damian calls the shots (forthecowl) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-06-02 17:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | damian wayne |
Who: Damian Wayne
Where: Wonder City and beyond
What: Damian challenges the Talons, goes through a maze and fights their leader.
When: It starts around Saturday
Warning: Violence
Damian was acting on a hunch. Wonder City wasn’t exactly a secret of the slums, but rather a rusted failure no one liked to acknowledge. This may not have been his Gotham, but if the Talons needed a place to hide and recuperate, it would be some ancient, dead city. He ventured down the broken subway that had rails curled over like fingers and train cars dragged onto their sides. When the doors to Wonder City were barred shut, he crawled through vents and dropped down damp tunnels until the buzz of Gotham above silenced to the eerie quiet of death and bones swept over by dust and cobblestone.
He kicked open a vent and jumped down to feel the ancient brick underfoot. The heat of Talon eyes burned through his shoulders and he turned slowly to look up at the apartments and shops as if they’d show their glowing yellow eyes. Damian had always taken what he thought was his, so he dressed similarly to them- almost to mock them out of hiding. His new outfit was black with gold trimming- fashioned after some European war hero with a large utility belt, boots to stomp, a jagged black mask and a small arsenal of assorted knives like some kind of surgeon. There was no needless cape, no R on his chest.
Damian stepped out into the middle of the street as the dead city shuffled like cards. “I have issued my challenge.” He said loudly, suddenly. “I demand to fight the Talon leader to the death.” The watching Talons murmured and swirled. Damian’s head started to swim like mercury, his fingers reaching up to touch small feathers attached to a metal, poisonous dart. He smiled, dropping to his knees, eyes lifting up to see the golden eyes of Talons light up the city like Christmas.
He awoke hours later, mouth tasting of dirty water. They had dropped him in the maze, as he expected. The Talons liked gauntlets as much as the Assassins Guild, who had prepared him since the tender age of five for exercises like this. He took his time, watching for traps, kicking down false walls and avoiding the occasionally overgrown thorned walls. Running through the underground maze was what his father would have done, but Damian knew better. He knew that the Talon leader would be waiting for him at the end regardless of what time he arrived. That the only thing at stake was his honor and life.
The downside was that the maze took longer that way and by the end of it he was working on a day and a half of no sleep. Roger could have taken a break longer than 20 minutes outside of the door, but this was Damian’s trek through peril to prove he was a man. That was something the aging bounty hunter could understand. Something that, despite how insane and dangerous it was, he really believed in. Damian was capable of making it through this test without Roger’s help. He could stand at the mouth of the maze where the trickling dirty water poured around a tiny stage in a makeshift arena. He could kill the Talon leader.
Tired, thirsty and hungry, Damian found himself there, looking down at a waiting room of Talons. A hundred, maybe. This wasn’t a threat that could be stomped out all at once, not even if he humiliated their leader who stood in the middle of the arena, knives glistening. Damian took a deep breath and slowly pulled out his hand knives, half moons that were named after the Talons themselves. The arena lit up with chatter and yelling from the stands, filling Damian’s veins with adrenaline as he flew towards the Talon leader.
It had been a long time since Damian had fought with the intent to kill. But a decade couldn’t bury that brutal impulse to cut and slice the vital bits. He could smell the surprise on the Talon. He thought the Waynes were soft, cowardly or a mix of the two. Damian was all blood thirst and precise execution. With every dodge, he cut a vein. With every jump, he stabbed an organ. Even the undead couldn’t do much but stagger as the blood dripped across the arena floor. As the Talon’s body started to shut down piece by piece like stage lights after the final act. It was exhausting and punishing for Damian, but he was winning. The Talons might have been fast and strong, but they didn’t think every action through like a Wayne did. Didn’t sneak clever cuts like an al Ghul.
The Talon Leader sluggishly tried to stab Damian, but the ex-boy wonder slapped the knife out of his hand and plunged his own blade into the man’s heart. The Talons above screamed, sang, yowled. “I-” Damian was out of breath, his face and hands covered in blood. “I am the true Talon.” His voice shook loudly, sternly. As if he expected the others to just leave the arena in retreat. He had proven his worth, had destroyed a man stronger and older than he was.
Instead they flapped their wings and descended on their new king. He could be a Talon, but first he had to die.