Politics Is Bad For Your Health (Batgirl)

[Gemini]

“I think there’s someone here… Urgh!...”

It was annoying that the cop had managed to make it to her radio, even as Gemini watched the woman slide unconscious down the side of her squad car. The woman had barely managed to say anything, but already the voice of the dispatch room was urgently calling back, wondering why she’d been suddenly cut off mid-sentence. Gemini could fix things easily, but she was still annoyed at herself for letting the cop speak in the first place. Reaching into the car with an elongated arm, Gemini picked up the radio, concentrating for a moment to alter the shape of her voicebox, before speaking in the voice of the downed officer. “Sorry dispatch, I dropped my radio, forget about what I said, it was a false alarm. Yeah sorry Feretti, won’t happen again, Suarez out.”

Coiling an arm around the downed officer, Gemini opened the police car’s trunk and deposited the woman inside, locking the door and shrinking her arm back to normal proportions. Walking down the backstreets her form started to change as she stepped into a patch of shadow and moments later emerged looking exactly like Officer Carlita Suarez, right down to the gear on her belt and the polish on her badge. Turning a corner ‘Officer Suarez’ reached a perimeter line around the city’s main hotel and was waved through with nothing more than one brief conversation with Suarez’s friends. From the police line it wasn’t far to the freight entrance of the hotel, which Gemini entered, her walk the confident stride of someone who belonged.

All she had to do now was find her way through the hotel to the rooms where the election rally was being held and there would be nothing to stop her from killing the candidate and best of all poor ‘Officer Suarez' would take all the blame. Pressing an elevator button, Gemini nodded to a passing cleaner, doing her best to blend in with the other cops quietly patrolling the building this evening.

[Batgirl]

There was one word that pretty much summed up Steph’s feeling at this point.

Actually, that was her lying through her (actually pretty decent) teeth, because she’d cheerfully bet good money or cookies that there were lots of words that summed up said feelings. Right now, only one was coming to mind though. Just as well it was a good one.

Bored. Or, to put it in a more Stephanie Brown-esque fashion, booooooooored. Really, really bored in a way that had nothing to do with why she was here and absolutely everything to do with the way she had to plaster a sympathetic smile on her face as yet another old guy tried to chat her up under the guise of playing up their interest in Gotham’s youth, usually via comparing the size of their campaign donations. Seriously. She was like… half their age. Thankfully the candidate wasn’t that skeevy, and he was the one Steph was sticking close to tonight. That was the problem, really. And why she was bored.

Or, hey, booooooooored.

Politics didn’t really interest her much anyway. Why? That’d be because politics didn’t ever help people, not real people. Not the way Batgirl could or Batman did, anyway, and Steph’s opinion of… oh… ninety – no, ninety nine point ninety nine per cent of politicians could be summed up in another of those helpful one word answers she was rocking tonight along with the black waistcoat over slightly low-cut white t-shirt combo plus the eggplant neckerchief that she was also rocking. Oh yeah, the one word being ‘crooks’. Not even the fun sort of crooks that she could meet with a quip and a roundhouse kick to the head followed by a touchdown dance. No, these were the sort of crooks she was stuck smiling at while they try and peer down her (admittedly pretty spectacular) cleavage and then wishing she could kick ‘em in the face. Or lower.

Apparently though, O felt the best way to protect this guy was to send in the cute and/or sexy blonde girls instead of one of the other flavours of Bat. Most of which boiled down to ‘tall, dark and looming’ with one ‘medium, dark and awkward’ and another ‘short, dark and stabby’. Damian would be an awful choice, because he’d probably say what everyone else was just thinking or stab someone. Anyone else, hey, she’d just guessed that nobody wanted the big and shiny Wayne name associated with this guy. Guess she really ought to read up on her politics, huh.

And so, here she was, Stephanie Brown, bored out of her mind and absently hoping somebody was going to crash the party so she could hit someone. The garter strap hidden under her pants held two special little batarangs each – one EMP, an icerang and two gooperangs – which was why she running solo for this. If anyone came in, she hit the EMP, everything electric went bye-bye, then she could sneak out, change, then deliver the righteous beatdown and be done. Happy days. Course, she reserved the right to break out the ‘rangs early if anyone got grabby.

Her spliced-into-the-cops’-band radio lit up. Right. Solo except for that. And… Hello, that sounded suspicious to her. Perking up, Steph slid back a bit, to where she could eye the door that led in. There shouldn’t be any cops inside the building, they all ought to be outside. So, if an ‘Officer Suarez’ popped up without a good reason, it was a Clayface sitch. Been there, done that, got the partially-frozen clay monster to prove it. Or Jane Doe. Steph winced. Ick. She’d really rather it was Clayface. Sidling towards the door, Steph went to keep an eye on things.

TAG: Gemini

[Gemini]

Walking through the back corridors, Gemini took several wrong turns before the sounds of the party started to provide a more accurate guide about where she should be going. Even then, she'd still managed to take the wrong door into a janitor's closet and another to some stairs leading to the roof before finding the door that was the one she wanted.

Opening it, she slipped through, taking in the sight of all the 'great and good' of Gotham milling around drinking champagne and boasting of their business success. There was a stage at one end of the room, on which a number of people milled, among whom was almost certainly her target.

Keeping to the side of the large hotel ballroom, Gemini moved forward, keeping her walk casual and smiling at anyone who she needed to ease past, but moving forward purposefully towards her goal. By the look of it the new Mayor had little in the way of security; there was nobody dressed in a suit with dark glasses watching the crowd, this should be a piece of cake.