The dawn is here, we gon' be on our way. {SP APP - COMPLETE}
Player Information
Name: Dha /D
Age: 22 (just turned 22 in June)
AIM SN: mustlovetherock
email: blackwaterkeeponrolling@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? I have indeed.
Currrently Played Characters: N/A
Conditional: Activity Check Link: N/A
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Batman / DC Comics
Canon Format: Comic book
Character's Name: Jason Todd
Character's Age: 18 [The numbers given by canon never quite add up or remain consistent, thus my math. He was killed at 15, + 6 mon dead= 15.5. One year in coma (BA 25) = 16.5. 5-6 months on the streets (Lost Days 1) = ~17. Explicitly stated ~a month-3 months per instructor in Lost Days = ~18/19 in LD6.]
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. N/A
What form will your character's NV take? http://www.opticon-shop.nl/H19B-Windows-mobile-data-terminal-11710.htm: Part PDA, part smartphone. It's small enough to be easily concealed or thought to be just some old 90s phone. It'll be locked with a four-digit passcode that he changes every week and the only addition would be a camera at the top so he can use video/holo.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Jason is incredibly well-trained in hand-to-hand fighting, mostly through his early training with Batman. He's an acrobatic fighter and is described in canon as having the strength of an olympic athlete. He's just as comfortable being upside-down as he is right-side-up. As well, his linguistic skills stem from his extensive training with Batman. He can speak two languages other than his native English: German and Russian as well as being capable of reading lips in all three. However, after his death and subsequent resurrection, Jason took on many mentors to train him in many fields. He's ambidextrous with pistols, which is impressive, considering he can aim at and hit people with them. It's not a matter of the strength to handle the recoil of both weapons, but being able to line up the sights of two separate guns. From Shurik, he learned demolitions, not only how to set them up but to also take them part. He has extensive training in surveillance and electronics that fall under that category (meaning, not computer hacking, but more that he can set up his own feeds if needed and can navigate his way around a mainframe to find security feeds). As well, he's been trained to fly helicopters (and potentially other aircraft, but less explicitly stated) and "anything in combat with wheels or wings" (LD 4). Last but not least, he has been trained in the fine art of motorcycle riding and is able to weave between moving vehicles on a crowded street as easily as an alley. But, he has no superhuman strength of any kind.
Jason is an exceptionally quick learner and very observant. He can pick up advanced weaponry techniques in under a month and use them out in the field on the fly. As well, he's intelligent and can navigate his way around complicated social structures very easily. He plans, he builds, and he executes, but is still quite capable of being spontaneous and making up a plan as he goes. In the words of Batman, he doesn't think about his next move, he simply makes it, but this can and has gotten him into trouble. Also, he's almost completely desensitized to violent encounters of nearly any kind, so he can serve as an emergency field paramedic (in that someone can instruct him on what to do, as he knows very basic first aid). Blood and gore are not at all an issue for him; he's seen (and probably done) most of it. Finally, he knows the subtleties of body language and can mimic them, even when under intense pressure, such as when he vomits on command in front of Yuri to appear nervous.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?
Night vision. Jason is quite deadly on his own without additional strength, and he very well knows it and expects it of himself. Most of his activities as a budding vigilante in Under the Hood are done late at night when he knows Batman will be out and about. Therefore, with training, he'll be able to see in the dark to a certain degree. Everything will be colored slightly red (as some people have used red light to keep their night vision as long as possible, as well as his future moniker is the Red Hood), but otherwise, he'll be able to see almost as if it were day.
However, there will be a 10-minute period between sunset/loss of light when he can't use it as his eyes adjust to the darkness. This time could be shortened in the future with intense training but it would take a great deal. As well, there will be a 5-10 minute period with sunrise/dramatic addition of light until he can better train his eyes to adapt back to seeing light. The ability, then, can also be a great achilles heel in the future.
Weapons:
Two pistols (and limited ammunition)
His red helmet (it can technically be detonated remotely, but he won't do this in-game unless he can make a replacement)
His knife
His jacket (contains a limited supply of small explosives and batarangs)
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
Jason is, biologically, the son of Willis Todd and Shiela Haywood. After he was born, Willis was supposed to meet Shiela in England but he had fallen in love with Catherine Johnson and married her instead. A comprehensive summary of his experiences up to his death (April 27th, 1985) can be found here. Long story short: Jason Todd was a troubled kid who grows up on the streets of Gotham and lost both of his parents at a very young age. His education is next to nothing, but he's still a bright kid (in Batman Annual 12, his fellow students remark that he has a 94.5 GPA without doctoring the grades). He grew up in a violent, skeevy, and altogether perverted world and was pretty okay with his situation in life. To survive, he fenced tires and his 'aunts' and 'uncles' were those who roamed the streets, especially those of Crime Alley, a particularly notorious area of Gotham. As well, in Battle for the Cowl, Bruce's Princess Leia-style will, he states that there was a trauma in Jason's early life. It hasn't been stated explicitly what that trauma was and as such, I will only be working with what's canonly stated in this regard (there are theories that involve potential abuse, physical and otherwise). He was caught by Batman while trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile and eventually taken in by him. As he served with Batman, he began to very closely identify with the victims they tried to serve and his anger only became more and more untamed, to the point that he was taken off duty by Batman. In this time, Jason found that his biological mother was still alive and scoured the Middle East for her. She ended up betraying him and the Joker beat him nearly to death before blowing up the warehouse he was in. He was buried for six months in a secret grave that very few knew about. All in all, Jason was too young to have caused many "ripples" and his funeral was only attended by Bruce, Alfred, and the Gordons (Batman 428).
When Superboy-Prime went around punching reality walls, one of his punches undid Jason Todd's death and he woke up in his coffin screaming. It's here that we first get to see his ability to focus and do the job under incredibly stressful circumstances (before his death, Jason becomes more and more angry and emotional until it "gets him killed," as stated by Batman later). After calming himself, he quickly digs himself out of his coffin with his belt buckle and bare hands before wandering twelve and a half miles. He's found by Derek Brantley and his girlfriend and taken to the hospital where he promptly falls into a coma due to a brain bleed caused by his skull fracture. Despite the horrifying number of injuries, he wakes up and walks right out of the hospital but, as the narration provides, without his memories. So, he survives on the streets of Gotham for five months (Lost Days 1 says five months, Batman Annual 25 says one year, but as I said above, I'm using the former) only on pure instinct until Thomas Carbone witnesses the boy defending himself from a thug and gets in contact with the criminal underworld.
Up the food chain, Talia al Ghul gets wind of his being alive and takes care of him in her own way. She puts him through rigorous tests to prove who he is (such as having people punch him in order to trigger his survival skills). Throughout all of this, though, Ra's remains convinced that the boy is brain-dead and an " unthinking, emotionless shell" simply because he has yet to respond verbally to any of them (BA 25, LD 1). However, when Talia tells him that Batman misses him, he begins to cry, displaying that he not only has his memories but is also very capable of thinking and responding emotionally to stimuli around him. This makes me believe that the other doctor's inference of his condition being a brain-damage-induced autism (LD 1). It's through the power of the Lazarus Pit that gives him back his cognizant mind.
Rather than face the wrath of Ra's al Ghul, Jason and Talia sprint to the edge of the al Ghul property where Talia kisses him before pushing him off a cliff with a duffel bag of survival supplies. In this bag is a laptop, money, passport, his death certificate, and newspaper clippings of the Joker, which very much shapes his newly-recovered mind and quickly warps his view of Batman. In response, he resorts back to his emotions and trashes not only the hotel room but also the two managers who try and subdue him. Even when one begs, Jason still pounds his face in before he simply lays down and begins to scream. The revelation of finding out that his adoptive father allowed his murderer to only go to jail is so devastating that he continues to rant and rave about it years upon years later; it becomes the cornerstone of his mission post-resurrection.
However, even with his level of distress as high as it is, Jason doesn't let it affect his keenly-tuned senses. He picks up on one of the tails Talia put out on him and dips under the radar when he leaves everything she had given him, which he seems to suspect is bugged (even his shoes), with the exception of the cash. Then, he departs for Gotham on a mercenary transport to face his father. He makes sure to cover his tracks every step of the way as he begins to set up his opportunity, putting in the time to set up a weapon exchange (from both ends: the buyer and the seller) and hooking a "fish big enough" to bait Batman (Lost Days 2). Knowing his mentor in nearly every detail, Jason figures the exact location of the Batmobile and takes three hours to properly plant an explosive on the bottom of the vehicle. However, when it comes time to blow the charge, he doesn't. It's here that we start to see Jason truly believe that Bruce never cared about him, which directly contradicts Batman's later claim in the Hush arc that 'even in the end, Jason knew how much I loved him" (Batman 618). Later, to Talia, he claims that he didn't lose his nerve; he wants to face Batman directly and take him down with his own hands. He asks for her help in doing so and she agrees to send him to trainers.
Canon, then, jumps forward a year or so to his close combat training with a German mercenary Egon. Here, he learns how to maim and kill someone with his own hands. However, it's stated that he trained for a month with long-range/sniper weapons and five weeks on toxins. With Egon, it's stated that he has a passion for not immediately going for the weakpoints of the human body; showing an early like of 'playing with his food.' as it were, rather than just eating it. As well, we begin to see how little injuries affect him as he attempts to brush off broken ribs as no big deal. Another sign of his personality comes through with his faking 'the stupid American' act that he takes on through most of the mini-series. He expects those he trains under to underestimate him, simply because he's some rich kid; he knows his advantages and when to press them.
While sitting in a car, waiting for his ride to take him back to his cabin, Jason hears whimpering and at first suspects it to come from dogs but quickly dismisses that thought. Reading into the clues around the camp, he knows that there are too many men to simply be mercenaries under Egon's reign and sneaks out, having memorized the schedule of the usual plans of the men working, to free the children. He takes them to the British embassy before confronting Egon directly and, since he knows he could never win a physical fight against Egon, poisons his energy drink with bleach. Any of the other men he comes across in the camp in the process of taking them down are also killed and he burns any evidence to the ground.
Directly afterwords, he goes back to Talia and she wonders aloud why he murdered Egon. He rationalizes to her, "I didn't orchestrate whacking him over an inheritance. I spiked his bug juice because he was a dirtbag… don't tell me the world isn't better off" (Lost Days 3). Talia is one of the few people that Jason will actually fully explain himself to and drop the facade around. The other is, on occasion and the right circumstances, Bruce.
Another indiscriminate amount of time passes. Jason has led a group of kids to take out a pack of mercenaries and is now under Shurik Ivanko's tutelage, learning how to make and utilize explosives large enough to take out buildings. We begin to see stronger signs of his ability to put up facades around those he doesn't think are suitable to talk to when he goes out drinking with the guys he now 'works' with. They, again, seem to underestimate him, relying on his being American to underestimate him. However, he not only knows Russian, but also begins a covert operation of his own when Yuri Karanov appears at the bar and upsets Shurik just a little bit. He uncovers a terrorist attack in England, but is momentarily caught when he blows up Shurik's lab. With his use of Russian and intimate details of the attack, he attempts to persuade his way out of it, pretending to be Shurik's assistant. When this doesn't work, though, he's forced to take Yuri hostage with his own gun in order to escape. Still, he manages to effectively foil the terrorist attack by disabling or dismantling the bombs while they're still being carried.
When he returns to his temporary lodging, he's greeted by a bunch of Russian thugs, belonging to Yuri and he still manages to take them down, despite their great number. The last man left alive attempts to plead for his life, promising Jason money and fame, but he refuses both. However, when the thug offers the location of the Joker, Jason spares him. His need for revenge against the Joker and Batman has not been lost in his travels or other investigations. So, through torture, he manages to get a jump on the Joker's location. He has no qualms about needing to get violent and seems completely unperturbed by the lives he's so graphically taken; extreme measures are not at all beyond him. He follows the Joker to the location where he would have tainted Gotham's water and takes out most of his lackeys with grenades before pursuing the Joker himself. When they're alone, Jason pours gasoline all over him and turns on a lighter, excited to be finally taking this step that Batman never could. However, for whatever reason (potentially PTSD or simply a lack of a dramatic death for the Joker), Jason is unable to burn the Joker alive.
Jason returns to Talia, trying to explain himself to her, telling her that the world doesn't matter to him, only a final confrontation with Batman and the Joker both; he can't do it separately. He grins at the question of murdering Batman, but is floored by the suggestion to take Gotham from him instead. She then informs him of her father's death and the two make whoopy. When he wakes, though, he finds himself alone, but with an e-mail from Talia telling him about a man named Hush and that his coffin has been replaced in order to wrap up any loose ends that Batman could potentially investigate. With this somewhat beneficial partnership, Hush has Batman's secret identity and Jason has a chance to face Batman (also displaying that he'll take help at this point, which is a change in his initial philosophy as a kid that he won't take 'charity'). He determines his new moniker, The Red Hood, in the same way that Batman originally took on his: to face one's fears (the Red Hood was an old alias of the Joker before becoming 'the Joker'). Talia, then, gives him his signature knife (which is both practical as well as symbolic - it can cut Batman's lines) and his red helmet. It's directly after this scene that he's brought to Siren's Port.
Point in Canon: Directly after Red Hood: Lost Days #6
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: N/A
Character Personality:
Above anything else, Jason is violent. Even his good qualities find their base in his volatile handling of himself. He hates pedophiles and rapists, as many do, but he takes that hate to an incredible end. He pursues Felipe Garzonas and tells him forcefully to resist and a make a sport, which should have been the first sign to Batman that something was incredibly wrong with the kid. However, Jason still got his chance to right that 'wrong' committed by Felipe; he went to Felipe's apartment later and while what exactly happened to Felipe is ambiguous, Jason was absolutely in the mindset to push Felipe from the balcony. He wanted it so badly that it wouldn't take much to overpower the criminal and he didn't hide his lack of remorse at using excessive force when around Batman. He doesn't see anything wrong with killing people, as long as they're in his range of 'dirtbag,' which is quite wide. Even, then, he doesn't distinguish between those committing the actual crime and those simply aiding and abetting. In Under the Hood (Batman 635-650, after the timepoint I've selected), he decapitates all of the lieutenants of Gotham's drug dealers and serves them up to their bosses and doesn't care for a second. As well, when he starts to take out his instructors shortly after finishing their services, he justifies it with a simple, "don't tell me the world isn't better off" (LD 3). To him, it's necessary and he does what no one else can to rid the world of what he determines to be filth. This also includes killing the Joker's goons in order to get information on him and making sure that their bodies are properly disposed of in a car crash so as to not arouse suspicion.
This then leads to one of his major weaknesses: his inability to accept consequences for his actions. Sure, he wants to hold everyone else accountable, but Jason believes himself to be above the law and above his own moral standards. To anyone else, it would be outright murder, but to him, it's akin to putting down a rabid dog and himself as a sort-of exterminator or pest control. He feels no personal connection to those he spends time with (but there's two major exceptions: Talia and Batman). However, he's incredibly good at running appearances; he knows that most of his instructors, as Europeans will underestimate him since he's an American kid. He goes out drinking with them but then mows them down within a matter of days when he mows them down to get out the corner he backed himself into alive. Shurik is another particularly obvious example of this. He spends a great deal of time with the older man, learning about bombs and even going out to a bar with him, but still places a bomb on him that will absolutely take off most of his face and jaw (if not kill him). Jason doesn't care if he's not back in time to save him, either, and when it's revealed that Shurik was beaten for information, Jason doesn't bat an eye.
On the same token, it could also be seen as one of his strengths. As mentioned before, he knows the subtleties of body language and can fake them just as well. He takes advantage of misconceptions, especially when he has no emotional connection to them; people underestimating him is an advantage, in his book. The whole time, he's calculating his risks and predicting outcomes that could emerge from any of his potential actions, and it's only after taking Yuri and co. off their guard before he makes any kind of serious move. He rarely lets any emotion but anger into him while in the middle of a battle, or even outside of. When Talia confronts him with pictures of Tim (the Robin right after Jason), Jason shrugs it off at first, acting like there's nothing wrong when in fact there's something very wrong on the inside. It's only when he gets back to his temporary quarters that he breaks down after hours of staring at Tim's picture.
In terms of planning, Jason is both sides of the coin: he can be incredibly spontaneous and reckless, but often creates elaborate Xanatos Gambits (when every outcome is seen as a win to him, despite what others might see as defeat) to a very meticulous level of detail. At first, he decides that spreading rumors of arms all about Gotham, telling both sides of a meet with a buyer, thus making sure that Batman will get wind of it. He nearly murders Batman, but not for lack of trying. He simply doesn't detonate the bomb he planted, despite the detonator being in his hand. He claims that it was because Batman would never know it was him and after that one 'Batman Gambit,' Jason turns to the 'Xanatos Gambit.' Even when he loses a one-hundred -pound crate of Kryptonite in Under the Hood, he claims he's won since he got the lay of the land from the operation. He could have been murdered by Black Mask and still would have claimed that he won; he doesn't rely simply on one line of action and on one person's actions (except himself). He's incredibly flexible and quite capable of a great degree of spontaneity, which sets him apart from his mentor. If someone were to act out of his expectations (the foil to every 'Batman Gambit' is someone acting unpredictably), he would adapt and adjust on the spot. Sure, he doesn't like to at first, but as he continues to develop as a vigilante, he grows more and more almost excited to rely on and be unpredictable. I feel that he very much begins to emulate more of the Xanatos Gambit mindset at the end of Lost Days #6, despite the fact that he doesn't successfully kill the Joker; he now has the opportunity to set up the perfect encounter between Batman, the Joker, and himself.
When digging further into Jason's inner workings, one of his primary mantras is that he's nothing like Batman. He's willing to kill, willing to take out as many people as necessary in order for his plans to go through. He thinks he's better than Batman because he can murder people. This stems from a variety of factors that only augment each other. First of which is that instead of directly seeking answers from Batman upon his resurrection and true revival in the Lazarus Pit. He's left to form his own opinions at what is available in the news clippings given to him to a certain degree, but Talia more than helps to shape that reaction as well. As well, Jason whole-heartedly believes that if Bruce loved him, he would kill the Joker to avenge Jason's murder and Jason goes to such an extreme to try and achieve this ultimate display of love. This in itself likely stems from his childhood and some of his very first words to Batman: "I don't want to wind up in some crummy orphanage or some foster home where I'm somebody's pet charity case" (Batman 408). He would move mountains to get his adopted father's attention and expects those same extreme reactions from Bruce. Since Batman doesn't go to those extremes, Jason takes them himself and rationalizes it with the idea of being 'better' than Bruce because he can take a life.
However, he's very critical of his technicalities like Batman is, which is something of a surprise. He cuts himself such a great deal of slack when dealing with moral ambiguities, but when it comes to the actual execution, he can be incredibly critical. His inner monologue dictates this when he's surprised while in Shurik's workshop, calling himself "so damned stupid," despite the fact that he dealt with the situation very well and forces himself to continue to move (even though he was on fire). His inner self, though, will continue to nag and nag, making sure he's doing the absolute best he can and not taking anything less than that. He's excellent at adapting to any situation, no matter how bad it starts to turn. Still, he has this incredibly negative reaction toward the execution of his reactions, which emphasizes the fact that Jason really isn't all that different from Bruce at his core. There are some fundamental differences in moral codes, but how they treat themselves internally is very similar.
One of the more critical issues at Jason's core, though, is his deep-seated replacement and abandonment fears. He tries to believe that he's better than so many other people but can't seem to figure out why Batman failed him or why he replaced him so quickly with Tim Drake. This drives him, likely, to not allow people close to him so he doesn't have to feel those fears again, as they're already UP TO ELEVEN when dealing with Batman. He feels very strongly that he's Batman's son in every way, despite his insistences that he's different from Batman. It's a strange and contradicting mindset that Jason struggles with almost every time he confronts Batman. When he faces him in Batman 618, he at first seems very calm with the fact that Batman doubts his identity, but afterwords returns to his hideaway to sob. It's these fears of being abandoned and replaced, then, that push him to adopt a new identity, Red Hood, at the end of the arc. He makes plans to prove that he is who he says he is to his father and that he's just as good as if not better than him in the crime-fighting arena.
Thus, Jason constantly seeks validation from those around him, despite claims that he doesn't need that validation from Batman (or anyone else, really). He goes out of his way to get attention when he wants it and continues to act in a sort of way a teenager in rebellion would. He works on acting like an adult and professional around those he needs to, but when he's around Batman, that completely comes undone. He taunts Batman, telling about how much he still loves him, even though Jason often reflects on that himself when he's alone. When he does something that actually saves people from certain death, such as the bomb plot in Lost Days, he reflects: "the end of an international incident… not that anyone will know that." He rarely does anything out of purely good intentions and when he does do this once, he very much seems to wish that people would notice that he did something. This only continues when he takes the moniker of Red Hood and begins to lower the crime rate through murder and usurping Black Mask in that he feels that no one has truly been crediting him with cleaning Gotham's streets of its "filth."
All his validation and abandonment fears, then, return to the fact that he's just pretending. He tries to fake it even to himself. More than anything, he seeks love and attention from the man he considers his father, but at the same time continues to tell himself that Bruce wouldn't be able to do this, or Bruce would be able to do that. He's trying to separate himself and be "his own man" again, he wants to not need it, but can't. Jason Todd is a breathing, walking contradiction in both words and actions.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: N/A
Character Plans:
My biggest interest in playing Jason from this time period is the fact that he's establishing his identity but it hasn't been set in stone yet. He's young enough that he can still be affected by those around him, despite the fact that he has his own concrete moral code. He only really has his training and experience with Batman as a stepping stone to being a 'hero.' He's going to make mistakes, he's going to end up causing trouble while trying to help, and that's something that I find very exciting. Despite being very well-trained (to the point of being almost a canon sue), he is still quite fallible and that is something I want to explore. As well, one of the big reasons why I've taken him from this particular time point is that he's a little more stable and will last longer in a closed environment rather than someone who just put his father up to an ultimatum (like Batman 650) or jumped off a subway train (like Battle for the Cowl). He's at the very beginning of his 'superhero' career and is a great point; he doesn't really have any established alliances or enemies yet. In Siren's Pull, I plan for him to learn how to live completely independenly again, rather than semi-independent but feeding off Talia al Ghul's bank accounts. He'll work to pay his own bills, provide his own safety, and perhaps get a better look at how the vigilante work would usually go for someone who's not well-connected and well-backed.
As well, it would be a blast to play off of the Black Mask, the Joker, and Bruce Wayne. Dream cast right there.
Appearance/PB:
I've been using both comic and a live-action PB for wider access to expressions (as a good 90% of his comic panels are him either shooting someone or being neutral). A link to his comic appearance is here and his PB is Ian Somerhalder (a reference can be found here).
Writing Samples
First Person Sample [Video]
[Jason’s face is completely obscured by a smooth, red helmet and there are two white, oval slats where his eyes would be. A leather jacket conceals any and all weapons he might have and as the camera turns on, it swivels toward a truck that’s been set on fire. Two thickly-set men sit in front of the truck, heads lolled forward and limp. When Jason speaks, his tone is casual and calm.]
See here’s the thing: I don’t really like hustlers. Of any kind. A bunch of dirtbags who think they can get off free by making other people work harder. This isn’t gonna happen anymore now that I’m in town.
[Pause.] You hear that Batman? I’m doing your job for you, better than you.
Now, there’s no need to thank me. [Not that anyone would anyway. He could save Siren’s Port from exploding and he still wouldn’t get any thanks.]
I’m just that kind of guy. [He then steps toward the truck and the two men and unloads a bullet into each of their skulls.]
Dirtbags be warned. The Red Hood is in town. [And the camera flicks off.]
Third Person Sample
Jason didn't know how exactly he'd gotten from a standing position to a prostrate one without remembering falling. Before his eyes are even open, Jason doesn't like the situation. His mind had become surprisingly blank, the internal, criticizing monologue suddenly absent. His head spun and for a few brief moments, he felt like he would get sick all over the grass under his cheek. The fact that there was grass under his cheek alerted him to the fact that his make-shift hideout was far behind and he raised his head as much as he could, pushing himself to do more than his body could handle. So what if he got sick? He had to figure out his new location. With his sweat sticking his bangs to his forehead, the vigilante shifted onto his elbow and raised his face from the ground. A baseball diamond. Empty. His mind slowly began to process, pick back up to speed.
There's no sign of Hush. Or Talia. Or even anything remotely looking like the area around his hideout. He'd memorized every way in and out a long time ago and the fact that he was somewhere different irked him, drove his temper. Someone somewhere was messing with him. It couldn't be the Bat, he didn't know Jason even breathed, but could it be the Joker or his mooks? Could he have found the small hole in the wall he'd taken as his corner of the world?
The diamond. Dugouts look secure and what---
Beyond the chain-link fence, Jason saw movement and he struggled to his feet. Stay upright, ignore the spinning in his head.
However, he simply couldn’t identify what inched slowly along the fence; he had never seen creatures like that before. Still, he didn’t want to stick around to wait to see if it would enter the diamond. He was unprepared but, as he ran a hand down to his holster, he realized that he wasn't unarmed. Awesome. With stiff and sore knees, he stumbled along toward the dugout, focusing on the sounds and smells around him as much as his swimming head would allow. He shoved his helmet underneath his arm, cursing at himself for the dizziness that laid thick across his shoulders. Careless, stupid, he’d been drugged, that had to be it, but it didn’t seem to be an overdose of any kind. Had he left any of his food or drink uncovered?
Had Hush poisoned him? Had his newest meet-and-greet decided to take the meet-and-kill route? It wasn't a bad methodology, maybe, but Jason didn't at all appreciate the extra measures. Couldn't people just talk face-to-face anymore? No, of course not. That would be too easy. Figures, the first guy he deals with right out of the gate is no better than any of those other dirtbags. Still, he wouldn't write the asshole off. Talia told Jason that he could trust Hush, and there would possibly have to be more interactions with this druggie.
Were there any puncture wounds? No. That didn’t explain the nausea. Doesn’t matter, he has to keep moving toward the dugout and get there before that thing does.
But then the doctors emerged and Jason slowed his gait. He counted five. Five, unarmed men. They would be easy enough to kill. As they approached, the young vigilante slid the helmet on and pulled out both pistols from his holster.
"What seems to be the problem officers?" His tone dry as he cocked both pistols and leveled them at his guests.