inbox

[pearlstrings]

bruce wayne @ᴡᴀʏɴᴇ @ʙʀᴜᴄᴇ audio & text

PLEASE NOTE: Bruce has two inboxes.

His official user id for the network is Bruce and if you meet in person, in the unlikely event he gave you his contact details, this is the ID he would give you.

That said, his conversations on the network have largely been under the id of Wayne, as a way to keep his two identities separated.
This is the username he uses most often and he will answer replies to that handle- there just seems to be no physical person on the registry to link it to.

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[evulsed]

[ Bruce is unyielding, like the harder Vanitas crashes the tighter he holds on— even after he's smacked his head against the wall. It makes him laugh, a breathless but wild thing muffled against Bruce's stomach. He can feel him trying to get around his neck, and Vanitas shoves his own arm in the way to prevent Bruce from completing the movement.

But they have to move, Vanitas has no leverage and Bruce with this grip has them at trapped in a stalemate.

He opens his hand and pushes up further, finds Bruce's jaw and shoves it up and away, to make his neck arch, to make him look away. It doesn't stay— his fingers wrap into Bruce's collar in tandem with his grip firming like iron on his thigh.

He can't push Bruce down or force his hold to loosen, so the only way is up.

With impossible strength, he twists his torso and yanks, pulling Bruce off him like a shirt to throw him on the floor. ]

[pearlstrings]

[It's a good strategy and it compensates well for both Bruce's hold and the distribution of his weight. The heel of Vanitas's palm drives up beneath his chin, forces his head upward and Bruce knows immediately that he won't be able to hang on against the follow through. His neck arches and his spine follows suit; the pressure pulls him into a long line, unbending him from the curvature that had wrapped around Vanitas's torso. All he can do is prepare in return.

Bruce loosens the pressure in his thighs and it allows the movement to be much more fluid when it comes- when Vanitas wrenches around and pulls him overhead with inhuman strength.

He reaches out with both hands and pushes off of Vanita's shoulders in time with the throw, landing hard on the ground and rolling, once, twice- to end up crouched on the floor. The ball of one foot digs in and stops him from sliding any further, both hands spread out until he's able to find a grip with his fingertips. To go still. Like the times before Bruce doesn't charge. He waits.]

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas turns to face him, and his posture is sloped, his feet spread wide. It gives him the uncanny resemblance of a hunting wolf, and the toothy grin on his face only exacerbates the suggestion.

He's starting to understand, a little. Like Vanitas, Bruce can't always rely on brute strength, even though Vanitas can tell that on sheer physical power he outstrips the other guy. But Bruce has a skill set that he hasn't let on before.

Vanitas makes the first move again, but for a moment it seems like he hasn't. An image of him lingers behind, just half a second, before he appears on Bruce's deaf side again— close enough that he could kick him in the ribs, if he's quicker than Bruce. ]

[pearlstrings]

[For just a moment, the space between the breaths they catch, their eyes meet. Vanitas is half bowed, more animal than anything else- if circumstances were different perhaps he'd describe the boy as lean and hungry. And maybe he is. But mostly he looks excited- like he glories in the thrill of the hunt.

Bruce keeps his body still, aware of where he begins and ends, aware that staying like this will encourage Vanitas not just to charge, but to keep him down. He keeps his weight on the balls of his feet, on the tips of his fingers, and wills himself not to rely on his eyes. It's a very hard habit to break. The movement in the air tells him that Vanitas has moved, but the image of him lingers. Bruce is momentarily lost for it, seeing double; by the time his body responds to the small gust on his deaf side it's too late to protect against it. A boot connects with his ribs and pain explodes through his chest, smashes the air out of his lungs. There's no point fighting it so instead Bruce rolls, feels his body carried by the short burst of momentum, the kick that jerks him upward. But experience tells him no one ever does this just once. When he expects the second kick to come, to connect, Bruce pushes back onto the balls of his feet and uses the small surge to smash his fist into the side of Vanitas's knee, the round ball beneath the joint.]

[evulsed]

Agh!

[ The sound snarls out of him, and if Bruce hit him harder, or at a different angle, that blow might have knocked out his knee entirely. Instead, his leg twists with the impact and Vanitas goes down on one leg, the other still braced up. It puts them back on even ground, and now that Vanitas is level with him, but he's expecting Bruce to come at him now that they're both here.

He finds he can't actually predict how Bruce will come at him, so he raises his arms to deflect, instead of make the first move.

The truth is, he's remarkably untrained in this sort of hand to hand combat. Xehanort hadn't taught him how to brawl, he taught him how to be brutal in the offense, but mostly with weapons and magic. Taught him how to take a beating and get back up again. ]

[pearlstrings]

[Vanitas drops to one knee, the snarl ripped out of him, and now that he's close enough to touch, now that he's half on the ground here with him it narrows the amount of ground that needs covering. Bruce's hand falls back to the ground, a point not simply to steady himself, but now one to push off of. He heaves all of his weight into the floor, hard, and pivots- smashing his foot into the side of Vanitas's jaw with all the force he can muster.

He has no intention of winning this conflict through a battle of strength with Vanitas. Without he benefits of muscle mass, teleportation, and magic, eventually his endurance will be spent. And that's precisely why he climbs up again. Bruce's feet are momentarily clumsy, a short extra step as he clambers to get momentum underneath him and start moving again. He's going back the way he came, tracing his way back to the place where their fight began- dropping to his knees to slide beneath the wire still criss-crossing the hall- grabbing hold of the one piece Vanitas had yanked free and bringing it along.]

[evulsed]

[ It happens in quick succession, enough that Vanitas doesn't have time to grab Bruce again before he's up and running. The arch of his foot connects with his jaw and Vanitas' head whips to the side, the force knocks him sideways, makes him catch himself on one hand.

Bruce beats a hasty retreat down the hall, his feet a steady tattoo fading away. Vanitas pivots and lunges after him, getting to his feet by pulling himself up with both hands, animalistic. He shimmers forward, shadow stepping to close the distance.

He hasn't forgotten the trap, and when he comes upon the wirework, he shadow steps passed them as well. ]

Bruce!

[ He shouts; and its less a warning than a taunt. ]

[pearlstrings]

[Vanitas is an audible presence until he isn't. Bruce is acutely aware of the slap of his palm against the ground as he recovers, the sound of his boots on the floor. He feels it like a prickling on the nape of his neck, the animalistic pursuit, the change in proximity. But instead of simply giving chase Vanitas moves through the darkness after him, seems to wink out of existence at his back. Urgency tightens in his stomach even as he slips beneath the wire trap he'd left, as he feeds the cable into a coil at his hip, as he pulls his grappling hook from his belt.

His name erupts through the dark, not rage, but a tone familiar to him regardless. It is not the first time someone has taunted him, attempted to get a rise. Bruce does not allow himself to become distracted. Vanitas has a habit of having his Unversed carry his lantern and it permits him to move freely through space because they're able to respond to their maker's needs. He wouldn't be surprised to find it scurrying just over their heads- a single floor away.

Bruce leans over the railing, glances back just in time to see Vanitas moving through the shadows to get around his trap- and fires. The grappling gun hooks on the ceiling of the second floor and Bruce jumps, carried up and out of reach.]

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas hears the song of the grappling gun going off, and sees Bruce vanish by the light of his lantern winking out. Disappearing as he shoots upward like some kind of reverse meteor. His eyes go up, toward the ceiling, and even without a direct line of sight he can feel Bruce, his specific brand of darkness— the one Vanitas is keenly attuned to, ever since that time in the forest. His pupils dilate as he follows Bruce's progression with his eyes, tracking him through the floor without seeing him—

He opens a dark corridor underneath his feet and drops through it— opens it up almost directly on top of Bruce, or at least where he would have been when Vanitas made the portal. He drops from the ceiling and straightens up, turning around to face Bruce. ]

You can't hide from me.

[pearlstrings]

[Like a wolf with a scent, Vanitas comes within inches of him and all Bruce can see is his teeth- a bright slash in the dark. It's good. It means he's likely to make riskier decisions, to focus more on the pursuit of Bruce himself instead of thinking about how to end the fight. How to win.

Bruce doesn't see him immediately, after the hook lands and the line starts retracting- snapping him up onto the floor above. But the absence of sight doesn't equate to an absence of threat. Vanitas will not be far behind. There are a small cluster of Unversed in the hall with him, but only one that carries his prize. Bruce's pulse thrums in his ear- every move, every decision has been honed down as narrowly as possible not because he fears that Vanitas will kill him- but because his ability to move seamlessly through time and space, to teleport, cuts Bruce's window of opportunity into seconds.

As if on cue the boy drops from the ceiling overhead, manifesting from nothing; his gaze smug and bright in the dark. On the opposite end of the corridor, visible only through the gap in Vanitas's stance, is the unversed that holds his lantern. Bruce looks up at him.]

I'm not hiding.

[And fires his grappling gun one last time- snatching the lantern from its bearer's hold, and catching it in his opposite hand.]

[evulsed]

[ Despite all the ways Bruce has fought back and slipped his grasp, he still looks cocky as he advances— up until the moment the grappling hook fires again. Vanitas shifts, his Keyblade manifests in his hand like a reflex— but the shot whizzes passed him to snag something else entirely.

Vanitas' eyes widen as he realizes Bruce's tactic, the prize in his hand. Like everyone else, he knows how dangerous it can be for a lantern to be in the wrong hands. Bruce presents himself a certain way to the outside world, and while Vanitas recognizes the darkness in him, this is the first time he's watched it rise blatantly to the surface.

Just having a lantern isn't enough. To stop him, he would have to smash it, or put the light out. And Vanitas knows, if they were really fighting, that's exactly what Bruce would so.

A heartbeat passes, and then Vanitas throws back his head and laughs. Void Gear disappears from his fist, a visual surrender, even though Vanitas is still laughing. ]