Teen Titans and DC Spook Fans – United! October Dread Festa -Snippets Halloween Specials

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OCTOBER, BITES! – Nip One: Son of The Dead Overlord

This goes to the next fic; when the heroes are a bit older, Damian still hates All Hallows with a passion, until he gets bitten by a vampire and has to break the curse. Damian becomes a hunter, but is that really how it goes in pure fiction? Find out!

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Showing his prowess on the roof tops of this city could frighten anyone as long as he wasn't losing his touch. At sixteen, Damian wasn't much a fan of this month in particular. In fact, he'd hated it from the first days he'd come stay with Wayne and the family at age ten.

The AL Ghul clan didn't celebrate holidays that involved ghosts and monsters from fairy tales. He had a beast creature as his companion, that was enough magic and his best friend was a sorcery master of the dark arts. Zatanna had even told him that ghouls were real, just not from their universe.

Even Dick Grayson, his Robin gone Nightwing and Batman before – he had lived through a demon uprising, a minor possession by a fallen half deity and of all things…his kids were elemental warriors, gifted by the old gods.

He recalled a few Halloween nights years prior, when Klarion the Witch boy had run the show. ( Older arc, he turned all the kids into monsters who were trick or treating. Damian's hate is pretty prevalent throughout.)

He could respect those whom weirded power. Yet the supernatural phenomenon that was unproven by anyone else??

Unthinkable.

He went after the latest; a serial murderer who was pale and looked ready to bring in the excuse of being mentally unsound as it screamed like a bat. It flew out of his sight, into the shadows as Damian drove himself after the scent of blood on its teeth

Fangs, which made him think it an experimental gone horribly wrong.

"Langston must be behind –

He was not sure what pulled him to fall, his cape extending as his grappler saved the boy, the bat screaming adult was wearing a black goodie, beside another on the fire escape across from the space he was currently dangling off of. Landing with a plot on to the opposing space, the other hooded freak was taller, the perp was bleeding through his mouth as it plopped, right onto the metal frame.

"Are you going to cease this useless hunt, criminal? Are you too also involved in aiding these killings, I will not –

~ You, you flit yet flounder to realize what we are…~ The taller spook spoke in a hissed tone. ~ Come closer…if you wish to learn, little hopeless. ~

Damian growled and swung himself over, the mist covering the form, now coating the bars of the escape as the boy latched out, now feet up from where he didn't want to go splat down below.

The clawed hands, pale as chalk, gripped his wrist, preventing the boy from falling as he was lifted to safety. ~ He listens. ~ It praised in a purr. ~ Ah, good. You may be able to help -

"Help yourself to my kick in your face!!" The kid swung out of the beast's grip as he allowed that, then fled to hop off and glided out of view. Damian held onto the railing as his arm felt tender. It was just his grip, he wiped his brow. Nothing more, as Damian headed back to their rendezvous to go home.

All the while, the air temperature had begun to rise. Even when it was like ice just before, so he shivered, not exactly knowing what to think of who he'd just fought.

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Damian returned to his friends and family, to the sanctuary of the cave as the bat's above started to chatter on so very, very loudly.

"This is a first." Wally, Djinn and Zatanna all smiles back as Alfred led them into the cave. "Master Damian, your teammates have arrived to view the the picture you've requested."

"Monster horror, we got every edition!" Wallace winked as Zatanna smiled, Djinn twirling over before seeing the boy's bruised wrist abd gasping. ~ Where did you receive that cursed mark, Damian?? It must be cleansed, right away.~

He checked the skin there as it was nothing he'd seen before, not since Roku decided to come after Dick on his shift in Cali. ( Older arc.)

"I was fighting a serial murderer and he had a friend. The man was pale, strong and could glide on his cape."

"C- c- cape!"

Wallace's teeth chattered away. "Dude! He was pale, had super strength and flew. With a cape."

"Yes." Damian frowned and rubbed his wrist, looking up at the African American hero. "That is what I said. Why?"

"Dami…" Zatanna watched as Djinn used her ability to dampen the course's effects.

"We don't know how to say this carefully, but…you…were marked by…a Vampire. That's a mark they leave on their victims when they haven't given up their claim on them."

Damian scoffed, searching their faces before his eyes dipped to the mark. Grinding his eyes shut, he screamed. Shouting, making the bats scatter again as Alfred got out a special incense to calm them as it burned out that time later.

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Bruce had his jaw in his chin, opening it to say something, then stopped while his sixteen year old terror was miserable by the day.

"It…we can fix his arm, remove the curse?" Tim asked from the side chair in the man's study. Bruce grumbled, not speaking as Damian's pacing began to gnaw at his concentration.

"We have no real choice, Timbo." Jason flickered and eye at what he thought was a bat outside, but a bird. He was on edge. "Vamps. And I just got Dick out of his little simulation - you think being a head Vampire of a place CALLED BLUD - HAVEN, what's there to know?"

"That was a trick by a madman." Damian finally huffed. "This is not a false vision. I'm marked for death! I don't even know where…how…"

"Breathe, kiddo."

"No, Todd!" Damian snapped at his older brother. "You were a zombie, yet you never touched a brain stem from the skull if your victims. I…I'm going to have to fight a night crawling nymphomaniac. A gutsy idiot…" Dami sat down finally, Bruce getting his word back in. "We can keep the cave on lock-in. If you need protection, I have other mystical options - ."Bring the swindling codfish in and, I won't care if I do have my body drained by a murderous leech!" Dami ran out of the room, Bruce not getting up as he sighed. "Tim, have Zatanna on standby. Go get him out of his own head soon…" Bruce grumbled and leaned into his hands as they latched to one another in a mock prayer.

"Bruce. He's been cursed. You saw –

"I don't see what you can see, it's something that's not entirely out of our hands. But he still will try to get even-

The cage that was the manor turned to static. The heroes held their ears as Damian flipped out of the way, a dark cluster of shadows dragging him back upstairs.

"Shit! Shit…. I told you! The freak wants him badly!!"

"BRUCE." Zee watched as Wally sped up to deter the shroud a bit longer. "They got past our walls, we have to –

Bruce was already up, his eye on a bat rang as he tossed it, dead aim into the shroud as it transformed.

"Show who you are and let go of my partner." Bruce rose, annoyed that Damian was not fighting, but falling down. The kid wasn't petrified, just out of his element. "That curse…" Coughed the teenager as the cloudy cloaked mister turned into his true face….

Bruce stepped back.

~ You took something from my father, long ago. My mentor, Bruce Wayne. ~

That look was unmistakable.

"You're the offspring, the son of the vampire I fought back then." ( the batman VS Dracula.)

~ Dracula, may he rest, is unlikely to rise. I however, deserve something of yours after the time you left us cold and hungry. ~

"You tried to overtake this city, by attacking innocent lives-

~ Criminals cannot be innocent, as you say. Death is the only way for them. ~

"Father, who is this? How do you…" Damian remembered as Tim dragged off and pulled up a file of Dracula, the king of vampires from before any Robin had joined the scene.

"You won…you won, so we cannot owe you any sort of retribution." Dami exclaimed as the rest held their breaths.

~Ah, you think so? ~ Cackled the night walker, softly ~I believe a duel may prove us wrong; you and I, we shall fight and if I win, you're to become one if us. As desired by my father's wishes. ~