So I recently wrapped up writing Angel of the Bat III: Da Pacem Domine, the longest singular piece of fiction I've ever written and what I'm pretty sure is going to go down as my fanfic magnum opus. It's my intention to be done with fanfic writing now, but I am writing little post-mortems on my old, unfinished stories. My opus was, after all, an adaptation of an idea that never came to fruition. If anyone else feels inspired by this or any of the other post-mortems I'm going to write, I only ask that you let me know, because I'd love to read whatever you come up with.
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The Angel and The Mujahid was meant to be a small piece releasing alongside Times of Heresy, but it became apparent not long in that my heart was more so with the other piece. For a long time I meant to come back to this one, but the kick in the pants just never hit me quite the way I wanted to.
Like the Crushed storyline that was coming out while I was making plans for the arc, Gordon Nobili, AKA Lineage was going to appear to be the main villain, with a gang on younger inhumans serving under him. The plan was initially to make it look like the fic would mostly be using Kamala's enemies as the big bads, but we'd also see Slade Wilson (AKA Deathstroke) and his daughter, Rose, serving as bodyguards. Cassandra would have been confused by this, namely questioning why Rose, normally an enemy to her father, was serving alongside him.
Cassandra and Kamala would have overcome Lineage and his underlings in a pretty straightforward fashion, seemingly settling things. But then Deathstroke would have revealed a twist: he too had inhuman lineage awoken by the Terrigen mist, and his power was that he could manipulate the wills of other inhumans around him. With Slade as puppetmaster, he turned Lineage, his underlings, Rose, and an unwilling Kamala on Cassandra all at once, overwhelming her and forcing a retreat.
I'm certain I had the final battle planned out, but it's long since been lost to me. I do know that everyone Slade manipulated came out of it feeling disgusted and freaked out. Slade Wilson leaves me feeling pretty disgusted most of the time, DC may have tried to rehabilitate his image after he slept with a literal underage character, but I am still grossed out by the whole thing, and I wanted to invoke a reminder of that. That may have been a bit heavy for this particular kind of story, so maybe it turned out for the best that I didn't end up finishing this story.
You can probably guess at how things went. Kamala wrestles her will out of Slade's control, very possibly with a similarly conflicted Rose supplying her assistance, and they all turn the tables and beat the hell out of the bastard. All of this before morning, of course, so Cassandra can depart with Sadie's family in time, and with a new friend made… for however long the DC and Marvel universes are inter-mingled.
A little bit of this story's legacy does live on, funnily enough. Sadie's cousin Peter and his wife Charlene were introduced in this story. They never mattered too much over in the main Angel of the Bat stories, but I did keep their names and what little of their characterization I established.
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Again, if anyone wants to use elements of this to tell your own story, I only ask that you let me know. As I said, I'd love to read what someone else comes up with out of my outlines.