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"Boughts of mortality?" Montoya asked dryly, "You make it sound like the common cold." She paused, thinking. "So... When you said that you didn't want me to call you a cab, and that you would walk... You didn't actually have anywhere to go, did you?" There was a hardness to her voice, now. Whether or not he'd actually LIED, he'd mislead her through omission. Left out details that could have prevented her from doing her job. That was the exact opposite of okay.

The distant sound of sirens entered hearing range and gradually started getting louder.

Montoya thought about this. "You're coming down to the station. I have some more questions, and you'll have a roof over your head. There's a snack machine and everything," she added dryly, "You can eat Hot Cheetos. One of the guys can lend you some clothes. More to the point, we can get Batman in there in a few hours... unless he's busy... and he can get some heavy hitters. Planet Earth has a long history of not putting up with this kind of s**t," she added, that flinty look coming back into her eyes.

Montoya shot him a sideways glance. This guy was pretty stiff; maybe he really was some kind of multidimensional godling. How was she supposed to know? She was just a cop. A Gotham City cop, sure, but just a cop; she gladly left the comprehension of such things to the mighty JLA in their fancy-a** satellite.

Right about then, the ambulance got there, and she hurriedly stepped out of the way so that the EMTs could get access to their patient in the fairly narrow space of the alley. Without realizing it, she shivered slightly. "It's going to be one of those weeks," she said, her tone a bit odd. "You can always tell. I should transfer to Central City." She watched the EMTs as they loaded the unconscious man onto a stretcher and bundled him into the back of the ambulance. Then she sighed. "Come on."

Bullock raised his eyebrows at her as she left the alley. "Who was that guy?" he asked, nodding at the back of the retreating ambulance.

"I have no idea. We'll find out when he wakes up. You're buying me coffee," she added decisively, "And this guy needs... a burrito. You'll have to sit in the back." She directed this last bit toward Terragon, looking and sounding a little apologetic. "What was your name, again? Aside from Great and Powerful God?"

Bullock had been spluttering over the fact that he would have to buy the coffee and food, but at this he stopped dead. "I'm not letting a GOD into my goddamn car," he snapped. "Ain't happening Montoya."

---

Zira was watching all of this with a rather pensive expression. "Huh. ... He made a friend. He's AWFUL at making friends."

(Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city...)

A dark, cowled figure crouched in between two gothic gargoyles, looking like nothing so much as a gargoyle himself-- except for the way his blue-black cape moved in the wind... and the pair of high-tech he was holding up against his eyes. Looking even more foreboding than he usually did expression-wise, the Dark Knight grated out, "I am not having his conversation with you right now."

A woman's voice replied, a tad petulantly, "Why not?" The next moment, Catwoman sauntered out of the shadows behind him, all black-purple leather supported by nice curves, and put a hand on her hip. "It's not like anything's happening."

"I'm on," Batman said slowly, enunciating each syllable carefully and obviously trying to hold on to his patience, "Stakeout. And get down."

Letting out an irritated breath, Catwoman crouched beside him. "But nothing's happening! I can understand why you don't want to... do anything else..." She trailed off and reached out to trail a finger lightly over the muscles of his upper arm. He knocked her hand away without even looking. She glared. "What is stopping us from talking? Huh? COPS on stakeout can talk."

"I never said that they couldn't. I'm not having an emotional conversation on a rooftop in the middle of the night while I'm on a stakeout," he told her flatly. The binoculars trained to the side slightly as he watched someone in the building across the street move into another room.

The two of them were silent for a minute or two, him focused and her sullen.

"You know what I think?" she said finally, her voice hard. He made a noncommittal sound. "I think this is still about what happened with Hush." He went very still. Even the wind chose that moment to quiet down, and his cape briefly settled against his back. "That wasn't," she said slowly, distinctly, "Your fault. Can we move on please?"

He was quiet for a few more seconds, and she began to think he was ignoring her. "... In your experience, am I the 'moving on' type?" he asked finally.

She scowled at him and brought her legs out from under her, so she was sitting with them swinging off the edge of the building. "I guess not." They were both silent again, though this time his silence seemed a little tense. She turned to look at him, a little strand of dark, wayward hair blowing across her cheek. "... So... Why?"

He brought his binoculars away from his eyes for the first time during their conversation and gave her a 'Really?' sort of look. "In addition to the reason you just pointed out?"

She cocked her head slightly and smirked. "Yes. You never just have one reason."

He continued to stare at her. "... Fine. If I tell you, you're going to go home. Right?" She nodded, still smirking, and made an exaggerated, seductive show of crossing her heart. "Alright." He brought his binoculars back up to his eyes and returned to watching the building. "One: people I pursue in a romantic capacity tend to die. Messily. Two: As I've already stated, I don't trust you." She snorted. "And three..." He paused.

She blinked. "What?"

He hesitated for another second. "I don't like your cat."

She stared at him for several seconds, then let out an amazed little chuckle. "Isis? ISIS is one of your reasons?" Another, more genuinely amused laugh bubbled up out of her throat. "Oh, Batman, Isis likes youuuu..."

"Be still my heart," Batman replied dryly, "This is the part where you go home."

She was still laughing, but she dutifully got to her feet, wrapped her whip around her with one smooth, fluid motion, and started sauntering away. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she turned and looked back. "Oh, Batman! Don't I get a goodnight kiss?" she asked in a plaintive, little girl voice.

Silence for several almost surprised beats, followed by a very firm, "Goodnight, Catwoman."

She grinned and leaped over to the next rooftop, heading home. She'd get him eventually... if she didn't have him already.

ENTER Vice and Reaper from somewhere in New York City



Reaper walked down the streets of New York City. A black trench coat wrapped tightly around him, his dark hair falling over his face, and an unmistakably aggravated frown plastered over his face. A heavy guitar an base drum beat echoed out from behind him. Some kind of rock music. He grimaced harder and kept going. After a few moments of the same annoying rhythm, the lyrics finally rang out.
…in Japanese…
Heavy music again…

‘uchikonDE’

The annoying beat sounded again…Reaper’s frown increased and his eyes narrowed even harder. He pressed on down the street, but the music followed him. Merely steps away by how loud it was.

’wo koboshita nara....Show. Lie. Mad. Sexual.’

He couldn’t take it anymore. Reaper stopped dead in his tracks, spun on his heels, shot his arm out and latched onto the air. ”If you’re going to follow me around, will you PLEASE turn that $#*% OFF?!!” he snarled to seemingly no one.

”One sad sexually, two sad sexually.” Vice’s voice sang along as his form came into being. Reaper had a hold of him tightly around the right side of his coat collar. He slid his finger over his music player and paused it, a small smirk on his face. ”If you didn’t like the music, all you had to do was say so.” he said in a teasing voice.

Reaper growled something and shoved Vice backwards a bit. ”If it’s in English, fine. If it’s in Japanese, fine. But for *%$#’s sake will you just pick one or the other?! That’s the seventh song I’ve had to listen to that can’t make up it’s mind what the *&$# language it want’s to use!” he snarled

Vice grinned. ”Oh, trust me. You don’t want to understand the lyrics to this song.” he replied.

”Then put the *&#$ing headphones in and listen to it YOURSELF!” With that Reaper spun back around and marched down the street.
Vice had been following him for blocks on end now. At first he was rather interested once he realized who Reaper was. But now the *&^$%@# wouldn’t leave him alone! He was very close to taking the man’s head off and punting it down the street. In fact he’d tried earlier, but Vice had that &*$&#xin;g phasing ability. He was extremely close to snapping.

The annoying rhythm suddenly rang out again, and more Japanese. Vice smirked as he put the headphones in his ears so everything was muffled and barely heard. Reaper stared at him another moment, took a deep sigh, then turned and continued down the street.

After a while Vice started humming to himself, then mumbling the words in English. The few words that Reaper did catch were disturbing to say the least. ”What the *&%$ are you listening to?” he growled, still irritated.

”Dir En Grey. They have a lot of other songs that are no where near as vulgar as this song, but if you can’t understand it, it’s a rather catchy song. The kind of song that would get stuck in your head if you listened to it a few times.”

”Keep it to yourself. I don’t want to hear music of any kind. Got it?” he growled.

”Whatever…” Vice sighed.
After a few minutes of silence, Vice spoke again. Rather than singing along, he just said the lyrics as if he were simply talking. ”You’ve got a pretty voice. You’ve got a pretty face. You’ve got a pretty part here. You’ve got a pretty part there. Sli-”

Reaper suddenly let out an aggravated snarl and lept up and onto the wall of a building beside them. Boney fingers sank into the wall and he easily lept onto the roof of the building.

Vice watched as he disappeared past the edge of the roof, then grinned and turned his music off. ”My…he’s rather good at holding down his rage now, isn’t he? Almost makes me want to follow him to see how much more he can take.” Vice paused a moment and thought as he slid the device back into his pocket. After a few seconds, he released his Bladed weapon from it’s holder and smiled. ”Ah what the heck. I’ll follow him anyway.” he said with a smirk. With that, he became intangible again and began making his way up the rooftops to follow after Reaper.



ENTER Sapphire Spider from apartment in New York City


Misty sat at her desk, looking out the window of her twentieth floor apartment. The others had all gone out a few hours ago, leaving her to have some time to herself. She hadn't been doing much costuming work the last couple weeks. There hadn't been much of a need, and she hadn't had much time. She'd gotten a small job and was trying to get her life back together as well as provide for the others that were staying with her now. The few good things about all of this, was that she had time to herself on occasion. She didn't have to worry about stitching her costume up on a regular basis or mend broken bones. And, by whatever wonderful miracle they had come across, this was her apartment. The one she had lived in for a short time before that wonderful Blackstone incident. One of the only places from her world to have made it to this world. She had a place to live again, all she had to do was keep up the money for the rent...and feed a few other mouths.
The downside to this, was that all of her old belongings were here too. That sounded like a good thing, and most of it was. Except for a few CDs she could no longer listen to because they touched a very sensitive nerve. And a few pictures that she now kept in the spare bedrooms because she couldn't bring herself to look at some of the faces looking back at her.
And....
Misty let out a shaky sigh and wrapped her fingers around a small heart shaped locked around her neck.
There were just too many memories that came with this place. Things she'd rather just pack up and put away until she was ready to look at them again.

// *fangirl squeel* //

Reaper continued to hop and storm across the rooftops until he finally came to one that would be rather hard to get to without using his other powers. While he was stopped, he turned the upper half of his body around to make sure he wasn't still being followed. He'd heard of Vice before, but he never inquired much about him or had any kind of interaction with him before. He had no idea if the man could reach rooftops as easily or as quickly as he could.
There was no one behind him, but he did get his answer when something above him blurted out a few very loud Japanese words followed by earsplitting guitar strums.

Reaper again snarled something to himself and spun his torso back around, sending a blast of fire from his arm to the rooftop above him. When the blaze died down, Vice could be seen sitting on the ledge of the building with his legs hanging out over the side. He seemed unphased by the little burst of heat.
"So what is it? The rock? The Japanese? Obvious there's something here you don't have much fondness for." he said with a smirk.

Reaper replied with a few obscenities and directions on just where Vice would better spend his time.

Vice smirked, then chuckled to himself. "You really are having a time with me, aren't you? I hate to say it but you'll probably get rid of me faster if you just cut loose."

Both men instantly turned their attention towards the voice. Reaper seemed to be about as interested in her as she was with him. Vice, on the other hand, smirked and gave the shapely woman the better part of his attention. He could always play with Reaper again later.
"Seems to have drawn the right kind of attention so far." Vice replied.

Reaper grumbled something and took advantage of Vice's current distraction, moving towards the edge of the rooftop and trying to figure out a way of getting across with out using much of his other powers. The way he was feeling, he'd be more likely to use them to rip the man's head off once he started using them. Honestly, he had no idea why he felt so unbearably irritated, but he was.

"My lucky day then." Vice replied, his grin growing even more. "I'll have to make sure my friend doesn't draw any more attention. I'd hate to be interrupted."

Reaper shot Vice a dirty glance, but quickly turned his attention back on finding a way across. He seriously might have to use his powers. Perhaps the girl's flying ability would be best. If he got angry again, he couldn't do much to the man then.
...except perhaps drop him limbless from a rather fatal height.