DCUNU (Urban Nordica)
Molossus (Duality)
It occurs to me, just before the fist hits, that for all our screaming matches, Miriah and I have never actually come to blows. Okay, that one time she shot me — though I wasn’t in any position to remember it — but aside from that we’ve never actually been physically violent with one another. The thought is only moderately comforting. What is comforting is the knowledge that even if she did hit me, Miriah is still very much a human being and still very much limited by that fact. She can’t hurt me.
The fist that connects with my jaw feels not unlike the broad side of a brick wall at speed and as I hear bones shatter and spit teeth it occurs to me that whatever is going on, something is very very wrong with Miriah. Come to think of it, something’s probably very, very wrong with yours truly, too, and though I don’t feel too bad — at least not since the wake up — these personality-shift things are always hella tricky and what I really need, right now, is someone around to tell me if I start, you know, laughing maniacally at inappropriate moments. Or kicking my girlfriend.
The punch sends me reeling but it’s more from the shock than the impact, which — while rough — had already started to fade to a dull throb. I catch myself in a crouch just in time to leap aside as a boot appears where my head should have been, and I whistle appreciatively at the move.
“Fuck me you’re fast!”
I back-flip expertly and land on the vertical halfway up a wall. It’s hard to tell through the blank eyes of the cowl, but I think the move shocks Miriah. Of course it does; if I’m who she thinks I am, I shouldn’t be able to stick to walls and defy gravity. The moment passes, and I have to move again when the render underneath my hands suddenly sprouts Batarangs. So much for that plan.
And here’s the other thing; because I can’t feel Miriah, either. I can see her; all looming, shadowy inhuman silhouette but that’s the thing, because her mind feels exactly like that, too. And I can’t read it.
That’s never a good sign.
“Don’t make me do this the hard way, sunshine,” I warn, and for a moment my voice cracks up a register from the whip of white noise in my head.
(“Keep yourself to yourself, boy.”)
Miriah hears it too, and in that one instant I lose her; her mouth dissolves once more into a hard sneer and she’s coming at me again. To be honest, I’m not quite sure why she—
(snicksnack ironandblood and rawwetliver and my my doesn’t he look so pretty each time the)
Okay, scratch that. Great fucking timing.
She hits me; I let her. Let her because this is what I need, just a single moment of closeness and before she can react past her own pain I bring my hands up to cup her head and dive.
Oh. Fuck.
(“Ymir’s balls, boy, what did you think you’d find?”)
The Ásgardian is maddeningly smug, of course, and I have to admit he’s got a point. The thing in Miriah’s head lunges for me — all thick, leathery wings and cracked, plastic yellow grin — and sends me reeling back, clutching my head and babbling curses and I swear I can feel it still, flapping madly against my face and my mind and screaming and for one terrible moment I think we’re in way over our heads. And then I hear a curse, and I realise I’m not the only one thrown off-balance.
A crack in my fingers; Miriah stumbles backwards and for one terrible moment I’ve enough time to note that she’s awfully close to the edge and then suddenly she isn’t. She’s over it.
“Miriah!”
I guess, diving off the edge of the mad Gotham skyscraper after her, that I don’t actually know if I can fly like this, either. I have half a second to panic over the thought before I hear the dull, leathery snap of my own wings opening and gravity suddenly becomes optional. I push myself downwards — physics be damned — and can’t quite help the gleeful “A-hah!” that escapes me when my arms close around black silk and leather. We’re still falling and I decide to stop that — pulling us out along air currents into the base of a gentle parabola — when I notice Miriah is holding something in her hand that looks suspiciously like a gun. And while I know Miriah, I also know Batman and Batman, my friends, does not carry guns.
Pop. Zing. The world goes taut.
I don’t expect that, even though — realistically — I should have. And when I think about it, it occurs to me that there is no way Miriah should have been able to make that shot. We’re moving too fast and the architecture here is too crazy and it has to be complete coincidence that Miriah could shoot off a decel line in that kind of situation and have it actually anchor on something. It has to be. I know it isn’t.
The air snaps out of my wings and — care of an armour-clad elbow to the solar plexus a moment later — so does Miriah. The street and the sky go end over end over end and finally settle on a configuration a moment later when my back snaps against a brick wall.
“Ow.”
I look down through my feet at the sky for a long while. I’m starting to hate this place. I don’t even know where it is. I mean, asides from the obvious.
Half a moment later a thick, silky fwoomph comes from about four feet to my left, and I barely have enough time to turn blearily towards the noise when I feel too-strong hands grab my coat and haul me bodily upright against the wall. I know I’m not a light guy. Miriah manhandles me like a child.
Looking into glassy lenses from a distance of roughly two inches it occurs to me that — endless jokes about fursuiting aside — the whole getup really is kinda scary. Not that I’m scared of Miriah, of course.
And as for the bat-god?
Yeah. Look, it’s a turf issue, okay. This isn’t my city; I know that. I don’t want to be here anymore than it wants me to be, but I can’t leave here, either, until this whole mess is sorted out. However the fuck that’s supposed to happen. I wonder how I’m going to explain that in terms it can understand; how I can get it to release Miriah long enough for us to do that thing we do. Somehow, I get the feeling it’s not going to let go without a fight. Lovely.
“Who are you?” Apparently, Miriah does ‘threatening death-growl’ a lot better than I’d imagined. “What are you?”
“Yeah. Look, sunshine, you know the answer to—”
A shake, and my head slams back into the bricks before I think to stop it. “No games.”
“Ow ow okay okay. Less with the physical violence, sheesh.” I extract myself from her grip; using just enough force to let her know that I can and… Jesus, these macho alpha-male posturing games really are kinda dumb, aren’t they? Anyway.
“Here’s the deal, sunshine, we don’t belong here. This isn’t us; not our universe, not our gig. I don’t know why we’re here — and if it turns out some-one just fell asleep in front of the WB… oh man… Anyway. Bottom line, you’re not the goddamn Batman, I’m not the goddamn Joker, and we’ve gotta get home somehow before more wacky crossover hijinks happen and, yanno, I’m not as young as I used to be and fuck me I’m sick of this shit.”
Miriah just glares at me impassively for what seems like an age, and I’ve just started to mentally plan an escape from Arkham, when, “…Loki?”
It’s a start.