The latest patreon chapter is a Christmas special! (Kind of). I thought it was funny.
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Gotham's crime rate has spiked again. Normally not really notable, but this spike was unusual: it wasn't provoked by any of the known rabble rousers, and all of Batman's criminal contacts seem to either know nothing… or have gone to ground, unreachable. There was just… a surge in the confidence and competence of the common criminal. It was weird.
"Perhaps it's time for Matches Malone to return…" Bruce mused as he looked at the data on the Batcomputer, annotated with a lot more question marks than was usual even for weeks where Nygma decided to stir the pot.
Tanya was currently getting in more exercise hours, doing a little gymnastics on Richard's equipment. With how rapidly she was growing, it took a lot more practice to make sure she retained the acrobatic skills she spent so much time honing already, it would be tragic to lose that. "Absolutely not." She said, using her veto, acquired by the power of controlling the magic that gives him so many extra hours in the week. "You are not a cop, you're literally just committing minor crimes in the hopes that it will eventually lead to a major crime being stopped." One of the side-effects of Bruce having children to take care of is that he had to cut the time he spent doing that from somewhere, and one of the casualties of that reorientation of his schedule was that he had to stop occasionally pretending to be a low level gangster that was technically still wanted for serial arson: Bruce did burn down one building he owned (which was insurance/tax fraud, so still a crime) for the initial charge, but Malone is the top suspect for some unsolved arsons since then. "We have other avenues."
"We do?" Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow. "What?"
"The Question… is who?" Said a droll voice, every syllable measured precisely. The Question walked out from behind the giant penny, briskly walking towards Bruce. "I finally get to see the fabled Batcave. I expected less souvenirs, I'll admit."
Bruce was not currently wearing his cowl, so his expression of amusement was clearly visible. "Nice to meet you, Vic." He said, casually dropping the real name of Vic Sage, also known as The Question. His expression hardened as Bruce slipped back into The Batman's mindset. "Report. What have you found?" He growled.
"It all began thousands of years ago." The Question started, "Or, at least, that's what they want you to think."
"Who is 'they', in this context?" Batman interrupted.
"The authors-" The Question replied, "-of the Crime Bible."
Batman stared blankly. "The what."
"It all began-" The Question reiterated, continuing his original briefing. "-thousands of years ago, when The First took a rock to the back of his brother's head. Since that time, the Dark Faith has flourished by recording the tales and lessons taught throughout history, each author becoming divinely inspired to write the next book."
Ugh. The only thing worse than Being X's nonsense is removing all possible idealism and benevolence that the faith of madmen could produce. Kind of like how one of the only things worse than the authoritarian despotism that has always been communism's bitter fruit is the authoritarian despotism of fascists, as the despotism is the explicit goal instead of just the inevitable result.
"So there's a source of institutional knowledge about being an effective criminal going around?" Tanya asked, "Far be it from me to discount the value of such things, but that doesn't seem like enough."
"Intergang is the current face of the Dark Faith." The Question explained. Intergang was an international criminal syndicate, whose name was in direct opposition to Interpol, that's been around since the late 1940s. "Or, perhaps… the only face." The Question continued, "There's… some evidence that suggests that the National Crime Syndicate was the face before that, with the Sicilians before them, but it's suspicious. Inconsistencies, eerie consistencies, odd obscurities, odder clarities. Was it fabricated? Or is someone trying to hide something deeper with this smokescreen?" The Question paused, musing on the matter.
Bruce hummed. "Ra's Al-Ghul might be able to lend some insight." He said, thinking out loud. "Or Vandal Savage." He snorted. "Not that we could trust either to be honest to direct questioning." True. It would be completely in character for both of them to lead whoever asked them anything on a wild goose chase for their own amusement.
Tanya flipped off of the bar she was using for her exercise and struck a pose. Finished for now, she grabbed a hot chocolate from Alfred, who was silently setting a tea service. She sat down and sipped at the mug, sighing in satisfaction. "Still, religious nonsense aside," Tanya said, as she was passingly familiar with how difficult it was to keep Question focused, "Intergang making a major move into Gotham would explain some of the patterns we've been seeing, although the fact that we didn't already know that is telling on their level of commitment to this push." She actually didn't know whether this was a sign of them committing serious resources or only spare ones they can afford to lose, but saying that made her sound more insightful on the matter than she was.
"It would explain the odd gang conflicts." Bruce acknowledged.
"I took a walk before I came here." The Question said, his non sequitur hopefully relevant this time. "The religion of crime tends to follow certain patterns distinct to them, a mark as clear as any fingerprint." The Question accepted a teacup, already laden with sugar, from Alfred and put four additional sugar cubes in it, stirring. "Each mugging an act of devotion, vandalism as prayer. The references are easily mistaken for bible verses, but only those who possess a true Crime Bible can decrypt their messages." He drank deeply of his tea-laced sugar water, his blank face mask being much more porous than it initially appeared.
"Do you have one?" Tanya asked, sipping at her hot chocolate. It wasn't quite bedtime, but it was close enough that she wasn't going to drink coffee.
"No." The Question growled. "They guard their secrets jealously. Multiple times, I've gotten one, and had it destroyed by an Intergang agent before I could move it to a secure location. They have trackers, subtle ones. It could be that it is composed of matter that has a color at a wavelength that we can no longer perceive, as our eyes have been tainted by the secret compounds in America's drinking water."
"Or they could be using magic, or alien technology." Bruce offered alternative explanations that weren't stupid.
"Perhaps." The Question acknowledged. He placed his empty tea cup back down, and subtly nodded when Alfred lifted the teapot, prompting the butler to pour him another cup, with eight sugars.
Tanya finished her hot chocolate, eating the large marshmallow last. "Do you have any remains?" She asked after she finished.
The Question nodded as he added even more sugar to his tea. Alfred's eyebrow twitched minutely. He took a sip of his twelve sugar monstrosity, giving a pleased hum, before reaching into his trenchcoat and pulling out an evidence bag filled with some ashes, a strip of not completely destroyed leather poking out of the pile.
Bruce stood up, pulled up his cowl over his face, and took the bag, taking it thirty feet to the cave's forensics equipment, beginning his assessment. "What tests have you performed?" He asked, beginning by placing the material on a scale.
"The equipment you gave me has been destroyed, my safehouse was compromised and destroyed by an Intergang bomb last week." The Question replied, "So my means were limited." He brought out five other evidence bags. "On that topic…"
"After this." Bruce promised, analyzing the sample. "I don't have any more safehouses in Hub City, have you gotten a new one?"
"I'll manage." The Question said, sipping at his cup of wet sugar again.
A professional camaraderie emerged between the two detectives as they worked to analyze the various samples. The Question apprised Bruce of the cases they were for, his theories, both mundane and extraordinary, that the evidence inspection would shed light on.
Meanwhile, Tanya went upstairs and changed clothes for bed, before coming back down for her part. She had outgrown all of her childish pajamas, unfortunately, so she instead replaced them with some ordinary silk pajamas that had designs celebrating her favored anime. This one was designed around her newest favorite: It was about tanks.
"If you will, Tanya." Bruce said, presenting the first sample.
"Pig leather." The Question said, not even looking up from the spectrometer that he was running a vial of mysterious clear liquid through. "The pages are standard bleached paper, this was a copy printed with modern technology. Interesting that they didn't use pleather…"
"Plastic is one of the worst things you can use in magical anything." Tanya offered, taking her time in placing the ashes and scrap of leather on a floating magic circle on her spell desk.
Tanya's spell desk, which was more of a large lab table like the forensics station, was the product of years of iteration and refinement: It had a two-layered top, the bottom layer being structural while the layer above was composed of modular panels that held spell circles, stands, the occasional fixture like a small faucet or burner that needed to be hooked up to tanks, everything one needed to construct an ideal ritual environment that could be changed out as needed. Even the floor around and under the table could be removed and replaced with tiles that allowed for specific effects.
With a gesture, the ring of tiles isolating the magical environment were removed, collecting in a stack. One of the walls of the Batcave opened up into a gigantic cabinet, and the stack of tiles slid neatly into an empty cubby. With another gesture, a different, larger, cubby of tiles slid out and, with the central circle of the floor underneath the spell desk receding, the floor was replaced with the new tiles, a full circle for this function was necessary instead of a ring.
More gestures swapped out the tiles on the top of the spell desk for another set, and then the floating disk she placed the ashes on winked out of existence, yet more gestures guiding the ashes to settle inside the grooves of the centerpiece of this particular spell.
"Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou." Tanya incanted, the ashes glowing as the leather scrap floated off of the magic circle. The light spread to fill every etched mark on the spell desk. "Though they may try to hide, futile efforts shan't slow our stride, no matter the camouflage they've tried, show me the one who's burned their pride!" Tanya shouted. The outer ring of the circle on the floor flashed with light, the magic spreading inwards through the ritual circle on the floor. Once it finished, the two circles synchronized, and Tanya's awareness was shoved into the past.
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Hub city, Illinois. A little to the east of St. Louis, it was one of the competitors in the contest for 'most crime-ridden hellhole (per capita) in America', competing with Gotham, Bludhaven, and Detroit. There's probably others, but she was too busy having visions to do demographic research right now.
In the vision, Hub City was being painted with the blood of the innocent by men in robes. An alien language was written, an address on a galactic scale. The moon, an alien grey and cracked face rather than the white craters of Earth's, opened a pair of red eyes, looking right at her, and with that gaze came a great weight, as if her spell was being witnessed by an entire planet. No, multiple planets. It reminded her of the gaze of Being X, when he was at his most wrathful, but even this made that weight pale in comparison.
The full moon waned, showing its dark side. The gaze was turning away, disinterested. She was unworthy of his attention, Tanya suddenly understood. Still, she rallied, intuitively adjusting her spell to be subtler, to slip underneath the magical defense that this powerful entity has cast upon the Crime Bible. Was this… Cain?
Questions for later. She witnessed the device that destroyed the copy of the Crime Bible that she was scrying, just a second after The Question threw it away from him, sensing the explosive right before it blew. Hm, she should offer him some healing magic… she could feel an echo of familiarity to that piece of shrapnel that penetrated Vic's abdomen there; she had been in that metal's proximity before casting this spell.
Still, she directed the spell to peer further into the past, hopefully seeing something useful. The Question acquired the Crime Bible fairly violently, invading a burglar's apartment and brutally taking down the criminal, breaking several bones, before he could get his wits about him. But before then, the man was reading the intact book.
"Behold, the vile person will speak villainy, and His heart will work iniquity, to practise the four, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and cause the drink of the thirsty to fail, and for this shall he be most praised." The man said, reciting the passage he was reading. "In devotion shall come one with fists like unto stone, who strips flesh from bone, and who leadeth them of His kind that also serve the First, bow before him, and following in all things the high madame of His teachings."
The spell couldn't focus more on his specific words, blurring as it moved on to the next relevant detail. The burglar received the book from another man, whose face Tanya memorized. That man, in turn, printed the books from a printing machine that Tanya immediately knew was not from this world; it had too many embellishments and the metal appeared to be a space alloy that was usually used for interstellar craft's internals, an earth-made machine would use thin steel instead.
As the spell faded, Tanya got another view of the moon-face, a pair of red lasers shooting out from the eyes and making illogically jagged turns as it fired and homed in on… something. Whatever that entity is, he's busy.
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"Restrain Question, bring him to the operating table." Were Tanya's first words after her scrying spell completed. Alfred and Bruce immediately seized the man and, despite his struggling, got him strapped to the table in question in short order. As they did so, she double-checked her previous spell's findings with a new spell… yes, he did have a sharp piece of metal in his gut. Five of them, actually. Plus at least four bullets that have been in his body for longer periods. "You know, you're a member in good standing." Tanya reminded the detective. "You could have gotten a medical screening, free of charge. You're lucky to be alive."
"You sound like Huntress." Was his petulant response. "I have work." He insisted.
"Ah, memories." Alfred said as he removed The Question's shoes. "Master Bruce was just like this before he learned better." He used a set of enchanted shears (a custom order Tanya made for him three Christmases ago) to cut away the man's clothes. The pieces were placed in a pile, and once he was done, leaving the man in just his pants, socks, and mask, he picked up the coat, magically back in one piece, and placed it on a nearby rack. "Will we be needing this for its original purpose?" Alfred asked.
Tanya shook her head. "No, I can get this without needing to spool out his intestines." Magic was useful like that. "I don't suppose you'd want some painkillers for this? We have frankly illegal quantities of ketamine and propofol, and Alfred's fully trained in their use." The Question shook his head emphatically no. "We have some fentanyl if you'd like to be half-conscious as I'm ripping metal out of your body?" Another shake. The Question's faceless glare dared her to operate without painkillers. He clearly didn't know her very well… "Then he'll need a bite bar for this. Alfred?"
"Right away, Miss." The Question's mask was removed, the aforementioned bar was shoved in his mouth, and additional straps minimized his struggles.
One of the things magical healing had in common with modern medicine was that dealing with old injuries was a completely different beast compared to more recent trauma. The scale was a bit different, true, but after an injury healed and scarred without magic, the vast majority of magical healing simply failed outright to bring it back to proper order.
Fortunately, demonic torture-healing spells were not one of them. Bruce learned pretty quickly that… Well, this was what would happen if he dared to hide injuries from her for too long. "Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou." Tanya incanted, using the type 66 to scan for the metal and then cutting each piece out, the injuries healing immediately as she removed her mage blade coated hands that were holding the metal sliver. Within twenty minutes of screaming, he was clean, and Tanya dosed him with some magic using her wand attuned to The Red to shove the pain into the back of his mind now that the actual damage was restored, returning his focus to the matter at hand. "Done. Now, I'm overdue for bed, so while you're getting dressed, I'll go straight to the debriefing."
"Efficient." The Question complimented as he re-affixed his mask. "Best doctors I've ever been to."
"You need to raise your standards." Tanya deadpanned before going into the explanation of what she found.
After her debriefing was done, both of them looked disturbed. "Alien technology used to print books? Troubling."
"How literal is your vision?" The Question asked.
Tanya waved a hand vaguely. "It varies. The moon-face entity looked important, it was the start and end of the vision, and that usually means it's relevant."
"The alpha, and the omega…" He seemed to be reading into that a bit more than needed. "Revelations. Perhaps this is the god that the Dark Faith worships? The First?"
"We'll need to keep that in mind, but we should see if the alien printing machine is still there. I hate to leave Gotham when it's like this, but…"
"I'll go alone." The Question insisted.
"Take backup." Batman countered, his words a clear order, "Someone strong, and preferably mystical. I'll assign someone if you don't pick before you leave."
"Tch. I suppose Huntress wouldn't be enough?" The Question asked.
"Absolutely not." Bruce went to the Bat Computer and sent a message over the Justice League's internal messaging program. "Hawkgirl will go with you, she's comfortable playing backup to someone else's investigation." In theory, Shayera had investigation skills. In practice, she was happy just following the person doing most of the actual work while providing color commentary until it was time to hit something with her mace.
Meanwhile, Tanya yawned as she walked back up to her room. She's going to need her sleep if there's going to be another alien invasion, and that was where her gut was saying this was going to go. Not that she seriously thought it would, but her mind does like going to the worst case scenario.
Bruce is perfectly capable, it'll be fine.
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"...Huh. Memphis? Weird." Tanya murmured, putting her phone away. "No one ever talks about Memphis as a wretched hive of scum and villainy."
"What's that?" Bruce asked over the radio.
"Nothing." Tanya said, "Can I play now?"
"Cameras are ready, the battlefield is cleared, the drones are in position." Bruce confirmed, "You can play with your new toy now."
Cackling, Tanya ducked into the interior. "Ace, Zatanna, Barbie? Raven? It's time." Clearing her throat, Tanya started speaking in Francois, although she simultaneously used magic to ensure she was understood regardless. "They may have trampled Pairsee, but these Third Reich fools will rue the day they trampled our spirits!"
Ace grinned as she stomped on the pedal, sending the tank forward. "Viva la France!" She shouted, without even trying to say it in the right accent.
One of the anime that may or may not have existed in her previous life, she certainly didn't remember hearing about it, was about a world where tank battles were a traditionally feminine sport.
Naturally, Tanya loved this idea. So, being a billionaire that needed to be seen wasting money on frivolous things for image purposes, she decided to get some WWII replica tanks made up and play around with them.
This did bring up a problem: as any WWII buff would, Tanya wanted to play with the Tiger tank most of all. The issue with this was that it was a Nazi tank. The solution to address this problem was simple: the French Resistance made use of the tank, turning them against their creators, so a paintjob and some roleplaying, along with having the drones that were playing OpFor be panzers, and suddenly she got to run the overengineered tank, the best kind to play with, without any image concerns.
"The enemy is right over that ridge!" Barbie, the radio operator, shouted.
"I see them." Tanya said, standing proud in the command position. The drones sprayed some machinegun fire, but none of the paintballs impacted her barrier. "Raven? Zatanna?"
"Main gun ready to fire." Raven asserted.
"I have them in my sights." Zatanna added.
"Fire!" Tanya said, and just like that, the Panzer was destroyed. They had live ammunition, only the drones got mockups. "Then, evasive maneuvers!"
"Right!" Ace shouted, spinning the steering wheel to take a rough turn before the other drones could finish swiveling their guns.
The final accounting of the day was kept well within the fifty million dollar budget. The Tiger was three million, each of the forty drones, engaged no more than five at a time so that everyone got to have fun, was half a million, and all of the miscellaneous expenses, like the mannequins mocked up to look like the anime characters, the land, the restoration afterwards, etcetera, was less than ten million.
Needless to say, a good time was had by all.
The Slaughter Swamp was a very unpleasant place, but needs must. "Bowery, Fuerza, Valiente!" Jason shouted, before humming a single note strongly. He wasn't in Robin gear, instead wearing the enchanted robe that Tanya had made for him, using magic for every step, even spinning the thread: it was mostly black, with green trim and a red hood that enshrouded his face in magical shadow, two green lights marking his eyes, evoking Robin's colors and concealing his identity. They had yet to agree on a callsign for this particular identity, but it wasn't very important as of now.
Tanya, Ace, Raven, and Diana all joined him, humming the same note. Once they were harmonized, Jason began to sing. "You're in my world now, not your world, because I have friends, on the other side." He began, starting a few lines into the song but those first ones didn't make sense in context.
"He's got friends on the other side…" The four of them sang. Magic wafted off of their hands and motions, sinking into the area and swirling around Jason in a nimbus of power.
Jason continued the song, magically pulling forth the spirits that hung around their current location and using improvised lyrics, every line accompanied by his backup singers. Particularly intense parts were sung in five part harmony, not a single one of them slipping as he drew out each spirit's life story, if abridged heavily, in just a few lines. With a wave of his hand, each story was recorded on a floating scroll using a quill made of fishbone.
"Now I thank my friends…" Jason said, trailing off and letting the chorus and spirits all finish.
"...on the other side."
After a beat, Jason slumped over, breathing deeply. "Holy shit that worked."
"Of course it did!" Tanya said, offended. "Do you think I'd arrange for a trip to Gotham's filthy taint for nothing?"
"This place is so gross…" Ace complained, holding her nose as the smell of rot and illegal dumping pervaded the swamp.
"Don't be so dramatic." Raven chided, "You're being protected by the clean air talismans, just like us."
"I think it broke." Ace said, holding the talisman up to her eye.
Tanya tossed the girl one of the spares (it was just a fifty dollar air freshener sold by ArcWayne, they didn't last very long in these conditions, there was a reason they were usually sold as a fallback measure for more conventional hazmat protections), and Ace took a deep breath once it was around her neck. "The reason it works…" Tanya paused as she remembered that he didn't have a callsign. "...Hood, is that singing is one of the oldest, most primal means of uniting effort. By singing in harmony, the power of multiple spellcasters can be directed into a single spell or series of spells, with the attunements barely mattering, the magic harmonizing with each other as well as the voices are. The powers of Demons, Gods, Dreams, and Death all intermingle into one song, one note at a time, a crescendo of purpose."
"There are other ways to utilize songs in spellcasting." Diana added, smiling as she read the scrolls. "I'm sure Bruce will be able to make great use of some of these witness statements."
"If he manages to open up even one cold case, it was worth the trip." Jason said firmly, crossing his arms. Bruce did the same thing whenever he expected Tanya to argue against his course of action. "Thanks, pipsqueak."
"It was educational. Even if it fails, the lessons learned were reason enough." Tanya said instead. "Your skill is impressive, Jason. Despite having very little power yourself, you've taken quite well to shaping external sources of magic in a shockingly short timeframe, that takes talent. This technique is perfect for you… Well, if you could sing a little better it would, I had to course-correct your song twice." When you started to sing in harmony and got pulled into the song ritual, there was a… pressure that compelled you to continue the song. It was resistable, and it was helpful even, about as much as that music game with the four player band, including vocalist, it made it so that you didn't need to know the lyrics very well, and it aided you in choosing the right notes… but it was still your own voice you were using, so... "But that's fixable, we'll be stepping up the vocal training, saying incantations with strength is important, but singing raises the standards."
"Figures." Jason huffed. "Let's get out of here, ."
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Of course, Tanya was not just teaching magic nowadays. She was also learning.
"Yes, like that." Shazam said, stroking his beard as he examined the magic circle that Tanya had just drawn. "Not a single trait is expressed here beyond the one you sought to embody within the glyph, and it is suitable for insertion into an Champion Empowerment ritual. If it was properly empowered and bestowed, it would grant the target the Flight of Rhine." Which was, to her understanding, more metaphorical than literal, allowing not only the actual power of flight, but her habit of moving through shadows would also be bestowed.
"So what's the next step?" Tanya asked. She had realized shortly after spending thirty minutes deciding on what to wear to magic lessons that she may have gone a bit overboard when it came to stocking her closets with the latest fashions, particularly as her in progress growth spurt meant that it was a real possibility that she could no longer fit in some of those before she had a chance to wear them. Currently, she was wearing a dark purple robe with yellow trim, decorated with some pleasingly intricate lightning embroidery. She liked to think that she was one of the ones responsible for arcane-themed outfits being in fashion at the moment.
"The greater ritual depends on how many empower the champion." Shazam explained, showing a series of circles with different designs. "I find the most stable, the greatest balance between versatility, power, and investment, is the Hexagram, with the six glyphs at these spaces and the subject of the ritual here in the center." The miniature floating ritual circle brightened, with Rhine's new glyph in one of the six slots along with some Justice League member's symbols, with the subject being represented by a simple glyph that Tanya recognized as a common placeholder in some ritual books she read. The other floating ritual circles, each with different numbers of spots for glyphs, also filled in.
"How does it work?" Bruce asked curiously, striding into Shazam's chamber. "Tanya, it's almost time for dinner." He focused back on the ghost. "Keep it under five minutes, please."
"One thing you must understand is that the most fundamental magic is an idea." Shazam began, "The gap between being a cluster of matter and being a discrete, identifiable thing is where magic lies. All spells are an extension of this, where the idea of something holds greater value than any intrinsic trait of it."
"I have noticed that pattern, yes." Bruce said, leaning in. Tanya huffed. She's explained this too! Admittedly, not quite so eloquently.
"What the Champion Empowerment ritual does is exactly that: Empower a Champion, as in a representative that fights or otherwise acts in your stead. An Envoy would be another appropriate term."
"Wouldn't that mean that it would stop working if the… empowerer… dies?" Bruce asked. "Tanya mentioned someone using dead people."
"Patron would be the best term in English." Shazam informed him. "But this particular ritual, my own spin as it were, on a more archaic version, invokes the myth and legend of the patron instead of their direct power. It has drawbacks, such as the necessary narrowing of the empowerment, which must be compensated for by using multiple patrons that are somehow linked together, they must all agree to empower a single champion." He smiled, the joy of a scientist bragging about his work clear on his face. "But the benefit is that the power drain on the patron is basically nothing, even a dead soul could do it, as all they have to do is provide a link to the power of their reputation."
"They must also have a notable reputation as well, I gather." Bruce said questioningly.
"Indeed." Shazam said, "The empowerment is transferable, albeit with difficulty, which is how I was able to empower Billy on my lonesome: I merely gave him the power that once was mine."
"It sounds powerful." Bruce allowed, "Also scalable. Even if all it does is let the Justice League add an extra twenty percent to their numbers to act as substitutes when they're off duty, that's a powerful edge. Throw in the old gods, and they could probably give the Earth another dozen Captain Marvels between the lot, if we could get them to cooperate."
"The possibilities are endless! Groups of heroic identities passed between a battalion of trained soldiers, volunteers paid for their labors, working in shifts to maximize coverage! If any should fall in battle, simply conduct the original ritual again and the hero looks immortal!" Tanya said excitedly. "Imagine if we could get the Heavenly Host to come to the table and empower a few champions to stand against SivMana's demon champions like Sabbac! Hell, there might even be a few demons who are materialistic enough that we can simply buy their cooperation!"
Bruce chuckled, as did Shazam. "Isn't she cute when she's so hyped up about business deals?" Bruce asked the ghost.
"I've seen many children in the millennia of my life." Shazam said, nodding in agreement. "Even demon ones like her. While the subject of their childish obsessions vary widely, there is always something charming about their enthusiasm." He laid his hand on Tanya's head, gently patting it without mussing her hair. "You've got the spellcraft of a demon scholar ten times your age, young Rhine. You're very talented."
Tanya blushed. "Well, I mean- wait." Ten times her age? "How old do you think I am?"
"Think? Child, I know." Shazam said, with a grandfatherly smile. "I could tell your soul was less than eleven years from your recasting the instant you unleashed your shade in front of me." He shrugged. "The exact circumstances of your life are surely an interesting story, but I could tell from Billy's complaints about you that you weren't to be dismissed, to be so trusted by those he idolized."
"There's no one I'd trust more to run an army of superheroes." Bruce said, nodding to himself. "Anyway, come on Princess, it's time for food. Dick's visiting, so Alfred made stuffed mushrooms." Bruce physically picked Tanya up and started carrying her away.
"He's totally going to punch Jason in the face." Tanya said confidently, making no move to start moving under her own power. "Or get punched. There might be kicks involved."
"No bet."
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Richard wasn't home purely for Alfred's cooking, even if that was reason enough in Tanya's book, but because Bruce had called him in for help with the current troubles.
Of course, then the latest disaster struck, the next day: every bank in Gotham got robbed simultaneously in a coordinated assault, in broad daylight, with only a few foiled by vigilante response, one by curiously competent private security, and none by the police. There was even a death among the vigilante community: Ragman, a local necromancer who channeled the spirits of the dead for magical augmentations, overstretched himself by attempting to foil two such robberies, with the second managing to kill him. Interestingly, his own ghost was unavailable for summons, and neither did a call for any ghost who witnessed his death bear any fruit.
So, Batman took a step that was unprecedented, although naturally he had laid the groundwork for the move long ago. Each "hero" from Gotham, a loose association of vigilantes that Batman always made sure to keep at arm's length, close enough to extend a hand but not so close to need to trust them with anything important, was called to a meeting about this massive movement by the criminal element.
Batman stood atop a presentation stage, individual tables scattered throughout the warehouse that the meeting was held at. Each table had a neat stack of individually wrapped snackfoods, such as pastries or protein bars, as well as meal replacement drinks in cans and sealed plastic bottles. It was a statement, one acknowledging that he did not demand their trust for this. Rhine literally sat on his shoulder, their demon form's narrow hips easily fitting on the man's broad back.
"I thought this place was Penguin's." Commented Black Spider, aka Eric Needham. A metahuman who had an inborn ability to launch spiderwebs through his hands. Like many metahumans, this came with an otherwise unspoken but certainly present amount of superhuman strength and durability, and in his case it was paired with enhanced agility, flexibility, and reaction speed, although despite these advantages Batman could consistently defeat him in direct combat. "You steal this from him, Bats?" He sat down, leaning back while using a web to snag one of the milk-like drinks and a second one to nab a bag of jerky. "Good to see that you don't just shove food in my face, you mother hen."
"Right?" Gotham Girl, aka Claire Clover commented, even as she cracked open a can of protein drink, peanut butter granola bar wrappers already discarded in front of her. "Every time he finds us, he gives us half a dozen meal bars each. We have our own Costco membership, thank you!"
"After we've already eaten three each." Gotham, Claire's older brother Hank, added. "By the end of a patrol, I'm too tired to eat, so it's nice to have snacks." The Clover siblings were relatively wealthy, having used their parent's connections in Wayne Enterprises to get connections with some ArcWayne contracted occultists who created several magical items that allowed them to adequately impersonate metahumans with super strength, speed, flight, and a small assortment of attack spells.
Still, Batman was well practiced in ignoring color commentary. "This warehouse is scheduled for a hazmat refit in two weeks by Wayne Industrial, who picked it up via police auction." Batman said, acting as if this was the result of a noteworthy investigation instead of a handful of basic database searches. "It will suffice until then."
"I've got a secondary location we can use if someone else catches wind of this place." Batgirl bragged, Zatanna sharing her table. "Two-Face lair, police auction is in three weeks. It'll be deserted until then." It was a matter of GCPD policy that they avoid spending manpower to watch seized properties, because that ended in far too many dead cops. They were enjoying a small container with some of Alfred's snickerdoodles, an additional consideration given to them given their mutual trust.
"God willing, that won't be necessary." Azrael said from his table near the back. Michael Lane was a crusader sent by the Order of St. Dumas, a former subdivision of the Catholic Church's Knights Templar, blessed with holy magic and charged with inscrutable missions from their leadership. Despite the natural enmity, he had never attacked Batman for diabolism, instead claiming that Bruce was essential to some prophecy to stop a Dark God from conquering this dimension or something along those lines. He was irritatingly vague about it. "I've prayed for this meeting to be shaded from the eyes of the wicked." Some empty food wrappers, fruit and nut bars, were neatly set aside on his table.
"An irritating ward, unprovoked and untoward." Etrigan grumbled from his table, "I've cast a spell to rebuff, the uninvited will find it tough." He left the food untouched.
"Is that why I had to drag this brat in with me?" Mother Panic complains, jerking a thumb at the fourteen year old vigilante next to her. Mother Panic was the alias of a twenty year old girl with cybernetic enhancements that were forcibly implanted into her, by the name Violet Paige. She was mostly focused on finding and killing whoever was responsible for the Gather House, a boarding school that was far worse than what Jason had to go through. They implanted her with alien technology there, and she flatly refused to allow Batman to give her any assistance except on cases. That didn't stop her from eating twenty of the energy bars, though, as her cybernetics substantially increased her caloric requirements.
"This is too dangerous for Whistle." Batman retorted, "You shouldn't have brought her here."
Whistle, real name Willow Zimmerman, whined like a dog and shrunk in on herself. She was a rather unfortunate metahuman, unconsciously drawing on the Red to give her the instincts of a dog, which came with enhanced senses and the ability to communicate with dogs to a great extent. She didn't have mind control powers over dogs, but she was good enough at getting them to do what she wanted that most people thought she did. She was not the kind of vigilante one called on for dealing with this kind of thing. She had not only eaten all the jerky from her table, but had also taken some from Batgirl's table.
"Let her stay." Nightwing said, seated as if no different from the others. Rhine did not divide themselves for this meeting; Witch Girl was absent, but Raven was seated next to him; as Rhine's apprentice she felt obligated to join in, but her nominal purpose was to serve as a teleport if things blew up at Jump City; she was going to use the Batcave's Zeta Tube network node instead of wasting magic on a cross-country teleport, of course. "This affects her turf as well as everyone else's, the least we can do is keep her informed."
Willow perked up. "Thank you!" She said. Her companion, the white dog Lebowitz, barked in agreement. "Those robbers were too strong, some of my friends got hurt."
"People have died!" The last of their number shouted, slamming his fist on his table. Simon Dark was an undead compatriot of Ragman, supposedly animated by the magic of Slaughter Swamp. Much like his "brother", Solomon Grundy, he was also named for a nursery rhyme, although it was only spoken of in Gotham. The man was less overwhelmingly powerful in comparison to Grundy, but he was smarter and lucid, which made him far more dangerous. "If you face them again, you'll be burying those friends of yours."
"Enough." Batman said, "With The Question's arrival, everyone's here. Let's begin." Most of the room startled as they only now noticed the detective's presence on the stage. Rhine waved a hand, and images appeared to punctuate his speech. "Earlier today, all seven hundred and four banks in Gotham were robbed simultaneously, each by four men wearing the exact same set of four uniforms."
"This is the work of the Dark Faith, adherents of the Crime Bible." The Question added.
"Analysis is ongoing." Batman said, "But let's start with the easiest one: Uniform 1, with a wooden Adolf Hitler mask, marked with a swastika on the forehead, surrounded by the phrase Arbeit macht frei. Their jacket was a pale grey, which was consistent so we'll assume it's relevant."
"Work makes you free." Nightwing said first.
"Most famously written on the gates of concentration camps." Batman added. "Uniform 2: Black clothing, Joseph Stalin mask, with a hammer and sickle, plus the word Голодомо́р, which refers to a specific atrocity, the engineered famine against Ukrainians."
"Plenty in common between those." Hawkgirl remarked, having arrived with Question and sat with Batgirl, as both other girls were members of the Justice League.
"The other two were less clear, but the easier of the two to identify wore white, the mask was Emperor Hirohito, with a rising sun symbol and the phrase, in Japanese, Unit 731." Batman continued.
"Another horror. A very consistent pattern, glorifying atrocities." The Question commented.
"I'm seeing another pattern…" Azreal said, "But continue, what color did the last one wear?"
"The last one wore red." Batman said, "Uniform 4 wore a mask of Harry Truman, with an eagle symbol surrounded by the number 9066."
"A cryptic riddle in that border, but my guess found one: an executive order." Rhine said. They didn't know offhand which executive order created the Japanese internment camps that they supposedly had an uncle that was put in one, way back when, but they had guessed that whatever the number was, it was related to that, and they were right.
"Uh… Lexicon says that executive order 9066 created the internment camps they stuck the Japanese into back in World War 2." Gotham Girl commented, looking up from her phone. "But… FDR signed that, not Truman."
"Truman did drop the bombs, though." Black Spider pointed out.
"War." Azreal said, "Pestilence, Famine, Death." He spat to the side. "These symbols are to emulate the Four Horsemen."
Everyone took a moment to digest that information. "The colors correspond to the horses." Nightwing said, "Yeah, that's why."
There were still many unanswered questions there. Most relevantly… "How did they all get superpowers, though?" Gotham asked before anyone else could. "Is it magic?"
While the qualities they possess could easily have been a simple magical augmentation if it was only one of them… "That is the mystery, is it not? They have too much for it to be simply bought." Rhine said, idly fidgeting by kicking the air from Batman's shoulder.
"The power they'd need, the spells would feed, but yet they ride forth on their steeds." Etrigan speculated, clearly just as confused as Rhine was, on how they got enough magic for thousands of even low end metahumans.
"Isn't it obvious?" The Question asked. "They were empowered by the Crime Bible's god, the First Murderer, Cain."
"The fuck's a Crime Bible?" Nightwing asked. Batman gave him a sharp glare for swearing.
"Allow me to explain…"
After the Question's dramatic retelling of his, Huntress, and Hawkgirl's adventure smashing the alien technology fabricator, tuned to assemble raw materials into copies of the Crime Bible, he presented one of the full examples. "It's mostly drivel." The Question explained, "But within its glorification of violence, it reveals volumes of subtlety, including proof of a few sinister plots that have been difficult to secure evidence for." One of the unfortunate things about working with Vic is that he was a conspiracy theorist, and many (but, irritatingly, not all) of those theories were utter nonsense. She wasted ten minutes of her life hearing about aglets, of all things. It was usually safe to just ignore him when he alludes to those. "I suspect there is a mild memetic hazard within the book. Ignorable if you remain vigilant, but potentially hazardous to the unaware." He gestured, and Huntress walked in with a stack, passing each table an edition.
"We're all stubborn as mules, so it should be fine." Hawkgirl said. "If you hate horror movies, maybe keep your eyes off."
"We don't have all night, so just skim it, get a feel for what your enemies have been reading." Batman warned, "These particular ones have been cleared of bugs and booby traps, so they're safe enough to read later. If you have any doubts at all about the memetic hazard, let someone else read it."
After a brief intermission while some people took more snacks while others read through random parts of the Crime Bible, Rhine floated off of Batman's shoulder with a small flap of their wings and settled next to Etrigan. "As the esteemed elder, please be a helper. What's your thought, you've seen this before, or at least you ought?"
"Never ever." Etrigan said, "Thinking of this book, there is no trace, I've not mistook."
Now that's interesting. "Naught a trace?" Rhine asked, "If that's the case…"
"Their history without place." Etrigan finished.
"Their origins from space." Rhine continued,
"A fake, a disgrace!" Etrigan agreed.
"Woah, you gotta let a guy brace." Nightwing joked.
"This isn't a race, no need to show face." Rhine said, putting their hands on their hips to emote disappointment.
"Could you follow that?" Black Spider asked. "I think they realized something."
"Etrigan's old enough that the fact he's never heard of this Crime Bible before is suspicious." Batgirl summarized.
"The oldest signs of their existence that I've found with satisfactory proof dates to the seventies." The Question said, "But I suspect that the rabbit hole goes deeper."
"You always say that." Hawkgirl said, annoyed.
"He's usually right." Huntress countered, casually leaning on The Question's side and giving Mother Panic a dirty look. The cyborg in question glared back.
Still, Rhine floated to the remaining magical vigilante who may have insight. "Lurks in shadows, hides in the park. Simon, Simon, Simon Dark." Rhine said, saying the nursery rhyme to address him. "What insight have you? Ignorance too?"
Simon Dark growled. His fidgeted, picking at the stitches that riddled his teenage-seeming form. "The Dark Faith's attempted to invade Gotham before, although they were subtler about it last time. It was around… 1980 I think, when the Court controlled most crime in Gotham."
"The Court?" The Question asked, his mind latching on that mention like a bloodhound.
"The Court of Owls." Azreal said, "They've been the dominant occult power in Gotham for centuries. It is curious how they've decided to push occultism mainstream, but the rich and powerful consorting with demons is nothing new in Gotham."
Batman's body language was always difficult to read, but Rhine could tell that he was confused. "Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowy perch, behind granite and lime." Rhine intoned. It was a very long rhyme, but as long as they planned the whole statement ahead of time it was usable.
"That's them." Simon Dark confirmed, "The dead whisper about that time, many bodies were fed to Slaughter Swamp during that shadow war. The Dark Faith must want a rematch, which is why they're committing so much. They must want the Owl's magical resources, meaning ArcWayne's going to be in trouble."
What? Oh. "ArcWayne's a Court front?" Rhine asked, loading their voice with skepticism, "Spilling their secrets like a font?"
"The Waynes have been high ranking members of the Court since its inception." Simon insisted, "I don't know where Degurechaff fits into it-"
"-Degurechaff's the half-sister of Tanya Wayne, both born by Heather Graystone." The Question said, looking at Batman suspiciously. He knew the actual story, so it was a little surprising that he was willing to uphold the deception. "If Bruce Wayne's a member of the Court, that's the connection."
"If?" Hawkgirl said, pretending to be shocked. "How generous."
"Rhine has a point." The Question said, "Degurechaff's modus operandi doesn't fit an occult organization."
"ArcWayne's been accumulating knowledge from all around the world." Batman said, playing devil's advocate.
"They've been making money, too." Raven pointed out, still staying within arms reach of Nightwing. "I've done some work for them, they haven't put anything sneaky in the work agreements or anything I've noticed." If Rhine recalled correctly, Raven was mostly making toy golems, as she had the power to do so without animal sacrifice. She also made one for herself at cost, a rabbit that she dressed up in her hero outfit. Victor kept sending them short videos about how the golem was terrorizing Garfield in Raven's absence, directed entirely by the boy's imagination on what Raven's evil toy rabbit would do.
"The Court of Owls doesn't care about money." Simon Dark said dismissively, "They care about power. I don't know what's going through Bruce Wayne's head," Clearly not, "-but the Court works in opposition to the Dark Faith, so their lengthy plots aren't important right now. What does matter is that last time, the conflict forced the Court to deploy their Talons, after one of the Dark Faith's adherents murdered the Waynes." The only reason Rhine noticed Batman's sudden tension was because they were looking for it. "It was a chaotic time, and after something like this? Expect the Talons to be out in force."
"They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them or they'll send the Talon for your head." Rhine said, finishing the nursery rhyme.
"Who are the Talons?" Batman questioned.
"A better question: what are the Talons?" The Question… questioned.
"Undead slave-soldiers." Simon Dark summarized. "Dangerous, durable, cunning, and utterly devoted to their missions."
"How strong?" Black Spider said, cutting to the point.
"A pale imitation of myself or my brother." Simon assured them, which was not comforting given how powerful Solomon Grundy was, "But they have an unknown number, hundreds at least, maybe thousands. I wasn't active then, so I cannot be more precise than that." Ah, right, Simon Dark's information was having fractured memories of everyone who had their body disposed of in Slaughter Swamp. Quite the cross-section of Gotham's population, presumably including at least a few members of the Court, but all at a remove, as the memories of the dead. Rhine knew how vague those could get at times from experience. "The important thing to consider is why the Talons need an agreement among the Court's elders to be deployed: Because they always get diverted into side projects and petty dispute resolutions, so expect normal organized crime actions from them as well. They won't go so far as to have the Talons fight each other, that's forbidden, but pre-emptively resolving inheritance disputes is well within possibility."
Ah. That sounded like it could be a problem. Shadow wars tend to get very messy.
-----------------------
The meeting ended with everyone properly warned of the threat, and temporary partnerships were formed, Batman distributed a few trinkets to allow each of them to coordinate for the duration of the conflict, but it was mostly taken begrudgingly, as Batman's reputation from his fellow vigilantes was more of a busybody, or an annoying authority figure, than a leader.
Tanya had her opinions on how Bruce could come across as less C-suite and more of a direct report or equal collaborator, but she held her tongue: he considered himself through his own actions as being responsible for the other vigilantes, but his words on the subject were that of a tsundere, so he wouldn't be receptive to her advice.
Still, the night was busy, but nothing particularly noteworthy happened; there were crimes, yes, and even a sighting of some of those Talons, but there wasn't anything particularly interesting about the ghouls, magically. Tanya guessed that some kind of alchemically refined ectoplasm was used to sustain them, from how they smelled, but they weren't able to capture one so this remained a theory.
Nevertheless, she wasn't about to let these disasters cause her to change plans, so after sleeping the morning away, Jason, Billy, and her all went to the movies!
Yes, Wayne Manor had a movie theater. Yes, it had popcorn machines and supplies of every other movie theater snack that they ever expressed interest in. And yes, they even had an arcade! But Jason absolutely insisted that this one movie theater, the one he grew up near, had better popcorn, and it lacked the 'kidnap me, I dare you' energy that was announcing on Perch that you were going to see the Muppets take Metropolis, nominally as a chaperoned date, at the very same theater that your grandparents were shot next to. Selfies included.
Despite knowing with certainty that Bruce wasn't there, Tanya compulsively checked Batman's favorite brooding gargoyle on the way in any way, because if the man had somehow found a way around her blood magic sense of his location, she knew he wouldn't tell her about it. Besides, he was stuck in Wayne Enterprises meetings today, and she had a secret weapon against the possibility that he'd call in her CEO identity for one while he was in the office.
The movie was, as it should be, hilarious. They had gotten Clark to actually participate in a few scenes, including an on-screen interview where the real Clark Kent interviewed a robot Superman about LexCorp's new management, although their Lex Luthor was simply an impersonator, a bald actor that usually played the CEO in a popular weekly comedy show, although in this case the parody wasn't quite so extreme, it was done with a level of respect that reeked of Luthor's conditions on agreeing to allow some scenes to be shot on LexCorp property, and given how LexCorp outright owns a solid thirty percent of Metropolis' real estate, with another thirty owned by Luthor's shell companies, that was an important thing for them to secure.
"Bi-Bizarro!" Tanya wheezed, "Bizarro saved the day!"
Billy was laughing too, the two children leaning on each other as the credits rolled. "They didn't even exploit his opposite everything on purpose! I couldn't understand Fozzie and Gonzo's instructions at all, they were so convoluted."
"They actually would have done it correctly," Tanya said, as she was well practiced with wordplay, "-but because they both did it, it was a double negative, which as you know…"
The boy laughed harder. Jason, who was chuckling himself, ushered them out of the theater. "C'mon pipsqueaks, let's refill our popcorn tubs before we leave."
Tanya took some deep breaths to quiet her laughter. Ah, she needed a good laugh after last night. "Okay, you take care of that, I have phones to check, they've all been off for the last two hours."
She took out her 'Tanya Wayne' phone first, and it immediately blew up with notifications, mostly from Barbie. What in the world? One of them had a news article, and the title of it revealed what had occurred: "ArcWayne headquarters assaulted by criminals, CEO killed."
Lovely. With an activation of a spell she set up in advance, the Tanya Degurechaff phone appeared in her hand… inside of an evidence bag, destroyed. Fuck. "Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou." Tanya muttered, reversing the summoning she just did and banishing the evidence back to, presumably, police lockup. Hopefully no one noticed that…
Still, she had a blank backup phone, right? …Yeah, they're last year's model, but she can update later. She quickly used it to access the software mirror backup of the whole phone that they had in the Batcave's servers, last updated… shortly before the disaster, perfect! Okay, it's downloading, that'll take a few minutes. In the meantime… Tanya Wayne phone. Calling…
Bruce picked up the phone instantly. "What did you do?" He growled immediately.
"I just watched a movie!" Tanya protested, "I chirped about it and everything."
"I thought you couldn't split into two different human forms." Bruce said. From his tone, he probably wasn't in public right now.
"I can't." Tanya said, idly erecting a spell that twisted her words into a whiny complaint about how Billy was a perfect gentleman to those trying to overhear her conversation. "I send an animated puppet to work that was piloted by a chunk of my soul." Actually… Yes, it's back. "I didn't notice when it came back to me, so I have no idea why the news reported her dead, the puppet didn't even have blood. Because it didn't dispel properly, I'll need to do some soul-searching to find those memories." Assuming that they didn't use something exotic in an attempt to stop her from wreaking revenge from beyond the grave, anyway. But the section of soul was just a little frayed, so the damage didn't seem too bad. Easily fixed, it just needed that fixing, which was concerning.
"The police reported your death so as to dissuade further action." Bruce said, "They think you're just in hiding now."
"How's the research?" Tanya asked, "Do I have to worry about whoever did this having anything dangerous?" Whatever her spell was twisting her words into, Billy choked at.
"Data purge protocols activated without issue." Bruce replied, "The offsite backups remain intact. I suspect that the invaders didn't expect a sorceress to have a competent IT department."
Tanya nodded triumphantly. As she personally did most of the translation work, there was very little original documentation within the corporate offices, it was mostly digital in airgapped servers, using a complex method to maintain the backups without directly exposing it to cyberattacks. She didn't pretend to understand the specifics, but Lucius used the metaphor of an airlock to explain it.
As such, destroying the data was easy without losing anything important; it was on such a hair trigger that it had thrice before been deleted accidentally. Which, for a span of eight years, wasn't too bad. Worth it, to protect some of the nastier spells they had records of.
"Well, I'm fine, and this isn't going to set back productivity for long, so there's no need to worry." Tanya said, "The movie was great, by the way."
"Don't spoil it. I have plans to watch it with Dick before patrol." Bruce said, unable to leave out a note of annoyance that she watched it without him. "How long have you been sending… whatever that is to work, anyway?"
"The last three months." Tanya said honestly, "It's called a simulacrum, incidentally. It's not nearly as powerful as myself, and it's a little dull, but you know as much as I do how easy a CEO's job is. I'll call the GCPD and make a statement after I get home and recover those memories."
"Do that." Bruce said, before his voice pitched up to his usual ditzy tone. "I love you Princess, stay safe out there! Gotham's streets are dangerous."
"Of course they are, I'm on them." Tanya joked back, "Love you Daddy, goodbye!" Hanging up, she turned to Billy, who seemed to decide that impersonating a tomato was his favorite thing. "...Okay, what did my spell make you think I just said?"
"I figured out that what I was hearing and what you were saying was different at around the time you said that you'll kiss him as much as you want and there's nothing Bruce can do about it." Jason deadpanned, holding a pair of popcorn tubs that was freshly filled.
Urk. After a moment of regaining her composure/competing with Billy in the tomato impersonation contest, Tanya coughed. "Ah, sorry about that, Billy. Sometimes my disguise magic gets away from me if I get too distracted to direct it."
Billy's eyes flashed, the sign that he decided to invoke the Wisdom of Solomon. Instantly, his embarrassment faded, as if his blush was doused by icewater. "Did something happen?" He asked seriously.
"ArcWayne got attacked." Tanya said, frowning. "We shouldn't be talking about it in public, though." She put on a plastic smile, increasing her volume to just a hair above what was polite. "Daddy's fine, though, so nothing we need to worry about, he's got this!" She grabbed one of the popcorn tubs and started snacking more on it. "Come on, let's get back to the manor."
They made their way to where Jason parked the pickup truck he had been using to learn to drive, having officially gotten his license mere weeks ago. It wasn't a particularly heavy duty pickup truck, the same kind low income immigrants with lawn care businesses favored. This was chosen specifically to make it less likely to get stolen.
"We're surrounded." Jason said suddenly. "Quiet fuckers…"
At that, they revealed themselves: the villains numbered four, wearing full body leather, including masks with breathing apparatuses. They moved somewhat unnaturally, which could just be trained intimidation but could also be signs of inhuman aspects to their anatomy. They were all lithe, compact with muscle, and wielded wicked claws that may or may not be part of their suits.
Were these… the Talons? Why would they attack- oh. The Court of Owls were, if Simon Dark's intelligence was accurate, directed by Gotham's high society. He was mistaken on the role of Bruce… probably, she didn't think Bruce was capable of hiding something so big from her, but she's been surprised before. Either way, someone among their number was doubtlessly displeased with Jason's admittance into the upper crust, so… "Aaaaaah!" she screamed, a high pitched noise that directly attacked human protective instincts. "Zombies!" She shouted in fright, whipping out a wand from her dimensional storage while pretending it came out of her wand sheath that she had strapped to the interior of her coat.
She had dozens of wands, although only about nine different kinds. This one was chosen more or less at random, so… oh. This was her demon wand, infused with her own power. Yeah, she can work with this.
"Hey now, let's not jump to conclusions, pipsqueak." Jason said, even as he squared up for a fight. "Zombies would have attacked us already."
"That's still on the table, Mr. Todd." Said a smug voice, distorted somehow. A man wearing a fine suit and wearing an elaborate ivory owl mask emerged from the shadows. Tanya would guess that he's in his early twenties, and the suit looked… bespoke, but not from one of the big names. Age range, height, lower end of the old money wealth brackets… Doesn't quite narrow it down enough for her to guess. It could be one of four people. "But I don't play in anything less than certainties. Step away from the girl, and she will go on her way, unharmed." Ah, with that turn of phrase, this was absolutely Desmond Crowne, older brother to Abbot Crowne, one of her unofficial suitors. He was the bulkiest of them, very vain. Very handso- not the time!
"What about Jason?" Tanya demanded, face flushed with what was definitely rage, "What about Billy?" Her wand was in her hand, but not pointed in any direction in particular; she guessed that the Talons would probably leap into action if she looked like she was actively attacking.
A pocketwatch slipped out of Demond's hand, gently twirling in a circle. Immediately, a magical hypnosis attempted to batter her mental barriers, but she had enough warning to firm them up enough that they held. "You'll understand later, after your initiation." He said, before even confirming that she was under his spell.
Tanya immediately put on her 'no thoughts, only cute' expression that she relied on to deflect suspicion for so long. "Arr…" She slurred, "Are you in a secret society?" She asked, distantly.
Desmond's body language became smugger. "Would you like to join?" He asked.
"Yes…" Tanya said, walking with mechanical grace towards him.
"...Hey, quick question." Billy said, suspicious as he eyes flared. "Have you ever used that hypno-watch before?"
Desmond fidgeted. "It just worked, didn't it?" He asked, a clear no. "Kill them." He declared, and the Talons surged forth.
Tanya snatched the watch out of Desmond's grip, using a flare of magic to phase the chain through his hand, then twirled it in front of him. He paused, confused, as Tanya used her other hand to wave her wand at one of the ghouls.
It burst into hellfire, quickly rendering itself into a pile of scorched meat. Billy channeled tiny fractions of his blessings to send another talon flying out of the alley with a powerful and quick punch, while Jason dodged the attack, went to grapple the Talon, and slammed it into the wall before leveraging his superior weight to slam into the undead, cracking several of its bones.
The one that flew out of the alley jumped back, only to get the hellfire treatment. She was in a bad mood, okay? The one that was broken assumed a green glow, standing up despite its injuries. Tanya burned that one into a crisp as well. "I do not envy you having to deal with them during the night." Tanya idly commented, "The good news is that the hellfire worked, the ectoplasm boiled away and stopped them from regenerating." She focused, taking a deep sniff while enhancing her magical senses. "Their tortured souls have been released, but not destroyed." She knew from experience, unfortunately, that destroyed human souls had a distinct smell that was similar to animal souls, but thoroughly unpleasant. Like rotten coffee…
Turning back to her subject… "Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou." She incanted, spinning the watch. "You were stopped in your mission by Azreal, who brought the judgement of The Lord to the Talons. He let you go to spread the word of the Wrath of God." Desmond nodded dumbly and walked away to… a waiting car, looks like, and was driven off. Good thing she slipped a tracker into his back pocket. Idly, she used magic to link the magical suggestion from Desmond to his driver, so that he'll report the same story.
"Sloppy." Jason admonished. "They're not going to fall for that."
"They don't need to." Tanya said, "But it looks like Simon was correct: now that the Talons have been deployed, the Court of Owls is going to be fulfilling all sorts of side objectives."
And just her luck, she was one of them.715