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Karkat picked up a couple of new toys in the Labyrinth the other day; a pair of matched sickles with chains hanging off the handles and a heavy spike ball at the end. Or maybe a pair of morningstars with a crescent-moon blade at the opposite end.

Now if he can just figure out how to stop hitting himself in the face with them...

His strife specibus allocation gives him a knack with sickles, and his supernatural abilities as a hero of Blood means he's not making too much of a mess of himself. But he never picked up a fraymotif for this and he's starting to feel a little harassed by his own equipment.

He was out here a little before dawn, when the light was friendlier to his nocturnal eyes, but that was... a while ago. He's working with just one at a time for now, and the golden one is starting to get irritating as it catches the light on the baroque engravings and ornamentations. Might be time to switch to the purple.

[OOC: I'm at work so I may end up dropping. But it's looking like a slow couple of days ahead, so.]

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Robin, when he comes outside, spends his time on the roof most of the time. Or in the trees. Off the ground, is where we're going here. Because that's where Robins like to be. It's the trees right now, which are closer to the training area and so his attention is caught by the weapons.

Karkat, you're being watched by a boy in sunglasses, sitting on a high branch, and watching your progress with a critical eye.

Batman's probably an expert with this. Robin knows only enough to recognize the weaponry.

The thing is, in the normal course of things, he really does know what he's doing with a cycle. It's just that when he initiates ones of his usual fraymotifs, he doesn't know what he's doing with the chain and it ends up getting wrapped around a limb.

Once or twice he's able to incorporate that in a successful way, making the morningstar change direction mid-air and rocket itself in some direction, but as often as not that direction is his own torso.

(It doesn't help that his impulse is always to run before he can walk.)

After a while, he curses out the golden sickle thoroughly (well, golden-colored--an actual solid gold sickle would be too heavy and too soft for anything useful) and switches it out for something he can feel more comfortable with.

It's a subtle visual effect, like a green shutter that flashes over his hand, and the chain-sickle has been replaced by something no less garish but a little more familiar to his hand.

Edited 2013-08-22 18:29 (UTC)

That was really kind of cool, the way he just did that. Robin replays it over in his mind and realizes he has no point of reference for just switching out weapons out of midair like that. You know, unless it's magic or something.

"Dude," he announces suddenly. "That was so cool."

Karkat startles a little bit, then locates him in the tree.

This is one of the ways in which having a girlfriend who likes to sneak up on and pounce on you; you get better at this.

"IT'S JUST MY STRIFE SPECIBUS," he says dismissively. "COMPLETELY ORDINARY APPLICATION OF COMPUTER SCIENCE."

Even humans have them, in some universes.

"It's computer science? Dude, have I mentioned that computers in your universe are awesome?"

(Gray skin, horns. It's not completely obvious this is Karkat, but it's probably someone from his universe?)

"I'm Robin."

"OH, YOU'RE THAT GUY," he says.

If that heavy grey CAPSLOCK type could be a voice, it would sound like that; flat and weighty, loud without being an actual shout. And it would belong to a guy like that, short and broad through the shoulders, a bantam, with a tight short-tempered and tired-looking face.

"IT'S EMPIRICAL CODING, THAT'S WHAT IT'S FOR. THE SAME WAY SOMEONE WITH PSIONIC POWERS CAN THINK THOUGHTS THAT CHANGE THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, ONLY WITH A COMPUTER."

"WHY ARE YOU IN A FUCKING TREE?"

Robin jerks a thumb behind him at the forest. "Rural stealth and agility. I can come down."

He leaps down, efficiently and with no extraneous acrobatics involved. "We don't have psionic powers of that magnitude in our world." Not even Martian Manhunter can really change the physical universe. "What happened to the chain-sickle you were just using?"

He grunts in acknowledgement of that; he hasn't seen the kind of psionic abilities among humans that were routine on Alternia.

He shrugs at the question. "I JUST PUT IT AWAY. MY SPECIBUS IS ALLOCATED TO SICKLES SO I CAN STORE AND RETRIEVE THEM PRETTY MUCH WHENEVER.

He shifts his hand and lets the HOMES SMELL YA LATER slip into back into the deck; there's the same flicker of green around his hand. Standing closer, Robin can probably see the sickle sort of flatten out and shrink just before it does.

Behind the glasses, Robin's eyes light up when he sees that.

"Okay, that is so much more useful than a utility belt. And you can keep bigger things in it, as well."

It's a shame that Batman would never let him have one, otherwise it would be right up there on things to make after a virtual reality training room.

Karkat shoves his hands into the pockets of his grey cargo pants. "YEAH, SIZE IS NOT REALLY A LIMIT ON CARRYING CAPACITY IN A WELL-DESIGNED SYLLADEX, BUT IT ALL DEPENDS. SOMETIMES THEY ARE HANDICAPPED WITH ARBITRARY LIMITATIONS, ARBITRARY PAINS IN THE ASS ARE AN IMPORTANT FEATURE OF DIS* PROGRAMS."

"I NEVER REALLY GOT INTO IT MYSELF, I HAVE ENOUGH ZEMBLANITY IN MY LIFE AS IT IS."

"Arbitrary pains in the ass can sometimes be considered an important feature of life."

Dis* is not ^cake, and it's possible that Robin might get confused if he starts after more than one completely alien programming language at once. That's probably not going to stop him, though.

"Zemblanity?"

That was a new word! He leaps on it like a cat on a new plaything.

"MISFORTUNE," Karkat translates. "BUT IN A COINCIDENTAL WAY, JUST GETTING DEALT A BAD HAND." The opposite of serendipity.

"IT'S A MAJOR PROBLEM WITH A SYLLADEX BECAUSE IT'S SO CONVENIENT TO BE ABLE TO CARRY ALL YOUR INVENTORY AROUND IN A LITTLE DECK OF CARDS. SO IN A CHEAP OR SHITTY SYLLADEX YOU GET ZEMBLANITY OVERFLOWS ALL OVER THE PLACE, JUST THE STUPIDEST FUCKING THINGS THAT 'JUST HAPPEN' TO TAKE PLACE. CAKES AND SHARDS OF GLASS BEING LAUNCHED ALL OVER THE PLACE, NONSENSE LIKE THAT."

"SOME OF THAT CAN BE MANAGED BY JUST NOT BEING AN IDIOT, BUT IF YOU ARE WALKING AROUND IN A CLOUD OF ZEMBLANITY YOU ARE GOING TO GET YOURS SOONER OR LATER. A MORE EXPENSIVE SYLLADEX MANAGES IT BETTER, BUT MOST OF THEM AT LEAST USE SOME KIND OF RANDOM OR INCONVENIENT RETRIEVAL GIMMICK TO BLEED OFF A LITTLE. THAT'S THE MODUS."

"THE KIND OF MODUS WHERE YOU CAN JUST PICK UP A THING, AND PUT IT IN, AND THEN TAKE IT BACK OUT AGAIN WITH NO FUSS... THAT TAKES SOME SERIOUS SHIT. UNLESS IT'S YOUR STRIFE SPECIBUS--YOU GET TO PICK ONE THING TO BE YOUR ALLOCATED WEAPON AND THAT'S FREE." Like his sickles. "BUT OTHERWISE."

The opposite of serendipity! +1 word that Robin is now going to overuse until it drives the Team nuts. Not to mention Batman and Alfred.

"Right, of course," he says eagerly. "It's like not organizing your pouches properly so you just reach in," here he demonstrates by twisting a hand back and up the back of his sweater, "and pull out any old thing, without really knowing what you're after."

This is impossible to do if you're a Bat and you're reaching into your utility belt because there is never a margin for error, but to demonstrate a point, Robin pulls out one of his batarangs and a trading card from a Japanese game popularized by a related manga and anime.

"One of these is more useful in actual combat than the other."

"WELL FORTUNATELY FOR THEM MOST PEOPLE DON'T HAVE TO PROGRAM THEIR OWN SYLLADEXES, YOU CAN JUST BUY THEM."

Cards can be very dangerous things! But not if, as they've been discussing, you don't have a sylladex. He squints.

"WHAT IS THAT THING, IS THAT A THROWING STAR? I USED TO KNOW A TELEKINETIC WHO WOULD THROW THOSE AT PEOPLE."

"Oh, yeah, I guess that's a thing, too."

You can't buy batarangs or utility belts or bat-shark-repellent. Everything Robin owns has been custom made for him - including his civilian clothes as it happens. He assumes everything is made to spec.

Buuut other people probably do buy their things.

"It's a Batarang," he says, assuming that Karkat doesn't actually mean the trading card, which he re-pockets. In the spirit of demonstration, he flicks a switch on the side of the 'rang and throws it into a rock about fifty yards away, which explodes on impact. "You can throw them at people, if you don't use the explosive ones."

That's a very revealing statement of ethics, which Karkat files for future reference. His eyes widen at the explosion.

"YOU COULD DO A LOT WITH THOSE THINGS WITH ALCHEMY," he says, duly impressed. "IS A BATARANG JUST WHAT IT'S CALLED OR IS IT BECAUSE IT'S SHAPED LIKE A BAT?"

It could go either way, but for survival reasons Karkat is highly attuned to animal-themed wordplay and imagery.

As far as statements of ethics go, for Robin it's a statement of absolute truth.

"Alchemy as in transmuting elements at the molecular level?" Yeah, you could do things with that, if you can do alchemy. Unlike certain kid superheroes of his world, Robin would happily adjust his worldview to admit it's possible, but he's not sure how that would work.

"They're called Batarangs because Batman uses them. It's a theme."

[The batarangs Robin uses specifically aren't Bat-shaped. But he calls them batarangs anyway because he's proud of coming up with the word.]

"EH, SORT OF." He doesn't want to have to try and explain alchemy right now.

"WHAT'S A BATMAN?"

Even now, it's actually pretty unusual for Robin to come across someone who hasn't heard of Batman. but it does happen, so he just smiles as he explains:

"There's only one Batman. The Caped Crusader, The Dark Knight. He fights crime Gotham City and works with the Justice League to protect the Earth from larger threats.

"I'm his partner."

Without the right frame of reference, this is all pretty baffling. "DOES HE HIT CRIMINALS WITH A BAT?"

"Actually, he dresses like a bat," Robin explains. "It's scarier if you actually meet him a dark alley."

"OH." Karkat shrugs. "MY GIRLFRIEND DRESSES LIKE A CAT."

"I USED TO KNOW A GUY WHO WAS RAISED BY A GIANT BAT," he adds, after a beat. He can definitely detect a lack of clarity in the things he's saying, he's just not sure how to untangle it.

Edited 2013-08-23 15:54 (UTC)

"It might not be the same thing," as a teenage girl dressing like a cat. "Unless she also uses the outfit to disguise her identity when she's beating up criminals."

The guy raised by a giant bat is interesting, though. In a way, Robin is being raised by a giant bat. "Literally, a giant bat?"

"NO, THAT WAS MY EX, THE JUST1C3 NUT." he says.

"AND YEAH, LITERALLY A GIANT BAT. THAT'S NORMAL, THOUGH, TROLLS ARE ALL RAISED BY DANGEROUS BEASTS OF ONE DESCRIPTION OF ANOTHER. AND A LOT OF TROLLS REFERENCE THEIR LUSUS SOMEHOW IN THE WAY THEY TALK OR DRESS OR WHATEVER, ESPECIALLY THE HIGHBLOODS. THEY LIKE TO SHOW OFF."

"NORMALLY NOT TO THE EXTENT OF DRESSING UP LIKE THEM, THOUGH, THAT'S JUST NEPETA'S PERSONAL WEIRDNESS."

"Lusus is the dangerous animal you're raised by?"

Robin's quick on the uptake. And Batman is totally his Lusus, he realizes.

"Sometimes at home people dress like animals 'cause they like them. And then sometimes people adopt animals as a theme to fight or commit crime in a different identity."

...

Oh great now it sounds weird when he says it out loud.

It doesn't sound weird to him; it sounds like a lot of people he knows, in various ways.

"YEAH. WE DON'T HAVE PARENTS LIKE HUMANS, OUR REPRODUCTION DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. A BILLION EGGS HATCH AT ONCE AND THEN AFTER WE PUPATE WE GET ADOPTED BY A WILD ANIMAL. IT'S A WHOLE SYMBIOTIC... THING."

"MY LUSUS WAS A BIG CRAB THING," he adds.

"Coool."

It does sound pretty cool to Robin, at that. He misses his parents, but having been adopted - and by Batman of all people - he's all over the idea of being adopted by different animals.

"Did it have a name?"

"YEAH, I CALLED HIM PHORCYTES."

Karkat feels, and sounds, weirdly defensive. Talking about his lusus does that. "HE WAS A GRUMPY FUCK MOST OF THE TIME BUT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO DO."

"AT THE BEGINNING, THEY PROTECT YOU, FROM OTHER ANIMALS MOSTLY, AND THEN LATER ON YOU USUALLY HAVE TO PROTECT THEM, AND YOURSELF, FROM OLDER TROLLS. MAKE SURE THEY GET ENOUGH TO EAT AS THEY GET BIGGER."

"AND I GUESS YOU JUST... LEARN FROM THEM." The phrase Karkat doesn't have, because he can't read the narration of his comic is visceral mentor, and it's a good one.

"I DON'T KNOW. IT WORKED MOSTLY. SOME PEOPLE HAD PROBLEMS. I KNEW A GIRL WITH A GIANT SPIDER LUSUS, SHE HAD TO KEEP FEEDING IT PEOPLE. SHE KIND OF GREW UP TO BE A TOTAL PSYCHOPATH."

Robin's mouth drops open.

"Okay, that's kind of disturbing," he says. "I guess you can't really choose the effect your parents are gonna have on you."

He'd quote Philip Larkin here, but he doesn't know it.

"I mean, I'm not exactly the poster child for a normal human upbringing, but..." He smirks. "Batman's a grumpy fuck all of the time, and it works out."

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