I know it's hard but...

[controlledvariable]

Who: Steph Brown, others [closed]
What: Monster fighting, rescues, healing
Where: All around Baedal
When: Over a two week period since Hasi broke reality
Notes: Everyone has their own thread starter, which are in no particular order, if there are any problems/questions please let me know!
Warnings: NPC death, gore, violence, monsters, PTSD, my inability to be succint, if I've missed any feel free to tell me

The monsters are new for her.

It's not that she isn't used to dealing with all the assorted bullshit that Gotham can throw at a vigilante, but there's nothing quite like this. There are people like Killer Croc and Zsasz and Black Mask, who might be horrific, but they're still people. These monsters are more like animals, but they're huge and violent and they hunt people. She's not trained for this, she's not equipped for this and she sure as hell isn't prepared for it. Getting the gun and new batarangs from Rex helps, and she adds a large hunting knife to her array of weaponry, but it still doesn't feel like enough.

It's terrifying, in a way that she doesn't have time to deal with, so she pushes that down and focuses on doing what she can. There's moments, as she faces down things that eclipse her worst nightmares, when she wonders if she should be hiding instead of out here fighting. But there are other moments, times when she wins, when she gets to reunite a parent with their lost child, and it doesn't matter that Steph is bleeding, bruised and exhausted, because she did good.

At the behest of Babs, and the reminders her own body sends, she forces herself to stop and rest once in a while. Usually she goes back to wherever Babs is, or Kate, if she happens to be resting at the same time. Her sleep happens in small bursts, a few hours here or there, curled up near Babs or Kate and letting the exhaustion take over. She tries not to eat too much, because she has no idea how long these monsters will stay in the city and she's scared that food will start running out. She's already started collect supplies, bringing them to the safe places and distributing them to people.

She doesn't think about the dead bodies she sees, or the injured people. A lot of Baedalites can look after themselves, but some of them can't and it's those who end up as smears on a wall. Except for when she has to stop to throw up, after seeing half eaten corpses; then she thinks about it, and she doesn't know how long she can keep going out and coming back alive.

She hopes no one will hold it against her if she gets killed.

Comments

[23rd]

Laura is still extremely reluctant because it goes against every instinct she has, but...

Maybe her instincts are wrong. Maybe they're bad.

"Okay," she says at last. She gives Steph a look like, yes, that's exactly what she's expecting. Laura knows her strengths. Not provoking potentially aggressive things into hostility is not one of them.

[controlledvariable]

"If they try to eat me, feel free to come start stabbing them," This seems like a good compromise in Steph's opinion, and at least this way she won't get eaten. Hopefully.

A small part of her wishes she had her Robin costume -- Bat costumes are designed to be intimidating, even though Steph toned the scary down from how Cass's costume was. She also feels stupid for being scared about this, considering she just dove into a zombie horde without a second though, but somehow psyching herself up for this is difficult.

After a deep breath, she gives Laura a slightly tense smile and heads over the side of the building they're on, to climb down to the street. She approaches the reptilian creatures slowly, making a lot of noise as she does and keeping her arms held slightly out from her body, so it's clear she's not holding any weaponry. She hopes, maybe, that if she doesn't startle them, they won't attack her.

[23rd]

Laura follows after a beat. She's backing her up, but it's probably better she doesn't approach them head-on, considering she always sort of looks like she's about to kill someone.

She is betting that they know that she's there; they're not human, they almost certainly have better senses. The way their tongues flick out to taste the air, she's certain they can smell her. She keeps her distance, claws in, posture unthreatening.

But she'll leap in in an instant if she thinks Steph is in the slightest bit of trouble.