Chapter Text
Chasing a rampaging demon through the Narrows was not how Damian wanted to start his first week of summer break.
The seat of his motorbike vibrated with every bump in the road as he sped through the claustrophobic streets, twisting and turning around the stacked buildings and keeping the beast in his sights. And to think, he’d planned to stay off patrol tonight. Joker was already causing trouble at the Museum of Modern Art; he wasn’t expecting much else that night. Of course, his first mistake was expecting there wouldn’t be crime in Gotham City.
When demons were involved, though, Damian was the first to be called. He knew the legends better than Bruce himself, growing up with his bedtime stories always involving them. His mother’s descriptions were vivid, so much so that he used to fall asleep terrified they would come and whisk him away. And now, here he was, chasing one.
The monster was hulking, with a vibrant red coat that stood out against the dark streets. It crashed into walls, leaving clawed footprints in the asphalt. It roared viciously, tossing a streetlight in an attempt to get Damian away. He slid underneath it with difficulty, listening to the metal scrape behind him. It took the antenna off the back of his bike, nearly knocking him off balance.
Robin squinted, aiming his winch cables for the demon’s ankles. Its movement was erratic, constantly dipping in and out of position. “Come on, come on…” He mumbled under his breath, turning another corner to match its pace.
“Robin, do you copy?” He heard a voice crackle over his comms, sending his winch into the side of a building. He groaned, revving the engine in an attempt to speed up. Oracle, the ever-trustworthy eye of the team, spoke quickly into his ear. He could hear her fingers on a keyboard, typing furiously.
“I copy, Oracle.”
She sighed with relief. “Your location went offline. I worry.”
Damian nodded sharply to no one in particular, swerving around a dumpster. The Narrows were notoriously poor, tucked away from the rest of Gotham. A shameful younger sibling, home to scum and villainy. The way Damian saw it, if the demon had to rampage, at least it was in a place that wasn’t too hard to rebuild. The place was crumbling anyway.
The red one kept running, its horns shining in the fluorescent streetlights, not stopping even as it was about to crash into a building.
No, not crash. Climb.
He watched with terror as its talons latched onto the brick wall, scaling the tall complex with ease. The windows cracked from the strong vibrations, sending glass raining down onto the street below. He skittered to a halt, the smell of burning rubber invading his nose. It bellowed again, climbing so fast that it would put King Kong to shame. “Oracle, it’s climbing! I need air support!”
“Air support deployed. He’ll be there soon.”
Almost immediately, Damian saw the shadow above him: feathered wings, red as the demon’s hide from below.
Tim Drake rained batarangs on the beast, pelting it from above like an incessant bird. “Not so tough now, huh?”
Robin sighed. “Drake, now is not the time for your desperate attempts at humor. Get it from behind!”
“Thanks for the tip. If only I had already thought of that.” He circled up and around to smack the beast in the back of the head with a bo staff. It howled with pain, swatting around to catch its attacker. Red Robin went in for another hit, catching its eye with another batarang.
Below him, Damian dismounted his bike, grabbed his grapple gun, and fired it at a power line. It looped around, providing him a direct line of attack. The line began to spool, propelling him into the sky. His cape flew behind him as he dived at the monster, pulling his bokken from its sheath and smacking it straight in the shin.
The beast roared in anger and pain. It swatted again, this time making direct contact with Tim’s wing. He spiraled quickly, crashing through a window and into an office building.
Out of commission, Damian thought. Shit.
Concern hit, just for a moment. He was reluctantly worried about his brother, but fight-or-flight instincts took over quickly, and Damian wanted to fight. He knew Drake was competent enough. Right now, the focus was on the demon.
He leapt up to the rooftop, landing parallel to the growling monster. Foam dripped from its mouth, leaving burn marks on the concrete. Acidic saliva. Unusual, but manageable.
He rushed forward, a zip cord flying from his gauntlet and tying quickly around the monster’s neck. With a flick of his wrist, he was propelled onto the demon’s back, grabbing tufts of red fur as he pulled tightly. He could hear the thing struggle, the gagging worse than nails on a chalkboard. It raised a claw, snapping the wire and nearly sending Damian off the building.
In a desperate act, he pulled a batarang from his belt and jammed it directly into its golden eye. Black liquid spewed as it stumbled around, writhing in agony.
It bled.
Damian smiled.
Another batarang, this one to its neck. More pain, more ebony blood, more disgusting screeching. It was going down, slowly but surely.
He took his bokken again, whacking the beast thrice over the head, each hit making a dull thud against the thick skull. It was flailing wildly now, nearly smacking the Boy Wonder off its back. Damian could vaguely see Drake, standing at the edge of the window, hard at work fixing his wing. He paid him no mind, all attention focused on the beast.
A claw caught Robin’s cape, pulling him suddenly into the monster’s grasp. It dangled him in front of its mouth, letting its jaw open to reveal rows of sharp, deadly teeth.
It all happened at once. Damian ripped his cape from the claw, grabbing hold of the demon’s finger and using it to swing a kick directly into its nose, the pointed toe of his boot leaving a black streak as he came back up.
The combined injuries were too much to bear, and the demon tumbled down to the street. Damian jumped at the last moment, letting his cape catch the wind as he fell into a slow glide. It left a monster-shaped dent in the asphalt. The brothers dropped to the ground, capes pooling around their ankles. “Red Robin. You survived.”
“To your disappointment.” He waited for a moment before clapping his little brother on the shoulder. “Hey. Nice one, Robin. Any ideas about what this thing’s deal is?” Tim continued speculating, circling the beast from a safe distance. “I mean, we’ve faced monsters before. There was that one time with the vampire, and then the…”
He droned on, but Damian paid him no attention. For a street so ravaged, it was oddly silent. No car alarms blared, no babies cried.
It felt still.
And that felt wrong.
He could hear something, vaguely thrumming in the back of his mind. A voice. Quiet, but there. It was grating and sharp, pulsing through his thoughts in waves. It grew louder and louder as he stepped closer, whispering in his ear like a spirit.
Come closer, boy…
Damian tried to resist, but the intrigue was too great. His curiosity got the better of him, and he took his final steps towards the beast.
Without warning, its arm suddenly shot up, golden eyes changed to a deep red. The voice that came from its maw was not a guttural roar, but a deep snarl, the words filled with anger and cunning.
Damian Wayne. You are my chosen warrior. Your training has led you to this. Find the shards. Set me free. The Terminator is already ahead. Delay, and you have already lost. Fail, and you will lose what you have fought so hard to gain.
Images flashed in his mind, white-hot pain blinding him from behind his eyes.
A map.
A jungle.
A blade.
Then it all goes dark.
…
“He’s still asleep…”
“What’s going on…”
“Is he gonna be okay…?”
Damian felt off. Disoriented. Violated. Scared. He could barely feel his limbs, but he knew they ached. It was like evil had been injected into his nervous system, and his body didn’t feel like his.
The voice still lingered in his mind, as did the images. They came in flashes, but they were vivid
Find the shards…
Set me free…
What did it all mean?
His eyelids lifted slowly, light shining down into them. The surroundings slowly came into focus, faces peering down at him with concern.
“Damian? You with us?” Dick Grayson, his oldest brother, leaned down gently, his voice soft and uneasy. He was a bit too close for comfort; it was irritating.
“Back up, Grayson!” He swatted at the face above him, sitting up quickly and coming down to the steel floor, pulling EEG electrodes from his forehead. His head still throbbed, but he wasn’t going to spend his time sitting on an infirmary bed when there was work to be done.
Dick grabbed his arm softly, pulling him back into the cluster. “Damian, wait. You’ve been out for 18 hours.”
“I--what?”
He nodded solemnly, lifting his younger brother back onto the bed with surprising ease. Damian started to protest, but before he could even get the words out, he was back on the table. “Grayson, your sense of time is flawed.”
Bruce stepped forward, still in his uniform. They had been patrolling without him. “No, he’s right. Ever since that run-in with the beast, you’ve been unconscious.” He looked over to the heart rate monitor, watching as it spiked and plummeted with consistency. “For a minute there, we thought…”
He trailed off, staring up into the cavernous ceiling. “Oracle’s been gracious enough to watch your vitals overnight.”
A voice spoke through the computer next to him: Barbara Gordon, the all-knowing Oracle. “Your neural activity was surprisingly high while you slept, Damian. You were dreaming…a lot.”
“You started screaming bloody murder at about four this morning,” Jason said from the back. “Woke me up, for fuck’s sake.”
“I…” Damian pondered for a moment, racking his brain for what gave him any reason to scream. He hardly ever forgot his dreams, however terrifying they were, but now…
“I don’t remember.” That didn’t seem right. If something had scared or enraged him enough to shriek so loud that even Jason woke up, then he had to remember it. That’s not something Damian would just…forget. Not so easily.
You remember what I want you to remember.
“What?”
Dick cocked his head, his concern mixing with confusion. “Uh, no one said anything. You zoned out for a sec.”
Zoned out? Damian did not zone out. His mind was on constant alert.
“But I heard…never mind.” He shook his head, huffing with irritation. “Do I have any serious injuries?” His body was stitch-free, which was a good sign, but there were still aches and pains groaning as he moved.
“Well, no, but—” Oracle began, but Damian promptly cut her off. “Then I can leave.”
“That’s not what I said!”
“No. It’s what I said.” He clambered down to the floor, still slightly exhausted. A t-shirt sat on the edge of the bed, which he put on quickly before getting into the elevator across the short bridge. Dick followed close behind, but the ‘close door’ button did its job well, shutting the sliding entryway in his face. Soft muzak played over speakers; Alfred’s contribution to the cave. It was calming, especially after such a stressful few hours.
Suddenly, the music was drowned out by a voice blaring over the speakers. Your time is running out. I am already inside, worming my way through. Each second you waste is a second that you lose yourself: tick tock, Blood Son.
The ding of the opening door granted him sweet reprieve from that agitating, grating sound. It was that snarl, the one that came from the demon. Was it over the speakers? Or just in his head?
You’ll never know.
Again, there they were, words echoing. “Where are you?” He demanded, looking around the empty living room.
But it was silent yet again.
Damian climbed the stairs to his room, throwing his closet doors open to reveal the code panel. Inputting the numbers quickly, the wall fell away to reveal his fireman's pole. He slid down, expecting to find his empty situation room…
And instead, seeing Tim Drake at his desk, sipping out of a mug, and spinning in his chair.
“How did…weren’t you…?”
“I knew you were fine, so I figured I’d take advantage of your space.”
“I never told you the code.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“You never asked!”
“I didn’t have to.”
Damian groaned, snatching the mug from his brother’s hand and chugging the rest. “Pure black? Really?”
“If it works.”
Murder was no longer his style, but this situation certainly had Damian plotting. “Drake, why did you need to use my space at all?”
Tim sighed, standing up and taking the mug back from the boy. “I was researching what that demon we faced could’ve been. You’ve got the most extensive creature database besides Oracle, and she won’t let me see her files ever since—”
“Whatever.” He sighed with exasperation. Of course the stalker had figured out his password. He probably knew everyone’s passwords. “Well, what did you find?”
Tim’s apathy melted away to a smirk, directing Damian’s attention to the screen. “If you’ll see here, I believe we are dealing with a demonic servant of Iruzath.”
Iruzath. Damian remembered that name. It was one of his favorites growing up. Six great warriors sealing away a demon using his own designs. It was quite pleasing. “Iruzath’s been locked away for millennia.”
“That’s what I thought too, but…” he switched tabs to a news article, “an ancient temple was recently unearthed in Australia. Researchers disappeared in the Daintree Rainforest, in the vicinity of this ‘mysterious temple,’ not to mention the imagery inside. It’s creepy, but perfectly matches Iruzath’s description in the old poems.” He sat back down, leaning back like he’d won an argument.
Damian looked for a moment at the images on the screen. Stone carvings of a massive demon lined the temple walls, with curving horns and clawed appendages. “Iruzath…he was obsessed with power, locked away by ancient warriors for his bloodlust. I remember the bedtime stories.” The carvings seemed to stare back at him.
The myths are not myths, but facts. Do not disappoint me.
He sighed deeply, staring into the dead eyes of the temple drawing. “Drake, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I need advice.”
Tim chuckled a bit, but his demeanor shifted when he saw that Damian was serious. “Oh, uh, okay. What’s going on?”
Damian sighed, looking down at his feet. “When I touched the demon, it showed me things. It wants me to go on a journey, called me its ‘chosen warrior.’ I can…hear it, whispering to me. Am I going insane?”
“What makes you think I would know?”
Well… “Just a hunch.”
The older vigilante spun around once in the chair, staring at the ceiling. “I would say you’re going crazy, but we’ve also dealt with much weirder shit, so I’m unfortunately inclined to believe you.” He stood again, pacing silently. “Did—I guess it would be Iruzath—tell you where to go?”
Damian shook his head. “It showed me things, but not much made sense. There was a sword, a jungle, and a map.”
Wait. A map. “I remember the map. Pull out the whiteboard for me.”
Tim wheeled a whiteboard out from the small closet across the room, and Damian began to draw, marker squeaking with each stroke. The lines were jittery, but miraculously precise.
“Done.”
A map of the planet, meticulously detailed in Expo marker, was slightly smeared on the board in front of them. “Well,” Tim said, “that really narrows it down.”
“Silence.” Damian uncapped his marker again, placing dots around the map.
Paris.
Nanda Parbat.
Rome.
Africa.
California.
Australia.
Six locations.
Six challenges.
Tim leaned over, examining the dots. “Uh, why these places?”
Damian looked down at his hands, absentmindedly twirling the marker in his right. “I don’t know. They’re important, but…” He trailed off, examining the map again. “I have to go to them.”
Tim looked at his brother, concern aging his face. “Are you trying to suggest a solo mission? Because B would never let that fly, especially not after what you just got yourself into.”
Damian scoffed. “It’s not like I need Father’s permission to go anywhere.” He turned around, mind already made up. If he was gonna do this, he had to gather some assets that were out of his father’s reach.
“Besides, who said anything about a solo mission?”