Saturday, June 17, 2410
New Gotham City, Kane's World

Fingers McCabe and her lookout Buddy weren't actually on the job tonight; having only arrived in town the day before, they were still getting a feel for the lay of the land, as it were. They were up on the rooftop of one of the buildings that overlooked the Midtown South branch of Gotham Trust just to have a look at the sightlines - it couldn't even properly be called casing the joint. Sort of pre-pre-casing it.

Fingers and Buddy had heard that New Gotham wasn't a place for enterprising criminals to jump in with both feet, as it were, anyway. Too many costumes around for that - though, having come from New Avalon, they were both used to that. That was one of the reasons they'd left Spheretown in the first place. When even a legendary security wizard like Boyd Kavanagh hung up his skeleton keys, the smarter regular operators like Fingers and Buddy knew the place was too hot for the likes of them. On the other hand, compared to the Titans, how tough could this place's costumes be? Most of them didn't even have superpowers, from what Fingers had heard.

"Do you hear that?" Buddy asked.

"No," Fingers replied, still engrossed in taking a close look at the facade of the bank across the street. "What?"

"Sounds like - " Buddy said, but before he could finish, a dark shape topped with a brilliant, fizzing red light loomed out of the night and zoomed past, flying just above rooftop level over the street.

"Heads up!" this bizarre figure - hunched back, leathery wings, a slender girl-shape above, all cast in weird, hellish relief by the sputtering red glow - called gaily to them, and then it was gone. A moment later another winged form, this one bigger and still more monstrous, swept past with a blast of slipstream and a wave of some oppressive, musty but unidentifiable smell. Buddy and Fingers coughed and staggered back from the edge of the roof, waving the miasma away with both hands.

There was a brief and startled silence while the two reflected on what they'd just seen.

"Buddy?" said Fingers.

"Yeh?" Buddy replied.

"Did you just see what I just saw?"

"I'm not sure. Did you just see a girl in a cape with a highway flare in her hand, ridin' on the back of a giant bat wearin' a tactical harness and combat boots, both of 'em bein' chased by a moth the size of a Buick? 'Cause that's what I just saw."

"... God Almighty, what do they put in the water in this town?"

Fingers McCabe and Buddy returned to New Avalon on the 11:45 Federated Galactic flight out of Thomas Wayne International that night.

"Welcome to Gotham" - a Future Imperfect Micro-Story by Benjamin D. Hutchins
special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2012 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

Y'know, I'm sure there are other, more promising cities for second-story men (and women) than New Gotham or New Avalon.

Polychrome

>Did you just see a girl in a cape with a highway flare
>in her hand, ridin' on the back of a giant bat wearin' a tactical
>harness and combat boots, both of 'em bein' chased by a moth the size
>of a Buick?

Steph and Man-Bat vs the mad scientists creation Du-Jour, I assume?

>>Did you just see a girl in a cape with a highway flare
>>in her hand, ridin' on the back of a giant bat wearin' a tactical
>>harness and combat boots, both of 'em bein' chased by a moth the size
>>of a Buick?
>
>Steph and Man-Bat vs the mad scientists creation Du-Jour, I assume?

Mothra is a MEAN drunk?

>>>Did you just see a girl in a cape with a highway flare
>>>in her hand, ridin' on the back of a giant bat wearin' a tactical
>>>harness and combat boots, both of 'em bein' chased by a moth the size
>>>of a Buick?
>>
>>Steph and Man-Bat vs the mad scientists creation Du-Jour, I assume?
>
>Mothra is a MEAN drunk?

Source Material Ferret is go. I do believe we're talking about this fellow here.

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "Murphy never sleeps, but that's no reason to poke him with a sharp stick."

All things being equal, I suspect Gryph was thinking more of this incarnation.

Nice try, though. :)

Charaxes and the cartoon Killer Moth are pretty much the same character, except the cartoon one is a) smarter and b) as far as we know doesn't eat people.

--
Geoff Depew - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lord of Sith Tech Support.
"And Remember! Google is your Friend!!"

>Charaxes and the cartoon Killer Moth are pretty much the same
>character, except the cartoon one is a) smarter and b) as far as we
>know doesn't eat people.

And c) has to cope with a bratty daughter who's probably a protege of Big Fire by now....

>Charaxes and the cartoon Killer Moth are pretty much the same
>character, except the cartoon one is a) smarter and b) as far as we
>know doesn't eat people.

Well, that depends which cartoon. The one in The Batman is probably not smarter. :)

--G.
which was more or less what I was picturing, hence the highway flare
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I have nothing to add but this:

"Are you stupid? I'm the Goddamned Mothman!"

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

LAST EDITED ON Apr-23-12 AT 02:55 PM (EDT)
 
>I have nothing to add but this:
>
>"Are you stupid? I'm the Goddamned Mothman!"

thegoddamnmanbat!bativac.batcave.kw

"I'm the goddamn $HANDLE!" is something of a running injoke in the McGinnis Bat Cave - it appeared in one of those Shocking Exposé "documentary" segments on some 25th-century New Gotham equivalent of a tabloid tele-magazine which postulated that Robin had to be a traumatized kidnap victim suffering from a sort of superheroic Stockholm syndrome. This was so simultaneously mortally insulting and hilariously off-base that the gang's been getting mileage out of it ever since. It reached its public apotheosis when Renee Montoya actually said to a reporter live on television during the great Blackgate Penitentiary Riot and Siege of 2405, "Are you retarded or something? I'm the goddamn police commissioner!"

They never have managed to get Alfred to say that he's the goddamn butler, though. Lena lives for the day that happens.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

He taunts her by saying there is recorded evidence of the event somewhere she will never access. And there is (it being extremely bad form to lie to one's mistress). In his head.

The amount of times she's turned the entire house upside down...

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends

>Mothra is a MEAN drunk?

Mothra is also MUCH larger than a mere buick...

You obviously haven''t driven a 1987 Regal. :)

And that's when you know it's time to get the hell out of town.