Gotham City is cursed. Intensely so. There are layers and layers of curses there, levelled over one another until they form a massive ball of magic. Even the most experienced magic users avoid the city; it's not worth it to try going there. The curses are so thickly layered that using magic is practically impossible, and trying to break one will just bring a swarm of others down on your head. It's not worth it.
No-one magic goes to Gotham. It's what makes it safe for the Colony to exist.
The Bat was first.
It started as a rumour. A shadow in the night. A huge, hulking figure sulking around the city, haunting the rooftops. It hunted criminals and struck with an inhuman force. It would always find who it was looking for, and evidence would find its way to the police for every crime.
It was near silent, the only noise that it made was the faintest ripple of its wings as it hunted. It stalked the rooftops, and no-one ever saw more than a black blur before they were knocked out for their crimes.
The first time a crime was interrupted by it, it was laughed off as a joke by the police.
The second time, people started getting nervous.
By the third time, they were starting to realise it was real.
Five years later, and the Bat had a partner. A small child that fluttered in its footsteps, lurking under its folded wings and peeking out with glowing white eyes. For several weeks, it was another myth, one no-one saw and only rarely heard, nested under the Bat's wings and kept out of the way of any fights. The main sign that it was around was the echoes of whistles and clicks between it and the Bat, their own little language singing back and forth in the darkness.
The first person to meet it was the Commissioner, one of the few members of Gotham's police that ever managed to speak to the Bat. It was rare that it bothered to say more than a few words, but since the Bat passed along information on cases they were working on, Gordon didn't care. It seemed like that endeared him to the Bat somehow, since he was the first to meet the Bat's partner.
Brightly coloured and endlessly moving, it was a surprise that the Bat had managed to keep them out of its fights for so long. Tiny black feathers made up a facsimile of hair, drooping slightly over their forehead. Unlike the Bat, their face was bare and human-like, but across their eyes were bold black lines, almost like a domino; a wedge that settled around half way down their cheeks, with smaller lines flicking off the eyes towards their hairline, all standing stark against coppery skin.
But the most striking feature was the wings.
Compared to the kid, they were huge, probably nearly double their size when stretched out, but they spent most of their time with them folded up or wrapped around themselves as they bounced around the roof- never straying too far from the Bat, and never putting Gordon between them, but never staying entirely still. The wings were coloured similarly to their costume, bright reds, yellows, and greens mixing into each other.
The kid looked like they should be a walking target, all bright colours and small stature, but it quickly became obvious that that wasn't the case. The Bat's little partner was just as hard to hit as the Bat itself, fast movements rather than the strange ability to hide in the shadows keeping them from being touched, and criminals soon learned that trying to take out the kid to get to the Bat was a terrible idea.
It got around quickly; if the Robin is out, it's best to run away. Hurting the bird will only end with you suffering far more than you would otherwise.
Over the years, the Bat and his Robin inspired several people to try picking up a cape. Young people, usually, kids who hear about what looks like a child their age being a hero and decide they can do it too.
The pair made a point to talk them out of it. None of those kids ever repeated what they're told, no matter who asked, and none of them ever try wearing a mask like that again.
They only fail once.
A girl with brilliant red hair kept sneaking out, night after night, in a home made costume and mask. She styled herself after the Bat, and though she never gave a name, people started calling her Batgirl.
Robin seemed to adore her, in a strange way, rare and whistling English falling from his lips more that ever when she was around. The Bat lingered nearby all the time, stern in the shadows, and every time it found her, it sent her home.
She did not stay there.
Eventually, they stopped trying. Robin started hovering around Batgirl more and more, the two of them moving in greater sync every fight. The Bat still appeared, lingering nearby, but now he swept both of them under his wings and pulled them away from the scene, speaking quietly to them but never sending her away.
Then Batgirl disappeared. Neither the Bat nor Robin seemed worried at all, and a month later, she was back, acting like nothing had happened.
She had changed, though. The whistling song of the Bats fell from her lips too, now, as fluently as if she'd grown up speaking it, and she moved with the same elegant grace as the pair. A cluster of long red feathers had taken the place of her hair, and the carefully sewn cape that she'd made was gone, replaced by wings like the Bat's. The mask she'd worn was still there, small black lines dripping down her cheeks from it, and she was always smiling now, like a kid having the best day of their life.
Batgirl became a warning, then. Someone whispered about in the daytime, someone that parents used to keep their kids inside.
Don't try being a hero in Gotham, they murmured. The Bat will take you as a friend for its Robin, and you'll never get away.
The number of kids trying to be heroes dropped, after that.
People started calling them the Colony. There were only three, but with how quickly they moved, there might as well have been dozens more. They moved as a perfect unit, even when apart, and the only sign of them being there was the mix of bird song and bat chirps that made up their language echoing in the air.
When Robin had been around for seven years, Batgirl started disappearing. People whispered, though the Colony didn't seem worried about it, about something being wrong. A lucky attacker, or something, maybe the Colony getting bored of her presence. But she showed up less and less, and even though the Colony never got any more violent, even though Robin didn't seem any less cheerful, people started to worry that something bad had happened to Batgirl.
The nights where she showed up were a blessing, in some ways. She wasn't gone forever yet, just for now.
Nearly a decade after he'd first arrived in the Bat's shadow, Robin disappeared for three months. No-one dared to ask the Bat why; criminals would never have even tried, of course, but even the police didn't think to do so after seeing how much more sharply the Bat was moving.
It was always like it was on edge, but now it was even worse, like it was barely restraining itself from going for the throat.
At the end of the three months, the tension burst. There was a new vigilante haunting Gotham's streets, as well as a new Robin, and it wasn't too difficult to guess what had happened to the old one.
The new vigilante haunted the Bat's steps the same way the first Robin had, in the last few years once he was too tall with wings too big to hide under the Bat's own wings comfortably. Still just as energetic, but now more likely to channel it into preparing to leap, and as much of a shadow as the Bat was, aside from a brilliant blue shape across his chest, backed by the Bat's symbol. His wings were a slightly different shape, and the blue shape from his costume spread along the inside of his wings, a brilliant flare of colour whenever he moved. The outside was a deep black with white flecks, like stars on a clear night.
He called himself Starling, and hovered around the new Robin faithfully, softly humming and chirping through the entire introduction.
The new Robin was paler than the last, and the stripes along his face were different; two across the eyes, but they didn't bridge up over his nose, sweeping backwards into his hairline and coming back down over his forehead to his nose. The feathers making up his hair were a little longer, seemed stiffer, with a reddish tinge to them when they caught the light.
His eyes were just as bright a white, though, and the costume was the same, as were the wings' colours. They were a little larger than Starling's had been at the same age, with slightly longer feathers, but they looked very similar.
Criminals quickly learned that this Robin was a lot faster to throw himself into a fight, and had a tendency to use his wings as bludgeons whenever he could, even at risk of getting hit. Not that many tried to hit him; they'd learned from the first Robin, and this one had Starling as well. If the Bat didn't manage to get you, he would, and he was as hard to spot coming as the Bat despite the flashes of blue. For the most part, this Robin was avoided as much as the first.
Mostly.
The appearance of the Bat in the city had brought its own collection of strange criminals, and few of those feared the Bat's wrath for hurting the Birds like most people did. The worst of them was the Joker.
Robin went missing for two days. The Colony had torn apart the city looking for him, with whatever help the police could provide. Eventually, they were tracked down to a warehouse.
The last anyone saw of that Robin was in the Bat's arms, slumped and bloody, wings entirely missing. Starling was fluttering around them both, cooing anxiously, and only the tiny peeps in return told anyone Robin was still alive. The pair disappeared well before anyone could try and question them.
It was also the last anyone saw of the Joker. The Bat had taken the barest moment to warn everyone that the warehouse was about to explode, and the few members of the police that had arrived there by that point quickly backed away.
No-one really regretted that the Joker was gone. Not when they saw Robin's state.
The entire Colony went to ground for the next four months.
Starling appeared again at that point, going after criminals with a similar ferociousness to his mentor. The Bat returned a month later, just as silent and dangerous as ever.
There was no sign of Robin.
The two members of the Colony grew more and more violent, more persistent in hunting down crime wherever they could and less worried about the injuries they left behind. Batgirl reappeared, seemingly trying to temper them with whatever scraps of humanity she had left, but she never made it very far. Not when her own rage was so clearly at the surface, displayed on her wings and in the hammer of her fists.
It continued for months more, a horrific circle of the Bats and their Bird, chasing criminals and each other around the city like some terrible game of cat and mouse; the Bat and Starling hunting criminals, Batgirl not far behind and hunting them, dragging them out of situations.
They started infighting, and the criminals get a little bolder. Clearly, Batgirl still had some humanity left in her, something that meant she was looking at what her fellows were doing and trying to stop it. It wasn't enough for most of them, people not wanting to risk that the Bat and Starling would catch them, but for a few, the idea that the Colony was splitting apart made them brave.
Then things changed again.
At first, the change was subtle. Batgirl stopped appearing quite as much, no longer haunting the streets and hunting down her fellows. For a brief time, rumours circled that she was dead; killed, or killed again, by the Bat for her defence of criminals while it hunted. Those only lasted until she reappeared, but they made an impression, and the streets got quieter. Batgirl still showed up from time to time, but it was rarer. Even rarer than it had been at the end of the first Robin's time, somehow.
The second change was that the Bat got less violent. Starling was still something to fear, the little shimmers of blue whenever he moved a warning to run, but the Bat was almost calmer. It still hunted night after night, but fewer people ended up in hospital for broken bones and serious damage because of it. Starling calmed, too, after a few more weeks. Both were dangerous, and criminals still feared them; but it was less dangerous than it had been. Less likely to end up in serious trouble because of a crime.
No-one could figure out why, but the city as a whole breathed a sigh of relief. The Bat may be a nightmare, with its strange partners and stolen child, but it was very much their nightmare, and no-one had wanted to try and stop their rampage- especially not when it was the fault of a man now dead that they were storming the city so violently.
Three months later, and there were two new Birds.
Like before, the first person to meet them was the Commissioner. Unlike before, there was no Bat in sight.
The smaller one was easily recognisable; Robin, in his brightly coloured costume. There were some slight differences to the old ones, the costume having pants and longer boots, the marking's a mix between Starling's domino and lines more like Batgirl's, with one long line trailing down his cheeks and two shorter ones either side. His hair feathers were the shortest of all of them, so much so that at first Gordon mistook them for hair, with a faintly oily sheen.
But of all the differences that made it clear that this was a new Robin, the most obvious were the wings. His tail was different too, more pointed than the previous Robin's wedges, but the wings were the more obvious difference. Robin One's wings had looked reasonably solidly structured, and brilliantly bright, while Robin Two had shared the brightness and seemed heavier, the impression helped by the way he used them as weapons sometimes when people got too close.
Robin Three's wings looked fragile. Sure, all of the Colony's wings did, in a way, likely from the hollowness of the bones that would let them fly. But something about the way this Robin's wings sat at his back made it look like they could barely hold his weight, smaller in comparison to him than his predecessors, and the bones along the top seemed… almost too thin to function. And worse were the feathers. They looked thin, and the colours were pale and washed out rather than the normal Robin-vivid. Sometimes Gordon swore he could see light passing through them, like they were translucent.
All that, combined with this Robin's pale skin, made him look sick.
It made it surprising that he was out there without the Bat looming over him, at least until you looked at the second new bird.
This one was tall, a sort of bulking that looked like the Bat did, but surprisingly normal. Rather than the odd costumes the rest of the Colony donned, he could practically pass for any civilian on the street, with a costume made up of jeans and combat boots, a shirt and a jacket with a hood. It was obviously armoured, but it still looked fairly normal. Take out the wings and the domino markings, and he could probably blend in with the normal Gotham crowd.
Other than the bat shape displayed proudly on the front of the shirt, at least.
This one's colour theme was a deep and brilliant red, backed by the black of the main outfit. His hair feathers, covered by the hood, were slightly longer than Robin Two's had been, dark red at first but shimmering whenever they caught the light. His wings were the same, fire-like, and instead of the stiffer feathers of the other Birds these were small, almost more like down than feathers, while his tail had the same long feathers as his hair, in a wedge shape. When they caught the light, they almost looked like they were on fire, rather than being shimmering feathers, and the effect with his dark costume was striking.
Between the shape of the wings and tail, miraculously returned, and the markings- a bright red like a blood splatter, in a familiar pattern- it was obvious who this was. Or at least who he had been.
It also became obvious that the two had crept out against orders, given the way the Bat and Starling hurried towards the rooftop and fluttered around them when they arrived. Robin Three curled away a little, seemingly wide-eyed at the attention and fearing their reactions, while Robin Two- Phoenix, Starling called him when he landed, and if that wasn't incredibly fitting- stepped forward and jutted his chin out in a challenge to the pair, his wing shifting to fit against Robin's back.
Gordon got out of the way at that point, in case they started fighting, but all that happened was some sharp conversation before they split up; Robin with the Bat, and Phoenix trailing Starling.
This new Robin came out less than the previous ones did, lending precedent to the idea that he was sick in some way. Or just weaker than the rest of them, maybe. His strategy in fights was a lot more like the first Robin's, staying out of the way until he could get in a hit, but this one used weapons more than the others did, save the Bat itself. He had a preference for staying well out of the way of the main combat, to the point of finding perches above the entire thing and moving around whenever they got too close, and like with the previous iterations people didn't really try to hit him; the rule continued that if the Bat didn't get you, Starling would, and this one also had Phoenix who seemed more than happy to embody the violence the Bat had had during those few months after the Joker incident.
No-one tried to touch this Robin. Especially no-one tried to take him. The only warning they'd get was the fire of Phoenix's wings, and even then, that wasn't enough.
The Bat hovered around this Robin more than it had the previous, too, so it wasn't like many got the chance to try and hit him. But if the Bat wasn't around, then Robin was in Phoenix's shadow, darting around like the first Robin used to with the Bat, while Phoenix smiled softly at him and led him around Gotham.
It was also the slow start of the Colony using more weapons.
The Bat had always had its own tools, but for the most part, the only thing the Colony used consistently were a strange kind of throwing knives, machined into the shape of the bat on their chests that the public called Batarangs. The newest Robin was the start of that changing; he still used the batarangs more often than not, given his tendency to stay far away from fights, but he also carried a collapsing bo staff that he used on the rare occasions he ended up in the middle of something.
Starling was the next to pick up a weapon, a pair of escrima that hummed with electricity whenever he got particularly mad. Batgirl followed with a similar choice, a pair of tonfa with slightly longer reach than Starling's escrima. They didn't seem to be electrified, but it didn't stop her being dangerous with them.
The Bat took up no weapons at all, sticking to its batarangs and claws and the way it moved in the shadows, and while Phoenix was the same at first, eventually he started appearing with a chain whip, using it less to keep his distance and more to close the distance, reeling people in to fight.
Even with that change, though, the newest Robin was on the streets less than his predecessors, and when he was, he was rarely without a partner. If it wasn't the Bat, it was Phoenix, and if it wasn't Phoenix, it was Starling. The weapons made them no more dangerous than they had been; it just acted as a sign that the Colony was starting to change again. Perhaps they'd decided that more weaponry would have kept Phoenix's Robin safer for longer. Perhaps it was just a side effect of Robin Three's sickness; he used weapons to keep himself away from fights, and the Colony had followed suit.
Things settled again, for a time. Robin was out on the streets less, as was Batgirl. Phoenix and Starling provided the main source of backup for the Bat, spreading across the city and searching for criminals. Occasionally, the stranger criminals- Rogues, some called them, giving them a name just as they'd given the Colony one- would break out of their prisons to cause trouble; Scarecrow, who's gasses brought fear to the city in the same way that the Colony brought it to criminals. Riddler, who delighted in trying to trap and trick those he considered stupider than he, as if they were some kind of animal in a zoo. Bane, an outsider who wanted nothing more than to break the Colony- to see them scattered and bleeding. Poison Ivy, whose hatred of the city's rich, and the companies around them, filled her domain with unnatural plant life and a strange green malice. Two-Face, and his games of pairs.
There were so many of them it was almost easy to forget all their names, even as the Colony circled the city to drag them back to prison whenever they escaped. There were rules to it all; the Colony wouldn't hunt those who weren't trying to cause harm, so sometimes, an escape would happen and it would be silent for weeks. Some were rarely brought back in at all, instead forming an uneasy alliance with the Colony, like the Penguin who seemed to want nothing more than to run his little empire in the city, or Croc, who lurked in the sewers with the occasional sighting, apparently content to guard his territory and escort people out of it. Croc was even known for speaking with the Colony, sometimes; most often Starling and his chirping tones, but sometimes Phoenix as well.
It became another of Gotham's unspoken rules. If you didn't cause too much trouble, the Colony would leave you be- though they'd still chase you if they saw you after a breakout, for the sake of keeping the city safe.
Most people had learned from what happened to Batgirl. No matter how glad they were that the Colony made Gotham safer, they discouraged their kids from ever trying to help them. They'd just be taken home, most likely, but there was always the chance that they wouldn't be, that Robin would take a liking to them, and that they'd be stolen away like Batgirl was.
Which is why it was such a surprise- such a nightmare- to see a young teen in purple begin roaming Crime Alley.
As with everything around the Colony, it was hard to tell exactly what happened, how things came to be. But parts of the story could be put together.
Robin and Batgirl were patrolling together, an unusual pair. Robin usually haunted the Bat for his patrols, or followed around Phoenix when he lurked in Crime Alley. Batgirl liked to wander with Starling, when she was out, chittering in his steps just as she did when he was still Robin. But instead, the two of them were paired up, wandering around; sometimes Batgirl seemed to try bringing Robin into a sort of game across the rooftops, a dance back and forth like she did with Starling, only to stop when Robin had to pause for breath and start cooing anxiously over him. They were on the edge of the Alley, apparently taking over for Phoenix who had been spotted with the Bat further downtown.
There was a girl in purple running around the Alley too, that night, in a home made costume with a hood, blonde hair sometimes spilling out from underneath.
Batgirl spotted her first, but Robin was the one to approach her, dropping onto the rooftop behind her. His appearance gained a shout, then the sound of a brick hitting flesh, then people quickly vacated the area at the sight of Batgirl lunging forward, a piercing shriek echoing from her lips.
No-one was around to see what happened next, and no-one quite knew what to expect. People who hurt Robin- especially this Robin, so pale and small and thin, so obviously sick and vulnerable but still out on the rooftops whenever he could be- were always left in hospital, but the attacker hadn't ever been a kid before. The Colony took kids to the police, or for kids that ran around trying to be heroes, took them home. But the girl had attacked Robin.
Which was why it was such a surprise to see her out and about only a couple of days later, lurking at the edge of the Alley. It was even more of a surprise for people to see Robin and Batgirl drop down next to her and start talking.
There was no sign of violence. No sign that they were going to start fighting. Robin didn't seem afraid of her at all, and while Batgirl hovered a little closer than she normally would, it didn't seem hostile. They just lingered there for a while, apparently talking, before taking off.
But possibly most strangely of all, Batgirl and Robin didn't lead the girl home.
The purple vigilante- Spoiler, as she started introducing herself, more confident now- didn't stop coming out. Robin and Batgirl didn't stop meeting her, either. Sometimes is was Robin alone, sometimes Batgirl, and occasionally both, but often enough at least one of the two could be seen with her, patrolling the Alley and helping her out.
The girl had a target, that much was clear, and it was just as clear that Robin and Batgirl were working to help her with it. On a few rare occasions, one of the others would appear; Phoenix, wandering in their shadows. Starling, flitting between them and filling the air with accented English and happy chirps. The Bat itself, once, lurking in the shadows and not saying a word, just watching as Robin and Spoiler darted into a fight; Spoiler dropping into the centre, Robin perched above and sowing trouble.
The Bat led them both away, after, one wing outstretched around them both to herd them off while they talked, and the few that remembered the old stories of Batgirl's appearances shuddered.
A few weeks after Spoiler had first encountered the Colony, a villain named Cluemaster is taken down. The Alley knew of him, a little; fairly harmless except when he wasn't, Arthur Brown was suspected of being a minor villain that did what he did for no real reason except because he could. He'd been in and out of jail a few times, caught by the Colony or by the police.
This time, Spoiler took him down, Batgirl on one side, Robin perched above with batarangs. They'd dropped the man off with the police together, then fluttered up to the rooftops, Batgirl stretching out her wing to Spoiler before helping her up.
A few people in Crime Alley remembered that Arthur Brown had a daughter. A few people recognised the voice that was behind that mask. Those people watched as Robin lingered around Spoiler, seeming somewhat enthralled, while Batgirl pulled her under her wings and took both of them away, and wondered.
Spoiler stopped appearing, after that. No-one quite knew why; perhaps, with her quest over, she'd decided to hang up the cape. Or perhaps the Bat and Batgirl had taken her home and told her to stop, and she'd actually listened.
No-one knew. A few people in the Alley were just glad that Stephanie Brown hadn't met the same fate as the girl who became Batgirl.
The next member of the Colony appeared out of nowhere.
Not that most members of the Colony didn't- of all of them, only Batgirl had a known origin, and it wasn't like anyone knew who she was before- but aside from the Bat, all of the new appearances had been kids. To the point that some people speculated that they were the Bat's kids, somehow, despite their bird-like appearance, while others claimed that they were taken like Batgirl was, only these children were stolen from neglect or death rather than taken away because they'd claimed their way into the Colony and refused to leave. Either way, they'd all been children.
This one broke that pattern.
A tall man, with pale skin. Not quite as broad as the Bat was, as Phoenix was becoming, but close. The costume he wore was mostly black, with red lines running up the inner arm from wrist to elbow, and a dark red chest piece with a black bat stamped in the centre. He wore a similar red hood to Phoenix over his hair feathers, though slightly deeper, casting more of his face in shadow. The domino was more like Starling's, but just as red as Phoenix's, with lines running down his nose to split at his bottom lip into two, which ran along his chin and halfway up his cheeks.
The red colouring continued with his feathers, though not as dark as Phoenix's. They didn't shimmer, either, appearing as a solid but bright red rather than the fire-light that Phoenix's mirrored. His hair feathers were short, similar to Starling's, while both his wings and tail had the longest feathers of any of them, with some near-black patches scattered across their span.
He was also the first one to appear with weapons, rather than picking them up later. Even Robin had only picked up his bo staff after a few weeks on the streets, apparently deciding that he needed a way to deal with closer opponents that didn't put him at risk of being hit. This new one carried a bow on his back, with two quivers of arrows- one on the opposite side of the bow, the other against his leg- as well as a brace of knives across his chest. Somehow, none of this got in the way of his wings, as if they were specifically designed to sit exactly within easy reach while not causing problems.
The Bat introduced him as Hawk, and the man had simply nodded, lingering in the Bat's shadow under his wings until Phoenix and Starling appeared. Only then had he shifted out, allowing the Commissioner to see his entire costume, and gone over to them, allowing the older Birds to tuck him into their wings as best they could instead, Starling chirping fussily while Phoenix just watched him with a careful gaze.
The two of them were guarding him almost like they did Robin, curling wings around him to keep him close, and from the way that Hawk acted- standing firmly in Phoenix's shadow, watching his back, or else staying in the sky and circling him- he didn't seem to mind at all.
Around this point, people started noticing another new name in the Colony.
Not a person. Just a name. Oracle.
For at least the first few months, there wasn't a figure attached to the name at all. Mentions of them were rare, too; only sometimes would members of the Colony reference them, thanking them in broken English during some of their fights, or on occasion when they were talking to victims. Quick mentions, a passing thought more than anything, but one that stuck around.
No-one knew who Oracle was, or if they were a person. There were rumours of them being an AI, or a spirit bound to a computer, because they always seemed to know exactly what was going on. They could find any piece of information with just a bit of time. The Colony would chirp to them, and they would sing back, and it became clear that they were helping direct the Colony to crimes.
The only point towards them being a person was that they didn't seem to always be available, but that changed, mentions of them growing more and more frequent as time went on.
Sometimes they would even communicate with people in the city. The police got the most of it, finding new digital files signed with their signature, detailing information on cases they were working on, but even regular citizens did.
It would start with a text message, always from an unknown number, labelled simply as 'O'. What the contents were depended, but quite often, Oracle would reach out with information about threats.
'Someone's been following you for three blocks now,' they might say, with a description of the person. 'Do you need someone to call?'
No, and the phone would go silent, letting the person go on with their day. Most people would immediately find someone in their contacts to call and give information to, just in case. Yes, and it would start ringing, an unfamiliar voice coming through the speakers and talking like they were the recipient's best friend, sometimes male, sometimes female, often hard to distinguish.
Either way, a member of the Colony would always pass nearby shortly after, lingering in the area until things were safe again.
Oracle was terrifying, and fascinating. Whatever they were, they were obviously as dedicated to defending Gotham as the rest of the Colony, and it was the only reason they weren't feared more.
Very rarely, people claimed to see Oracle. Claimed that they were a person for sure, a member of the Colony but slightly different. Covered in black, no human features obvious, and with two sets of wings like a dragonfly's rather than the bird or bat wings of the rest of the Colony. They were also the brightest, these people said, going from a deep purple to a brilliant pink, making them stand out in the night even more than some of the brighter Colony members did.
There were no pictures available, though, no matter how much people swore that they'd taken one. The belief was that Oracle deleted pictures of themselves, or perhaps that they couldn't be photographed, an ability for some reason not shared by the rest of the Colony but one perfect for a being that barely seemed to exist.
The next Colony member to appear in person came out nine months later, a sudden gap between the two quick appearances of Robin and Hawk to the strange family.
They were as blank as the Bat was, though much shorter and slimmer. The form was almost feminine, but the way the shadows folded around them meant it was impossible to tell if that was true, especially given the costume. Their wings were similar to the other Bats of the Colony, in between the Bat and Batgirl in both wingspan and length. The ribbing on them seemed thicker than both, though, and the claws were blunter, as though they were filed down.
Other than the wings, the only feature they had were faintly glowing white eyes, which seemed to dim and brighten with their mood. It was the only indicator they ever gave as to how they might be feeling; the rest of them was so blank that it was impossible to tell anything about them, and unlike the rest of the Colony, whose wings would flare or flutter, theirs remained furled tightly behind their back unless they were flying or fighting.
No-one could tell how old they were- if that sort of thing even applied to the Colony. Gotham assumed that they were older than the normal children that the Bat brought into the city, but they didn't seem like they were as old as Hawk or Starling were. The way they lingered in Starling's shadow- or Batgirl, when she was around- was reminiscent of Robin, but they fought more like the older members of the Colony; no weapons, just swift violence and a complete inability to be hit.
And unlike the rest, they didn't make any sound.
None of the Colony were loud. Their ability to appear out of the shadows and travel around the city practically unseen unless they wanted to be seen was legendary. But all of them made some noise, even if it was just the fluttering of their wings as they flew or the sound of them landing on the ground when they dove into a fight. Even the Bat made noises, the squeak of leathery wings or the sound of them flapping when he left an area. And even ignoring that, the Colony liked to talk, little chitters and whistles of their own language or the slightly-rusty English that was used for a few words here and there when the Colony felt like it. The Colony wasn't loud, but they made noise.
This new one didn't have that.
They appeared from nowhere and disappeared just as quickly, without a sound. On the rare occasions they were hit, they made no noise at all, not even a slight grumble of pain- and even the Bat had made pained sounds before. They just kept moving forward, fighting whoever they'd hunted down without slowing. If their fellows in the Colony were around to see them hit, they'd stay still to let them check them over, but never responded to any of the coos and clicks they made. Not that that seemed to stop the Colony from talking to them as if they were holding a conversation, but the lack of reaction when everyone else, even the Bat, would talk to the others in their group, was unnerving.
Even their wings were silent, taking off into the air to chase after their fellows without any sound, no flutter or rush of air at all.
Some people speculated that they were an actual spirit, a genuine ghost even more strange and spectral than the Colony was normally.
They called this one Black Bat, for the way they appeared like a cut out in the world, the only sign of their presence being the white glow of their eyes- and even that wouldn't be enough to save you from them.
Things went quiet again, for a while. The Colony continued to hunt, and crime continued to fear them. The groups didn't change, Black Bat following Starling and Batgirl, Hawk following Phoenix and sometimes being guarded by Starling, Robin following the Bat.
Six months passed calmly.
Then Robin disappeared.
By this point, Gotham was used to such things. They knew what was coming. The Colony became more violent, like they were trying to make up for the fact that their youngest was missing from their patrols. The Bat stalked the streets alone, more horrifying than ever before; there was something more ominous about it now, like it had been when the second Robin was taken and retrieved and changed. There was a rage there, this time, and people wondered if someone had managed to hurt Robin Three. The littlest one, the sickly one, the one that people avoided touching more than any of the others because the rage the Colony would show was even worse than normal.
The one who had been Robin Three returned three months later, after three months of ever-ratcheting fear from the city as they waited for whatever would appear next to calm the rest of the Colony.
What appeared was a horror story.
Mockingbird, the Bat called it. So very similar to that Robin; the same markings on his face, the same oil-slick feathers in his hair, just slightly larger now, the same wing shapes, slightly less fragile. But now they were greyscale, a pale almost-white bright in the darkness. His costume was all the darkness of the rest of the Colony, a lighter grey chest piece but still dim and stamped with the black bat, easy to hide in the shadows compared to the wings. Alone, nothing scary.
The true fear came when he spoke.
The Colony wasn't really one for conversation. When they did speak, it was usually to each other, in that high trilling language of whistles that they shared. Of all of them, Starling was the most chatty, messy English quips and jokes being thrown around at his opponents. The rest might make comments sometimes- except the Bat, or Black Bat- but even then it was usually in response to Starling's voice, rather than their own words. They would speak more to victims, but those were always off, half stumbling things that usually ended with them offering their wings for shelter rather than trying to speak further.
Mockingbird was different. Mockingbird loved to just talk. He still spoke the Colony's language, and happily chattered away with the rest of his family whenever they spoke to him- Robin Three had been quite serious, and Mockingbird was no different- but whenever he was patrolling alone, or fighting? He spoke English. Always English, smooth and practised, perfectly fluent like he'd been speaking it all his life.
The fear came from the fact that it was never the same voice.
It was possible that one of those voices was his real voice, how he would normally sound speaking English. But he didn't do that. He stole voices, all the time. Any word spoken near Mockingbird would be perfectly replicated, in the speaker's own voice, and added into his library for later. Fights became madness because all he had to do was hear a word, and he could mimic it so well that no-one would know who was really speaking.
It wasn't uncommon to hear singing from the rooftops, perfect English that swapped from voice to voice to voice every few words, putting together a mishmash mosaic of people to sing a song. Sometimes the other Colony members might hum along, or trill in their own language as accompaniment.
Mockingbird was a horror that would look you in the eye and steal your voice just for fun, copying your every word perfectly.
Nine months more, and the Bat had another child replacing Robin.
Not a new Robin. Something else.
No-one in Gotham was quite sure if this was better or worse than the last acquisitions. Better, because the Bat wasn't stealing people from the streets? Better, because at least it's likely it's own children that the Bat is raising for this? Worse, because these are children, no matter how deadly they are? Worse, because these could still be stolen children, somehow?
Not that there was anything they could do to stop it, but the fear lingered.
The new one was tiny. The new one carried more knives than should be possible. The new one was a shadow like the Bat and Black Bat, tiny glowing eyes, and little wings that only barely wrapped all the way around them. They couldn't fly, or at least didn't seem able to fly, instead relying on other members of the Colony to pick them up when they travelled, clinging to their fronts with wings pulled tight. This one was very, very violent when startled, but otherwise stayed out of fights entirely, lingering in shadows like Robin Three but not even throwing things in to cause problems.
It was more reminiscent of the early days of Robin One, when he was still small and the Bat kept him out of fights as much as it could. Only on rare occasions did they get into fights, usually when startled, and then they were silent. Not like Black Bat, or the Bat itself. It still made noise. But it didn't cry when hit, it didn't even hesitate, instead just pressing on until the inevitable shriek of another Colony member said that they'd spotted the attack and are there to deal with the threat.
Such an event was usually followed by the Colony member sweeping this little one up, wrapping them in their wings as they cooed and the small figure cried, near silent.
The Bat shadowed them, like it did for all the Robins and like it did with Batgirl, but even on the rare occasions it was away, Mockingbird was there, close behind, and so was Hawk, leaving Phoenix's side to swoop around and guard them from threats.
None of the Colony named them. They all spoke mostly in their own language anyway, but unlike the others, this one got no introduction to the Commissioner, or to anyone who asked. On the rare occasion that a Colony member addressed them in English, it's always with one of a slew of nicknames; little bat, baby bat, bloodling, smallest sibling, stabby, tiny shadow…
Gotham started calling them Batling, eventually. They're obviously the Bat's heir, a true heir, possibly an actual child of theirs by blood, related to them in a way that Batgirl and Black Bat- even with their shared wings- aren't. Batling, because they're smaller and younger, but it's likely that they'll one day be the Bat, or be another Bat ruling over a Colony of their own.
Gotham City is cursed. Intensely so. There are layers and layers of curses there, levelled over one another until they form a massive ball of magic. But the average person in Gotham doesn't know that, because this is just what their city is like. Nothing special. Just Gotham City, and all its strangeness.
No-one magic goes to Gotham. It's not safe there, for them. The City has the Colony, anyway. They don't need any other heroes, magic or otherwise.
Gotta admit, I really like this one. There was something fun about writing a flashback style fic with entirely outsider PoV on the Batfam. No-one knows who these people are, if they even are people, where they came from, or why, but hey it's Gotham so they're just gonna roll with it. They've not eaten anyone so it's probably fine.
Gotham is a weird, weird place... I love it so much.