Tanya tilted her head owlishly as she regarded Talia Al-Ghul. She was… the daughter of the head of the League of Shadows, Ra's… Supposedly they dated when Bruce trained in a dojo that was a League of Shadow front, and she had come to Gotham for Bruce a few times since then, but Tanya hadn't gotten a chance to see her in person.
Magically speaking, she wasn't much, but it was notable that she wasn't nothing. Probably a minor talent that never cultivated the gift, but possibly a skilled occultist/alchemist without any natural talent.
Well, it's also possible that her magic senses were getting thrown off by the fact that Talia appeared to be pregnant, but the only reason she could even pick that out is due to experience accrued in ArcWayne and her inherited affinity for blood magic. While the exact timeline varied, and the souls of the unborn weren't coherent until far further along in the process, there was a distinct note in the smell of Talia's soul that indicated that foreign soul matter was slowly condensing in her, which was normally indicative of a pregnancy. If the woman was even aware, it was likely due to the blood mages that the League of Shadows employed telling her rather than her noticing the symptoms, as she was absolutely less than a month along.
Talia had started speaking more dramatics, nothing of substance but the Court seemed to appreciate the gravitas. In essence, the League would kill The Batman, and in return the Court will provide the secrets of the Talons, so that their killers may live in eternal service.
It stank to Tanya, and not just because she spent the woman's speech subtly sniffing her. Why would the League care about immortality? They already had it. Or, Ra's did anyway. Was there something wrong with his Lazarus pit? Worth looking into.
"Any questions?" Talia finished, after a whole lot of confidence but very little planning.
Tanya raised her hand politely, but remained silent. Talia ignored her. Instead, Maxwell Powers, one of the council members, spoke up: "What is the timeframe we should expect?" He asked. A very corporate question.
"The Batman is not easy prey, he is quite elusive." Talia deflected, "It could take but a single night, or it could take weeks. But he will not be able to hunt in peace until he falls."
Tanya then raised her hand less politely. Talia continued to ignore her. Julian Crowne, another council member, asked a question instead. "Will you be needing any additional support?"
"The League of Shadows is fully capable of executing our plans without assistance." Talia said firmly.
Tanya grabbed her arm and pushed it up further, going as high as possible without having her butt leave the seat. This finally annoyed Talia into action. "This isn't a classroom, brat." She spat venomously.
Her comedy bit complete, Tanya beamed, although with the mask she needed to emote intensely to get that across. "Yes, I have a question." She said, "Why do you think you can beat Batman? He's kicked your butts before. A lot."
Mr. Cain snarled. "Lesser members of the League led those missions, and Batman's death was never the goal in any of them. He interfered, and we succeeded regardless."
Tanya stared at the man blankly, her happy-go-lucky demeanor vanishing. "Success?" She asked. "I'd hate to see what you consider failure, then." Tanya sniffed, focusing her magical senses on David instead of Talia. He stank of blood magic, but she could detect December's scent on the magic, so she guessed that the man had a working from the blood mage that he could make use of instead of being a capable blood mage himself. "Incidentally, I have a followup question: will your plan involve an Arkham jailbreak, again?"
David was about to say something, but Talia raised a hand, which made him bite his tongue. "While that is an effective method of flushing out The Batman," Talia said, "-and we will not rule it out as a fallback plan, it is not part of our current ones. It may, however, interest you to know that December is among my forces, and will be the one consulting with your occultists for the ritual." She looked Tanya up and down. "Of course, it may not, as you could be anyone behind that mask." She added sarcastically.
Tanya bristled. Ah hell, Mother's going to kidnap her again, just beautiful. At least Talia was polite enough to warn her…
"Little singing birds aside," Talia said, giving Tanya an unimpressed look, "Are there any other questions?" She spent a moment looking at everyone. "No? Excellent." She started to leave.
"Congratulations, by the way." Tanya half-shouted after her. Talia paused for a heartbeat, but quickly concealed the sign of confusion, of weakness, and strode out of the room confidently.
As there was no other business, the members of the court dispersed, with Tanya meeting Jacob Kane on the way out, as 'officially', she was merely spending time with 'her favorite uncle', specifically going to a military history exhibit at the museum. "I'm mad at you." Tanya informed him as she sat in the limousine.
Jacob seemed surprised. "I thought you'd love the chance to meet a skilled mage." he said, "December Graystone seemed competent."
"You know how you're my favorite uncle?" Tanya said icily. Jacob grunted. "He's your competition. Do you have any idea what kind of nonsense blood mages can pull through blood relatives?"
"...No." Jacob admitted. He seemed worried. "Is this going to be a problem?" He asked.
"Well, on his own, our genetic link's distant enough that he can't, say, drag me through space-time and shove me in a cage." Tanya deadpanned, "This is before he breaks out the fancy spells. But if he breaks Mother out of Arkham again…" Tanya mimed drawing a rune on her forehead before holding her arms out in front of her, tongue lolling out of her mouth and eyes unfocused. "Yes, Mommy… Whatever you say, Mommy…" She went back to glaring at Jacob. "So yeah, it's going to be a problem. But I didn't learn magic just because it's awesome, so I have options."
"...I never knew." Jacob said softly. "How does blood magic… work?"
Tanya sighed. He actually seemed sorry… Sometimes it sucked when you couldn't cleanly label someone as an 'enemy' or 'ally'. "Blood magic was first created by vampires, magic beings who used their own natural strength, empowered by blood offerings. At first, it was basically just things like creating weapons of blood iron, liquids that flowed into solids." To demonstrate, Tanya took out her blood magic wand, which was also a knife, and made a small cut on her palm. About two ounces were extracted, sealed up, and she turned it into a derringer pistol. "Cute, isn't it?" She asked, showing him the gun.
The military man looked fascinated at the dull red pistol. "Does it shoot?" he asked.
"Yep!" Tanya chirped. She tossed it into her mouth and swallowed the rapidly dissolving weapon whole, the familiar taste of blood unusually pleasant to her hell-tainted palate. "Anyway, eventually enough vampires got curious about the potential of blood magic, and started mixing their new magical tradition with more conventional ones. Due to the foundations of the discipline being from sacrifice, it's difficult for a blood mage to use their own blood as anything but a catalyst for an effect that doesn't directly affect themselves. Self-sacrifice is a potent ingredient, and that increases the more intrinsically magical your bloodline is, so they can do a lot just by spending blood."
"Not really answering my question, I notice." Jacob interjected.
Tanya giggled bashfully. "Ah, oops." She stuck her tongue out while miming hitting herself on the head, a cute move she shamelessly stole from anime. If she had ever seen someone do that in reality in her first life, she had forgotten it. "Anyway, vampires found that blood magic was materially different when they used it on their vampiric descendents, and that's because the self-sacrifice component isn't interfering with using magic to directly affect people. So there's lots of ways for blood mages to enslave or otherwise compel blood relatives, and the stronger the connection, the more powerful it is."
"But as your uncle…" Jacob prompted.
"The typical phrase in blood magic books is 'unto the ninth generation." Tanya explained, "Meaning, if you just so happened to drink a vial of someone's great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather, It's not going to do anything. You need a closer blood sample. Uncles need to go up and down the blood link, and that turn really inhibits the magic. The method the book I read mentioned that each corner in the bloodline you curve around wastes two generations. Meaning, my mother's brother goes up to my grandparents and down one, so he's five links away. We're six links apart, so the connection is weak but extant."
"Can you do anything with that?" Jacob asked, looking at her suspiciously.
"Me? A tracking spell at best." Tanya lied. She could do a fair bit more than that, but only because of the raw power she could bring to bear if she had to. "Once you get to six links or more, that's all anyone can really do unless they have a lot of power to throw around. But if your wife ever goes missing, I can confirm whether or not she's alive, she's within nine blood links. I'd need blood from you or preferably Kate to actually find her, though." This was actually true, although she could probably get within a mile with Bruce's blood, in a pinch. "Uncle December or Mother could probably take nine links and… I dunno, make you pee yourself? Not much." Tanya did not specifically point out that Heather Graystone was nine blood links distant from Jacob Kane, but he was given enough information to connect those dots.
They arrived at their destination, the actual museum in question, and left the limousine to wait in line. "Why are blood relatives important?" He asked. "Couldn't they just use the victim's blood?"
"The amount of blood required for the fancy stuff is too much." Tanya retorted, using a silent act of magic to lower the notability of the two of them. It's just an old man and a young girl, probably just bringing the grandkid to brag about his time in the war… "It's not used up in a conventional manner when used for more esoteric magic like that, it merely stops being virgin blood, useless for magic until replaced. The spells work against a blood mage's relatives because they can leverage their own blood, and by getting the full cooperation of someone else, they can mingle their blood, allowing them to cast on that person's relatives as if they were them without having to drain them of all blood, like they'd need to do to pull a similar trick with the target's blood.It's really hard to get someone to help you kill them." Not impossible, but most forms of suicidal ideation fail when you have to maintain it for several minutes as you get bled out. Hm, now that she thought about it, that was probably what that blood magic that David Cain had on him was about; he has a control spell on one of his relatives. He's old enough, maybe Talia's future bundle of joy is his second kid?
…She's going to kill him if that's what's happening.
-----------------------
After taking many selfies in front of military history displays, they had dinner and Tanya finally returned home, having been gone long enough that if Alfred was as unaware as he pretended to be, he wouldn't be suspicious of the summarized itinerary.
"Another day of criminal activities?" Alfred asked once Jacob left, now just knowledgeable enough to be absolutely terrified of the threat that the League of Shadows posed to not only her, but him as well.
"Just conspiracy charges today, no financial crimes." Tanya said idly. "Assassination, terrorism, desecration of remains, probably slavery." She shrugged. "All in a day's work for the League of Shadows."
"Oh dear." Alfred said, passing her a cup of coffee. Tanya took a sip. Exquisite. "That seems dangerous for Master Jason to be out tonight."
"Yeah…" Tanya said, trailing off. "Send the subtlest tip-off we have to Arkham, warn them of an impending breakout over the next few weeks. Uncle's in town." Alfred's coffee was the best, sometimes she wondered how he'd stack up against Visha, but the respective conditions they worked under made direct comparison impossible.
"Very good." Alfred said, "Do you need anything for the spellwork you're undoubtedly girding yourself for?" While most magic was best combated with the same kind of magic, blood magic was particularly aggravating to contest unless you were also using blood magic. Meaning that Alfred knew damn well that she was about to drain a dangerous amount of blood from herself, as this was not the first time that she had to deal with advance warning of Mother's kidnapping.
"Have you kept the fridge stocked?" Tanya asked, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the appropriate container. Alfred nodded. "Then I should have everything." Tanya said as she finished her coffee, having not moved one step since she started enjoying it. "But if you could send Ace down to the sequestration chamber, her assistance would be appreciated."
"Right away, Miss." Alfred said, always the proper servant.
Total, over the last eleven years, Mother had attempted to kidnap her about seven times. Because Tanya wasn't stupid, she developed some form of countermeasure to each method of absconding with her. Because Mother and Uncle weren't stupid, she had to implement each and every one of those countermeasures or they won't bother breaking out whatever new method they've developed.
At first, she had created a summon-proof prison for herself, which was the sequestration chamber. It wasn't as effective as she would like; blood magic was one of the hardest things to defend against, so the only method that worked was more like encryption than an actual barrier.
To cut a long and tedious explanation short, she had a new method. "Good evening, Ace." Tanya greeted when her sister entered the room.
"Hey." Ace said. She had dressed for bed, a set of modest pajamas featuring stars, planets, and other stellar phenomena. The outfit had been gifted to her by Morpheus, and they were incredibly comfortable. Most importantly, they also quieted her powers when she was asleep. Instead, it brought her to the god's domain or to a private dream realm that she can lucidly enjoy herself in, and that was how she conducted her lessons with him. "So what's going on?"
"Ah, I could use your help with some ritual work." Tanya explained, "We'll be making a magical proxy, to keep long-distance magic off of me." Idly, she withdrew the relevant documentation and presented it to her.
Ace blinked in surprise. "That sounds… really useful. Why don't you have one already?" She asked curiously as she looked through the papers. After a moment of skimming the notes, she seemed to spot the relevant paragraph on page four. "That's a lot of blood." She commented, eyes wide.
"Yes." Tanya deadpanned. "While it's not as dangerous as it was when I first started making them to protect against blood magic, as I have more blood than before, it's still an amount of blood that requires some assistance to withstand." She gestured to the small refrigerator. "Help yourself to some of the snacks, there's plenty."
"Cadmus, Oneiros, Chara." Ace incanted. Part of the floor bulged upward and turned into a stool evocative of a greek column, which Ace sat on before it even finished forming. She glanced at the fridge, and a block of cheese came out, which separated into bite-sized chunks along with some crackers from the cabinet next to the fridge, the cheese chunks heating up into steamy blobs before getting squished between two crackers. The resulting tiny sandwiches arranged themselves in an orbit around her, and she read the instructions for the ritual they were about to perform, the snacks one by one shooting into her mouth every time she opened it. Along with it, a can of soda poured itself into a glass, which was furnished with a straw that also floated near her head.
While she read, Tanya prepared her own snacks. An iron-rich salad, plus some red meat that was clean enough to be eaten raw. It was probably wasteful to stock perishables in this fridge, but Alfred had a spreadsheet and a system, and Tanya trusted in those things.
Finally, with a vial of glowing red liquid on hand, she grabbed the checklist in the back of the stack of papers Ace was reading, going down the list to make sure she had everything. After the second go over of the list, she looked at Ace. "You ready?"
"Yeah, I take it you want me to provide extra power and to reinforce the proxy's identity?" Ace asked, the thirteen year old girl becoming quite comfortable with magical theory over the last year.
"Precisely." Tanya said before taking out her athame and starting to chant. "Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou. Rhine. Berenchnung. Mahou. Rhine…"
"Cadmus, Oneiros, Chara. Cadmus, Oneiros, Chara." Ace contributed, channeling her dream-like power into the center of the magical circle.
In the center of the circle, there was a doll. Specifically, it was a carefully constructed ceramic doll crafted from thoroughly refined Clay of Life that was made to look exactly like Tanya, before she stopped taking the puberty blockers. It was dressed in the up-scaled baby clothes that she frequently wore back when she looked older than she was at that size, the infantile clothing all the better to obfuscate Mother's spells.
The ritual dagger cut at Tanya's arms, and blood flowed out onto the exposed ceramic flesh of the doll, the red liquid forming runic script that reinforced the idea that, magically, this was the real Tanya and as such should be the target of any spells.
Ace's astral magic made the doll look even more lifelike, and once the proxy ritual was complete they moved on to the protective spells, magically binding the doll to the room so that any attempt to magically extract the doll would fail. It also would helpfully prevent the doll from leaving the room by other means, as the tether would yank the doll back into the room before the thing got too far, even if it was carried. "Are we done?" Ace asked, breathing heavily.
The doll sat up, smiling guilelessly at them. That was new… must be something the dream magic did. It quickly lost interest in the staring contest, looking around the room while sucking its thumb. Quickly, she double-checked the doll's magical scent. Okay, it didn't get its own soul, good. That's a very real risk when working with the Clay of Life, even if she had taken several steps to prevent it.
"Yes, we've established the proxy." Tanya said, opening the vial and drinking down the blood replenishment potion. The wooziness she had been feeling faded. Good stuff, if expensive.
"Question: How do you stop the spells from affecting you?" Ace asked, "With just this, wouldn't it be more of a fifty-fifty thing?"
"Correct." Tanya said, "But I have a way to turn that to one hundred percent. Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou." She turned into her adult form, running a hand through her blonde hair as a flourish while she posed. "This body isn't a blood relative of the Graystones, after all." It was, however, mystically connected to her true form, so without the proxy ritual it wouldn't be enough. Tanya looked at the doll, who had decided to repeat one of her favorite methods of convincing people that she was a toddler and was licking its own toes. The fact that it was capable of the feat was probably a bad sign. "...Is this going to be a problem?" She asked, scratching her head.
"It's taking its cues from you… somehow." Ace said, apparently a little confused herself. "I'll keep an eye on it, I guess." She paused, lost in thought. "Actually, playing with a doll that's doing that act of yours I've heard so much about sounds like fun."
"Well, enjoy." Tanya said, "I've got other things I need to do." Like go down to the cave and attempt to convince Jason that it was too dangerous for him to be out and about with the League of Shadows out for blood. Not that she expected that to get anywhere, so…
It was time for Batman to get to work.