I put a shield upon you, I didn't mean to hurt you--

[dragonvariation]

Who: Ra's al Ghul and you~
When: Mostly after sirens on Sunday night - but also one Saturday thread, and open for threads for the rest of the week.
Where: In the Darkness across the city
Summary: Ra's goes out to investigate the Darkness for himself--with a special interest in the people who go out to fight it.
Warnings: Violence and monster guts

Comments

[kingofrooks]

'An old friend'. An odd way to try to qualify their relationship; an odd wish to try to describe it at all. The Ra's al Ghul he knew had always been nebulous, both an enemy and the father of the woman he (had once) loved; both the man who had done the most harm in to the world and the grandfather of Bruce son. The man who would respect his nemesis, giving him the name of 'Detective' and proposing that he became his heir- and the despicable creature who would use his own grandson, stolen and made with that nemesis's flesh, as his new body. Who would dug out his brain and soul and replace them with his own. To live in his own grandson's corpse just to save his own life.

And most importantly, he was a man who was unmistakeably an immortal. His arrogance was one whose mortality had been ripped from him; who knew that he might grow old but he would never die. Death stopped meaning anything for him anymore, for if he died all he would need to do was to take a bath and he would rise from the water revived. Resurrections were plentiful and

[kingofrooks]

A demonstration. Of course. Bruce's lips twisted into a frown even as the explosion came, and he had to throw himself back immediately, avoiding that wrist, that hand. But he didn't expect Ra's second move, and he felt his lungs throw up all of his air. But he didn't breathe in immediately, instead braving the dizziness in his head as he threw himself to the ground, away from the smoke, and rolled to the side

[dragonvariation]

Advantage was such a flighty thing

[kingofrooks]

No matter the lesson that Ra's was trying to teach, the one Bruce learned was something entirely different. He learned that this man was used to hand-to-hand combat; learned that he was faster than the Ra's al Ghul he knew, sharp-eyed and sharper-minded without the slowness that advanced age and immortality brought. There was no arrogance in him, not about this. Another human warrior, perfectly deadly in his knowledge of death

[dragonvariation]

Perhaps another man would have smiled as he found himself face to face with the bat, tempting fate itseld. Instead Ra's exhaled so that the breath couldn't be knocked out of him when he was thrown aside. He rolled, finding his feet again on the floor.

Ra's didn't have any gadgetry to protect him from the gas, but he didn't believe that Bruce would knock him out--why would he? There was nothing to gain. No, he was confident that an attack would come through the smoke, and he dropped his hand, the wave-bladed Arab knife slipping into his palm, turned up so that he wouldn't stab himself or Bruce accidentally. As if.Bruce came straight for his throat, shoving him hard against the wall two steps further back. He grunted - the shock of the impact went through him - aware that he'd been slammed just a little too hard against the wall. His head spun, but he had time to recover. The knife was where he meant it to be, slid so that the flat of the blade was against Bruce's thigh, his other hand up, wrapped boldly around the wrist of the hand

[kingofrooks]

It wasn't something entirely unexpected, that knife against his thigh- yet Bruce could not help the tiny intake of breath, as loud as a gasp between two men like them. But it was something involuntary, an automatic male reaction to having a damn knife pressed against his groin.

But his hands were already moving. Ra's had a knife on one side of the groin guard, so Bruce used the other leg to slam against his chest, steadying himself easily enough. His hands shifted as well, one reaching down to grab against the wrist of the hand holding the knife, the other twisting against the hand at his throat. He knew that the latter was a mere distraction - he barely felt the grip through the armour of the cowl - but he wasn't going to let Ra's have such an overt advantage over him.

One was enough.

"You'll have to use newer tricks for that to work," he said, and his voice was sharp enough to cleave through the air. Focusing around him rather than just on Ra's for a moment, he could hear it again- the softest flap of wings. An Icarus Winged was