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Who: Bruce Wayne and You, also Batman and you!
What: Catch-All for the month of October.
Where: Outside Wechester Enterprises, around the city, rooftops
When: Batman portions are night! Otherwise any time for the others!

OCTOBER 5TH ~ THE GREENS.
The sudden change of landscape made Bruce Wayne even more paranoid and unsure of the area they were in. Beachville was nice - almost like a summer paradise. However, Wechester City reminded him more of his own home. Gotham City. He had to wonder if there were corrupt cops, mobsters running the city, and a gallery of rogues that seemed insane to anyone who didn't know the city. He hoped not.

However... Wechester Enterprises had caught his attention ever since it appeared. It reminded him of his own multi-billion dollar company back home. He needed a job and running his own company seemed like a good enough resume to get in. It would let him poke around and see what was going on inside the company that just appeared seemingly over night. Maybe even find some clues to why these fluxes and everything happened.

For now though, he is sitting on a park bench, enjoying the crisp weather. With one cup from Starkbucks of course.

OCTOBER WHENEVER ~ THE ROOFTOPS OF THE CITY.
It took evidence to show that he had to don the Suit. Enough shady dealings inside the company to make him warrant potentially needing to go in as the Bat. Even now he isn't too sure that he needed to go in as the Bat. Instead he is simply staking out on rooftops near by. Enough to get the idea of the Bat roaming around. If Wechester Cityt was like Gotham... then there was a chance they'd need the Bat.

Otherwise he'd just simply go back to the shadows and be out when needed. Maybe this was something like the White Portuguese... then maybe it only called for the real mask. Bruce Wayne.

OCTOBER WHENEVER ~ PICK IT!
(Have an idea we've plotted out? Go ahead and hit me up here!)

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The Bat listened to her ... explain. It wasn't quite rambling. His face remained neutral as he ingested it all. Crimes were always in alleys, no matter the world. Hidden identities. Secrets. It rang familiar bells.

"It was never confused." The Bat stated simply, but his tone through the voice modulator said there was something else behind the statement. A sense of knowledge, wisdom, facts he had been reminded of. "Everyone loses their way. It is if we can rise above it and guide others that makes heroes... villains never find their way back."

Which made him wonder - what if he had never found his?

"Have you entertained what it could be that may not be what was in your reality?"

She gave a small snort, looking out over the city and shook her head. "Nothing here, or in the last worlds I've been to seem to be anything like my world. But... My world is my frame of reference, I've been there longer than I've been away."

She leaned back on her palms, behind her and breathed deeply. "On my world there are three people regarded universally, or at least, in the country I'm from, as heroes. Well four, perhaps, but there is some debate if the fourth is an actual person." Wooster assured them she was, but then Wooster had secretly been working for Britain, so who knew.

"The Heterodyne boys... and Othar." She stiffened when she said the name, sat up sharply and looked around, then actually sat back, clearly relieved. "I hate saying his name, he lives for jump scares in places he shouldn't possibly be able to arrive," she admitted. "but usually only the first time his name is said in a conversation."

The Boys had a group they traveled with. Some members changed out from time to time. Some were nearly constant. Like Klaus who became the Baron after they vanished. My.." she swallowed a lump of bitterness. "My biological mother." she looked like she wanted to spit. "Punch and Judy. Though I grew up knowing them as Adam and Lilith Clay, and they were the closest thing I ever had to parents. They were heroes, all of them. Brave, stalwart, always on some adventure or other. I know so many Heterodyne stories. Everyone my age grew up on them. I never understood why Lilith never allowed them in the house. I'd sneak off to read them in the library, or see the traveling shows in town. It was no wonder I never realized that the constructs in the story were the parents who raised me, though. All the stories gave punch lines. But Adam was built... not as well as he could have been. He was, as he has told me since, an early work. Before he was killed by Von Pinn... he couldn't talk. Gil put them back together, and actually fixed a lot of the defects, like that." Small fond smile, traced with pain.

She shook her head. "That my father and uncle were heroes... I don't think anyone could argue that. Even me. No matter how angry I am at them. But Klaus turned around and became an evil despotic overlord who ruled with an Iron Fist. Except..." She sighed looking at the skies. "The children he kidnapped to use as leverage against their families? They were educated, housed, clothed... happy. They had nearly free run of the castles, they had labs, materials, a chance to grow and learn. The Sparks whose domains he took over... he hired many of them and they loved working for him. But..."

She closed her eyes. "He experimented on people against their will." Doctor Dim. "He bombed whole town on the suggestion that there might be some of the Other's work at play there. He had my parents, Adam and Lilith that is, killed, even though they had in theory been friends. No remorse. He set off a time bomb in my town, just to stop me." She frowned and opened her eyes. "But... he set it off himself. He... trapped himself. And I still don't know why. He did... SOMETHING to his son's brain. I think he overlaid a copy of himself, I'm not fully sure. I haven't been able to examine Gil yet," so much frustration and pain there. "I don't know how fix it."

A deep breath.

"But the point is... is he a villian? a hero? I... don't know. My mother... My birth mother. She traveled with the heroes. Most people still think she was one. I know she wasn't. Lucrizia Mongfish is a villian. Full stop. And I will NEVER," she said adamantly, "stop fighting her."

"And then there is Othar," she said with a heavy sigh. She lay back against the sloped surface of the roof. He calls himself a hero. Actually thinks he is. The people think he is. He fights the bad Sparks who oppress people. He poses for pictures. He makes grand entrances. And he never seems to die not matter what you do to him," a hint of growl at the end of that. "Oh, and he is sure EVERYONE in the universe feeds into his preset narrative of him as the hero. I came across him the first time when he was being held prisoner by the Baron. I was like everyone else then. Sure he was a hero. a vigilante sure, since the Baron WAS the law and he worked against him. But a hero. I tried to figure out how to free him, and the whole time he was on about how I was either his spunky girl sidekick or the damsel in distress, or the hapless girl who fell for the evil Baron's son or... what have you. I couldn't possibly be a strong independent woman outside of obvious tropes who just wanted to help because seeing a hero imprisoned seemed wrong." She sighed heavily, which is about the nicest reaction she could have to Othar, really.

"Jumping ahead, right after what has got to be the utterly most ridiculous wedding proposal ever, I mean, seriously marry me because it'll tick off my father when he learns I was right and he was wrong?" She shook her head. "While I was busy laughing at Gil, in swoops Othar. My machine had worked, had saved him. Gil and I were exhausted from fighting the Other's Slavers... and in swoops Othar, determined once again, that I was the damsel or his spunky girl side kick in need of a rescue. They fought and Gil pushed him out of the airship." A deep breath and oddly, a faint smile.

"I was so mad at Gil. I had gone to all that trouble to save Othar, and Gil went and pushed him out a window. And for all Gil's insistence that once I got to know Othar, I'd want to do the same. I yelled back that I often want to push people out of windows, but that I REFRAIN. Well..." she winced, but was still grinning, "Next time I met Othar... I pushed him off an airship. Jerk shot at us on the way down and clipped the envelope," she growled, frowning. She shook her head. "Theo and some of the others helped me escape, and there was Othar, on the escape ship. Theo didn't come because I had Othar and a talking cat, clearly," she said dryly, "I'd be fine. So we set off. And Othar and I started talking. And he found out that I was a Spark. I'd only just found out myself."

She opened her eyes, and brushed away nascent tears. She shook her head. "He said he was sorry. As if I had just told him I had a terminal illness or something, rather than finally understanding who and what I was. I asked him why and found myself staring at the business end of his death ray. He told me that Sparks are the cause of all the worlds ills, and that it was his mission to kill ALL Sparks, and then when he was the last Spark alive, to finish the job. This hero I grew up in awe of... turned out to be a genocidal nutcase. Sparks might have some... unpleasant tendencies as a result of what we are... But no one can control if they are born a Spark or not. And there are plenty of Sparks who would never hurt anyone." Like Master Payne and the rest of the circus. "Sure, a lot of Sparks turn evil. But there are Sparks like my father and uncle. Who were genuine heroes. There are Sparks who just want to live their lives." She shook her head.

"The next time I met Othar, I thought he was going to kill me. He called me a hero instead, kissed my cheek and told me I'd never have a normal life because I'm a natural born hero." She made a face. "Some people see only what they want to see, I guess. I'll never understand how someone so smart could be so stupid."

She closed her eyes again. "I'm no hero. And I don't want to be. I don't want to be a villian either. I just... I want to protect my village and the people I care about and be left alone to my labs and my friends and family to do science and maybe someday have kids and just... a nice... normal life."

"You are a hero to those that see you as one. They've put you on that pedestal, regardless if you've asked for it or not. Putting yourself in the line of fire for others? Making it so you'll be their target instead of them? That's heroic. Heroic deeds make you one." The Bat says simply, easily. He's never been one to talk much -- and instead just rather listens to it all.

Then he turned to look back at her. "What is a hero to you?"

It was clear how she defined villains - maybe even the questionable anti-hero.

"But I don't want to be a hero." She shook her head, taking a deep breath. "Heroes are always looking for the next adventure, the next wrong that needs fixing, the next evil overlord that needs stopping. But there will always be evil overlords and villains and wrongs. You could spend your life doing nothing but running from adventure to adventure. And maybe for some... that's what they want. It was who my uncle was. But... I don't want to always be looking at who I have to fight next. I want to see a time when I am done fighting. When other than fending off the occasional invasion of my town, I'm not constantly swinging into action. Maybe not exactly the life I had before the first time I was kidnapped... but just... peace. Knowing the people I care about are safe."

She sighed.

"Is that... really too much to ask for?"

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