"I am a stubborn, wrathful monster! There, I fucking admit it!
God, it's nice to let that off my chest!
It was getting real tiring keeping up the pretense…
Pretending I had limits.
Pretending I wouldn't cross certain lines.
Bruce knew better. Alfred suspected. Me? I'd always known.
That morning, the Vampire named Delilah found out too… I would like to say it was self-defense, or that I felt conflicted about the act after the fact.
I'd like to say a lot of things.
But the truth is a whole lot simpler: I killed her because I could…
Because I was vicious, and because the thought of her walking away, well, it didn't fucking sit right with me at the time.
To put it bluntly: I wanted—no, NEEDED her to die…
This was how it happened.
This was how the Imp finally lived up to his birthright.
This was the tale of how I got first-blood! Sorry, sorry… Couldn't help it.
Although, technically she was already dead, so did it even count?
Bruce said yes, Madam Xanadu's Seal disagreed, and as for me, eh, I'm still pretty on the fence about it.
Who's right?! You decide!!!
…
Death Battle, anyone?"
— [HELLBRED] —
Teeth clenched, Rowan imagined it all as he bored holes into the Vampire, first tearing her limb from limb, then reducing her to mulch, before spreading her remains across the vast flowerbeds of Wayne Manor where he could complete the ultimate desecration with a daily dose of 'golden shower.'
Was it excessive? Without question. But the phantom agony of being literally torn in two made proportionate responses feel somewhat inadequate.
"Run!" He whispered to Zatanna, who stubbornly refused with a shake of her head. "And leave you? Absolutely not!"
"Why do you insist on arguing with me about everything?!" Rowan scowled, even though he wanted nothing more than to thank the girl for still standing by him despite their… Less-than-favorable circumstances.
"Are you lovebirds quite done bickering?"
Both teens went rigid as the Vampire mocked, lips curling with amusement. "Oh... I do so enjoy breaking up budding love. Tell me, how long do you think she'll weep for you after I've beaten you to death with your own severed arm, 'hero'?"
"Hard to say… How long will you sob after I've peeled those fangs from your gums?"
Hand pressed to his injured waist, Rowan retorted while subtly positioning Zatanna behind him and raising his guard. Across from them, Yvonne began humming the eerie folk song about the King as she dropped the two halves of Ichor, before lunging toward the pair with a manic, unhinged grin.
"Well then… LET'S FIND OUT, SHALL WE?!"
Pushing Zatanna aside, Rowan braced himself as an Incantation began to form on her lips, but therein lay Magic's fatal flaw: A Spell was only as fast as the Caster could Chant. Yvonne, however, proved too fast even for Rowan, much less the future Mistress of Magic who was still a young, dumb teenager.
Luckily, Ichor was there to intervene.
The two halves slithered across the floor, merging into one before spawning a swarm of Bats.
The first wave latched onto the Vampire, coating her hands and hardening into rigid gauntlets that barely saved Rowan's a life, though judging from the slap that followed and how his jaw hung afterward, a few years might have been knocked off his lifespan.
That, along with his wounded ego.
'How is this possible?!'
Rowan could handle losing to Bruce… In fact, he expected to.
He could shrug off defeats from Zatara, Hal, Wonder Woman, even the Red Lantern Ring. Those were legends, titans, forces of fucking Nature. But after all his training, all his power-ups, all the pain he'd endured to get stronger, 'How is this possible?! How am I still catching L's?!!'
And to a Nameless Vampire at that! Had he hallucinated beating Bruce in a fight the other day?
Yes, he'd had Ichor's help, plus Bruce was without his Batsuit and all the goodies that usually came bundled, but he had still won, hadn't he?
He wasn't sure if it was the stinging in his jaw or his own Pride shrieking in his ears, but through sheer force of will, Rowan shook off the blow and mounted an offense while the opening Ichor gave him still lasted.
His staff telescoped to full length as he stunned the Vampire with a jab to the throat.
Beside him, Zatanna started her Incantation: "[Ralos Er—]" Then froze mid-word, flinching away from something he couldn't quite see on the floor.
Rowan didn't need long to piece it together. Not at all. While he might have kick-started this hunt, based on kill-death-assist ratios alone, Zatanna had him beat by a mile and more. All those Feral Strays she had singlehandedly put down… All that blood on her hands at the ripe age of fourteen…
The poor lass was probably traumatized for life.
It'd be idiotic of Rowan to expect otherwise.
"If you can't fight, then RUN!"
Spinning the staff in hand, Rowan pressed a button to electrify the weapon while Ichor enveloped the flailing vampire whole. Inside the latex-like substance, Yvonne screeched, pricking the tip of her finger and squeezing out a single drop of blood. Within moments, the droplet expanded, filling the membrane until it grew into a pulsing sphere.
"Using your own Soul as a prison... I must applaud your madness!"
Solidifying into pointed shards, the Blood burst through Ichor.
While no wounds marked his skin, the sympathetic agony of being impaled from within had drained much of his strength. Brought to his knees by the psychic feedback, Rowan grunted, then ushered a shell-shocked Zatanna toward the stairs.
"Let's escape! Daddy's on his way, he can deal with her." Rowan weighed her words, but before he could come to a decision, Blood began to cascade from the suspended Spears.
Wherever the crimson drops touched, writhing masses of thorned rose vines were born, desperately seeking out biological matter. The barbs found their mark in Rowan, shredding fabric and flesh alike as they crawled up his shins.
Out of options and out of time, Rowan snatched Zatanna around the waist, fired his Batclaw into the ceiling, and rocketed them both up the second floor of the dilapidated warehouse while vines snapped at their heels. Fumbling with his belt as the barbs stubbornly burrowed into his legs, Rowan tossed a handful of fear and anesthetic pellets into the cocoon.
They'd only made it halfway up their ascent when the cable jerked to a stop.
Both cried out as they plummeted.
Luckily, Rowan had trained for moments like this.
Even while falling, he managed to thurst the Batclaw in Zatanna's hands before being pulled into the Abyss below.
"ROWAN!"
Vision swimming red from blood loss, he snarled and whipped around, Batarang whistling as he slashed through the vines. If the Vampire wanted to play games, "FINE! LET'S FUCKING PLAY!" What was he scared of, anyway?
The Vampire had some tricks up her sleeves, but she wasn't going to unmake Reality or swallow the Sun. She was just another monster who needed taken down a peg, and Rowan was all too happy to deliver. Furthermore, he didn't believe she could hold the [Rose Field] forever.
Magic might defy the laws of physics, but it had its own rules to follow, the biggest of which was: The more spectacular the display, the greater the energy-consumption, and energy wasn't infinite; not even for the Spawn of Trigon, and certainly not for a pesky leech.
All this 'light-show' had to be burning through her reserves, 'So I just need to outlast the bitch!'
Rowan vaulted from table atop rusting gear, rolling and bouncing through the obstacles as the heat-seeking vines, just as he'd predicted, started to wither.
What he hadn't expected was for the dissipating blood to burn like acid against his exposed skin.
This would've never happened had his helmet not been damaged, but here they were…
Reeling from the accumulating pain, Rowan quickly covered his nose, then squeezed his eyes and mouth shut in an effort to keep the blood particles out.
The defensive move nearly cost him his footing, saved only by the grappling hooks extending from his backplate.
The momentum dragged him into the machinery thrice, but he managed to right himself just in time to drive his elbow where he knew the Vampire to be. Reading its Master's intent, Ichor receded from Yvonne's head, but maintained its stranglehold on her torso.
The Shade's Action triggered the Mark of Chaos on his back at long last, unleashing ribbons of aurora that cycled through the different hues, each representing a different Spell… In a blink of an eye, the world in his mind started to overwrite the one before him, plunging Rowan into the drowning depths of someone else's life.
He couldn't see her face, but he could see flashes of her wrinkled hands mixing potions; smell the scent of cinnamon and failure; hear her frustrated muttering and experience the sleepless nights of magical experimentation. When the memory finally stilled, a new Spell had been branded into his mind while gentle warmth spread from his person.
'[Aura of Warmth]? Seriously? What the hell am I supposed to do with this?!' Answering his discontent was the Roman Coin Margaret had given him.
He stared at the Artifact he'd sworn was secured in his utility belt as it whispered to him… Not with words, mind you, but with thrums akin to fingernails scraping the back of an old, rusty spoon.
"Alright," Flicking the Coin from one hand to the other, Rowan muttered. "Show me what you're made of!"
He called 'Heads,' and Heads it was…
The Coin gleamed gold as the rust crumbled away, but that was all.
"That's it? That's the big payoff?" Annoyed, he glanced around the warm cottage he'd somehow ended up in and gave the Coin another casual flip.
This time, something did happen, and for once, it appeared to be working in Rowan's favor. "Heads again?"
And the world spun once more, depositing him on a mountain summit where winds constantly alternated between gentle caresses and violent whips, and where the air itself felt charged.
He wasn't there for the view, though; he was there for the Elf crouched near the cliff's edge, more specifically the Elemental Spell the dusty, ancient-looking fossil was inventing—[Storm Wisp Conjuration].
"Well, don't mind if I do."
Rowan dropped down beside the frozen Memory with a shrug while [Aura of Warmth] pulled at his consciousness like a neglected pet, but there was no changing his mind.
And so her weathered hands, the faint briny scent of her cottage, her soft humming and her Spell all vanished as though he had never been shown them at all, replaced instead by scenes of meditation, of stormy clouds, and of the thunderous lightning that followed.
'Wait, what Spell?' That was all the break Rowan was permitted before he lurched back to awareness where there was suffering, and anxieties, and a… Wailing Undead to confront. A Vampire whose fangs he, as he'd threatened, dislodged from her mouth with an elbow to the face.
The plan couldn't have been simpler: Get in, wear her down, get out, but as the catchy saying went, 'No plan survives contact with the enemy.'
'Just play safe, bro! Just play safe!' Rowan thought as wisps of green and brown smoke curled from the gaps in Yvonne's fangs used to be.
"Here! You can have your precious toys back, little hero." Getting a faceful of his own medicine mixed with the vampire's rancid, fishy breath, Rowan couldn't help but gag before remembering to hold his breath, only realizing he had been too late when the darkness somehow darkened.
He retreated with a backflip.
"A fear-causing hallucinogen? What a nasty little tool! You sure you're a her—?!" Yvonne howled with laughter, and Ichor roared right back, transforming into a Giant's hand that rammed the Vampire through the floorboards and into the rafters overhead, where she then slowly slid down next to a startled Zatanna.
Arms and legs bent at all the wrong angles, Yvonne Delilah raised her rotting head and pushed herself off the floor toward the black-haired girl. "Fuck it, I'll get another Mage! Give me your FUCKING BLOOD!"
Zatanna's hands trembled, her fingers numb and useless at her sides as the world narrowed to the monster lunging for her throat.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she drew on a deeper well of will—the stubborn fire she'd inherited from her father, and the quiet resilence of her mother, then forced the tremor from her hands into her voice, "[E-Etaerc d-dleihs dnuora em]!"
A shimmer distorted the air an inch from Zatanna's face; circular and nearly invisible until what remained of the Vampire's 'not-so-pearly-whites' bit into the Shield, slathering it with bloody saliva.
Opening her eyes, which now shone white, Zatanna cast. "[Leets se-sepip, niartser reh]!" Around them, pipes ripped from the walls, hurling themselves at the flailing Vampire and bending around her like constricting serpents. "[Skcirb, esacne reh]!" The bricks soon followed their example, tearing free to join the metallic cage.
Now nearly entombed in steel and stone, Yvonne Delilah finally shrieked in desperation.
"COME TO ME, MY CHILDREN—!!!"
She had barely finished the call when every hair on their bodies rose.
They both, turned to greet the new arrival: A meter-long serpentine form of cloud shot through with veins of lightning… A Lesser Elemental… A Storm Wisp. Its electric gaze carefully studied Zatanna with alien curiosity before getting to the Vampire, which it treated with plain hostility.
Lightning erupted from its form, boring through stone and metal to blast Yvonne into the far wall, where energy held her in place, only dropping the Vampire when the floor had caved in completely, and she had ceased all movements, but it turned out to be a ruse!
"YOU'LL DO TOO!"
Yvonne dived at the dazed vigilante, now sporting a pair of spotty and bent Blood Wings in her weakened state… They were quite the sorry sight, truth be told, even causing her to tilt sideways.
If Rowan were healthy and whole, he'd have seen the attack coming from across the room, but he was at the moment neither healthy, nor whole.
In fact, it was taking everything from him to control his erratic pulses in hope of delaying the chemicals' spread.
Good thing Familiars existed… Responding in kind, the Shade slapped the Vampire's trajectory askew, sending her through the wall yet again. That was it! Or so Zatanna figured, though Ichor still seemed skeptical crouched in front of its stupefied Master.
The reason finally came to her when grunts, groans and slurping sounds started, followed by sickly yellow eyes glowering at Rowan from the fresh hole. Dropping beside him, Zatanna pulled her friend upright while the Shade and the Wisp both bristled at the creatures beyond. "Come on, Rowan! We need to move!"
"That's right, Row-Row—" Yvonne sneered, towing another Vampire into sight and licking the bloody streaks from its bared neck. "Run along… Tell the grown-ups the scary Vampire-Lady was mean to you."
Eyes glued to the floor to keep the hallucinations at bay, Rowan felt sweat beading his skin as he raised his shaky hands.
He knew exhaustion, and this wasn't it.
This was fear.
'Afraid…? Me—I am afraid?' God, how he wanted to blame the Fear Toxin, but deep down, Rowan knew the fear had always been there.
For all his bravado;
For all the Intimidation Checks he'd cashed out to date, nothing had changed…
He was weak still, in Body and in Soul.
And he hated it.
He hated feeling this way.
But most of all: He hated being weak.
Fortunately, hatred—when properly channeled—could move mountains.
'I can't lose… Not again!'
The thought burned as his pupils dilated, glaring daggers at the countless horrors his befuddled mind had painstakingly conjured. And, as if to drive home the point, when he caught Zatanna's desperate bargaining and turned, all he saw were skin hanging in strips, and eyes clouded by lifelessness.
'I WON'T!'
As the sagely space goblin once taught, with Rowan's own twist as the cherry on top: 'Win or Die—there is no try.'
"All you want is the Curse lifted, right?! My dad's a crazy powerful Mage! He can help you if you'd just let us go! I don't know if it's possible, but maybe he can restore your humanity too!"
"Restore my humanity?"
Yvonne covered her mouth and giggled like a proper lady of the 1700s. "And surrender all the power I've cultivated? How absurd. Besides, am I to simply trust the words of a captive? No, no, no! You're staying right here. Both of you are."
"You wanna keep me as leverage, fine, but you leave him out of this." Zatanna insisted, shielding him from sight… In any case, this wasn't her first kidnapping, even if the new captor was setting a new standard for violence.
Gaze flicking past the Mage like she were an inconsequetial piece of furniture, every ounce of focus centered on the Coin in Rowan's palm.
In the three centuries Delilah served her, her Sire had never parted with the Artifact; not even while she bathed, and she had just, what, handed it to some random child?
'Was it done on a whim…?' Hah! Not even a special ed student would buy that garbage, much less a Vampiress with centuries under her belt.
'Was it a direct order from 'Him' then?' Now that! That made a hell of a lot more sense.
Whatever the reason, he wasn't going anywhere until she discovered what made him so special, and until she got her pound of flesh.
She'd keep Row-Row alive, though.
The boy was nothing if not… Entertaining.
"Even if I agreed, I doubt he would." She smirked, pointing past Zatanna who whipped her head around to find Rowan on his feet, with a Batarang in hand.
"Rowan?!"
"We don't negotiate with terrorists, Zee."
The young lad gasped, each word escaping in strained breath as he wiped the blood from his split lip.
"We plant them in the soil to feed the maggots."
"Haven't you heard? All bark and no bite makes a lady bored at night." Yvonne taunted with a lopsided grin.
And bite Rowan fucking did.
The world narrowed to a single line with point A being himself, and point B being his target as he lunged.
In response, the Undead lackeys surged forth in waves.
The first was knocked over by a surge of lightning, courtesy of the hissing Storm Elemental.
The second were confronted by the Shadow Giant who batted them aside like flies.
The third Rowan himself took care of, beating their skulls sideways with a sweep of his staff.
Fou—no, five of the screeching Ferals swarmed him before he even hit the ground, only for a trio of Zatanna's tongue-twisting Incantations to pull them them all neck-deep in concrete…
If Rowan had actually witnessed Zatanna's magical ass-kickery, he would've definitely given her props for taking notes during his lesson.
Hell, it probably could've been a real bonding moment!
Too bad he already had eyes on the Vampire lady…
Rowan threw his Batarangs, then swung, to which his opponent countered with three [Blood Spears]. He got stabbed through the stomach and leg, while she received a head injury that her Undeath immediately got to work on...
And then the roof peeled back, thundering with magical might that stopped every combatant in their tracks. Even Rowan turned his head which itself was practically a miracle given his state of mind and awkward pose.
Above floated a Mage whose skin was red and cartoonishly veiny, with huge, misshapen eyes and a voice that sounded like a whale's bellow magnified tenfold.
He wore a tuxedo that squeezed around his orge gut, topped by an enormous hat tilted to the left of his squashed skull. That's right. Rowan's one phobia, besides death and fear itself, was a disproportional cartoon version of one Giovanni 'John' Zatara. "I'd appreciate it if you could leave the children alone!"
It was the Fear Toxin!
Yes, that must be it!
"Tsk." Realizing she'd bitten quite a bit more than she could chew, Yvonne released her hold on the Racial Spell, and the blood that had been propping up Rowan dropped him face-first onto the floor. "I don't suppose you're in a mood to listen to a lady's problems?"
"Count yourself fortunate I have not yet seen fit to unmake you, night-crawler."
A part of Rowan's mind; the most detached part gave the performance a mental thumbs-up, then dispassionately noted.
'Points deducted for failing to master the art of talking mad shit.'
"Your daughter's safe," Yvonne taunted, grinding her heel into Rowan's skull to send the point across, "But this one isn't. The real question, Mage, is can you save the boy before I get bored and smash his head in?"
And, predictably, disgust once again welled in his heart.
"Return to the shadows and leave the boy, creature. Or has your arrogance grown so great that you believe you have conquered the sun?"
Only then did Rowan realize the colorful streaks above weren't hallucinations at all, but were, in fact—'Light?'
Although curiosity was killing her, at the end of the day, survival was everything to Yvonne. She knew where she'd end up, and shuddered to think what would happen should she fall into 'His' hands. "How do I know you will let me go after I've released him? No, I think I will bring the boy on a little play date… You can get him back in, say, an hour?"
"You have ten minutes. If my apprentice hasn't returned by then, I will chase you to the end of the Earth."
Glaring at the tunnel to the sewer, and seeing that it was blocked by debris from the half-collapsed second floor, Yvonne nearly lost her temper, before ordering what remained of her Sireline to the main entrance. "You've got some serious backing, Row-Row. I will spare you this once, but I've got your scent now, and he can't watch over you forever."
Strangely enough, the boy did not rise to the bait.
Listening to Rowan's steady breathing, Delilah scoffed. "All that fire, and a little gas is all it takes to put you out…"
The last of the Nest threw open the door, spilling out onto a street already teeming with the morning rush.
Yvonne paused at the threshold, inhaling the scent of sweat, exhaust, and desperation that marked her territory. They were in the poorer district, after all, where the day always began an hour or two before dawn and the residents lived by the proverb: The early bird catches the worm.
"A villain attack this early in the day?!"
"Looks like demons fighting to me."
"Goddammit! I knew I should've fucking called in sick today!"
"Mom, mom! Look what those weird people are doing to that boy!"
"Shh! Look away!"
Skin bubbling from the sun and embarrassement, but mainly embarrassement, Yvonne growled at the crowd while her Ferals pried the manhole cover open.
"Sweet Jesus, look at his face..."
"It's a demon! Lord save us, that's a demon from Hell!"
"The Devil! He's come for our souls!"
Chuckling to herself, Yvonne leaned down, dark hair falling like a shroud to trap him in a private world. Then, she whispered, fangs grazing the tip of his ear. "You hear that, Row-Row? They hate you... But I don't. In fact, I find you adorably entertaining!"
A knowing smirk touched her lips as she leaned in, her voice dropping to a honeyed, Compelling whisper aimed not at his ears, but at the pliable thoughts behind them: "[Meet me at midnight a week from now, Row-Row… Bring the Coin, and profess your undying love to me]."
She was halfway to the manhole, a triumphant sneer on her lips, when the 'unconscious' boy in her arms mouthed: "[Stay]."
Seizing up, Yvonne choked as black bile spurted from her mouth. "Wha-What?!"
Her entire Nest followed suit not long after she'd dropped the boy.
"Whaaa-What did y-you do?!" Yvonne rasped, swaying on her heels.
"Possession." Bearing the brunt of fourteen completely feral minds wasn't something Rowan had prepared for when he headed out last night, but he was managing. By God, he was managing.
'Kill her!'
He gritted his teeth as the sun finally poked over the row of four and five-storey buildings.
'KILL HER!'
Then clenched his fists as the Vampires started to burn.
'KILL HER OR YOU'LL NEVER KNOW PEACE!!!'
Flashes of another life flooded Yvonne's mind; of a peasant girl in a forgotten little village, to the young whore her parents sold for scraps of food, and finally the syphilitic wench Margaret had found shivering in an alley.
With the last of her strength, she wrenched back control and threw a clumsy punch.
It missed by a wide berth...
So she punched again and, unsurprisingly, missed a second time.
With a final, defiant snarl, she clung to him in a spiteful attempt to drag him into the dawn with her.
But the same sunlight that set her own flesh to smoldering ash merely washed over his skin like a summer breeze.
"I'll... See you in Hell, Row-Row." Yvonne hissed through broken teeth.
Tossing the Roman Coin high, Rowan caught the Artifact with his fist and uppercut the blackened skull off the Vampiress' charred spine.
"Save me a seat while you're there."