Family
Chapter Twelve: Developing Plots
Disclaimer: all characters are property of their respective owners.
Spoilers: to the end of season 7 of Buffy (I'm not including the season 8+ comics in this continuity), general spoilers for Batman and mild spoilers for X-Men: Evolution season 1.
Author Note: the version of the Batman that will appear here draws from several versions. And the X-Men hails from the X-Men: Evolution cartoon, although I'm not above drawing from the comics.
A/N 2: I would appreciate feedback on the story, on how could be improved, or things that I have gotten wrong.
I wish to give thanks to JediKnight for betareading and general creative input.
A small cabin, close to Gotham
The redhead parked her car, a robust SUV with good off-road capabilities, in a clearing of the woods. She could already see the cars of the other members of the circle parked here, and a short distance away, the cabin she had come to visit stood under the shadow of the trees. She shivered for a moment, thinking of the proximity to Slaughter Swamp and all the legends that came with it, and not for the first time, she desired that the Monk had chosen a different place for the meeting of the meditation circle.
She took a deep breath and walked resolutely toward the cabin and knocked on the door.
"Ah, Miss Madison, we were expecting you." said Dala, the Monk assistant, who was the one who opened the door.
"Sorry about being late." Madison said.
"Actually, we hadn't started yet." Dala said with a close smile, "Enter, please, out of your own will."
Julie rolled her eyes at Dala's dramatic invitation as she stepped into a big room with a tarp engraved with mystical designs covering the floor. Her fellow members of the circle, socialites, a couple college professors and a curator of the Gotham museum were already there, all of them sitting on the tarp on a circle, with their legs crossed. Dala went to the back and returned almost immediately with the Monk in tow.
"Greeting, my pupils." he said in an affable tone, speaking with an unidentifiable accent, before he sat down, Dala to his side. "We'll start with the meditation exercise we practiced last time. Close your eyes, breathe deeply and void your mind of all thought." He said after a pause, an odd cadence to his voice, "Now, hear my voice, and follow my words, empty your mind. Hear my voice, follow my words, and empty your mind." as he repeated this she felt herself fall into trance.
/\
Nicholas Dubois, as the Monk preferred to be called when he wasn't spouting pseudo-mystical mumbo-jumbo, lowered the hood of his habit when every single one of the fools they had bamboozled into this charade, had fallen into his thrall, and then quickly removed it. He hated the thing, it was heavy, sweltering and despite several washing it still smelled weird. But the results spoke by themselves.
'Suck it, you Wallachian dandy.' he thought, surveying the empty faces of the "meditation circle", now his thralls.
It hadn't been easy, but by a combination of hypnotic techniques and his natural skill at enthralling humans had allowed him to develop this way to enthrall several people at once. It wasn't as strong as the natural enthralling, but it could be reinforced and now these fools were wholly under his power. Going back to the present, he turned to face the curator of the Museum.
"Did you bring it?" he asked.
"Yes, Master." he said, using a subservient tone, "They were in storage, so nobody will notice that I replace them with replicas."
The curator opened his suitcase and produced a small statue of some kind of hooded demon with bat wings, and a clay tablet enclosed in plastic, with several inscriptions on an ideographic alphabet. Nicholas knew that it had defied translation for quite some time, which it wasn't surprising as it wasn't an human langauage or alphabet.
"Excellent, give them to me." the Monk said, taking them carefully from the hands of the man and handing them to Dala who placed in a shelf, with other artifacts.
He repeated the action with each one of the members of the Circle, each one of them bringing some artifact or information where it could be, until he reached Julie.
"I looked through the ruins of Kyle Manor, Master, even in the basement, and I couldn't find any of the objects you tasked me with." she said, "I investigated, and Felix Kyle sold several pieces of his collection when the Kyle fortune was lost in 1929 to give his widow something to live with, before killing himself."
"You are a friend of Bruce Wayne, aren't you?" the Monk said, lost in thought.
"Yes, Master." she said, vaguely puzzled by the Monk's sudden topic change.
"Kenneth Wayne's wife, Katherine, was Felix' sister. He, like Felix, was a collector of antiques." he said, more talking to himself than to the young socialite, and then he turned his gaze to her, "You are going to visit Wayne Manor, and ask about the old Kyle collection. Do a bit of research on your own, so it sounds more authentic."
"Yes, Master." she answered, obediently.
After that, he gave instructions to all of them, some of them about more artifacts they had to retrieve, in another cases he gave some of the other artifacts on the shelf, pointedly excluding the statue and the tablet delivered by the curator, to others, as well as instructions to place them in specific places inside the city, always out of the way places like basements, abandoned sewers, and other similar places.
"Focus in my voice. Hear my commands. Feel my will." he said, "You won't remember what happened here until the next time I impose my will on you. But you will follow my commands as if they were your own ideas."
"Yes, Master." they said as if they were a chorus.
/\
Julie Madison awoke from the trance feeling at peace with herself. Her mind was clearer, and she felt well rested.
The Monk retreated into the back room, while Dala said goodbye to everybody. She walked back to her car thinking back to her exploration of Kyle Manor ruins. Felix Kyle, the last Kyle of Kyle Manor, had been an avid collector of both antiques and curios. She wondered what had happened to his collection...
Wayne Manor
Bruce Wayne awoke suddenly, and sat on his bed. His dreams had been... unsettling, even more than usual. His nightmares always came to the alley, but this time, it wasn't just his parents, Buffy and Dawn were lying there in apool of their own blood.
He shook his head, before getting up from the bed, and putting on a robe. As always, he hadn't given a single step after putting on the robe, when Alfred opened the door with a tray that carried a steaming cup of coffee and the morning paper.
"Thank you, Alfred." he said before taking the cup and and the paper. As expected the storm and the explosion were today's breaking news.
'Godammit.' He said mentally, when he read that Blackout had escaped. 'Jim must be furious.'
"I presume you have read about the escape of that criminal, Master Bruce." Alfred said.
"Yes, I have the feeling we will meet him again." Bruce answered, "Did Buffy or Dawn call?"
"No, but Master Silas did call, he was going to meet them at the Tower." Alfred answered, "He apparently knew about their real relationship with you before."
"Interesting. I should be surprised, but I have always suspected he knew more about our family history that he let on." he looked at the time, knowing his uncle, he probably had invited them to his favorite restaurant, and cast aspersions on the playboy image he had been cultivating since he returned. Thinking about that, he had an idea. He asked Alfred about which of the italian sports cars was available.
"Perfect." he said, already sliding into the playboy persona.
A top of the line restaurant
Vicky Vale had gotten a call from one of her sources. She hated having being exiled to the society pages after her failure to gather enough evidence of foul play in the Dixon case, but she was determined to do the best job she could to go back to real journalism.
That was why she was in a table of the restaurant wearing a power suit, sunglasses and using a brown dye, studying the people that Silas Wayne had invited to dinner from some distance. She had recognized one immediately as Doctor Charles Xavier, a retired geneticist with some past connection with the Waynes, who now was the headmaster of some exclusive school in upstate New York. From that it had been easy to identify most of the rest as school staff and some students. It was the blonde and the brunette teen that puzzled her.
She furtively took pictures of both women to identify them later, the Gaette had a good, if somewhat quirky, IT crew, and then went back to watch the group. It seemed like a friendly occasion with Silas showing, despite his infirmity, that he hadn't lost anything of the charm he had made him such a ladies' man in his youth. The contrast with his grandnephew Bruce was staggering, on the charm, not in the ladies' man part.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the roar of a black Italian sport car, a Lamborghini Murcielago if she remembered correctly, passing before the restaurant and going into the restaurant underground parking lot. There were damn few Lamborghinis in Gotham, who could...?
'Oh!' she thought, realizing who probably was in that car. The phone she was about to get back in her handbag went to the table, propped up so it would have a good view of the table, and she activated the app that projected the view of the camera into the special Bluetooth-equipped sunglasses she was wearing.
She kept eating, slowly enough so she would be there for the whole situation, although she didn't have to wait for long as a side door opened, the one that gave access to the lifts and Bruce Wayne stepped in. He was wearing a relatively informal getup, without a tie and with an open neck, as well as wearing sunglasses. Given the wince he gave once he stepped into the full light of the restaurant, last night party must have been one to remember. She'd have to look where he went last night, now that she thought about it, one of her contacts told her that one of his cars was seen downtown, close to a rave that was held last night.
Bruce went to the table and presented himself. Hmmm..., he seemed to bel more subdued than usual; he usually could give Tony Stark a run for his money in the bombast. Even Silas Wayne seemed puzzled to his demeanor... one moment, the blonde's reaction, she knows Bruce...
'I wonder on their exact relationship. She doesn't seem his type...' Vicky thought as he kept recording the scene.
Down at Silas' table
Once the presentations had been made, and Bruce had sat on the table, they started to talk.
"Talking with Buffy yesterday, I got the impression that the prospects of Dawn being invited to your school were not good." Bruce said.
"You have to be always that blunt, Bruce?" Silas said with a wince, "Although now that he has raised the issue..."
"It's complicated, but, in short, there was an opening." Xavier said, "I would explain it in depthg, but we are being watched."
"Yes, a woman in the upper level has not stopped looking at us since we arrived." Buffy said, without looking up, "She is pretty good, though."
"You mean Miss Vale? She probably got notice of Uncle Silas coming here." Bruce said, in a casual tone, "No offense, uncle, but you have become enough of a hermit in your old age that any outing of yours would attract attention." and then he added to the benefit of the non-gothamites, "Miss Vale is a journalist of the Gotham Gazette. From what I know, she is currently covering society pages."
"A paparazzi? Wonderful." Buffy said with distaste.
"She is not really a paparazzi, actually. She is not covering society events because she likes it." Bruce explained, "Her last article couldn't be published because it stepped on the toes of some 'honest'..." he airquotead, "...businessmen without enough proof, and she has been exiled to the society pages until things calm somewhat."
"By honest businessmen you mean Carmine Falcone and his wretched family, don't you?" Silas said with evident distaste.
"Unfortunately." Bruce said with a grimace, and then explained, "Carmine Falcone is supposed to be the big man in the Gotham's underworld, with his son and daughter deep into the Family business, but nobody has ever managed to get enough proof to put any of them behind bars."
"Mostly because the proof disappears, witnesses suffer sudden bouts of amnesia or die on suspicious accidents and things like that." Dawn said, "What? I have seen enough movies to know where it was heading."
"Yes, that's pretty much correct, Dawn." Silas said.
The Monk's lair. Blackout's room
Dala entered the room, a glorified storeroom with a cot, and asked point-blank.
"You know people in organized crime here in Gotham, do you?"
"Not many. Apart from the Red Hoods, who are probably now all dead or behind bars, there is the Middleman."
"The Middleman?"
"Yeah, do you want something? Weapons, drugs, antiquities, hitmen, exotic animals, or any other thing? He has contacts that can provide them, and he only collects a fee." Blackout said.
"Interesting. Could you put us in contact with him?"
"I don't see why not, but what is in that for me?" Blackout said, looking straight at the vampiress.
"Do you mind settling in New Orleans?" she answered.
"Not at all, why?" he asked, thinking about what he knew about New Orleans, and guessing the answer.
"We have an... understanding with the New Orleans authorities." Dala said, confirming his guess.
"Oh?" Blackout said, interested.
"Yes, you would be one of our security people in the docks, once we finish our things here." Dala said, obviously not wanting to elaborate further.
"Okay, it will be a change, holding a steady job for a change, even if it is as a legbreaker." Blackout said, "What do you want from the Middleman?"
"Why you don't give us...?" Dala asked.
"...the means to contact him? Sorry, lady, but the man is very careful in exposing himself." Blackout said, his steel fangs gleaming in a not quite smile, "I don't think I ever met him personally, actually, all the talk was done through phone or e-mail, or through one of his minions, and even then I wouldn't swear that I could recognize the guy, the minion, I mean, if I saw him walking down the street."
"Merde..." she said under her breath, before continuing, "There are certain... antiques our agents bought abroad, and we need them in Gotham soon without too many questions."
"And...?" Blackout asked.
"And the Batman and that Slayer just disposed of the people we were going to use for that." she said.
"And they need to be moved here, right?" he guessed.
"No, we have them in another place." Dala said, smiling for the first time since they had started to talk, "No use in having all our eggs in the same basket, right?"
A top of the line restaurant in Gotham
Vicky observed the Wayne group as they finished the meals, and went their way, while she was paying, including a generous tip for the waiter. She then ran through the stairs to the underground parking lot, to arrive fast enough to be able to follow them. It was touch and go, but she managed to tail the cars, that didn't separate until they reached Silas Wayne residence, a relatively modest, for a Wayne, two-story house, with a small garden, in one of the better parts of the city.
Paparazzi would try to get photos by climbing a lamppost or something, but she was not willing to stoop so low, so she turned around and went back to the Gazette, and there she went directly to the IT guy in the basement.
"Hi, Ed." she said, giving him the memory card, "I have several pictures and a video recording..."
"Shhh..." the red-haired guy at the computer said lifting a finger, without even looking at her, "I want to see it for myself, Victoria, and see who is there and what and who are they doing."
Vicky refrained herself from rolling her eyes. If Nashton wasn't that good in this stuff, his little quirks, like trying to turn everything into solving some kind of puzzle, enigma or riddle, would had him fired long ago. At least he wasn't Day, the other IT guy, with his scheduling mania.
TO BE CONTINUED...