metaverses | Open | The city at the center of it all

Who: open to all, 4th wall visitors more than welcome!
What: New faces and new cracks in the sky
When: August 2022 4th Wall- Weekend
Where: Central City
Content Warnings: If needed

[As Friday night rolls into Saturday, the repercussions of this Earth rejoining the multiverse are starting to become more clear. Missing persons reports are flooding the airwaves, the OurPowers metahuman-only social media network included. In Excelsior, it seems the newly-sentient tech devices are adding to the noise. News coming from Sunset Falls is terse-- there is also a Strong Magical Effect of some sort active in addition to the disappearances. Not even Little Love is immune; thankfully, the residents report no additional hazards.

But here in Central City, the citizens only grow more tense with each resident taken. A powderkeg with a long fuse that has just been lit. The sky is starting to crack, and the feelings of homesickness and fear are starting to spread.

It’s not the warmest welcome a visitor could receive, but the meta population has been put on alert for new arrivals, searching from rooftop to water’s edge. Central’s a VERY big city, but hopefully some generous souls can point you to the swanky Diadem Hotel in the end.

Resident metas, you might want to check in on your nearest and dearest before heading out. Some of you might be deploying to Sunset Falls or Excelsior soon, or making plans to get to Little Love before Central gets… too rough. Some of you might be adventuring Elsewhere very shortly. But maybe there is time to help out a fresh face, extricate them from a confrontation, give them the lowdown about this alternate Earth? After all, you were once new yourself.]

((4th-wallers, feel free to touch down here! Network/”text” threads welcome. Mingle to your hearts’ content))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Steph isn't a stranger to negative reactions from the public, but it feels different when it was directed at Batgirl specifically. This is just... anger and frustration bleeding through and making people dangerous, and she can't say she's a fan.

It has her out in uniform, knowing it's likely a bad idea but unable to just sit somewhere safe while people are in trouble.

Like Wren, being dumped into an unfortunate situation with no idea what the situation actually involves. Steph doesn't think twice about stepping in, which mostly involves hooking her grapple gun on a nearby building so she can swing down and land next to Wren.

"Hey folks, you mind if we cut this short? I've gotta take our new friend for a tour." It's not really a question, and she holds a hand out for Wren, her expression a very clear suggestion that Wren should let her help so they can get the hell out of here.

Look, Wren's got no idea who the purple suit is (that logo is fully unfamiliar) but in spite of what their former team might say Wren is fully capable of playing along when needed. It could of course go pear-shaped, some kind of draw away and attack trap, but even if going 1v1 against another mask is the significantly harder fight Wren would much rather risk that than hurting a bunch of non-powered people. People don't get this angry overnight - not without mind control involved - so Wren's definitely missing something here and even if it is mind control that's another check into the box of 'do your best to not let them get hurt'.

"Sorry for the interruption, back to your regularly scheduled programming - uh, maybe," okay, that sky looks questionable to say the least, but that is not yet Wren's problem to deal with. They take Stephanie's hand without hesitating. Sure they can fly but this way they don't set off a blowback and potentially knock people over that are standing too close. "Thanks."

The problem with random people in costumes turning up is that there's no indication whether they're the good guys or the bad guys. Someone like Tim or Bruce would likely exercise more caution and analyze the situation first, but Steph isn't like Tim or Bruce, and she figures that either way, she's doing the right thing.

If it's a good guy, she's helped them out of a tricky situation. If it's a bad guy, she now has their attention on her instead of civilians. And if it's someone who doesn't fall either way, maybe showing a little kindness will make the difference.

So when Wren takes her hand, Steph smiles, despite the fact one of the locals is starting to tell her off, too. She decides it's best to ignore them for the few seconds it takes to leave.

She leads Wren a couple of feet away, still holding their hand, which she then guides to her shoulder, so she can wrap an arm around their waist and fire off her grapple gun, hooking onto a nearby building. The line retracts, and Steph keeps her grip tight on Wren so she doesn't lose them.

The landing isn't going to be the most graceful thing in the world, it never is when two people on one grapple line, but she'll do her best to make sure they both stay on their feet.

Up in the air, away from people who could get accidentally injured (slim as that possibility is), Wren can help with the landing. Nothing to kick off of to launch, but holding on to Steph a bit tighter and taking control of landing to make it easier, a bit more graceful and less hard on both of their knees.

"- Sometimes when I lift off, especially when I'm going fast, the resulting air current can knock people back if they're not prepared and everyone was packed super tight and already pissed off-" Wren explains, expecting the question for 'if you can fly why'd you not already do that'.

Oh. Steph doesn't have a lot of experience with metas, but she's spent enough time with Kara to know how to adjust when someone else takes the weight off a landing, so it's not too much of a disaster.

She wasn't expecting an explanation, either, but she can roll with that, too. "Please, you're fine." There are plenty of reasons to decide not to fly in the middle of a group of people, including the reason that Wren gave. "It's a pretty cool trick, though."

Steph lets go of Wren, mostly so she can go detach the grapple from the building, not wanting to lose it when she doesn't have Bat resources anymore.

It probably says the kind of person Wren is, too. Both for their reasoning and that they felt they had to maybe explain themselves.

Wren lets go as well once they've both got their feet under them - they've never had a vast wealth of resources so making sure to not lose a grapple gun checks out perfectly to Wren's logic.

"So - I don't think anyone here recognized my costume so I have no idea why they were that angry. What's going on...?"

Right. Explanations. She's great at those, especially when she doesn't entirely understand the situation herself, being so new. Tim has given her the SparkNotes version, and she's done a decent amount of digging on her own time, but it still isn't really enough.

"Short version would be that there's a whole mess with the multiverse and the locals have taken to blaming new arrivals as if they've purposefully displaced their friends and family." That's actually not the worst explanation in the world. Points for her. "They have a lot of opinions about superheroes and metas, too, but that would require the long version if you really wanna get into it."

And it may not be worth it, depending on how long Wren ends up stuck here.

Open | The city at the center of it all

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