(no subject)

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason hasn't slept a night through since he was fourteen years old. It's nothing new, half his nightmares so familiar they happen almost by rote, though there's a few that still manage to terrify. He goes to bed in tired expectation, feels his body sleep and his brain light up. The fighter in him smiles and welcomes the chance to meet each falling crowbar with something better than child-sized fists, meet them with guns and blades and bombs, and in his dream Jason doesn't start screaming until the shadows grow long and bat-shaped.

He falls asleep in silence.

Jason wakes to his own gasping breaths in bed and the earth shifting beneath him.

"What the f - " he starts, but the world only shakes harder, something in the movement focused, personal. It's shaking his bed harder than anything, and Jason reaches out against the attack, seizes the gauntlet beneath his pillow and wishes it was a gun.

"You'll fucking wish - " he bellows, but as soon as the words leave him he feels himself forced violently back, propelled from his sheets and right into the air. His heart races - his bed's so close to the wall, he's gonna hit and there's no time to twist, nothing to grab, nothing to stop him and it's too fucking late to -

Jason's body flies through the bamboo with a mighty crack and is caught by the ground, coming to rest a dozen yards away with great rivets of earth in his wake.

There's a million things he should be doing. Lying there stunned feels like the best start.

[ooc: open to all in game, posted privately for preplay~ Jason just blew out the side of his hut, still in the boxers and tank top he went to bed in. His power is the sonic scream.]

Comments

[halfscarlet]

Billy's been walking for a while now. He isn't sure why he woke up early, but ever since getting out of bed, a strange feeling has been crawling over his skin. It feels like pins and needles but not quite, like something is trying to catch is attention from a million different directions at once.

Walking seems to dull the sensation a little, and eventually Billy hopes to tire himself out enough to sleep a few more hours.

He's moving along, hands in his sweatshirt pockets when a scream nearly pierces his ears, followed by a crash. Billy stumbles back a few feet in surprise, trips over something and lands on his ass in the dirt, breathing heavily as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on.

And the buzzing feeling still won't go away.

[backward]

Somewhere in the distance, Effy Stonem listens, eyes wide and unseeing. The world isn't often a safe place, but this place has been, a patch of forest by Jason's hut, where the wind blows through reeds with a soft kiss and nightfall drapes everyone with its heavy blanket. Today, it all threatens to fall apart, the earth moving beneath her feet, the grass hissing in angry whispers, and it's only the resolve of a girl who can't lose anything more that helps her tear through the shadows just in time to watch Jason fly through the sky with a yell that seems to resonate right through her chest, leaving her unable to breathe. Or maybe it's the sight of him on the ground, maybe it's the impact, maybe, a million maybes and none of them can even start to describe the sights and sounds that immediately pass through her memory.

(Tony. Tony.)

She screams, and the world seems to light on fire, bright around her eyes as she runs— only for a second, and then everything's bathed in the faint light of a rising sun once more— dodging cracks in the earth before she skids to a stop by his side, kneeling. No words, for how hard it still is to catch her breath at all, just a hand on his shoulder, willing him to look her way.

[arrowette]

The problem with this whole speedster thing was how the world around her was moving so slow and she was moving so fast. Cissie was trying to adjust, she really was but it was so hard. How Bart or any of the other speedsters had managed this constantly, she had no idea.

She had stopped for a moment to get a quick snack when she heard a scream. She had eaten what felt like three breakfasts already but she was starving again. Bart had told her this was all part of the package but it just felt weird to be constantly stuffing her face. She jammed half a banana in her mouth and started running in the direction of the sound.

A second or two later, she saw Jason and stopped dead, barely managing to avoid the tracks of dirt in the process. "Oh my god, what happened? Are you okay?"

[onlyapassenger]

"Jason!"

It's little more than an exhale, but the urgency is clear regardless of volume. Picking his way through the splintered remains of the wall, Bucky darts forward, gun in hand; he makes for an interesting picture, still dressed in well-worn pajama bottoms, his feet bare, his hair tousled from uneasy sleep, but there hadn't been much time to spare. He'd been anticipating an attack with so rude an awakening, but it's increasingly clear as the dust begins to settle that there's no one in the area except for him and Jason -- or at least no one he can see.

He ducks down at the kid's side, stance protective from an assailant that may or not have lingered.

"What the *$(% just happened?"

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I'm running almost before I'm conscious of it. I don't sleep well, always, and tonight I'm grateful. I'm not sure what I heard, exactly, but I know that it sounded violent and I know exactly where it came from.

I stop, barefooted, shieldless, wearing only the cotton pajama trousers I went to bed in. Not ideal for a combat situation, but all I find is... Jason, lying on the ground at the end of a long rut he apparently drew with his whole body. What should be one wall of the hut is ore of a gaping, broken hole.

There's no one else here. I know that instinctively, and after I scan the treeline, listen closely, I'm positive. Unless we were suddenly gifted with a cadre of ninjas, we're alone.

"Jason," I say, dropping down to one knee, hand going carefully to his shoulder but not moving him, "can you hear me, son?"

[illuxinated]

There's been an odd sort of tension to several of the people Lux has passed on the boardwalk this morning. Instead of the typical polite smiles, they've seemed uneasy, introspective and almost wary as she passed them by. Dread creeps easily into the pit of her stomach these days, and each solemn or uncertain face coils it tighter. Nothing else seems wrong, but she can feel it, now: An anticipation that won't be dislodged. This place is too cruel too often for her to shrug it off.

A sound hits her out of nowhere, drops her down to her knees on the bamboo planks with her hands instinctively over her ears. She can feel it in her fingertips and reverberating in her chest, the sensation so distinctly physical that she doesn't immediately register it as a sound at all. The crack of splintering wood follows from the direction of the hut Jason shares with James. It's a mere whisper of sound against the ringing of her ears, but she scrambles to her feet and runs, heart in her throat.

At the end of a long trench of dark earth sprawls her boyfriend, dazed and unmoving. When she shrieks his name, her voice sounds dim and distant, heard through cotton or a bad line.

"Jason," she says again as she skids to a stop and drops by his side, shouting like her hearing aid battery has stopped working without her knowing it. "Look at me, are you okay?"

[thepointykind.livejournal.com]

Helena was out wandering like she was most nights, scouting or hunting or just enjoying the time under the moon. It wasn't the same as patrolling in Gotham – she wasn't in costume, for starters – but it wasn't bad. Maybe a little boring –

Until the scream. She froze for an instant, then moved, running hard in the direction of the familiar sound. The moonlight filtered through the trees, playing oddly on her skin, but she barely noticed. She was focused on her goal, which was – probably that trench dug into the ground.

She pulled up, falling into a defensive stance as she took in the situation. Which was so not what she expected to see. She stared at the guy laying on the ground, then cast a look back at the busted hut. Torn between amusement and confusion, she glanced back at Jason. “Damn. Are you getting your ass kicked by Black Canary?”

[wishesandsmoke]

Eden's just out for a walk, trying to figure out what to do with herself, when someone bursts through a wall and rolls to a halt not far from her. Even before she registers it's Jason, she's racing toward him, kneeling down to touch his arm. "Oh, my god, Jason, are you okay?"

For a moment, her gaze flickers to the mess he's made of the ground. She could probably fix that in a moment now with a bit of concentration — now that she's realized what's going on, it's a matter of harnessing that same feeling under her skin persuasion gave her — but first she has to see to Jason.

[radicalize]

It had been a fucking weird morning already, waking up to find the door of her hut made of stone, dealing with the revelation that apparently it was happening to whatever Mathias touched. After nearly four years, Lucy liked to think she had gotten good at handling whatever the island threw at her — prided herself on it, even — but this had thrown her for something of a loop, different from its usual tricks. More alert now than she'd been when she had first discovered it, at least, and intent on finding out how widespread this particular phenomenon was, she was only walking by the hut when she saw the wall fucking blow out, and Jason land on his back.

"Oh my God," she blurted out, hurrying to his side without thinking and dropping to a crouch, her hand at his shoulder. "Holy shit, are you okay?"

[curiously-cora.livejournal.com]

"Jason! Are you okay?" The words come tumbling out of her mouth before she remembers. Because at the exact same time she speaks the world around her explodes; the tree leaves inexplicably pop off, the pebbles shatter into pieces and the lollypop she's holding explodes. Coraline covered her mouth, eyes wide as she stares at Jason.

Coraline mouthed I'm sorry silently. She didn't dare speak again.