks to Tim) greatest detective in his own world for nothing. It didn't take a lot to put together who Kon WASN'T mentioning along with what followed and his own lips thinned in consideration.

Sure, they were treading that line. But Dick could leave it for the moment. "That doesn't surprise me about Tim. A lot hit him at the same time and having that chance...I can see why he'd think about it."

He didn't know that he was the one to talk Tim down. Not yet, at least. It wouldn't stop him from doing it again. "I'll tell them. As long as you understand that I might not remember anything of this when I go home."

"I know. This stuff tends to get whacky."

Now what?

"Okay, so do you want to know about our situation here or do you wanna know about the crazy stuff going on back home that Cassie and I came straight from? Both are pretty big bombs to drop and I know the timeline stuff can't really be altered but it's still important to know as far as some stuff that affects me and Cass."

So Dick knew why sometimes he was going to act so goddamn weird and messed up and why they might talk about heroes Nightwing had never heard of.

Edited 2015-05-10 00:49 (UTC)

Dick considered that for a moment. Because both were important, but...

"Immediate concerns, first. What's the situation here? Like, why am I no longer in New York?" Not that New York was being all that great for him, but he needed his own patch. Especially after what happened to 'Haven. "We can get to the stuff where you and Cassie are from later. Believe me, I'm very interested. Just...triage, I suppose."

"Okay, hold your questions to the end, it's a hell of an infodump," Kon said, raising his eyebrows. "Basically, we're in another universe. In this universe, belief is really powerful, and there are a lot of mythical beings, like Santa and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, except they're all real people or mythical creatures that became powerful and immortal through the belief of kids. Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Jack Frost, the Sandman, and Anansi the Spider are a group called the Guardians, brought together by the Man in the Moon and they used the powers the belief gives them to protect kids and give them gifts and easter eggs and stuff."

That was pretty self-explanatory, right?

"One of their worst enemies was Pitch Black, the Bogeyman, who gets power from the fear of the kids of the world. He's a power-hungry moron so he opened this giant magical door that was holding out a great evil, trying to get an army of shadow creatures called fearlings that corrupt and transform children to make more of themselves. Only when he did it, he opened the door to this horrible dark god named Kuk, this being of total darkness. Now that the door is open a crack Kuk wants to get all the way into this universe and then use it as a stepping stone to destroy all of existence - every world, everywhere. He captured a whole bunch of the good myths, including all the Guardians other than Bunnymund and Jack Frost, and imprisoned them in this crystal prison in the pocket dimension outside his magical door, where he can feed off of their belief. His army of fearlings is terrorizing the world and they're trying to make more of themselves out of innocent kids."

Also pretty self-explanatory.

"Kuk's making reality in this world thin so belief and fear are even more powerful. That means things that kids fear become real, like horror movie monsters and stuff. It even sometimes bends reality so certain areas get all twisted up in fiction, like part of a neighborhood can suddenly twist up to be like a horror video game. The monsters and villains are either made up wholecloth or pulled from dimensions where their stories really happened. Kuk's recruited a lot of these monsters and villains to work for him, although some of them cause problems all on their own. The other side of the coin is that the kids' belief is also bringing in good characters from their fiction."

He raised his eyebrows again.

"Us. Either it's just coincidence that writers in this world thought up our stories or the inspiration for them somehow traveled through the multiverse but we're all fiction here and the belief pulls us from the universes where we're real. The belief of the kids also gives us powers or changes them so that we're like the myths here. And those powers are tied into the belief of the kids. The more believers you have the more powerful you are. My powers are a lot weaker here, for instance, but as I've picked up a few believers they've gotten a little stronger again."

That was all the basics, right?

Edited 2015-05-14 02:28 (UTC)

Because he was close (and had better than average eye sight), Kon would see the way that Dick's eyes got wide for a moment before blinking. Blinking a few times, really, because... "When you said infodump, you weren't kidding."

Which meant that he was processing. It was going to take a few minutes, which meant he turned and looked around, watching the area around them. "Okay. So, basically, evil from beyond this world is trying to break in and take out the entire multiverse and we've been called on, thanks to fictional bleed between the worlds, to help stop it." Dick paused. "Some of this is sounding entirely too much like what happened a year ago." Which meant that if a doppleganger Kon showed up, Dick was going to be very peeved.

"The thing that worries me is the villains. We don't know if they come in on their own or if Kuk has some sway and pulls them in specifically to oppose us."

Which mean there was a huge risk that their presence might lead to their bad guys being yanked him.

"Here's hoping it isn't the second one, 'cause if it is, we've got some pretty bad bad guys he might try to yank in."

Like Prime. Or the Joker.

"Oh, and another part of it is Kuk messing with reality means shards of this universe sometimes fall off and into nearby dimensions so sometimes we have to have to go to other dimensions to get them back. So that the borders of this dimension don't crumble and let Kuk in."

Kon called up his brand, a little shining sun-like sigil that hovered over his hand.

"We've all got these. Everyone gets 'em when they pop in now. If you concentrate you'll be able to call up yours, too. They let us open doors to the dimensions with the shards and kinda act like compasses to find 'em. They don't always work so great, though. The doors usually open fine but sometimes they have trouble homing in on where the shards are. The Man in the Moon is this really powerful spirit, though, and sometimes he can peek into the other dimensions and help us out. Sometimes those dimensions are also based on books and stuff here, too, so we can even read up on what the other world is like."

Edited 2015-05-16 21:49 (UTC)

Dick frowned, not liking that at all. Because, yeah. There were definitely some villains that he wouldn't want to see in this world. The Joker was...yeah. Very high on that list. Lex Luthor as well. Sinestro...

"Yeah, definitely hoping it's the second one," he agreed with a grimace.

He found himself rubbing his hand before shaking his head. "This is...this is a lot," he finally admitted. "And I'm feeling a little out of my depth. Though I think that'll probably go away once I've had a chance to really assimilate."

Wasn't entirely true. Dick usually felt out of his depth and outclassed among a lot of the heroes he worked with. But, like Bruce, he'd learned how to hide it and how to work around it. Everybody had a weakness, after all. Dick just didn't go so far as to keep files on all of them. He tended to sort it out as needed.

"Yeeeah," said Kon. "I'm used to this stuff, but, you know. That happens when you get strapped to a nuke to go on a jaunt through Hypertime."

That one had happened after an alternate version of himself had died right on the Justice League's meeting table.

When they'd strapped him to that nuke in that weird hypertime jacket, that'd been one of the few times Batman had ever said something nice to him, even if it was just "Robin speaks highly of you."

In any case, Kon was definitely one of the people in the superhero community that had spent a lot more time on alternate dimension and time travel adventures than most. In fact, he'd lost count of how many alternate selves and alternate future selves he'd met.

"Don't worry, I'll show you the ropes with this alternate dimension stuff," he said with mock arrogance, as if he was ever-so-much-more experienced. "And we've got good people here to work with. Aside from me and Cass - Wondy-Cass, not Bat-Cass - Jack and Bunny are pretty decent. And there's some other superheroes, ninjas, warriors - you know, the usual types we run around with."

Edited 2015-05-17 00:49 (UTC)

"I'm used to parallel worlds." He'd dealt with a few, after all. Not nearly as often as Kon, of course, but there'd been a few.

Dick considered that for a moment before he nodded. "Guess I'll be in good company, then." Though, yeah, part of him would really have liked Bat-Cass there. Or Tim.

He possibly wouldn't even mind Jason. Too much. Eventually.

"I think you'll get along with Invisible Kid. He's one of the two Legonnaires here - him and Brainiac 5. He's got just as much of an annoying habit of sneaking up on people as you Bats do."

And that was the breakdown of their situation there.

"That's most of what you need to know about what's going on in this world. We can get you briefed on anything else about what's going on when I get you back to the Pole."

"Invisible Kid, huh? Now that's a useful ability." Not that the Bats did too badly without any sort of powers. But invisibility was one that Dick actually wouldn't mind if he had it.

Dick nodded, pushing himself to his feet. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Wouldn't mind getting a better lay of the land before anything hits the fan."

Kon pulled a little snowglobe - yes, a snowglobe - out of one of the pouches of his belt, shook it, and said, "The Pole," into it, before tossing it into the air so that the portal appeared on the roof next to them.

He jerked a thumb towards it.

"Get ready for a whimsy overload. The place has more of it than Gotham's had during its whole existence."

Kon stepped through and once Dick stepped through he'd understand what he meant. Santa's workshop was a grand, beautiful place with wooden columns covered in beautiful carvings. Yetis bustled around, working hard as they built the toys, and elves ran around under foot, their belled hats jingling. Strange and beautiful toys in bright colors whizzed around through the air overhead flying through the levels through the workshop. A massive, brightly painted globe loomed over a hole in the floor (one that went down through all the other levels), bright little lights blinking and shining all over the Earth.

Kon flew up in the air and gestured to the globe.

"The lights are supposed to represent the kids. The ones that believe in the Guardians - and now in us. Kinda helps us know how much belief we're working with - and when they go out it sometimes gives us a heads up that there's a problem. If kids disappear or suddenly stop believing, there's usually something making them do it."

Yeah. Yeah, this was...not anything like what Dick was expecting. Sure, he spent most of his life in a cave growing up, with all sorts of cool things down there, but this was...

"Wow."

Dick reached up, pulling his domino mask off so that he could be certain nothing was playing tricks on his eyes using the lenses. Nope, everything was still the same. He managed to pull his attention back while Kon was explaining the globe, tilting his head to look over the lights. "I assume that you start looking for large areas, rather than just one or two lights going out." Even Tim would have had trouble just picking out one or two lights not being there that had been before.

"That's the best we can do," said Kon, floating back down towards Nightwing. "Which sucks but we're still working out how to go proactive with this thing. I mean, we do patrols, but there are so few of us..."

He didn't land, which wasn't surprising. Anyone that knew Kon well knew he spent most of his life in the air, often floating or flying when even other fliers might have walked. Probably had something to do with the fact that unlike a lot of heroes that'd gotten their powers later, he'd been "born" with the ability to fly, so that it was just as natural to him as walking.

And now that he was free of Project: Gladiator - where he'd been kept completely grounded and sometimes powerless in the red rooms when he wasn't on missions - he spent even more time in the air.

"I'll give you the tour. Over there's the lounge." He pointed at an area with lots of comfy couches and chairs. There were also big screen TVs and a multitude of game systems hooked up. "That's where a lot of us hang out. That way's the kitchen. Don't ask me where the yetis get the groceries, none of us know."

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