Batman fic & art: Demons Revealed

[xt1me]

I was thinking about cryptid batfam and how everyone would look like as demons. But I wasn't confident in my artistic skill so I was then thinking about making a short fic about it. And then I ended up decided to try my hand at drawing it anyway. And then I wrote the fic.

So here it is:

 

Nightwing was in Gotham tracking down some leads on some recent weird thefts in Blüdhaven when the call comes in.
Some weirdo was threatening to blow up Gotham unless Batman confronts him alone. Of course, they're not going to fall for such an obvious trap but Signal found explosives earlier that day so they had to take it seriously.

While the other vigilantes spread out to try and track down leads as to where other bombs might be located, Batman, Nightwing and Robin go out to confront the mysterious bomber.
The abandoned warehouse they arrive at is odd. No surveillance, no obvious weapons, no goons milling about, nothing that seems set up for a trap. Only a nervous looking guy pacing about muttering to himself and some piles of junk and a camera.

“Robin, check for explosives. Nightwing, be ready for back up,” Batman orders, “I’ll go spring the trap.”
“Affirmative.”
“Okily dokily.”

“Batman!” the man suddenly stopped pacing and yelled. “I have keys parts of Gotham wired to blow sky-high. You better be here!”
Looming out of the dark shadows in a corner of the warehouse, Batman emerged, “I’m here.”

The man thrust out a hand that was holding something.
“This is a deadman switch Batman!” he said gleefully. “You’re going to do exactly what I say.”

“What is it you want?” Batman asked.
“You’ll see soon enough” he gestured to a spot on the ground, “Step right there.”

Seeing where this was going, Batman positioned himself in front of the camera.

The man looked down at his watch. Unseen in the shadows behind the man Nightwing moved into position.

“Almost time now,” he muttered, “soon they’ll all see what I can do. And then they’ll need me. They’ll pay whatever I want. I’ll be rich.”

Before either crimefighter could move the man raised his hands and shouted:
“By the setting of the sun,
the spell is cast my will is done.
All disguises will be unpeeled,
the truth shall out, all be revealed!”

There was a flash of light as glowing symbols coalesced all over the warehouse.

Batman reacted quickly with a smoke bomb. Odd rhyming words and strange symbols can only mean magic, best not to take chances.
Nightwing was obviously on the same page as he swooped down and grabbed the detonator while it was still in the man’s hand. It was the work on mere moments to safely deactivate it as the man flayed ineffectively.
“Demons! You’re all demons!” the man started screaming as he tried to claw for something on his person. He was swiftly silenced by a batarang being thrown from the clearing smoke.
Nightwing finally had a chance to take stock of things.

Stepping out from the dark Batman looked nothing like he did before. Towering almost a foot taller he was clad in burnished armor, the bat symbol was so black it appears to be absorbing all light around him. Long straight horns, sharp fangs and claws, his cape now a pair of huge bat wings, Batman appeared to have been turned into a demon.

“Well that’s new,” said Nightwing.

Robin appeared and turned off the camera.
“I found no sign of anymore explosives” he said, seeming ignoring his new appearance.

His cloak was now a pair of fluffy feathered wings, brown on the outside with red, green and yellow in the inside, making him appear more like a parrot then a robin which must have been the intention. He was also dressed in medieval armor, though more like a squire then a knight. His fangs looked more like the ones that would decorate an oni mask then like his father’s more vampiric ones. He had little knobs for horns like they only just started to grow in, giving the appearance more of an imp than a true demon.
“But it appears we have all been affected by that man’s…spell” he continued disdainfully.

 

Nightwing looked down at himself.
He appeared more fey then demonic. His suit and mask appeared to be made of feathers, though it was hard to tell if he was wearing them or if they were growing out of him. His horns were more like antlers than the others but he still had sharp pointed teeth behind his smile and claws on his hand. He did look the most human of the three of them, if you didn’t count the owl talons he had for feet. Or the translucent but still visible wings behind him. Dark and shadowed, they glittered with what looked like small stars.

 

“Well, I've got some good news and some bad news.” Oracle's voice came through their headsets.
“What's the bad news” asked Batman.
“Looks like you weren't the only people affected,” replied Oracle.

A video projection opened up from their suits showing them an odd version of the Oracle logo. As Barbra moved back, they could see it wasn’t a logo but a mask she was wearing. Curled goat horns grew up out of her head through a shawl the colors of her old Batgirl costume. She herself appeared pale green and floating on smoke wearing dark ancient Greek clothing like the Oracle of old.

"Is it affecting civilians?" asked Robin.
She shook her head, "Just the Bats."
“So what’s the good news?” asked Nightwing.

“This doesn't seem to be anything more than illusion judging by the fact that I can still talk to you through the headsets that it doesn't look like any of us are wearing. I appear to be floating but I don't seem to be able to reach much higher than I could if I'm in my chair so none of this is real.
More good news is that there don’t appear to be any more bombs. Tracking down the explosives that Signal found earlier it looks like they were all this guy managed to buy.”

“Presuming they were aren’t more people out there planting bombs tonight.” Batman said.
“We’ll know more once the police have processed him.” said Oracle.
“Are the others effected by this as well?” asked Nightwing.
“Yes. I’m recommending everyone meet back at the cave. I’ve already sent a message to Zatanna.”
“See you then,” said Nightwing cheerfully.

 

After securing the wannabe wizard and sending all the information they could find from the warehouse to Zatanna they reconvened back at the Bat Computer to talk to her.

“I’ve looked though everything you’ve sent me and I’ve come to the conclusion that we are dealing with a fairly competent magician who didn't know what the heck he was doing.”

“How bad is it?” asked Batman.

“Not as bad as it could be” said Zatanna, “thankfully the spell he picked is a very well structured, robust one. He did follow the instructions quite precisely so we don't have to worry about it doing anything it's not supposed. I don’t think I have to tell you how amateurs can sometimes be worse than professionals.”

“So this is what it's supposed to do? I thought he was trying to find out our secret identities?” asked Nightwing.

“Well, it's not wrong to say it reveals things, but it's metaphorical,” the magician explained, “it's not used for identifying people per se, it's usually used to reveal inner truths. For example, this spell is used a lot in enchanted objects, like magic mirrors showing the reflection back on people how they truly are if. If you're a kind person you'll look prettier if you're a cruel person you look uglier. Standard stuff. It's flexible too, so you can set it to maybe show a passionate person as fiery or a calculating person as icy and cold. I've known this spell to be used on a garden that sprouts different flowers depending on who's walking in it. Or combining them with objects so only people of a person certain personality type can get through a door or pick up an item. There's a reason why magic is an art.”

“So why do we all look like this?” asked Red Robin.

The demon Red Robin had turned into looked more reptilian than the others for all he had more feathers. His wings looked more like realistic versions than the ones on his old suit but still attached to his arms as before. With some imagination you could consider him somewhat more draconic than the others, though of a more eastern variety. With horns up and sweeping back and armor that was more ancient samurai then medieval.

 

“This guy had no clue what he was casting so didn't set any parameters.” Zatana answered, exasperated. “You're supposed to know what you want to show with this spell or how it is supposed to be read. Whether through something simple like different colour meanings, or more complicated like turning into certain animals to represent certain traits. Near as I can tell, this guy was already frightened of being caught by Batman and I'm guessing Spooky jumped out doing his scary ‘I am the night fear me’ bit so the spell must have interpreted it to turn everyone into scary creatures of the night AKA demons. Best guess, the spell just decided to become literal about your names.” She gestured at Batman thought the screen, “Batman The Dark Knight having bat wings and armor, Nightwing having wings of night, Robin with feathers. Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.”

“Wow I could have come off an awful lot worse with a name like mine huh.” said Spoiler

Dressed in tattered rags with curled crooked horns Spoiler seemed to be balanced on legs of old fugus ridden wood. She had wings as well, filled with tattered feathers. The spell it seemed had gone with the ‘rot and ruin’ definition for the word ‘spoil’.

 

“Not a bat.” Black Bat pointed out, looking more like a shadow than usual.

Wings more cloak like than Batman’s, they were draped around her seeming to fade into the shadows more insubstantial than anything real. She was clad in armor as well like her mentor but it had more of a Greek style to it. She also only appeared solid while still. Any time she moved she seemed to blur into a streak of darkness, the only spot of colour appeared to be the bat symbol on her chest, a pale off white like yellowing bone. Perhaps the spell had leaned into the black part rather than the bat part of her name.

 

“I have no idea what the spell is using to fill in the gaps for what’s not obvious here” said Red Hood gesturing to himself, “I mean I know there's not much you can do with my codename other than making sure I have the appropriate headgear but what's with all this?”

Red Hoods skin was the colour of grey stone. He looks like one of the many gargoyles perched around Gotham. He was wearing a hood of course, red like it was dipped in blood, but it appeared to be part of something more akin to a funeral shroud then proper clothes. His dark wings looked more like cracked lava, smoke and fire billowing out to create the full shape.

 

“What I don't get is why I had to get caught in all this,” stated Signal “I'm supposed to be going off shift.”

Signals bright yellow armor looked like something from the Roman legion, horns coming up in a circle almost like a Halo. His wings were bright as if made entirely from light but appeared a bit shaped more like moth wings.

 

“Can you reverse the spell?” asked Batman.

“About that,” said Zatanna, “this guy pumped an awful lot more power than needed into the spell. I recognize one of the objects in that pile you found. It's an amulet used to detect other unshielded magical items. I wouldn't be surprised he just went around grabbing anything vaguely mystical he could find to power this. Unfortunately, that means he poured so much power it's kind of like trying to run a flashlight using a nuclear reactor. It’s probably why the spell spilled out beyond Batman and just grabbed every vigilante working under your banner that was out tonight.”
“That sounds bad,” stated Nightwing.
“I don't want to risk jostling something just by breaking it. Doing it safely so the power doesn’t rush out catastrophically would take a lot of work.” she said.
“So what can be done?” asked Batman.
“Thankfully I don’t think I need to break it. I told you this is spell is often used to enchant objects,” she said, “I hope you have spare masks.”
“I wasn't wearing a mask” interjected Oracle.
“Were you wearing anything associated with your night job you can spare?” asked Zatana
“Well this there goes this headset,” sighed Oracle, “Bruce I'm charging you for a new one.”
“Hnh”

“That’s it then.” Exclaimed Zatanna, “It's a simple matter to just transfer this spell to your masks and once you remove them, you'll be back to normal. You could even keep the masks around if you want to use them for a later date. It's not actually going to affect anything on them.”
“Will this take long?” asked Batman.
“Safest for me to do this at sunrise since the spell was cast at sunset” she said.

“Oooohhh,” said Spoiler “so we're all going to be demons for the night?”

Nightwing hopped up and down on his talons.
“We really only started our patrols after all maybe we can have a little fun. Come on B, what do you say?”

Batman tried to look stern but nodded.

Gotham wasn't going to know what hit them