2014-01-07 - Your Birthdays Suck

Damian got the text in the middle of his birthday breakfast. It was short, to the point, and came under the heading Mommy, which Damian had most definitely /not/ put in his phone. The message was just an address and a time, typical mother.

He told Carrie of course, even if he was worried what Mother might do to her, and then the day was spent in preparation. He swallowed a tracker, he put a message in the Bat Computer to let the rest of the Bat Family know the frequency in 24hrs unless he input the command to stop it, he sharpened his sword and made sure his utility belt was loaded with all the cheating little weapons he had come up with in the weeks leading up to this. Then, dressed in his Batwing costume he got on his bike and headed out into Gotham's bitter cold along with Carrie.

The address was perhaps inevitably in the Forbidden Zone, that ruined stretch of Gotham nobody had bothered to fix after the quake. It had been where Vandal Savage had taken Damian when he was captured, and it was no surprise his mother had made similar use of it. Stopping his bike just a few blocks into the zone, he stops and waits for Carrie to join them. They were early, as Damian had no intention of striding into the spot Mother had chosen for the fight without some reconnaissance first, but that would take some planning. So he waits for Carrie, to do just that, adjusting how his sword hangs, nervously, as he does.

Carrie had taken to the news calmly and stoically as she too prepared for the day. While she had no swords to sharpen she tended to her own weapons; sharpening the batarangs and testing their balance, restringing her bow to ensure there were no weak spots on the string, and picking out the most useful arrows for the occasion. When that was done she hid two more trackers on Damian knowing that anyone who knew Batman would expect at least two--One easily found to throw off more searching, and a second better hidden meant to be the 'real' tracker. Nevermind that Damian had swallowed one as well. These she doesn't tell him about however.

With her own costume donned Red Robin, having borrowed the use of the absent Tim Drake's motorcycle, soon coasts in to stop next to Damian regarding the Forbidden Zone with a calm glance in spite of the situation. "It's you mother. Where would she be hiding?"

Damian looks around the ruined structures. "She'll be near the meeting place," he says nodding further into the zone where the text told him to present himself. "Though what I really want to see is what preparations she made. That'll tell us if she really means to keep her promise and isn't going to drag me off to Madripoor," he studies the terrain fingers drumming on the handle bars before he says. "Let's get closer, park the bikes, then go to the roof tops for a look at the spot my Mother chose."

o/`All around the mulberry bush The monkey chased the weasel The monkey stopped to pull up his socks POP! goes the weasel.o/`

A small, mechanical weasel-toy rolls out from an alleyway as it plays that song, tinkling with mechanical music, in front of their bikes right before they start back up. When the song reaches POP!, however, a thick cloud of gas that fills the street and surrounds them gushes out.

Carrie nods quietly listening to the suggestion while her gaze scans the rooftops as well as down below. "There's multiple levels in there since the quake..." she begins to explain intending to warn him to be cautious of hidden areas. But then the music starts. Her head jerks side to side scanning for the source of the music with a sudden tension knowing exactly what might cause such a sound even if not the where. Then the mechanical weasel emerges. "Peel!" The warning comes too late as she jerks the handlebars of her bike around intending to rush off before it might explode, or... Or gas. Coughing loudly her hand claps up over her mouth while the other dips down to grasp for the small gas-filter she kept on her belt. It's too late though--she got a lungfull, and her vision starts to go blurry as her eyes droop. "Trap..."

Damian is already starting the bike when the weasel rounds the corner. He stares at it from behind his mask his hand cranking the throttle of his bike as he wheelies it to bring the tire down on the...gas?

Damian chokes as he struggles to control his bike, it's no good. The bike slips out from under him and he lands hard on his back on the street. He coughs and struggles for his filter even as he feels his fingers going numb and his eyes closing despite his own best efforts. "Really Mother..." he murmurs before he goes out completely.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The ground underneath Damian's face is softer than concrete. Slicker.

Wooden.

The younger Wayne is unbound, for now, but a ring of those cymbal-clapping monkeys--unmoving for now-- surround him where he has been dumped uncermoniously on the floor on the far end of an old... skating rink?

Carrie is bound in rope and chain, hanging upside down from the center of the rink, above the platform where the dj must have once been set up. The DJ booth had been cleared out, and replaced with a ticking, clattering mess of small dolls, cars, and action figures, all pacing around in a series of concentric circles.

Tick? Tick? Carrie didn't use an old fashioned alarm clock. The annoying, rhythmic sound causes her expression to contort even as she becomes slowly aware of the headache that was building in her from hanging upside down. It was an unpleasant experience having all of your blood rush to your head while suspended by your legs stretching painfully against the weight of your whole body. Finally her jaw tries to move--and her eyes snap open as she bites down on the ballgag in aggitation. This was not good. Neither were the toys there below her. Keeping her eyes narrowed pretending to be shut she looks around as best she can while gently shifting her hands to test the bonds. There was always a way to get out--but how? Spotting Damian completely untouched has her eyes open wider with confusion. Well this was ONE way to keep her from interfering.

Damian groans softly, keeping his body still as he susses out his surroundings. The monkeys, those confuse him and begins to wonder if he hadn't just blundered into way of one of Gotham's random crazies and got snatched by them. /That/ would be unforgivably sloppy on his part. He casts a look upwards and sees Carrie bound and gagged above the platform. Definitely not Mother's style. "Damn it," he growls as he sits up, hood falling back. "Red I'll cut you down in a second I just need to rid Batman of one of his rogues."

He reaches back for his sword and finds himself bathed in a red light from a dozen glowing monkey eyes. That's when he hears the tick, tick, tick and his eyes go wide. He stands, his hand swings down to grab the grapple gun and he fires it quick into the ceiling and triggers the spool. It yanks him out of the ring of monkey death and up into the rafters where he crouches trying to get the lay of the land before his next move.

BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM.

The monkeys explode in a chain reaction, leaving a crater in the floor of the rink.

"Oh ho ho..." a man's voice chuckles from behind the dj platform. "I should have taken away /your/ toys, I see."

A second voice echoes from the front of the rink, near the exit. "The boy is /mine/," a tall man with long blonde hair and a sardonic look scowls. "You can keep the girl, I've no use for her." A pair of floating, spherical mechanical devices flank him, and a with a whirring sound, they each open up a turrent.

He looks up towards where Damian had squirreled himself. "Come on down, boy. I have a present for you..." he smirks.

Red Robin shakes her head quickly when Damian starts off taking things as a joke. These toys were more than just mere trinkets! The struggling against her bonds grows fiercer as she works trying to get her fingers work agains the bondings. Where... there was always something she could loosen. Something she could slip out of. Lifting her head she glances up along her body ignoring when the other individual comes out declaring Damian his. Time to focus.

Damian is out numbered, but at least he knows they can't see him right now. So for now he has that advantage and he is determined not to squander it. He moves like a shadow along the rafters of the rink. The man by the DJ booth was Toymaker, he'd looked him up on the Bat-Foes.com after Carrie spoke of killing him in a different reality. Less of a threat than the blonde man with the death turrets, whose name Damian didn't know.

Damian moves swiftly, it was simple, he just had to take out the man and his turrets, deal with the Toymaker, save Carrie and if that wasn't mother's challenge, deal with that too. Easy.

Except he wasn't that well hidden the turrets turn and open up on him mid-leap. He grunts as one of their shots rips through his armour and puts a searing hole in his side, but he manages to land on the opposite rafter and hang on long enough to grab his grapple gun and fire it into the roof. He kicks free and swings, grimacing as the turrets open up again. He lets go mid-swing and comes down hard on the floor of the rink, grunting as it jars his wound. He grabs a couple of smoke charges from his belt and hurls them towards the blonde and his murder-spheres buying himself a bit of time and some cover.

Or well, so he hopes.

While Damian fights, Carrie dangles. Several slow deep breaths are taken as she starts to move. It wasn't just a basic struggling at this point. Slowly she forces herself to swing back and forth. It was difficult without her limbs free and it's hard to tell if the rocking motion may have just started due to the current issues in the rafters.

The smoke grenades go off, bathing the entire rink with a thick fog. The turrents flash in the fog, chewing up the wooden floor as they shoot at Damian. The floating turrents move into the rink proper.

The skittering sound of other mechanical... things... legs, crawling... can be heard in the smoke.

The blonde man calls in, "Well, I see you have already decided to make this game sporting! If you want, then we can play /right here/."

Damian is crouched in the middle of the smoke, waiting and bleeding. When the blonde man speaks, he answers "tt. There's no /want/ to it," he says hoping whatever the skittering things are home in on the noise. He grabs the breaching charge off of his belt, twists the timer to five seconds then fires the grapple again and goes skyward hoping to lure as many of whatever the hell those were to a fiery end.

Tick tick BOOM. One of the mechanical spiders is blown to bits by Damian's ruse.

Damian isn't completely lucky though, because one of the spiders is up in the rafters, and it leaps from one rafter to where Damian is sitting, wrapping it's razor-sharp legs around him and slashing at him, chittering mechanically.

Damian shouts in pain and surprise as the spider's razor sharp legs slice into his right arm and left side all at once. It's like being squeezed by a cheese slicer. Blood stains the blade like legs, and it's all Damian can do to grip the rafter he's holding onto.

His vision darkens and his fingers begin to slip off the wet wood. "Aaaaaah!" he half-screams as he twists a leg up to hook his heel in place to keep from falling. The movement digs the legs deeper into his flesh and he struggles for a grip with his free hand. The other one, the one pinned to his side with the razor legs, fumbles for the EMP charge on his belt. After his blood slicked gloves slip a couple of times he finds the trigger and depresses it bracing for the sudden shock to rip through his body, leg and fingers gripping the rafters.

The scream from Damian earns a redoubling of effort from Carrie. These were not things he was used to fighting. Tucking her torso into the motion she swings more, and more, getting a bit higher each time as she works to try and swing herself just high enough to get to the rafters herself. All she needed was to take a bit of weight off her bindings from her entire weight resting in them and she could slip free.

"Oh dear, oh dear," the Toymaker frets. "This is no good, no good at all." He does not seem to like the fog, the bullets flying. This is not what he was planning at all. He begins making his way towards the exit in the back.

The toys under Carries position begin whirring.

The EMP goes off, and the spider lets out a mewling creak as it drops, dead, to the ground. The EMP rips through Damian as well.

The EMP blast rips through Damian like it rips through the spider but Damian's costume offers some protection. The spiders slips off of him to crash to the ground, leaving bloody rents in his costume and his flesh and Damian finds himself hanging by his fingertips above the yawning abyss that separates him from the floor. Everything aches, and his eyes are growing dark, strains and tries to climb, the muscles in his arm burning with the effort, he doesn't have the strength to pull himself up. Slowly, his grip slips closer to the edge.

Crack. Shuffle. PattapattapattapattaWHAM!

"Oof!" the blonde man says, and the sound of his body thudding to the ground is heard. And as that happend, Damian's grip is lost.

Pattapattapattathump. A figure appears in the smoke underneath Damian's falling body, launching through the smoke and catching him. "Little Wing--" her voice is cold, but tinged with--- frustration? Worry? ...relief? No. Not her. "Stay conscious," she orders. "You are not weak."

Damian's world is pain right now but he looks up at her with an expression that's writ with pain and confusion. "I'm trying," he says his voice tight with the pain and effort. "Our duel will need to wait however," he quips, even as his eyes slip closed against her orders. Any child that has swung in the park knows that there is this perfect spot one can reach when swinging just fast enough, just high enough, where they rise into the air and--just for a moment--hang there. Momentum fights gravity in equal measure creating that little few precious seconds of gravity defying, stomach floating, freedom. It's all Carrie needs to take the weight off the chains wrapped around her. An arm slips free and she stretches upward to grab at the chain holding her feet up to lift herself even as it starts to jerk from the sudden change in momentum. It's the ropes that were still the issue.

Her other hand now free she fumbles searching for a batarang in her boot, grasping it to slice through the ropes. "Wing!" She calls out with worried concern as she rushes to free herself. With a clatter of chain she starts to fall back down to the ground, gravity winning out. Holding tight to the chain it follows through sending her swinging away from the epicenter of the toys that sudden explode as their mechanisms wind down. The shockwave of the blast knocks Carrie out of the air ripping the chain from her grasp as she's flung into the wall with a heavy, unpleasant impact that bruises and sends the air from her lungs. Hurt, ears ringing from the blast, and momentarily unable to breath she crumples to the floor. With a thready gasp of air her eyes roll back into her head and eyes flutter shut as she loses the battle with conciousness again.

Tonight was not one of her best nights.

The smell of sandalwood fills Carrie's bedroom. Red Robin and Batwing lay, side-by-side in Carrie's bed.

Fresh, clean bandages cover Damian's wounds, and he sleeps, a sheet tucked lightly around him, wearing only a pair of light sweatpants, ones he would recognize as the same types he wore during training under his mother and grandfather. The girl is dressed similarly, only with the additional of a tanktop, and her wounds, too, have been bandaged, though not quite as carefully. A separate blanket has been casually draped over her. Their uniforms are folded neatly on a nearby chair.

How they had been brought there is a mystery, perhaps.

The bed was soft, and warm. So much nicer than the wall she'd crashed into earning herself bruised ribs. A deep breath is drawn reminding her of the ache of her ribs as she wakes. Blinking her eyes open she peers up at the ceiling smelling the scent of sandalwood. It's this more than waking in her own bed that has her aware of her surroundings. Levering up on an elbow she winces without a sound looking around quickly with a hand stretching out to rest on Damian's arm just to be sure he really was there, and alright.

It's awhile longer before Damian's eyes flutter open. He groans and tries to turn only to intake a sharp breath very much like a 'tt' at his own foolishness. "Carrie?" he asks quietly, reaching for the hand on his arm as he lays back.

Carrie reaches out to take hold of Damian's hand giving it a quiet squeeze in assurance as she lays down again. For a moment she remains quiet just staring at the ceiling. "Your birthdays officially suck, Damian."