ya_assemble | "You have to start out learning to believe the little lies to believe the big ones."

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"You have to start out learning to believe the little lies to believe the big ones."

They had to try their best to do this thing incognito. After all, the plan was get in, get the shard, get out, and while several of them were total unknowns in this world, three of them ran the risk of being recognized by some of the resident superheroes and supervillains since they were from a similar dimension and had equivalents here.

Nightwing, not so much since he usually wore a mask, but Cassie and Kon didn't wear masks as part of their costumes, and Kon especially wore a very familiar face. He was younger than Kal but still approaching adulthood now and that meant his cloney resemblance to the current de facto ruler of the world was pretty uncanny now.

That was why Kon was in disguise. He was wearing his usual jeans, black long-sleeved shirt, black boots, and black gloves. But he had a dumpy, shapeless, brown jacket over top of it all, a blue baseball cap, and a pair of dorky, large-framed glasses. Fortunately, spring was only just starting in this world and hadn't quite chased away the chill of winter so they could all bundle up with clothes that made them look innocuous.

The magical door had appeared in an alley, against a nondescript wall. As soon as they were all through and had closed it behind then, Kon peered around a corner to see if he could recognize where they were by the city's night-time skyline.

"Looks like Gotham." A pause. "It's hardly recognizable, though. I've never seen Gotham this clean."

He squinted instinctually, trying to peer around some more with his X-ray vision and found it working in full when he usually struggled with it back in the Guardians' universe. He held up his hand and poured on the teke, creating a field around it.

"My powers seem to be stronger here for some reason. The ones that are limited in the Guardians' universe are back, like my teke. You guys feeling the same? Most of us are superheroes or equivalents in our worlds. Being in a superhero universe might be amping up our powers or something. Maybe making the belief stronger."

It all ran on narratives, right? Stories? This was a story superheroes were supposed to be in.

Threaded | Flat

It was a good thing they had those powers. There was something very...dystopian about the place. Creepy pro-Superman and pro-stormtrooper propaganda posters were plastered all over.

Now that it was after dark the streets were empty because of the curfew, making it even creepier.

Silence was perhaps better than the usual Gotham night-sounds of gunfire and yelling but it was still just a little too quiet, devoid of the sounds of cars or night life or people commuting to their overnight shift jobs - the normal sounds of any large city at night.

Edited 2015-05-13 02:40 (UTC)

They were clearly underground somewhere, in a hideout that looked almost like a concrete bunker. Computer screens lined the walls and there were lab tables with very complex equipment. One table had a clear container sectioned off with little, glowing green pills inside each pocket.

Renee Montoya, Catwoman, Batwoman, and Zatanna all sat down or leaned against the nearby meeting table and apparently decided to hang back and let their fearless leader talk to the people they'd brought into the hideout. The only one that stepped forward to take part in the conversation was Batwoman, who was currently hosting the spirit of Deadman, aka this world's Dick Grayson. He was giving Batman the good ol' 'Now look what you've done, how exactly did that work out for you?' raised eyebrow.

Batman shot a steely glare at Superboy, clearly unnerved by the idea of having him in his hideout without being...contained, but ultimately turned to face them all, focusing in particular on their Nightwing.

"I know who you are, why you're here, and what you're after. A man named Benedict got in contact with us. He told us about you and the world you all came from and directed us towards the artifact that fell from that universe - something he obviously couldn't touch himself. He thought he'd fooled us into trusting him but his hostile intentions towards you were more transparent than he thought. We found the shard and we hid it for safe-keeping."

A pause.

"He made it clear that if you came here, you'd already know who we are and what's been happening in this world. If that's the case, you know we need your help."

Edited 2015-06-08 18:10 (UTC)

They had all been given seats at large meeting table. And tea and coffee, thanks to Alfred, who seemed to be trying to offer all the hospitality that Batman was lacking.

"To start with, we're going to brief you on what we're up against the resources they've gathered at our disposal, and then we'll explain what we have to work with. The very very little we have to work with." She said, "Then when Bruce is back, we'll decide our plan of attack."

Batman had given them an address in El Paso, Texas to visit, advising them to show up plainclothes and to make sure they weren't seen in costume anywhere in the area.

He told Nightwing to show Jaime and his family his Titans communicator to prove he was who he said he was, as Jaime had been an auxiliary member of the team.

That was about it.

What wasn't said spoke volumes. Batman clearly seemed troubled when telling them to go ask for his help - and maybe even a little guilty.

So it was with barely information at all that Danny and Nightwing approached a little house in an El Paso neighborhood with a tidy little lawn, and a girl in pigtails playing with barbies out in the front yard. She started to stare at them suspiciously as they made their approach.

Edited 2015-06-29 23:45 (UTC)

When Zatanna teleported them to Tim Hunter's pocket dimension, the teleportation got a little sluggish towards the end, as if the magic was taking a peek at who she was bringing along with her. Still, it let them through, apparently deciding that if they were guests of Zatanna, they were okay to let in.

It was very mundane, the little pocket dimension they were in, but perhaps that was to be expected given how much of Tim Hunter's life had been ruined by the extraordinary. It was just a run down part of London, outside some housing estates. Faceless people milled through the streets. They were, quite literally, faceless, just blurred figures meant to fill out the serene little picture of mundanity, to maintain the illusion that it was real.

Tim, a bespectacled boy of seventeen, was skateboarding in a skate park a short distance away. Even though he was doing an activity that was, ostensibly, meant to be fun, his expression was blank and distant, as if he wasn't entirely in the present.

"Let me talk to him first, so he doesn't just kick us all out before you even have a chance to speak to him."

With that, Zatanna went off to signal him down and have a little chat. Tim stopped skateboarding to talk to her, his gaze brightening slightly when he saw she was there, but the moment she made the fact she'd brought visitors clear was very obvious.

...because the metal railings he was standing near suddenly reared up in the air like snakes, animated by his anger. She held out her hands in a placating way and seemed to calm him down, gesturing off at Peter and Haruto a few times before waving them over. The railings went back to being railings again.

While he waited, Tim slumped down to sit at the edge of a ramp.

Edited 2015-06-30 00:07 (UTC)

They were quite some distance away, hiding behind a grain silo as they scoped out the Kent farm. Kon was checking it out, his eyes glowing a faint blue as he used his X-ray vision.

"I'm not seeing any security. No cameras, no traps, no alarms, nothing." And he'd been very well trained for that now. Sneaking, breaking into places he shouldn't, disabling security systems. "That's...bad."

He shook his head, X-ray vision turning off. "That doesn't mean they're not protected, that means he's so secure on his rep scaring anyone off he doesn't think they need anything else. All they need to do is yell." He tapped his ears. "It's sort of an unconscious thing. We're always half-listening for certain voices. That's all the security they need. Just a yell and he'll show up and tear whoever's threatening them apart."

That meant all it would take is a yell to bring him down on their heads.

"We have to play this carefully, keep them from getting spooked. He's not going to be listening in on normal conversation, it's too hard when you're far away, but if they raise their voices at all..."

They had to keep them calm through all of this.

Threaded | Flat

Gotham City

In Batman's Bunker - npc tag

The Big Kids' Table - Plotting Out a Plan of Attack

The Reyes House, El Paso, Texas - Nightwing and Danny