welcome to the justice lounge

Tim doesn’t mean to eavesdrop as he’s wandering through the hallways, but he recognizes Jason’s voice and Jaime’s voice and he remembers what happened last time he walked in on them. Curious he nears them, peeking in from the open doorway. “Not kissing this time?” he asks when he sees them and notices the tension in the air.

Zee heads down the hall in search of another slice of cake. Passing by Tim, she lightly taps the back of his head, “What is it with Robin’s and spying?” she asks out loud, continuing down the hall. “Nosey.” she adds, scolding him lightly. Seeing him peering into the open room reminded her of Damian oddly enough.

"Yeah." And that’s about all he has to say on the matter. Maybe he’s being paranoid, but when it comes to the Joker, he can’t really stop himself. He manages a very faint smile in return as he nods. "Something like that, yeah. And… when I was getting him outta there, he started acting all weird and foaming at the mouth, wanna figure out if something’s wrong with him—" He cuts himself off abruptly when Tim enters the room, eyes narrowing as they flick over to him. "Even if we were, don’t see how it’s any of your business."

Tim glances her way as she walks by, not truly bothered by her words. He was nosey, yes, but at least she didn’t call him a know-it-all like Ollie did. He turns to Jason and narrows his eyes at his hostility. “Relax, I’m not here to keep you two lovers apart if that’s what you’re being so angry about. Besides, if you don’t want to be caught, do it somewhere more private,” he counters as he walks up to them, but mainly Jaime. “I came here to congratulate Jaime, is all,” he says with a much lighter and friendlier tone.

Jaime blinks. He’s about to ask about the foaming, because — seriously, like rabies? Rabies? That’s not normal, and he wants to know more, but Jason cuts himself off and Jaime feels his face flush a little at Tim’s question. Oh, man. His ears go even redder when Tim uses that word, that word that isn’t anything close to what they are. “We aren’t— I don’t even like him,” he protests, a little too loudly. Sorry if he hurt your feelings, dude, but… y’know. He manages a thoroughly embarrassed smile as Tim approaches, but it takes him a second to find words. “Cong— oh. Oh, thanks,” he replies, trying not to sound too exasperated. “There’s, uh. Cake. If you want it. …You probably already saw it.”

( so hard to find )

Slade Wilson is dressed, rather sharply, in a dark blue suit as he makes his way down the financial district in San Francisco. It’s eighty degrees, give or take, even at night here in the city, but he doesn’t have any sort of sheen of sweat across his brow. The suit is tailor cut, easily a few thousand dollars: but they are dollars well spent. The man’s muscular frame needs the compensation of a larger jacket trimmed down to size, and the way it tapers at his waist makes him, somehow, seems larger. He cuts through the crowds without needing to ask, even without the patch, the ferocity of his singular gaze is sharply focused ahead, at the tower that looms in the distance. He slides his hand into his jacket and pulls out a slim communicator.

He continues to walk, looking from his communicator up, at the Tower, before slipping it away and back into his pocket, moving out of the view of the public, into a bookstore. He turns a few heads, in there, but just barely—there is little that disturbs these natives, by culture and the occupants of the tower he had been monitoring.

Slade Wilson moves to the back of the store, near the large plate glass windows, and moves towards the open door where the backroom stores are open. He passes through the door into the corridor and enters the access staircase, unbuttoning his jacket, before he takes the stairs, three at a time, climbing to the top floor in a matter of minutes.

He arrives at the rooftop, and reaches into his open coat, producing a slender leather fold. He removes a piece of metal and slips it between the door opening and the jamb, and pushes it open—the alarm doesn’t sound—before he moves out on the roof. He doesn’t stop walking, simply replacing the fold inside of his jacket, and walks over to the edge of the rooftop, where an enormously large black case is.

Slade Wilson opens up the case and begins to put together the gun, going through the motions the same way anyone else might complete their morning bathroom routine. But instead of flossing, brushing his teeth, the main chamber is attached with a quick flip of his wrist, the sight attached, the bolt opened and he slips a single bullet into the chamber. He moves over to the edge of the building, holding the rifle in one hand as he looks down, at the darkening city.

Elsewhere, Jaime sends a txt@kyle>​ scarab was picking up some weird temporal …..weirdness earlier idk if it means anything but just fyi

Kyle is talking with Jason on the Watchtower when Jaime’s text buzzes his ring and he reads the incoming text. “Jaime sent a text about an anomaly, hold on…” Kyle sends a text back, [Ring Txt] does it know a specific location?

Slade Wilson hoists the gun up, kicking out the props, and sets the gun down on the edge of the building, lining up his sights.

( that awful sound )

Arkillo hates this planet.

Karu-Sil likes watching her fathers three shit on all the things the nasty little Earthlings love.

Arkillo hates this planet, hates the Earthmen that reside upon it, hates the planets that surround it, the yellow sun at the center. He hates the blues and greens, the browns and yellows of the mountains that cup and cradle the city before them, a place he had been told called El Paso and right at that moment, he hates mosquitoes. They swarm around him, drawn to the scent of his skin, and the massive hinge of his jaw parts as he watches them attempt to pierce his skin, unable to, dying in the process. Around his neck, his tongue lays flat, hooked onto the hinge of a rusted chain, his voice booming in time to pulses of light that emanate from his ring, tucked low onto a severed finger: ​ He rises up, imbued with the power the band affords him, and looks out, over the flat hovels before him. A roar rips out of his throat, a noise that howls like the wind on a storm, the dying cry of thousands, and when the noise bounces back—music to his ears—he raises his closed fist and slices a sharp, broad beam of light through an entire block of houses.

Karu-Sil makes a horrible little cackling sound, all teeth and gums without her lips to shape it into anything bearable. When the humans come running from their little houses, she waves one hand, almost magnanimously, as if offering the three fear-construct alien hounds at her side a finely prepared dinner. They charge forward, each making their own terrible sounds of glee, as they attack.

Arkillo doesn’t waste time with the joy of watching Karu-Sil’s beasts tear the Earthlings apart: rising up, he uses his ring to feel the fear coming off of their tiny bodies in pulses, before being extinguished. Another loud and heavy noise slides out of him, as he moves deeper into the city, cutting swathes of houses down, decimating the structures, the humans within them, the ones running through the street.

Arkillo looks back at Karu-Sil. ​

Karu-Sil snaps her head to the side, gnashing her sharpened incisors at Arkillo. “SAVE SOME FOR MY FATHERS THREE!” she roars, using a charging construct beast to shove him through the air, towards another neighborhood. Still, the fear he’s instilling feels good, and siphons into her ring as well as his. But Karu-Sil is beyond understanding that sort of symbiotic relationship, and only sees Arkillo’s greed, not her own. “I will do as Sinestro commanded,” she sneers. From her ring, a large claw forms, twenty or thirty times her size. Karu-Sil uses it in a rake-like motion, grazing and gathering houses and bodies like a twisted tumbleweed.

Arkillo laughs, a hard and terrible noise, and sidesteps the construct animal, grabbing it by the horns and jerking its head to the side. He does not wrench its head from its neck, but uses its body, held by the horns, to swing it around and around before releasing and sending it crashing into buildings, commercial properties, as they move deeper to the city center.

( wave of yellow )

Jason tugs Edward from the zeta platforms into the Watchtower Lounge, casually glancing around to make sure there’s no Leaguers around to bust them. “C’mon, I keep telling you, no one’s gonna care you’re up here. And I’m pretty sure there’s no germs in space,” he adds, trying to be helpful.

"This is not a good idea,” Eddie insisted, despite Jason’s attempts at mollifying his worries. He could already feel the anxiety rising in his chest, looking around in a rather paranoid fashion—the worry that he might encounter, say, one of the other Bat heroes almost overshadowed his curiosity as to where the Justice League kept council. “Don’t you guys have like, security clearance or something? I assume bringing me through tripped some sort of alarm, people are going to know you brought a former supervillain through and it isn’t going to be pretty and I am not prepared to deal with a confrontation—”

"Did you miss the part with the hacking?" he asks with a quick roll of his eyes. The hacking was really more of skating the edges of the system and making it so he was allowed to bring a guest up to the Watchtower, but there would probably be some little red flag that Batman would see later. Of course, that was a problem for him to deal with later. "And I’ve got clearance, and you’re reformed, it’ll be fine. There’s plenty of Leaguers who used to be villains." Non that he can think of off the top of his head though. "Just take a breath. You want coffee?"

Jaime is pleasantly surprised — everyone was right, the milkshakes from the cafeteria are actually pretty good. Okay, so granted, he had to make it himself and whatever, and he managed to not totally botch it, so he’s pretty sure it qualifies as good. Milkshake in hand, he heads back over to the room with the computers he’s pretty sure should be off limits, but… he’s nosy. And no one’s here, so. Party in the Watchtower servers.

( been around that track )

Jason’s return to Gotham had been productive to say the least. Due to rumors of a certain clown flitting around, he was a bit more trigger happy than usual, every little noise making him jolt. Still, he was getting quite a bit done, so it wasn’t all bad. It was the third warehouse of the night and he already had the drug dealers tied down and was just finishing setting the last of the explosive charges.

There was a slight sound and he glanced towards the door, the flames of his last… business transaction flickering in the distance. No one around, and yet… he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. But that was something that was always in the back of his mind. Probably nothing.

It was total freak chance that Jaime was hanging around Gotham. Okay, not total chance — he was there because someone want to poke and prod and mess with his scarab (who didn’t really enjoy it and he’s super sorry about the damages to the lab) — but it was definitely chance that he saw the fire. Fires. He was ready to head home and mind his own business when — oh hey, the sky’s on fire. Should check that out.

So there he is, creeping on some weirdo in a red mask. Who, if his bug’s right, is about to blow this place up — along with the dudes inside. Oh, good.

"Hi," he starts, taking a few steps past the threshold. Not as interesting as crashing in through windows Batman-style, but easier. He’s tired. "Look, dude — I’ve had a really long day and I really don’t wanna do this the hard way. If you could just give up and lay on the ground or something that’d be cool.”

( when you walked into the bar )

Guy turned Jason loose on the unwitting town of El Paso with instructions to meet him back there in one hour, then continued on to the address Kyle had sent him. There had to be the slightest chance the scarab-thing had healed, or woken, and Jaime could help them locate Roy. Again. He changed into plain clothes and knocked on the door.

Jaime’s father opened the door first, recognizing Gardner from their last encounter. Calling Jaime to come out of his room was easy enough as he invited the other male inside. “Yeah dad?” Jaime asked, looking from his father to Guy before frowning. “Uuhhh, I didn’t do it,” he said automatically.

That earned him a smile from Guy, which he shared with the boy’s father. “Thanks, Mr. Reyes,” he nodded. “Jaime, can we talk privately?”

Jaime and his father shared a look before the young hero was nodding his head and waving Guy to follow him. “Sure, we’ll just go to my room.”

“Nice room,” Guy said politely, as the door shut behind him.

( travel time )