169/All Cats Are Grey

All Cats Are Grey
Date of Scene:	27 April 2017
Location:	Gotham City
Synopsis:	rooftops and cats and Gotham oh my
Cast of Characters:	Zachary Lightwing

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Vorpal (87) has posed:
The Tour of Gotham continues for Vorpal. Mostly due to the events of last night, and the curiosity that they engendered. Every member of the strange team they fell into has awakened Vorpal's' curiosity- and in first place is... well. He didn't really get his name, did he? Sparky. Sparky the Wondercat. That's what he's going to call him until he finds out his name.

Considering this, Vorpal's best chance of finding him was to be extremely visible himself and continue his reconaissance, in the hopes that Sparky flag Vorpal down. This is why Burnely is the cat's choice for tonight- jumping from rooftop to rooftop without his invisibility. In fact he has enhanced his fur colors so they are very, very bright and pull the eye...

It has just dawned on him that in Gotham, this means that the likes of Batman's gallery of rogues (which is not the same as a gallery of rouge, which would look silly on the Dark Knight) could spot him first.

Ah, well, risk was part of the business.

Heck, living in Gotham alone was almost an expression of a death wish, as he understands it.

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
Zachary was sadly a fine example of that very fact, as indicated by him being a ghost sitting on top of an old busted neon sign. The feline stares out at the Narrows, the most vile stretch of Gotham's streets imaginable, with the curiosity one might have when staring at an ant farm. The busy little souls preying on each other in the night are watched with softly glowing green eyes and the most passive of demeanors. He is not, in fact, much of a superhero, unlikely to interrupt most of these activities.

He is distracted by something more interesting soon enough.

Vorpal would be interrupted in his obvious display to garner attention by a nearby set of wires spanning an alley swirling with electricity, and the ghost cat popping up on top of an antenna on the end that long ago lost its purpose in the modern age. The ghostly creature calls out, "Hey! You'll catch a bullet like that!" He actually cares about Vorpal more than any random slob slinking about at street level. Vorpal HAS saved his... unlife? more than once, though the Cheshire may only be aware of the one time they met in either form.

"Calm down with the rainbow, Technicolor Cat," he continues.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal suddenly becomes a lot less vivid. His fur turns a dusty grey that is not too hard to miss when compared to the grey stuff that makes up ninety percent of the buildings in Gotham. Even the black spandex suit stops being its black, glossy color and becomes dull and grey.

"That's ok, I know how to camouflage. You don't survive the queen of hearts for as long as I have without knowing how to hide."

Oh, who was he kidding? The Queen of Hearts was a total pushover. Six milion, two hundred thousand and four hundred and sixty four executions ordered throughout her tenure, and not a single actual beheading. "I was hoping I'd run into you, but I didn't exect you to come out of the aerial," he walks closer to him, his broad grin breaking the monotony of grey, "Catch any I Love Lucy while you were in there?"

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
Zach laughs when Vorpal seems to take on the appearance of stone, remembering the camoflauge of the species quite well from what he'd read of them. He hops off the antenna to prowl around the edge of the building as Vorpal spoke to him, the ghostly feline peering over the side down at a group of homeless people sitting around in the dirt.

"You were looking for me, huh?"

He absolutely glosses over the jokes that Vorpal makes, apparently taking the act of tracking him down very seriously. He paces along the stonework, his tail trailing out behind him like a wisp of smoke on the breeze. He seems unaffected by the wind, obeying the spiritual winds instead, a much harder to sense phenomenon. "I was told by someone I respect recently that I shouldn't make myself a target," he tells Vorpal.

"So why did you want to find me?" he finally asks, pausing to sit there on the edge of the building.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"You make me curious," The other one answers truthfully, walking along the edge of the building, hands behind his back. "Can't I be interested in a fellow feline? Especially one who clearly has rather expensive special effects to boot. I've seen demons before, and more, but I don't quite think I've run into anyone like you before, Sparky."

He sits down, cross-legged, on the edge while keeping perfect balance. "So, naturally, I simply *must* find out about you. Especially since you are trying not to be a target- I sense a story. Probably a few chapters in it, too."

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
Zachary tilts one of his ears and frowns to himself. The expression is clearly one of those thoughtful ones he makes, complete with his awkward silence, the creature very deliberate in how he approaches certain answers. Especially ones about himself.

"I understand."

"I... can't tell you much about myself just yet, not the important parts," he tells Vorpal, turning to sit down and look at him seriously. "Not even my name. But I can explain a bit about what I am. As much as I know about it."

"As you might guess, I'm a ghost, or some manner of spirit. I was human once, an everyday man who made his own mistakes but tried to get past them. Inevitably, I was killed in a coincidental tragedy. My soul did not remain in this plane. It tried to move on as you would expect it to do, but it couldn't do that either. So I ended up in a kind of limbo. Not the one you might imagine, but a place full of nothingness, an endless field of grey. And there I found fragments of things that once lived, and one of them reached out to me and lamented its failures."

"So I touched it, and we ended up here. Pardon my waxing poetic. We're the same thing now, which is why, I guess, I look like a cat. I was given an incredible power over electricity as well, enough that I might strike down gods if I got the inclination and opportunity to do it. It's powerful magic."

"I'm a product of Gotham, in the end. At least I lost my life and not my mind."

"What about you? What's your story?"

Vorpal (87) has posed:
And there, for a second, Vorpal turns into Dame Edna herself and intones, in her hooty voice, "Well that's positively spooooooky, possum."

He reverts to his Cheshire cat self and holds up a hand, counting. "You are telling me that you once were human, that you were involved in an accident and died, and then you somehow merged with a spirit, became a cat of sorts and developed magical powers, so to speak, as it were?" He tilts his head and watches Zach carefully.

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
"I was magical before, but had to give it up. I wasn't a very good mage. And I was killed, but only because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not even really worth becoming a vengeful spirit over."

Zachary is making a face and his tone is recovering from the cartoonish antics of the other feline. "But, you got the basics of it. Depressing, right?"

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"I guess. Technically speaking, if we don't go too deeply into details, we're basically the same perr-son." The Cheshire cat smirks and leans back on his hands. "You know that Neil Diamond song, 'I am, I said?' Well, except for the names and a few other changes, if you talk about me, the story is the same one."

He laughs and shakes his head, "How utterly, absolutely //curious//. Of course, I didn't end up a ghost, I endded up solid and rather good-looking if I do say so myself... but the shedding is murder on the furniture and I can already see I am going to suffocte in the summer."

He turns to look at Zachary. "If you're going to keep your name a secret, I need to call you -something-. Like Sparks. Sparky. Thundercat. Cosmic Creepers..."

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
...

Zach seriously weighs whether he should trust Vorpal. The comparison he just made is ... interesting. He makes a distressed noise and shakes his head at the different names, laughing at that last one because of how off it sounded.

"If you call me Lion-o, I'm /out/," he jokes.

"... I'm Zachary Lightwing," he introduces, "I don't really have an alter ego name of my own. And... that guy in the alley, with all those thugs with the taser gloves? The green eyes? That's me. Or that's my body, from before this happened. I dampened their weapons for you, it was the most I could do without..." He grimaces and closes his eyes. "If you use that to mess with my everyday life, I will fry you," he warns, and he's not exaggerating, that's a grave tone. "But I feel like you've earned knowing that much, having saved me more than once."

He opens his eyes. "I want to be a normal person, when I'm in my normal body. It is more important to me than you could ever comprehend."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"My lips are sealed. I guess tit is for tat... name's Tom. Tom Hunter. Shouldnt've heard of me unless you watch youtube videos, and wizards don't strike me as 'nauts." The Cheshire scratches an ear, "Is it important because it gives you a measure of normalcy with which to hold on to the 'you' that used to be, or because you need down time in your body? Thanks for the assist, by the way. I don't see why I'd mess with your life, though. I mean, unless you happen to be a villain."

He lets the pause go for two second before adding, "And I seriously doubt you are."

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
Zachary feels some relief in knowing a little more about the Cheshire Cat sitting before him. "It's important to be normal for a while because ..." He hesitates. "Because of things I'd prefer not to explain, sappy reasons that aren't really for my sake," he decides, not quite to the level of explaining the deeper details.

"I wouldn't be much of a villain," he agrees. "Not until I get a job at LexCorp, at least. Then I can help shill those annoying LexCorp phones and spread anti-alien sentiment." He is probably joking, his tone is dripping with non-serious.

"... Do I call you Tom?" he wonders.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"When I'm in the fur and the tights, I go by 'Vorpal" the cat points out. For a moment, his human persona appears where he is sitting, before fading back to the camouflaged Cheshire, "I try to keep my private life and the hero stuff separate. I know 'Vorpal' is a little on the oblique side as far as references go, but what are ya gonna do? I can't have 'Cheshire'-Rumor goes that some sort of mercenary goes by that name, so I have to make do with second-best choice. And..." he holds up a finger, "If you call me Tomcat, I swear I will start calling you Greased Lightning."

The mention of Lexcorp causes him to raise an eyebrow, "... you could do that? I mean, could you interfere with LexCorp phones? Because if you could make every Lexcorp phone's ringtone be "On Top of Old Baldy," you would be my hero. Forever."

"Speaking of which, since you don't do the villain thing, I assume you're doing the vigilante thing I'm doing? Or are you mostly a terribly tangled-up spectator?"

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
"Snicker-snack."

Zach seems to get the reference, indicating it with that phrase. He doesn't think about it much further than that! He shakes his head vigorously and tells Vorpal, "Only if I want to end up on Luthor's bad side. A man that rich has to have the worst bad side to get on."

"I ... have no moral urge to go and rescue anyone," he points out, "Not just any random stranger on the street. I don't really deserve to be the kind of person they would look up to, so it's not really worth it. O-oh..."

"But I did go out of my way to look at Bruce Wayne's murder... boy is that a big mess," he says, "Just so you know, Batman didn't do it. The real culprit is trying to frame him. And I want people that can actually do something for Gotham to stay safe. Too late for Wayne, I guess, but at least I can help Batman just a little."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"Wait."

"Batman. You have actually met the terror that faps in the night?" The cat asks, ooking interested now. "Like, seriously? You've -got- to tell me more, and how do I go about finding him? I wouldn't mind lending a paw to the investigations. I may be a rookie, but I've got a mind like a steel trap!"

He thinks on this for a second and then says, "Or maybe that's my appetite? In any case...." he reaches out to pat the ghost in the shoulder when he realizes what he's about to do, and just says "You've died already. Your past is past, and in a way it's ashes under the crematorium. You have sort of been born again. In a way. The only mistakes that matter are the only ones you intend NOT to make from this point on." He sits back.

"Trust me on that."

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
"When you see the Bat Signal, go toward it. He'll need all the help he can get." That big floodlight that shines late at night sometimes, supposedly from the top of GCPD. Kind of famous now that it's been used a few times. Zach looks toward the hand that reaches out to him, and smirks at it.

And then he headbumps the palm of Vorpal's hand before it can pull away. It's a cushioning little bump, like getting bopped with feathers.

"I don't know about that, Vorpal. I'll try to move past it, but it's simpler to say it than to do it," he says, honestly enough.

"... I want to be your sidekick," he tells Vorpal, suddenly. "Maybe that will help me figure it all out."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The cheshire cat blinks for a second before shaking his head. "You know, I just started this thing a couple of weeks ago. I've officially spent more time designing my costume and getting it made than I have spent on the streets. I'm learning as I go." He uncrosses his legs and stretches them out before him on the ledge.

"I mean, if you want to join me on the never-ending fight against evil with optional late-night IHOP runs in between stake-outs and the like, my philosophy is always 'the more the merrier.' But I wanted to let you know just how -green- I am, even if I may look orange and red." He gives Zach a toothy grin.

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
"A partnership, then."

"Since we're both green, we'll both learn from it. I'll... figure out a way to help people, and we'll help each other out. I don't want too much attention from this so you should take most of the credit. I'll give you the service of amazing lightning powers, when that chaos magic you keep using doesn't do the trick."

Zachary holds out his paw. "Deal?"

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal shakes it and winks, "Deal. But you gotta come up with some sort of moniker. That's your homework. And a costu-"

A pause. "This is going to sound insensitive. Can ghosts wear costumes? I mean... if I make you one and burn it, can you wear the ghost of the costume? I'm afraid my experience with the realms of ghosts is rather limited." After all, Vorpal is not one of those married mediums, equally at home in matters of Par Avenue and the realms beyond, Frank and -- wait. Wrong channel.

"I'll find us a place where we can meet, too. Sort of a safe house. I'll think of something. Sounds good?" because, even though his family does well, it does not do well enough for him to have the funds for anything anyone might call a 'headquarters' with a serious expression.

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
"I don't need to eat and my real body tends to stay at home most evenings so that extra money can go into a hideout. I don't know what we'll do about a costume..." Zachary looks at himself, frowning at the idea of being unable to wear one. He's small, and his appearance is already fairly distinctive. How many ghost cats could there even be out there, let alone ghost cats that can project magical lightning? "I was thinking Byakko, like the white tiger of the west, but I'm not even close to from that area. Err... Commissioner Gordon and Batman are calling me Spook but that might need to change when I think of something better."

"... so it'll be a hard assignment."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"All the best ones are. Otherwise it wouldn't be any fun now would it?" the Cheshire Cat smiles has he stands up, dusting imaginary specs from his legs. " I gave you my Chirp handle, let's use it to stay in touch... let's convene over the weekend. Sounds good?"

Zachary Lightwing has posed:
"Sounds good to me," Zachary agrees, and waits long enough to get Vorpal's contact info before scurrying back off into the night. He'll have some things to think about, particularly the change in priorities he'll need to have if he's going to get into the superhero game.