healthy passtimes

[battorch]

Against a backdrop of a simulated, gloomy Gotham City (in the dead of a dark night, naturally), Tim stalked some thugs quietly, whom he was sure part of something larger, a puzzle he could put together from the scenario playing in his mind.

Maybe it wasn't the healthiest way to vent after everything that had happened-- and, frankly, Tim was aware of that fact-- and that he would have to be careful not to cross lines, but it was what worked for him, and that was what mattered.

It honestly helped him think, to work these things through, to fight against a more tangible problem-- it got his blood pumping, oxygen flowing, and gave him some extra layers of thought and distraction to promote more complex thinking. To sort out everything in his mind, in the simulation and, more importantly, on the ship.

Plus, he was beyond frustrated-- to have lost so much time that he could have used to work, to do something productive. To help his friends and family on the ship. Because he had missed some pretty huge events, and even though they hadn't been privy to most of what was going on, the communications posts and what information they'd found out? Was more than enough to know how bad the situation had been. And his best friend had been hurt badly. Everyone had been hurt, but Conner... He regretted not being there to help, to maybe have been able to try to keep the situation from boiling over. But he couldn't have been. Because he'd been out of commission.

Red Robin's grip tightened on his staff weapon at the thought, and he cast out a line to swing himself down, feet first, to the previously unsuspecting lowlifes.

Besides thinking, it wouldn't hurt to work out some anger before it got to be too much.

Comments

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi took in the sights of the city, moving quietly along the dark streets until he came upon Red Robin and the thugs. He didn't interrupt Tim, choosing to watch as he dispatched his enemies instead.

Was this what heroes did? Curious.

[girl-of-steel.livejournal.com]

Tim wasn't someone who Kara had interacted with all that much on the meatship. When she wasn't trapped in GLaDOS, or spending time with Julian, she tended to spend a lot of her time on her own.

She stumbled into this particular Sensorium, wondering if it was empty, only to find herself in the middle of Gotham City.

Please tell me Poison Ivy's not going to jump out of somewhere and try to kiss me, she thought to herself. Oh, right. Not really Gotham.

She flew up into the dark sky and watched a figure - Tim, she realized - taking out some bad guys in what she assumed would be called a furious, righteous fashion.

Crossing her arms, her bright red cape trailing behind her, Kara approached Tim, watching his fighting style, but not daring to interrupt him. From the way his mouth was set, it seemed as though he was working through some stuff, and Kara knew how important that was.

Instead, she did the Bat-like thing and clung to the shadows and watched him fight, learning what she could from him.

[battorch]

Tim was quite focused on the action of taking them out, save for his own busy mind. He still had to be careful, after all-- but that also meant that he wasn't going to let someone sneak up on him. He realised readily that someone had approached, but he didn't pay much mind at first. They seemed to be staying back, and there wasn't an immediate risk, either.

With one more solid hit, Tim let the last of the small group fall to the ground. There would certainly be more, but he could allow for a brief pause at least-- while he tied up the thugs, following procedure still.

"Zouichi," he said, looking up at the other man with a nod. He left it at that though.

((ooc: I hope this is okay oops. Let me know if I need to edit or anything!))

[battorch]

Tim was easily to blame himself for not having spent time with Kara, of course-- he wasn't particularly prone to socialising, himself.

He didn't notice her right away, focused on the fight, and maybe fighting a little too furiously. He knew he shouldn't let anger cloud his fighting, but there was a lot on his mind at the time.

He'll pick up on her presence soon enough-- but to begin, he's fighting a little too hard, and she's just a bit too far off.

((ooc: I am sorry if this is bad oops. Let me know if I need to edit anything.))

[girl-of-steel.livejournal.com]

Not that Kara would have blamed him all that much for not socializing with her. She was certain that word had spread of Kara's earlier interactions with some of the humans, and how she'd been a bit snobby towards them.

Then, there had been the mess with Nura, at which point Kara had seriously started to doubt her sanity.

But there was time to fix all that now, and that was part of the reason why Kara was glad she'd come across Tim. There was also the fact that Tim probably knew Kon better than anyone, and she felt terrible about what had happened to her cousin.

Kara floated out of the shadows, using her telescopic vision to get a better look on the fight, but not coming close enough to distract Tim. He'd see her when he was ready.

((OOC: Awww, honey. We're good. :D))

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Didn't Tim have, like... handcuffs or something? Then again, it looked like he'd have to carry around an awful lot of handcuffs in order to deal with all the people he ran around beating up.

"Hello. Am I interrupting anything?" Zouichi figured that this was either training or Tim was working something out. Maybe both, especially after what had happened to the crew on the last mission.

He looked curiously at the bound thugs. "Is this what most of your work consists of?"

[Haha, it's fine :) ]

[battorch]

Tim made a slight noise of acknowledgement, before he shook his head. "Not really," he said shortly, and it was more or less true. Yes, someone in here with him could easily be a distraction, but he could adapt readily enough, if nothing else.

"Depends on the night," he grimaced, as he finished the work, standing up more completely, and hitting a button on his belt. "There's slower nights, with petty crime like these guys, and then there are international-league-of-assassins nights." Only a partial joke there, unfortunately. "Fortunately most nights are a bit slower."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi was still looking around at their surroundings. For him, these sorts of surroundings -- the architecture, the cars, the streets -- were at least a thousand years old.

"So you're similar to a police officer, then. You apprehend criminals and do investigative work." They'd gone over this a bit before, but it was much easier to understand when he could actually see Tim in his... um. Natural habitat.

"What do you do with the leagues of assassins? Hand them over to the police?"

[battorch]

Tim was becoming aware of someone watching him-- it was the kind of thing he was trained to do, after all-- but he finished with the fight first. It was something easy enough and quick enough to do after all-- it was basically child's play, dispatching these kinds of crooks, since he'd been dealing with their sort since he was a kid.

As he took out the last of them, he looked up and around him, briefly, before he turned his eyes actually up. The grim set of his face threatened to soften a little bit, but he turned back to his work, starting to tie the thugs.

"You want to come down?"

[battorch]

"More or less," Tim confirmed, looking over at him, and noting his straying gaze at the city. It wasn't a great impression to give of his home-- but frankly, that was what it was. It just looked nicer in the daytime, in the nicer parts of town. But there wasn't much productive to be had there. "We tend to work with them. We can take a different angle."

Of course, the assassins question was a bit more complex. "Stop them whenever and wherever we can, try to damage their organisations if possible." He shook his head, "Unfortunately they can come down pretty hard."

He paused, considering for a moment, before he pulled out his grapnel gun, and looked at Zouichi. "Do you have transportation?" he asked, though it was easy enough to come by in the Sensoriums. Maybe he could get a look at a crewmate in action-- and continue to work through his own stuff.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, Tim -- Zouichi's home was basically the same thing. It was just miles and miles of black buildings and concrete piled up on top of each other. Rather cyberpunk, actually. Maybe the occasional giant gothic castle that made no sense.

"So they're well-engrained. Or have wide support networks."

Zouichi glanced at the gun. "I do have something a little like that, if that's what you're asking. Usually I get around on the XLA if it's long-distance, though."

[battorch]

"Both, generally," Tim said gravely. At least talking about 'work' was easier. "We're talking organisations that go back thousands of years, in some cases."

He nodded to Zouichi, and said, "Whatever works for you. I prefer to go above the city, on nights like this." His bike was good to use, too-- but there was something he was always fond of, when it came to swinging above the city.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Thousands of years? Rough.

Zouichi nodded in turn, firing a single cable dart from the small device at his wrist. It arced expertly upward, coiling around the overhang of one of the nearby buildings and allowing him to propel himself upward.

He landed lightly at the top of the building.

[battorch]

Good. And at least he seems to know what he's doing, too. Tim is right behind him with the grapnel, landing perfectly silently on the roof beside Zouichi, looking out over the city lights for a moment.

He doesn't know the full extent of Zouichi's capabilities just yet, so he's not going to try and play chess master right now. No need for big players. He points to a confrontation out on the streets, two small gangs by the looks of it, though he can't make out colours from there. "There," he said, swinging out once more, and extending the cape to catch some of the fall.

[masterofnun.livejournal.com]

Punchy walks into the Sensoriums and notices immediately that this is not your average neighborhood. Oh no. This is thug territory. And Punchy's wannabe gangsta little heart starts pounding with excitement as he realizes this.

Also, against all the dankness, Punchy sort of stands out like a traffic cone.

"Yo, somebody up there set this crib up?" he yells at one of the rooftops. That's where superheroes hide, right? Surely some masked super's gotta be running this town.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi ran after Tim, leaping rather than grappling from building to building and clearing even the larger gaps with ease. They were pretty densely packed anyway, at least as far as he was concerned. When he came to the end of the buildings and almost upon the two gangs, he leapt straight down off a convenient roof, falling several stories to land quietly amongst the shadows of a nearby alleyway.

Most of the heroes he'd met so far had displayed a strong aversion to killing their opponents, and the situation here didn't seem too dire. So he merely began working his way through one end of the combatants, quickly and methodically disabling each he came across.

Zouichi had taken out several by the time the gang members noticed there was anyone else getting involved, but when someone pulled a gun on him, he brought his hand down on the man's arm with a precise movement; it broke with an audible snap, and the gang member went down, howling in pain. An instant later, Zouichi put him out with a single blow to the back of the head, neatly breaking another man's shin as he tried to escape.

[girl-of-steel.livejournal.com]

"I thought you'd never ask," Kara grinned as she made her way down towards Tim. As she did so, her plantsuit faded away and was replaced by her Supergirl uniform. Sure, she wasn't actually wearing it, but looking down and seeing it projected onto her, well, it felt great.

She landed a few feet behind Tim and crossed her arms, watching him finish up.

"How are you?" she asked after a long moment.

[battorch]

Tim all but stops when he hears a voice calling up to him, just before he swings down. His eyes move below, locking onto the young man in a brightly coloured costume, shouting. And probably drawing attention to himself, courtesy of the nearby lowlifes. Tim had a feeling this wasn't going to be good.

He dropped below angling himself instead to end up between where the crooks and this new arrival was. "Yes," he says, voice low. "Now stay quiet for a minute." They'd already attracted some attention, which he'd rather not have done, but there was nothing he could do about it then. Of course, he also wasn't sure what to take of this guy's choice in wardrobe, either.

[battorch]

Tim could leap some of the buildings, when it was closer, but he always had his grapnel ready for backup, and used it whenever necessary. Once he was closer, he swung completely down, a bit further from Zouichi, landing in the other side of the group, quickly and silently taking down the closest ones with his staff weapon. He tried to focus on his own fight for the most part, not let himself get distracted (and therefore sloppy), but he also watched to see how Zouichi fought, dividing his attention enough to focus on both at least a bit.

And it was hard not to when he heard the snaps and howls, though he kept himself much more focused than the thugs he was fighting did. He understood the excessive violence-- and indeed was straying too close to it himself, and had been there in the past-- and appreciated the lack of kills. But he still had to respect that these were lives, virtual or not. Because the line was still there, in reality. So instead he used the distraction of the pained howls to his advantage, swinging out from his staff to land a solid kick to one, knocking him to the ground with enough force to keep him down, his weapon hitting another with a similar force.

They were easy enough to take out on his own, something he'd been doing for years now, but there was something good about fighting with someone again.

[battorch]

"Long time no see," Tim actually managed the smallest smile at her reply as she came closer to land. He understood the uniform, too-- while he had something close enough to his normal outfit on board, between the plantsuit and what accessories Stacy had provided him with, but there was still something better about wearing the familiar red instead. Plus, it made the name make more sense.

He was quiet while he finished tying the crooks, up until she asked that. That was not really a question he'd been looking forward to answering, to say the least. He didn't answer right away, before he responded with a typically flat answer, "Hnn. I'm fine." Physically, he had nothing to complain about. He was mostly just frustrated anyway.

[girl-of-steel.livejournal.com]

"GLaDOS seems to be a big fan of mine," Kara replied lightly. "I feel as though I've spent more time in there than I have out here." She reached up and ran a hand through her unnaturally (for Earth, anyway) golden hair and added, "Are you sure? Because you seem as though there's something on your mind." She walked around the crooks so that she was standing on their other side, and so that she was facing Tim. "I hate presuming things, but...is it Kon? Because I'm in that sort of headspace as well."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi, for his part, seemed to be approaching this situation with a dispassionate air. He knew the exact amount of force to apply to the human body to achieve the effects he wanted, true, and he refrained from using lethal force. But it would be obvious to anyone who knew how to fight seriously that he was prioritizing efficiency and removing the threat posed by each thug than in making sure the criminals were disabled without undue force.

Twisting a man's arm might make them temporarily unable to achieve steady aim; breaking it would ensure that the man was removed from the fight entirely.

When he was done with the last of the gang members on his side, he looked toward Tim to gauge whether he should help or not.

[battorch]

Tim managed a quiet chuckle at that. "Just got out of there myself," he explained, with a grimace. "So I can sympathize, though I've not been that popular with her. Lucky you." He shook his head a bit, then looked at her straight on now that she was facing him, keeping his poker face up. But of course she was right. At least for part of it. He softened a bit, opening up slightly to his friend. "Yeah," he said, "I can't say I'm happy to have been grabbed by GLaDOS just in time to not be there for him. Or anyone else, for that matter."

[battorch]

Red Robin could read the way Zouichi was fighting, as someone who was trained to notice those things, and to know how to fight like that himself, though it was generally frowned upon. Tim himself fought with a combination-- he was more willing to use a higher level of force than some he knew, but he still had a certain care for the welfare of his targets. Plus, they were more useful when not in shock.

Still, it wasn't as if he never did more damage than necessary when he fought. At that time, he was holding himself back from that invisible line.

Just after Zouichi finished, Tim turned his full attention back to his remaining combatant. He held his stance for only a moment before he dove into the fray, using his staff to disarm him of his knife, before bringing his fist to connect solidly with his jaw. The man shouted and stumbled back, landing ungracefully. He started to get up before he looked around and, seeming to have second thoughts as he saw he was the last standing, turned to bolt in the other direction, cradling his hurt arm to his chest.

"You're effective," was all Tim said to Zouichi, though he didn't look at him.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi watched the last man run away, holding one wrist behind his back. If Tim wasn't going to pursue him, he wouldn't, either. "Thank you. You are, also, though it appears you were holding back somewhat."