The vivid memory of his deceased parents was like feeling a hard punch to the gut. Dick could still smell the flowery perfume that his Mother wore, and could almost literally feel his Father's strong calloused hand on his shoulder. Shuddering, Dick thought about all the years that the memory of the Owlman had stayed in his mind. As he turned into Robin, the story had faded away, and he had almost forgotten about it. He was lucky enough that while his life was slowly oozing out of him, he had been able to dig out the little memory of his parents telling him the myth.
Dick was sent back to the present when something nicked his numb body. It wasn't a nick though, and after a few seconds, he felt the full force of the pain. He looked down. It was a dagger. Embedded in his chest. It was frickn' in his heart! Gasping, the lungful of carbon dioxide stayed in his lungs, his heart fully unable to even try to pump the blood back and make oxygen; Dick could feel his life force being pulled away. The man with the red robe had stepped closer, and Dick had a feeling that he was the one who put the knife through his heart, though he did not see him do it.
It was funny, a few weeks back he had watched a documentary that Damian- (that was his little brother right?) had forced onto him, claiming that the information on the video would be much appreciated. The documentary was about a man who had a cardiac arrest, and was still alive at the end of it. The man had talked about how scary it was to loose his oxygen, and how he saw his whole future shrivel up and die. At this moment, Dick saw his own future curl up into a little ball and slowly fade away. He was never going to marry Babs, never going to make his own little family, never going to ever reduce the crime rate in Bludhaven to only ninety percent. He would never ever see his family again.
The loss of oxygen and the starvation to breath again forced Dick to stop remembering. He slowly forgot about his brothers, his father and mother, and Bruce, who had always been a second father to him. Grasping widely, Dick tried to retain his memories, but was rewarded with an almost deathly silence that rang throughout his skull. The stillness of everything that shut down in his de-functioning body made Dick say something, something that slipped out of his parched, dry lips.
"Bruce… Help…"
As if mad that he had said anything about his past, the men chanted, yelling out incantations that seemed fake to Dick just a few seconds ago, but now felt real and scary. An internal war raged in Dick, the men chanting versus him. He imagined himself, tugging on one end of the Nightwing suit, while the evil men clutched onto the other side. The men slowly overpowered him, and his Nightwing suit was thrown into a large black pit that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Something grabbed at his throat, and he looked down to see a bunch of owls attacking his already bruised body. He silently screamed on the stone slab as he was being eaten alive in his illusion.
Just as the owls were about to use their razor sharp talons to bring Dick Grayson to an end, Dick slipped out of the mental allusion, and was forced back to reality. Dick was heaving, even though no oxygen was being made. His brain already felt dead from the lack of blood pumping to his head.
How was he still alive? The moment he had stopped breathing seemed long ago, and Dick knew that he should have been dead. The red robed man took off his hood, and smiled. Dick almost cried in surprise, a sudden memory flying back into his head. The black hair… cold blue eyes… He looked exactly like Bruce! But as quickly as the memory came, it was banished.
The chanting of the robed men buzzed louder in his ears, and Dick suddenly felt a pull in him, his blood started pumping again. It was miraculous, almost magical. He had a feeling that if his friend Wally were there, he would have dismissed the idea of magic already.
Dick could almost hear his brain feebly starting again, shouting orders to the rest of his body parts to wake up. Although Dick was living again, he wanted to die, for it to be over with. Everything felt backwards in his body, and he couldn't remember anything. Who was he? Did he have any family? What was the ridiculous dirty suit he was wearing? Why did everything hurt?
The mummers of the strangely dressed men from all around Dick seemed to fade away as background noise, and suddenly he couldn't think of anything. The questions that he had just thrown around in his head had disappeared. All the pain he had felt was gone, and his wounds had started to heal themselves. The knife was pulled out of his heart with a sickening pop. Dick supposed that he should've felt nausea or something, but it felt like something had started to posses him, giving him the power to feel nothing.
The man in a red robe stepped up to him, and took his shackled hand. Dick forced his hand away, but his body refused to allow it. A cold, detached voice was spoken in his mind. Richard John Grayson you are no more. You are His Talon. You belong to me, who belongs to The Owlman. Dick shuddered as he heard the words, but his body did nothing.
The man in the red robe grasped his other hand, neither hands bringing comfort or warmth. Instead, the man's hands were cold, as if he was already dead.
"Richard John Grayson, you will be the new Talon." At the word Talon, Dick lost consciousness, as if the word itself had a new power to it. The man in the robe smiled again, and the chanting stopped. Thomas Wayne had just found his new Talon.