Summertime [Open]

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi sat by a the mirrored black water of a small pond. Nearby, a wisteria plant was coming into bloom, dangling its delicate, curved violet flowers toward the earth.

As promised, a tray of chilled watermelon slices was set to the side, near the wooden steps leading down to the garden and free for any passersby to take. For his part, however, Zouichi occupied himself with feeding a small group of googly-eyed baby goldfish, who darted back and forth through the water to gobble up stray flakes of fish food.

It was nice to take a break from exploding ghost wolves lions once in a while.

Comments

[battorch]

Right, Zouichi didn't actually know about the 'Bat' thing. He wanted to let it drop, but he offers a quick, "My boss is Batman. Not the one on the ship." The last part being an afterthought. He shifted slightly, then said, "Auto Tune was kind of already a thing anyway."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"Bat... man?" Zouichi gave Tim a puzzled look. What was up with all these animals? "Sounds more like a tabloid story than a hero. In any case, I thought it was an endorsement sort of situation. Bat-man themed Auto Tune."

[battorch]

"That-- was kind of the point, anyway. Rumour, speculation. People not believing the stories." Intimidation and fear mongering. He cleared his throat quietly. "So public endorsement wasn't really possible, for a long time."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"You wanted people to doubt your existence? Sounds like an awful lot of work." And after all, how would someone know if they were dealing with the real Bat-man and not someone dressed up to look like him? Better to hunt down your enemies in the open... or keep them unaware of your existence entirely, if you wanted to play it that way.

"So you became more public over time?"

[battorch]

"Could be," Tim replied, a bit dismissively. "It was more useful than you might think." But he didn't feel much like getting into details there.

His normally fairly deadpan face faltered a little again, and he frowned considerably. "Right. There were some-- issues, and that ended up with evidence on film. Some still believed it a hoax, but it got a lot harder to deny after that."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"You were caught on camera? Unfortunate, though I'm surprised you went along as long as you did without someone aiming a mobile recording device at you." Cities, especially, tended to be rife with surveillance devices. Hence the advantage of having Fuyu around.

[battorch]

"Scrambled feeds," Tim commented. "And what did leak out was usually accused of fraud." So they had their ways of keeping a general lid on it. "This was just a bit bigger than that." News crews and all.

But Tim stretched out, and quickly said, "I should probably get back to work."

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Oh? Was this a sensitive topic? Tim seemed to have an awful lot of them... but poking some more at this particular one could wait.

Zouichi nodded, but with the full intention of asking about the leak again later. You can't escape Tim

[battorch]

For his own part, Tim was well aware that he'd messed that one up. There was no way Zouichi wouldn't be suspicious.

He half-waved, then turned and left without another word.