Chapter Text
During the two weeks preparation Danyal has been able to gain some information about the court of owls and the heroes. He was already aware there was an underground rich people society but hadn’t dove deeper as it wasn’t necessary for any of his missions. Although he keeps tabs on the heroes he only keeps in mind their skills and powers, nothing personal as it wasn’t needed.
From what he gathered the corpses known as talons, have the intelligence of a blob ghosts. Barely aware of existence and only act on instinct and what they were taught. Like a dog. However instead of having a realm’s being instincts they have revenant’s instincts. Revenants are the ghosts that can’t be seen without outside intervention and don’t have many, if any abilities. The lowest rank among ghosts besides blob ghosts.
Revenants have the instincts to follow those in a position of power, such as ancients and gods. But otherwise mind their own business. Even if they have a habit on spying the living for the gossip.
As the Ghost king who naturally gives of a sense of security, the talons will most likely abandon all lessons with a single shake of the head from him. They would most likely follow any orders given by him, even if it means betraying their masters.
He can certainly work with that. He can use them in order to redirect the bat clan’s attention away from him. He can use them to direct the blame for his brother’s death Damian’s elimination.
Although it would be easier to simply order them to eliminate Damien he doubts they are skilled or intellectually capable of completing that task.
He’s watched many news channels and gone of social media platforms to gain an understanding of the Waynes relationship with each other and where the bat clan have been spotted. Spotting can help narrow down possible patrol routes they will use, and which places they frequent.
His followers have started plotting ideas of what to do to stop the court of owls. He gave information on the pretext that Clockwork gave it to him when he visited. He hasn’t visited him since he got Clockwork to give him an excuse.
Vlad is none the wiser, too high on the joy of having Daniel agreeing to come. Probably plotting ways to steal the fortunes of some guests. Despite his idiotic actions he has proven to not be incompetent, as he has shown no signs of planning on taking the Wayne fortune. Gaining that much money will cause too much attention.
Vlad is not slick in the slightest, he acts like a cartoon villain when it comes to making plans near Daniel. He has a soft spot that is as easily abused as his adoptive father’s trust. Honestly it’s tiring since he will have to deal with it.
They are currently on a private plane after 13 days from the day of initially gaining the news of the trip. Sam and Tucker are sitting next to him with Vlad slightly farther off but still close enough to listen in if he wanted to.
They were talking about going shopping once they settled in. Get some tech and clothes. Sam believes that despite the terrible conditions of the city they might have clothes that she would be interested in. Tucker just wants to gain some Wayne tech.
Daniel has no interest except the ghosts ones, so he just says he wants to see owls. He had already discussed the court of owls in person with them and they are competent enough to know that’s code for ghost business.
After two days of being in Gotham, two days before the gala. They were able to get a few items, some of practical use while others for more personal ones.
They didn’t need to worry about Amity because of the Red Huntress. (He could always fly back in case he needed a stronger alibi for his hero persona) As for Danyal he didn’t need to worry about only being in Gotham for a few days as he could easily say he was interested in staying in Gotham for a bit. Either for a possible place for collage or as a possible place to research ghosts doesn’t matter as his parents will easily agree. Jazz is another matter he can easily deal with.
Him and his followers were now more focused on finding the court of owls so they could actually enjoy the trip. Even if they know they could extend it if they wanted too.
Daniel was able to give enough hints to Tucker to come up with the idea of hacking Batman for more information. Making Tucker believe he came up with the idea helps give Tucker a sense of satisfaction of being useful. Tucker is nothing if not a people pleaser when it comes to his close ones, even if it’s not so obvious to the naked eye. He needs Tucker to have that mindset while not overly pushing it as it may cause his efficiency to be lessened.
With the help of the supernatural technology that Tucker possesses it would be practically impossible to trace or hack by human means. Based on hero sightings in different cities and interactions between heroes on the news Danyal can concur that Batman isn’t in contact with supernatural heroes or at the very least on good terms with them.
There aren’t many sightings of heroes who deal with the supernatural by they have been mentioned online and by other heroes. Either on actual hero websites, theory websites, and news channels. Certain names appear and sometimes people with the same hero names appear. But every time one is with Batman or is said to have, they seemed to have kept things impersonal.
Well, that actually only was part of how he got the information, he does keep up with the current hero news after all. He mostly got his information from ghosts. Ghosts love to gossip, he’s their king so it makes sense all information will eventually go to him.
The ghosts of lower ranking such as revenants were more than eager to help, especially after he gave some ectoplasm as thanks.
He did this as showing kindness towards the revenants will show that he will reward those who help him, no matter their strength or importance. Showing some benevolence earns him trust. Some ectoplasm is a small, small price to pay.
With Tucker’s information from the Batcomputer and his own information from the ghosts they were able to gain a general location for where a base of operations may be. Sam would be helpful with her powers if not for the fact there’s not much vegetation in the city that can be of use.
They don’t have to enter the base, they only need a talon for now. They could just intercept the path of a talon on the way back and work their way into penetrating the base to stop the source bringing corpse back alive. Or have them kill their masters and take the device for himself. Both work as it has the same result.
If he were to have the talons kill their masters will cause enough of a scene to make them look away from him. If it doesn’t have the opposite effect they’ll look for someone who planned for this for a long time and had enough resources to do so. Not someone who made the plan in only a few days with even less resources.
Those bastards messed with the dead. They deserve death. Make them feel the anguish they caused. It seems the ornament of emotions is acting up. He supposes he could take that course of action as it doesn’t matter which on he does.
He’ll just have to make his followers believe they only destroyed the device and left the people alone, if slightly banged up. He can’t expose them too much to death, they aren’t there yet.
Killing is still too extreme for them right now. Hurting and crippling is okay under the right circumstances for them, killing isn’t there yet. Even though he has yet to cripple someone to their knowledge he knows they’d accept it if given a reasonable excuse.
Once he gains control of all the talons he can just have them deal with the curses while he focuses on the mission.
It’s night time, it’s raining as well. Him and his subordinates are wearing their ecto-prof clothes. Just normal dark clothes designed to withstand ectoplasm induced weather, which coincidentally include normal weather.
Just normal outfits to cover their bodies, including masks. For some reason Sam who brought the masks decided to bring the ones that look like a combination of a gas mask and a plague doctor one. At least their faces will be completely covered.
They're waiting on a rooftop waiting for a talon to come to them. The court of owls have many bases, some in plain sight with others underground. They’re on the rooftop next to the base which is an ordinary building with a secret underground level. Which is the actual base.
”So… does only else feel like we’re villains just standing here.” Tucker starts off out of nowhere. He probably found the silence awkward or boring.
”Thanks Tucker! I was waiting for it to be mentioned. I blame Sam.” Daniel continues the conversation with a playful suffering tone.
”Hey! Not my fault I have taste” Sam says defensively.
”I doubt having ‘taste’ will stop people from assuming that the three hooded figures standing on a rooftop in the rain are villains. Oh! And that their masks look like something from a horror movie.” Daniel says sarcastically.
“I second that!” Tucker says will raising his hand like he’s in class.
Sam huffs before perking up. Before pointing out in a direction “Is that a talon?”
Him and Tucker look out into the distance. They both spot the figure that’s too far away for normal humans to spot, and far enough normal liminals would have some trouble. Especially since the figure is hidden by the shadows. Looks like having Tucker and Sam being blessed and having them unknowingly trained helped improve their sight.
The figure is wearing dark clothes with their face only a mask with yellow marks and tinted lensed goggles for eyes. Looking closer shows they’re wearing armor and strapped with weapons on their chest and sides. The yellow marks create an owl like pattern, which makes sense given the theme. People love their themes for some reason.
Daniel still in human form floats over to the talon. Sam takes out a few seeds from her coat pocket, but thing is the seeds aren’t ones of the living world. She uses her powers to make the seeds to grow into one large vine with overly large petal like leaves grow at the edge of the vine.
But here’s the thing about it that really clues you in that it isn’t an earth plant. The large leaves flap gently as if it’s about to take flight.
Sam wraps two of them around one of her wrists and the other two around Tucker’s wrist. Tucker would use his bottle of sand in his own pocket to float if it weren’t for the fact that it’s raining. Sand turns to mud in water, which isn’t good for flight.
Daniels ahead of the two since the flying plants hover more than actually fly. So he’s the first to get into the Talon’s sight. The talon freezes up upon seeing Daniel and slowly lowers themselves to a kneeling position the closer Daniel gets.
Once Daniel touches the ground of the alleyway in front of the talon who’s no longer hiding in the shadows. The talon is very much kneeling down. Sam and Tucker land not much later. Slowly floating down with the leaves slowing down the descent to the point they land as softly as an elite assassin.
Tucker takes off the plants on his wrist and hands them back to Sam. Who undos the growth turning all the plants used back into seeds, then back into her pocket.
“Hey little Talon.” Daniel says in a gentle and happy tone. Sam and Tucker are behind him trying to seem as friendly as possible despite the masks. He doubts they’re successful at all, it’s likely the Talon isn’t even looking at them.
”I’m Danny. I was wondering if you’d do me a favor?” He says in a light tone to make it seem like an option they could refuse. He knows the Talon won’t out of instinct but it’s better to make it seem like they have a choice. To gain favor.
The Talon tilts their head. Behind the goggles he can see a slight golden glow from their eyes.
”I was hoping you’d be able to get some of your brother and sister Talons to help me get the thing that makes Talons?” Daniel says with a hopeful tone.
The Talon immediately nods their head. The Talon makes some faint clicking noises with their ectoplasm. Talons can be counted as Revenants, meaning just like Revenants they don’t have cores. Although Talons have bodies they still have ectoplasm based on Daniel’s assessment, so Talons can make chirps and clicking noises like some Revenants do.
Daniel has to focus on the Talon to understand them properly. Being the ghost king allows him to understand all languages any of the dead speaks, but he has to concentrate for it to work. That’s not counting the languages he learnt for certain missions before he even went to Amity.
Electrum. Electrum make Talon. Inject. Help? Will help. Will get Talons.
”Thank you so much! I didn’t know it was an injection!” He says with a grateful tone, not overly loud since he doesn’t want to attract unwanted attention. “Oh! And before I forget, here take this as thanks for offering to help.”
Daniel forms some ectoplasm in his right hand before offering it to the Talon. “Go on. It will help clear your head a bit. No guarantees though.”
The Talon carefully lifts their hands slowly to gather the ectoplasm in their own hands. They bring it to their face and just stare at it. They look at Daniel, he nods at them. The Talon likely follows their instincts since they immediately shoves the ectoplasm inside their chest roughly but in a way to make sure not a single drop is lost.
Tucker who has been quiet with Sam speaks up. “Hey we should skedaddle now. There’s detected movement on rooftop level coming. Close too.” Tucker’s not even looking directly at anyone, just his phone where he most definitely got this information.
”Probably one of the bats. Or something sent by an owl wondering where the talon went.” Sam chimes in. Tucker only hums noticing they are approaching directly at them, quickly too.
”Okay, got it. Bye Talon. Well met again after the Wayne Gala in two days. Just play along with the owls and get some Talons to help secretly, okay?” Daniel says slightly hurriedly. The Talon nods quickly.
”Let’s go ghost now guys.” Daniel places his hand on Tucker’s shoulder who then touches Sam’s shoulder. Daniel uses his invisibility and starts walking out and away from the alleyway.
He can assume the Talon went back into hiding and sneaks into the base. Hopefully without being spotted as that will push things back.
Right as they turn a corner he hears muffled noises from a nearby rooftop. He can’t hear it properly because of the rain but he can assume it was about the Talon. They likely saw only the end of conversation and couldn’t hear anything of importance but knowing there might be an outside party is not ideal. They won’t get anything from cameras since the quality will be ruined from Daniel purposefully disrupting them, so if there is anything only a single word would be likely heard.
At best for them fully video with some glitches and a few words. Worst case for them, nothing but static.
But at the same time it could be beneficial to be seen. The bat clan is aware the court of owls get the corpses of acrobats and athletes so they’ll be more cautious for Nightwing or maybe someone like Red Robin. Not someone who is skilled in fighting like an assassin. Since stuff like that requires some level of consciousness that Talons don't have.
So they won’t assume Damien has anything to do with the unknown third party. Now he’s hoping they did see the trio, even if only a glance. Or that the cameras worked even the slightest bit.
Oh yeah, Tucker can just fix it once they make it to the luxurious hotel Vlad booked for them.
Robin and Batman came to a location near a middle class street. Oracle had reported a sighting of a Talon on a camera.
Damien himself haven’t seen them much since they weren’t top priority for a while. Not once since he was sent to father.
Despite their danger level they haven’t been spotted much and their haven’t been much crimes related to the court of owls that indicate a larger scaled scheme. But the sighting has put father on edge.
When he and father arrived at the scene, crouching on a rooftop, they noticed a singular Talon kneeling. That’s not right. Theirs no one in an owl mask.
Only the three figures in front of it. Very suspicious.
However before he could properly see them, or even approach, the three figures disappear. He can see Father frowning seeing that as well.
Before they could stand straight and jump down the Talon also disappears. More odd.
Robin lands in the alleyway searching for any places where the four could’ve been hiding. Batman had also jumped down only a second after Robin. He looks towards Batman seeing him shake his head.
”Tsk. It seems we had arrived too late.” Robin says with some irritation.
Batman grunts. Before tapping his intercom. “Batman reporting. Four figures. Only one was a Talon. The other three were wearing masks unseen before, they had some features of a crow. More details will be said in a more disclosed area. Oracle, tell the others to be careful and aware of their surroundings.” Father said short and simply.
Oracle likely complied since Father takes his hand off his intercom. “We’ll continue with our original patrol. Afterwards you’ll report as much details as possible.”
”Yes Batman.”