Damien walked through the black market, the dusty, decaying, rotting, disgusting underbelly of Gotham City. He was looking for news of any sort about his little brothers, several members, both former and current, of the Justice League, and several of Terry's rogue gallery. For some reason, they'd been kidnapped. All of them. Ghoul, Terminal, Ten, Terry, the newest Flash, Warhawk, Max, Matt, some kid called Dak and a girl known as Tamara Caulder. There were also some random kids from Terry's high school. There was really nothing connecting them except Batman, but it was a stretch. Nobody supposedly knew who Batman was, so how could they kidnap Terry and Matt on that thought process? It didn't make sense.
Damien was filling in as Batman until Terry was found, sure, but he was spending as much time as possible in the suit as he could. One, it wasn't the classic cowl he'd always imagined himself in as a boy, and two, well; the whole Batman thing gave him bad memories. Like dying. That was something he'd prefer not to remember.
So Damien was doing things his own way, much to the displeasure of the old man, and going to old contacts in the underbelly of Gotham to see if they knew who had taken the group of teens and kids and why. This quest had led him to the relatively new illegal endeavors he'd no doubt have to shut down soon, the 'monster bids'. These were the auctions of supposed monsters, like mermaids, nagas, sphinxes and the like, to the highest bidder for rare collections, private zoos, or other…less savory things with which to put these creatures through.
On a whim, the man decided to actually watch one and made his way to the front, to get a good look at these 'monsters'. Chances are, they were just splicers who'd gone insane from a bad splice and their doctors who'd done it were selling them to cover their mistakes. Poor bastards. The little radio buzzed to life in Damien's ear, a sure sign the old man was summoning him to do his 'other job', and he promptly turned it off. He wanted to see this, dammit!
What he saw made his blood run cold.
The stage had been set for land, water, and air creatures. The three prodded into their respective habitats were at once familiar and strange. Damien had just found three of the missing kids.
Terry was a Dragon Man, scales up from waist to just below his chest, a lizard's tail and dinosaur like legs, vicious claws at the end of his fingers and yellow eyes and pointed ears and sharp teeth. He gave an inhuman bellow as he was poked with a cattleprod and bat-like wings unfolded from cavities in his back and the Forever Knight flew clumsily to his designated perch as people threw jeers and taunts his way. He bellowed again at them and knashed his teeth, but it only made the taunts louder.
Terminal was then thrown onto the stage, just underneath Terry. From head to mid-waist he was normal, albeit with some pale green scales on shoulders and stomach, but it was his lower half that revealed his particular transformation; The gothic black haired Joker had been turned into a Naga. He seemed to have the long and muscular tail/body of a cornsnake, with random rainbow colored scales here and there. With his make-up, he looked like some sort of god of death from a forgotten religion and Damien had to remind himself the kid was only seventeen. Like Terry, Terminal was just as enraged and animal like, actually trying to slither off the stage and attack the people looking at him. He was caught and tazed before he made it two feet. He bared sharp fangs and brandished wicked looking claws at his captors, but they just laughed and hit him with more electricity till he stopped trying to attack and just lay beside Terry's perch, stunned and almost unconscious.
The last one brought out was Ghoul, dragged by his hair and tossed unceremoniously into his pool; the blond goth was probably the most breathtaking. Literally. He took to being a merman extremely well. His tail was long, and three colors. Light blue, silver, and gold. His fins were long and like gauze; fluttering around his head as he bent and contorted to try and stay underwater. Probably because it muted the sound. Like Terry and Terminal, the teen seemed to have forgotten he was actually a normal human. His arms, finned as well with the pale cream blue of his tail, were locked around his head. Like the other two, he had sharp teeth and clawed hands.
Damien swallowed and turned the radio on again, cutting his father's reprimand off. "I found Terry, and two others. They're being sold. Should our dark friend come in and help them, or do we go the non attention grabbing way and buy them?" There was a long pause and Damien was seriously debating turning off the radio and winging it when he heard a low growl from the other end of the radio. "Start bidding"
Damien shook hands with a man he'd just bought a large amount of unused woods and fields, a small pond located in there as well, and looked over his new property. And the new home of Ghoul Terminal and Terry until they could completely untangle the DNA strands and make them normal again. Thankfully, this place was large enough for all of the kidnapped, if they'd all been spliced like Damien and Bruce was sure they had, and a few miles away from the city and away from any main roads, so the new menagerie could do their thing without being seen and causing a panic among people. It had been a few weeks since Damien had bought them. buying his little brother, sane or not, left a vile taste in his mouth, made a bit worse when the three had started talking a little again. Not much, and rarely to Bruce or Damian. Not that the man could blame them, Bruce was terrifying, they were in a fragile mental state. And since most people told Damian he had a killer's aura, not that many sane people wanted to talk to him, either, and he didn't blame Terry there, the kid had barely wanted to talk to him on a normal basis, anyway. Ghoul did talk to Aquagirl, and that made sense. Terminal talked to the former Beastboy. Again, made a strange amount of sense, and Terry only spoke to Blue Devil. Again, not that surprising. They were seeming to gravitate to the people they had the most in common with.
Another thing that wasn't surprising? How close the three boys were. Besides their 'mentors' as it were, they communicated with each other only. Though it wasn't in English, they still spoke to each other far more than to anyone else. Considering what they might have gone through, Damian wasn't going to judge. However, he wondered how long Terry and Ghoul would remain so close when Dana was made aware of where Terry was and what condition he was in. I.e, more wild animal than human, with little grasp of human language, and no seeming recognition of family, favorite items, or friends. They all displayed these symptoms, and Damien assumed from the way they reacted to needles and any sign of sharp objects like knives that they, and most likely everyone else who'd undergone this, had received massive amounts of torture and re-conditioning. Seeing as they'd all been gone only around six months, he was surprised at how far into the animal like degeneration they'd gone into. Bruce, on the other hand, wasn't.
"Remember Selina Kyle, Damian?" It had been just after Damian had brought the three to Wayne Manor, and The former Batman had been waiting on the steps. Damian had shrugged. "The woman you had a thing with, and who trained the current Catwoman, Kitty Falcone. Yes. What of her?" Bruce had walked down the steps and stared at the cages (and fishtank in Ghoul's case) with an unreadable stare. "During when she and I were dating, she was kidnapped by a scientist and experimented on. It was only a few days, but Selena quickly forgot who she was, what she was. The Splicer serum seems to be loosely based on what Selina was given, but this…is modified. It appears to be at least three different serums, combined" Damian stared at the old man, then at the new…brother/pet sleeping at the bottom of his cage. He wondered what Matt looked like. He hoped the younger one wouldn't try to rip his throat out every time Damian tried to grab him.
Hopefully, they'd find the reason behind this, and soon. And when Damian found each and every bastard who'd cut into Terry that wasn't himself? Well, he'd make the bloodiest massacre in recent modern history look absolutely tame.