"Open it."
A woman in cream stops her stride. Her blazer contrasts beautifully against her umber tones, the fluorescent lights overhead making her appear cooler than her usual tones. Her face is devoid of makeup, but she is meticulously groomed. Her short afro is in a rounded sphere, her brows and lashes shaped to perfection, not a hair out of line. This is Amanda Waller, stalking her hunting ground. Her prey are the villains of Gotham, jailed in her impenetrable facility: Belle Reve.
The guards on either side of the blast-proof door jump to action. They shoulder their rifles, unlocking the cell door and prying it open for the A.R.G.U.S. Director. As one of the most high-ranking individuals in the American Government, Amanda Waller holds leverage that most people couldn't even imagine.
She often has to put that leverage to use. Today is no different.
She enters. The inmate, whispering rabidly to herself, quiets at the sound of Amanda's clicking heels. The Starving Lady, she was called. Sometimes the Chernobyl Vampire. Truthfully, what she was didn't have a name. She was the first.
"Get up," Waller commands the figure in the corner. The small, shadowed silhouette rises, her long, wild hair obscuring her face. Glowing bright, the prisoner's electric blue eyes gaze widely at Waller. The figure steps out of the shadows. Strands of stark white hair brush against her pale arms. She's not wearing the regular orange outfit for inmates or the matching rubber clogs. Her hair shrouds her like a curtain, conveniently covering her more sensitive areas.
No, she stands wearing the only accessory she can't take off: a barred, metal muzzle covering her nose down to her chin with a reinforced chain around the back of her head. It was securely locked and sends a shock through her body whenever she touches the clasp behind her head. Amanda had been sure that the woman would remain buried under Belle Reve for the rest of her unlife.
Amanda didn't expect the perfect villain to fall into her lap, but while reviewing inmates to use for Task Force M, his file ended up in her hands. Dr. Phosphorus was the perfect solution—a never-ending source of radiation to keep Tallulah fed. She needed to eat, and Phosphorus was the closest thing to a buffet for Tallulah. As things stood, Belle Reve was down twelve thousand dollars a year just to pay for some awful mannequin-shaped battery and the amount of power Tallulah guzzled through it. Amanda wanted to let her starve, but her bosses at the time had made it impossible for her to proceed.
The feeding apparatus (that's what she calls it to help her forget) was too close to the uncanny valley for Amanda to grow used to its odd stare, even when Tallulah dressed it in her prison uniform and treated it like it was a person.
Seeing the security footage of Tallulah feeding off it was... unsettling. The way she kissed it like it was alive, the shudder that ran down her back as the energy filled her stomach, the puncture marks her claws left in the silicone torso... it all spoke to the quietly restrained hunger she had inside.
Not only would Dr. Phosphorus aid in staving off the woman's hunger especially on missions, but she would also help him. It hadn't happened yet, but Dr. Phosphorus runs the risk or causing a nuclear melt-down on his travels. Whether he encounters a rector that he affects unknowingly, or an unexpected effect of his powers, having Tallulah nearby should prevent another Chernobyl-level event on their end.
When it comes to the team Amanda intends to assemble, she doesn't want to take any chances. The last few teams she put together had their ups and downs, but this time would be better. She'll pay whatever she needs for good insurance. Rick Flag Sr. needs all the help he can get on this mission.
There's not a snowball's chance in Hell she'd let him fail this mission.
"Queen of the Tangled Web... How nice of you to finally attend one of my tea parties." The inmate hovers gently in the air and gestures as if curtsying, her long hair moving with her. Her wide smile is visible only through the shining bars of her muzzle, like a shuttered blind. "Alas, you've caught me without my tea set. I feel such an ungracious host."
"Tallulah Montgomery. I have an opportunity for you. Something you'll want to take full advantage of." Waller drops a manila folder onto Tallulah's cot. Without breaking their gaze, Tallulah picks it up, then finally looks down at it.
There are a few heavily redacted personnel files. Five different inmates and a General named Richard Bill Flag. No pictures, just blocks of black censors with small strings of letters found between them.
She skims over the other agents. A sewn together bride, a humanoid weasel, a faulty robot, a fish woman... she stops at the last page. Placed in an atomizer... Nuclear catastrophe waiting to happen... This Dr. Phosphorus sounds like just her type. A smile twists her lips, her mind conjuring images of what he might look like. She was finally excited about something, finally leaving this cage... she hopes.
Although Tallulah was an inmate in her correctional center, Amanda knew better than to underestimate the ancient, mutated vampire. Getting yourself involved with an entity as old and wise as Tallulah Montgomery, no matter how demented, was like courting disaster. It was something delicate and volatile—one wrong move and everything blows up in your face. This is precisely why she needed Dr. Phosphorus to get what she wanted out of Tallulah.
Tallulah's bright eyes track Amanda's careful motions. The way Waller steps around her—as though walking on eggshells—has Tallulah cracking up. Her laugh is a dark, wavering thing that makes her sound every bit as insane as she's said to be. There are legends about her madness that cling to the cobblestones on Gotham's oldest streets.
Giggling hysterically, the inmate falls back onto her cot and rolls back, her hands clutching her stomach. She even starts to tear up, the laugh making her ribs feel a ghostly imprint of pain. It was the kind of laugh she hadn't had since she spoke with another person. Tallulah can't seem to remember how long ago that was. Ten years? Twenty?
Her bright laugh might have been beautiful—if not for the madness curling at its edges. Her laugh lasts just a tad too long, sounds just a bit too high, touches on notes that are just slightly off. Giggles dance on the air until she ceases suddenly.
Waller, younger than the beautiful criminal by at least a few centuries, furrows her brows, accentuating her wrinkled forehead. Tallulah is as still as stone, her cooled breath filling the air with something frightening, strong, and ancient. "Are you finished?" Waller asks.
"So many playthings in your toy box... And you're giving little old me a turn with them?" A long, clawed finger lays its tip on her chin, tapping at a slow pace. Her glowing eyes narrow, her tone tightening. "How generous. Quite unlike you, isn't it?"
"Behave, and you get to see the outside world again. All that fun and entertainment you've been missing, you can enjoy it again. But you step one claw out of line and that muzzle stays on permanently. The perks of immortality, huh?" Amanda quirks one eyebrow, her threat hanging heavy in the dark atmosphere between them. Their wills clash, sparks flying like meeting swords.
The two women, both powerful in their own right, face down over the closing file. This was not a draw. Their battle was simply at an impasse, not yet ended. Time will tell who's drawn the most blood, but neither is leaving without injuries.
"One condition, Waller."
"You don't get to make demands."
"Take off this ridiculous muzzle. It conceals the best part of me. My beautiful, fanged smile—won me many a suitor, once upon a time."
"That muzzle keeps my employees alive."
"Oh, please." The smile that rises on her lips is not a nice one. Tallulah's manner is as sharp as her bared fangs. "If I wanted them dead, they would be, muzzle or no."
Amanda sighs, frustrated but resigned. Tallulah won't let this go and it's a considerably small concession. She'll need the muzzle removed to fight but that doesn't mean Amanda has to make it easy.
"You'll work for General Flag. You want it off? Give him a reason."
General Richard Flag Sr. knew he was receiving another operative with special powers, an energy vampire of sorts, but he had no idea when. He also didn't know what kind of mayhem she could cause in the right circumstances. Controlling an entity as ancient and as cunning as Tallulah, one must hold all the right cards. Even Amanda struggled to hold the woman's leash, which is how Dr. Phosphorus became an important piece of the puzzle.
Amanda moved tactically, setting up her pawns and establishing control long before she introduced the wild card. Soon, the pieces will all come together.
The Osprey sits peacefully on the black top, the scenery motionless until the pilot starts the rotors. The blades slice through sunlight as they start rotating. Task Force M is already on board—General Flag had made sure of that.
It's the perfect time to introduce their last member. Tallulah's electric eyes take in the landscape as they cross the tarmac, three guards on each side of her. They may as well be statues for all the attention she pays them.
Tallulah's platinum hair trails behind her. Her tongue flicks at the air, tasting the scents it carries. Sweat, gun powder, diesel, metal... but something else lingers deeper than the rest. It dances on her tongue and stings her lips.
The ramp to the Osprey was still lowered, so they use it to climb into the cargo hold.
Tallulah wore the clothes she had on her when Batman left her tied up at the gates: A long, black dress, flowing and perfectly fitting for a Vampire bride. She's barefoot still, her feet carried over the inky black ground by her dainty, levitating form. She wears her hair like a robe, the silken white strands covering her in a curtain of pearls and shining whites.
Inside, Task Force M sits neatly against the Osprey's walls, muscles tense as they await their take off. Her gaze skims over the car, locking onto the grizzled, gray-haired man in charge. If she wants the muzzle off, he's the one to charm. And lucky for her, she has his full attention. His stare is sharp, wary, the look of a man who's seen too much.
"Seriously? Another one?" He mutters, his voice is like sandpaper dragged over steel. He recognizes her for what she is: a predator. He's careful around her, but the look in his deep brown eyes says I am too damn old for this shit.
The grizzled old man wears long sleeves and cargo pants, his style unapologetically militaristic. His fist clenches around a handle hanging from the ceiling, his body coiling as he measured her. His readied stance and wise eyes dare Tallulah to test the waters. She daren't, not at a time like this.
"Trying to figure me out, General?" Tallulah purrs with a half-lidded gaze, lips pursing. "Careful you don't stare too deeply into the abyss... You might fall in."
His eyes drag over her shivering form, adding to the apprehension winding in her gut. Her smile quirks dangerously. She opens her deadly lips to run her tongue along her fangs. One of them cuts her, a droplet of her blood staining her lips before she licks it away, laughing. She watches him all the while, looking for a reaction, a weakness.
His pupils dart to her lips. He knows better than to let his guard down, the peril around her coloring the atmosphere
Cat and mouse was as ancient a game as there could be and she had been playing for much longer than Flag.
"This is Tallulah Montgomery. Blood-sucker turned energy leech. Older than dirt. Dead as a doorknob, yet almost unkillable—unless you get creative. Staking, beheading, standard Vampire stuff." The thick folder under Amanda's arm changes hands.
"Right." The gray-haired man recalls their conversation from earlier about the prospective talent. "The vampire."
"Age is but a number, death is but a door." Tallulah cheekily titters, her smile widening as she lets out her cackles. She takes a step closer to Flag, the cool skin of her arms just inches from touching his chest. He leans back, but his feet stay planted. Her sharp teeth gleam in the sun, the rays streaming through the window. "And all that nonsense about turning me to dust? Forget it. I'll be a perfect little darling."
The director's gaze narrows, her fuse shortening every minute she's around the older woman. "It goes without saying that you shouldn't believe anything she says."
Flag nods. He gestures vaguely to her muzzle. "And the cage?"
"She feeds on living creatures through her mouth, lips, and tongue. It's the only way she can drain energy." Waller crosses her arms, the thought of Tallulah feeding sending chills down her spine. "If she so much as licks you, you won't have to worry about your retirement plan."
"Come, now. You make it sound so dirty... Feeding is intimate. Sensual. A dance of breath, teeth, and intention." Her eyes flick back to Flag, lashes dipping. Around her shoulders, her hair drips like liquid moonlight. "Surely you understand intimacy, General?"
Flag doesn't react, not physically. But she hears the way his pulse jumps, if only for a second. She cackles, delighted at the response, and twirls, letting the loose fabric of her dress flare around her bare feet. Small victories.
"I understand a leash when I see one," he finally mutters.
Amanda rolls her eyes, forcing down the snappy remark in the back of her throat. Tallulah's already trying to rattle Flag. It doesn't bode well for the rest of their mission. "She'll do anything to get what she wants—flirt, steal, kill." Her voice is like hot coals on ice, hissing sternly at Flag in warning.
Tallulah's long skirts flutter with her gentle swaying. "You make it sound like far less fun than it is, my dear Amanda."
"Impervious to fire, heat, electricity, radiation—"
"But not boredom," she lilts melodically, spinning to a weightless pirouette. "Get to the fun bits, will you?" Arms stretching above her head, she leans all the way back, her leg lifting behind her.
"And, as I'm sure you've noticed, she's completely batshit."
"Such vulgarity doesn't suit me," Tallulah sneers at Waller, sticking her caged nose into the air. Her voice a whisper of wrath, she gazes into the distance as though staring at some unseen place. "They called me the Patron Saint of Madness—the hunger that lingers, the scent of blood in a single drop of rain..." Her words linger, a melody hanging in the air like wind chimes swaying in an unseen breeze.
Flag rubs his temples, a frustrated exhale leaving his lips. "You said you'd fly her in if it became necessary."
"It became necessary when I found out your charted flight path included taking you over eight different active reactors—with him in the hold."
The energy shifts.
Cold, playful mischief melts into something sweeter. What was a frigid, oppressive atmosphere becomes light and cool.
Her mask falls.
Honest, sudden shock graced her face, along with something softer. Fonder. She's still for the first time.
The man sits there, glowing radiantly, and pretends not to look at her while she hovers in the air. He is burning, not metaphorically, not figuratively.
Green fire licks his blackened skeleton, melting into the air, leaving a singe on the tip of her tongue.
Tallulah's loose, dangerous demeanor had become something lighter, brighter. An airy kind of cool thrums around the vampire, her stare softening with something like affection.
Interest. Wonder. Longing.
"Oh, my." The low sound of appreciation leaves her unbidden, steeped in awe. She steps forward, her hand swaying in the air, so close to reaching for him but not quite.
"They never told me how devastatingly handsome you'd be, my darling Dr. Phosphorus." He doesn't say a word, but Tallulah's vampiric hearing picks up on his subtle gulp. "You smell... ravishing. Like a dying star on the rim of the abysss."
Tallulah hovers closer to the glowing man, her skirts whispering around her calves. He's a fluorescent shade of green, flames rising off his bare skull. He looks like a blackened skeleton encased in noxious green resin. His rib cage is on display, an open lab coat covering his shoulders and back while leaving chest out. Beneath it, he wears charcoal slacks and black leather shoes.
His voice is dry as ash. "And you reek of trouble."
Her earlier flirtations have vanished, leaving something genuine in their wake. She's mesmerized. "What better fun is there?"
He grunts noncommittally, glancing away. She dips her head to meet his eyes once more. His gaze is unreadable, just two empty, glowing green sockets, but she can feel the heat in them.
Her grins grows ever sweeter, sugar and honey dripping from her words. Her eyes seem to pierce him, unblinking and wide. Tallulah wanders closer, placing herself in his space willingly. Her teeth reflect his green light making them look like mystic pearls. "My sweet, radiant man, you look like a toxic candied apple. It makes me want to—"
"Bite?" He finishes for her, his invisible brow rising. "I figured."
Her smile grows, pleased at his interjection. The laugh bursts from her chest, a captive freeing itself from the cage of her lungs. "Hehehehe! And here I thought you were all smoke and no fire."
The skeleton exhales, like a gust of fumes from the deepest parts of a nuclear reactor. "And here I was hoping for a quiet flight."
"Oh, don't be cross..." Tallulah croons in genuine dismay. Her voice softens, her whisper as light as feathers drifting in the air. Her smile returns, only gentler. "I only meant that you make my lips burn, my tongue rot, my lungs fill with your smoke... My heart feels like it beats again..."
He doesn't respond right away. Some part of him wants to lash out, to push back. But another part—a tiny spot in his heart that hadn't yet burnt out—wants to believe her. Wants to reach out, to touch her with the softness of a lover's caress, but he doesn't. He can't.
"That's... comforting," Phosphorus rasps, his voice entrenched in sarcasm.
Agape, the general stares at the two monsters, then rounds on Amanda.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" Flag's frustration comes out as a harsh whisper, brown eyes begging for a solution.
Waller slides a tiny key into Flag's palm. Her voice drops to a hush, secretly whispering, "Keep them in line. She's obsessed with Phosphorus? Good. Use that. You'll need all the leverage you can get." And with that, she turns on her heel, striding down the ramp with her guards in tow, leaving Task Force M one misfit richer.
No one speaks.
Then—
"Sit." Flag's voice is edged with warning. Tallulah doesn't budge, her wide, tender eyes locked onto the monster in front of her. Flag moves to stand beside her. A wide, calloused hand closes over her wrist—
She snaps to face him. Her electric eyes burn, mouth parting slightly, just enough for her long, pointy canines to glint in the light. But Flag does not flinch. He pulls, and she lets him. Drops into the seat opposite Phosphorus, dress pooling around her like spilled ink.
"You sit there and behave," Flag says lowly. "Do that, and maybe we talk about the muzzle."
"Oh, I'll behave. Wouldn't want my leash to become a noose, now would we?" Her cheery giggle rings through the air, lingering long after it should like an eerie, distant bell.
Hours pass, and somehow the vampire is the only one that doesn't grow bored. She finds it mesmerizing to watch the flames lick up Phosphorus' arms, disappearing under his lab coat only to reappear on his head.
Soon, they should be touching down in the place where they're going. Of course, only the General has been briefed with the details. The rest of them are just inmates, not trusted with any information of note, and have to trust they aren't being led astray.
The Bride, a woman of tall stature and a strong, lean build, tilted her head to mutter, "She's tiny." Her skin, mismatched and stitched together, was shades of blue and green.
The woman next to her, Nina, looks up at the large woman through her fish tank of a helmet. "She looks so... harmless," Nina says, though her tone betrays her uncertainty. Her gills blow bubbles as she scans the unfamiliar monster. Their robot friend hasn't moved an inch since the newest monster joined them.
Cowering away from Tallulah, the brown-furred Weasel pulled against his seatbelt. She can scent his deep, instinctual fear.
The vampire giggles while she listens to their whispers that blend in with the voices in her head, covering her mouth with her clawed hand. Her fellow monsters have no idea how harmful she can be.
A leash is only as strong as the hand that holds it, after all.
A/N: I was like "might just fuck around and write a new fic" then I did... I just wanted more media for this character and for this show and I didn't want to wait for someone to post it! Please let me know what you think in the comments~ ^^ I'd love to know your thoughts