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Ghost helpline part 20
friend or foe
The man hadn’t been kidding about not wanting to play babysitter. At Damian’s assistance that he didn’t need anything Ziyad took his own piece of cake and waved him off. Not really caring where Damian went.
He debated going after the man and demand answers but didn’t. He needed to know how he had that strip of white in his hair. How? Why? Was this the demons fault? Zatanna had said she reeked of the pits, whatever that meant.
He needed to know. He need to know if there was anyway to help Todd. His brother didn’t deserve the side effects the pit had given him. He’d never known the Todd from before… but well if Todd’s anger could be fixed and Damian had a chance to do it and he didn’t take it.….
He continued walking. The assassin supposed being overlooked as just a child was at time’s advantageous. Even if it made him angry.
The location of her room was practically spoon fed to him, pink taped arrows leading the way to an entire wing of the mansion that was presumably hers.
It was overtly colorful.
Her room was cozy. Damian wasn’t sure what a teenage girls room is supposed to look like. After all Browns and Cassandra’s rooms were probably not the best examples.
Her closet was overflowing with clothes, shoes and accessories. He checked the pockets and found a few switch blades and - guns. Typical self defense items for a woman in Gotham really. Damian opened jewelry boxes and riffled threw accessories. Some he assumed to be enchanted.
He left the closet to check the desk and bookshelf’s for anything incriminating. Ugh. Even the paper was colorful. Thankfully the type writer was black. There were little notes about her brothers things they liked, days they were going to be busy and stuff like that. There was also reference to someone named Jack and someone named Pink. Most likely aliases- he would have to research them later.
Dishes crowded every serface. Honestly how did this huge family not have any servants. The boy grimaced. Pennyworth would never allow a patients room to get this bad.
Well this at least told him one thing. The masters family definitely had something to hide. If they didn’t someone would have been hired to up keep this place!
There were spell books, okay maybe it was just poetry. There was paper slips with symbols loose in her drawer.
Damian pocketed a couple.
There were notebooks filled with languages he didn’t recognize. A lot of it was repeating. It was as if she was practicing how to write. Damian stilled and looked back at the book shelf. The English books were the level of a first grader. And the tomes were filled with grammatical notes. It made him bite his lips together, did she not know how to read?
Whatever. A good portion of the world is illiterate. She could still be a mastermind, this proved nothing.
He moved on to the cream yellow mini fridge. It was covered in glitter stickers and magnets. Notes stuck to the top.
“Hey Vi! Ask Bella if he can contact me about the SBS. We’ve run into an issue with the current shipment - love Red”
Damian took a picture of the note. Good god how many people were involved in all this? Were the masters involved? Did they know their “precious” daughter was a monster?
The little assassin felt his insides squirm at the wording. Weird he hadn’t had a qualms about calling her that before. Why did it suddenly fill him with trepidation?
The fridge was surrounded by pill bottles and glass jars filled with dried herbs. The labels were written in a different persons handwriting . A sigh escaped him.
All right time to check the fridge.
Damian has no idea what demons eat but he doubted it was anything good. Human remains? Blood? Something horrible he supposed. Hopefully something he could use as evidence.
The door opened to reveal…. Liquid vitamins and supplements ??? Well she had been sick recently. Maybe it was a common occurrence? Or maybe she was able to eat what she’s supposed to? And if so why? Was she actually being ethical and kind?
There were glowing green juice pouches. Damian berated himself for not bringing a satchel. The size of the things he could swipe was limited to his pockets. No matter he could get it next time.
He paused. Next time? Since when did he start thinking about coming back here?
—- —- —-
The bathroom in Vlad’s room had steam spill out in waves. Violet had never gotten around to moving her things into her own bathroom. Dad didn’t seem to mind and… it was just easier. It was easier to exist in someone else’s space.
To use dads bathroom and sleep in Billy’s bed and eat Klarion’s food. To exist in a space so lovingly lived in she knew she wouldn’t disappear.
She looked at her natural state in the mirror. Her nose twitched. That boy knew she was a demon, he had yelled it at her when they’d “meet”. And now he was suddenly over to apologize? An Al Ghul apologizing ? And to someone “beneath” them ? How laughable.
She couldn’t find her brush. She ran her claws threw her hair with a frown. The cracks on her body … looked different? Smaller and faded around the edges of her arms. Her fingers were still drenched in black but had taken on a more purple sheen.
There was still a black cracked piece on her chest.
She would have thought the teleportation flu would have made her condition worse but… she looked better? Maybe her medicine really was helping?
She’d have to show her Aunties, maybe Frostbite? There weren’t exactly a lot of people comfortable working on her. Ethier she was a demon, or the wrong kind of demon, or an amputee or a woman of something!
Not that it mattered very few people knew how to treat her condition. And so far it was considered incurable.
The black cracks pulsed painfully. She shifted into her human disguise.
Well time to get this over with. Chances were instead of an apology she was going to receive an offer. And maybe… maybe if Damian wasn’t technically an Al Ghul….. maybe she could….
Violet, Konstelacio, hopeful and sad followed the pink arrows to her room to find a hair brush before having to see the boys face again.
Except she opened the door and his face was already there.
“What are you doing in my room?!”
Note:
Not burying the lead here Bella (Bellatric) is Brett
Can anyone guess what SBS is?
Ghost helpline part 19 Back to Work
Alright so throwing herself off a tall tree hadn’t been the best idea but it had worked! The kid was off her trail, now she’d be able to … spy on him? Stop his evil pan? Alright so she didn’t know exactly what she could do with this information but she would figure it out!
Al Ghuls are dangerous and Robin is an Al Ghul. Batman had to know that! But … did the Wayne’s? Violet had watched a lot of their TV appearances while she was out sick and …Brucie was just that Brucie. Adorable but dumb.
This was the guy who crashed into a tower champagne flutes at his own party! The guy who got drunk and fell off ships! … The guy who sent her flowers and texted dad cat pics. There’s no way he knew just how evil the Al Ghuls were, one of them must have used him for the money. Or maybe his kid was adopted like the rest of them… but then why hide it?
“Uuuughhhhh why does this all have to be so confusing!” Ahhhh! She just wanted to fight something! Having a clear target would be so much easier!
Were the Wayne’s in trouble? Chances were the kid was a master manipulator, a killer trained from birth!
Birth… the statement made Violet feel bad. But it was probably the truth, she remembered those swords, that smug look her gave her during the summons. The look humans get when they think they can kill something bigger than them. The kid was a killer… the same kid that tried to catch her when she “fell”. The same kid that apparently painted, and panicked. And allowed himself to be dragged away by his older brother.
Maybe … maybe …
Knock knock
“Come in!”
Step step cccrreeaakk step step ccccrrreeakk
“Oh, hey Chad.”
This was weird… Chad never sought Violet out.
“Sit down let me look at your legs.”
“Oh! Am I due for a tune up? We can go down to the workshop instead?”
“Stop talking and sit down.”
She sat, igniting a magic circle on her leg. Hearing air escape for a brief moment before her leg popped off and clanged to the floor. Repeating the process with her other leg she took a chance to look at Chad. Her brother seemed …sad?
“You should take better care of yourself.”
“What?”
“I said take better care of yourself, you’re making dad worry.” He tinkered with the metal legs.
“Oh sorry.” Violet had meant to make dad worry, he already had enough on his plate. And now she had even bothered Chad over something simple. If she were smarter she’d be able to keep up with her prosthetics by herself.
“Good. Don’t get sick again. It’s bothersome.”
Right. Bothersome.
She laid back as Chad kept at it. A nap wouldn’t hurt—
Knock knock knock
The person behind the door didn’t wait for a response and walked right in.
“Violet we need to talk.”
“Oh Dandy, me and Chad are already-“
“Done.” Chad left like a wolf was chasing him out.
“Violet,” Dandy aborted a motion to rake threw his hair and sat down instead, “Violet we will be getting a visitor soon, around three or so. That boy is coming over to apologize to you.”
“Oh that’s nice of him.” Oh shit.
“I need you to promise me you’ll be careful if father pushes you two to be friends.”
“Yes yes I know to be careful! No magic no slip ups I-“
A look filtered threw her brothers face, “That’s not what I mean.” Dandy reached over.
Dandy held her hand. They had held hands before, Violet loved holding hands with Dandy and dad. It made her feel safe and warm sure but more than anything it gave her something Violet craved the way other demons craved blood. Hold their hands made Konstelacio feel wanted.
But this… this was different, there was a look in Dandy’s eyes she’d never seen before.
“You know not to trust humans, Violet. You know how awful they all are.”
Violet swallowed, she knew.
“I need you to be careful don’t let your guard down for a moment.”
“But Dandy—“
His grip on her hand hardened, “Promise me Violet. Promise me you won’t trust any human with your heart. They don’t deserve you.”
Violet scooted closer to him, now that statement didn’t make any sense. Her heart?
“… is,” her voice was quite, “Is this about dad and Mr Wayne?”
“Promise me.”
“Dandy—“
“Please. I don’t want to see you get hurt again. Any of you. I don’t think I could take it.”
Oh Dandy was crying. She’d never seen her biggest big brother cry before…
“Okay I promise.”
They hugged like it was the first time all over again. Like someone was going to reach out and snatch her out of his arms.
—- —- —-
Violet stayed in bed with her one remaining knee up. She didn’t know what to think anymore. Humans are bad sure but not all of them.
The humans in Fawcett were kind. And she had meet Jack when he was still a human. A lot of magical creatures started off as humans and and … and Mr Wayne was nice.
He sent her flowers when she was sick. And talked to her sweetly whenever she picked up the phone. He made daddy happy. Why can’t Dandy see that?
She levitated her prosthetics, one at a time, on to the bed. Their flight was wobbly, they were the heaviest thing she could carry.
Putting her legs back on she felt a pull. A tug.
She spared a look at the clock, 1:33pm.
Tug tug tug - she had enough time.
She stood up, “Alright then back to work.”
A second layer and she was gone.
Ghost Helpline part 17 - Aftermath
Violet spends the next week stuck inside. It wasn’t bad. Dad washed, clothed and feed her teleportation sickness away. She sleeps in his bed and he sends her to sleep with fairytales. Violet doesn’t know what she’s supposed to learn from these stories, it’s nice tho.
Violet doesn’t remember being a baby, maybe she never was one? This softness with her new dad leaves her wanting. Violet would like to beige that if she ever was a baby that she had been held like this - as if she was something precious.
Funny enough her bed rest has her brothers divided. Violet lies about and blames it all on a summoning gone wrong. Brad doesn’t correct her.
It leaves half of her brothers to tiptoe around her as if she’s going to go feral at any moment. The other half yell, they’re angry. Konstelacio isn’t sure which she hates more.
Brad shuts himself away from everyone except Chad and Ziyad.
Billy hugs her and tells her everything about his mission. Almost everything he dances around something. Something important, he calls Batman a dick twice. It makes her feel better about lying.
Klarion gives her an amulet and drags Charles over to tell her about their night out.
Dandy … Dandy doesn’t take it well.
“SOMEONE should have been with her!”
“Brad SHOULD have called me!”
“We should be HOME! Not here with all these these … !”
“You know how I feel about humans.”
Every days another fight.
Konstelacio sneaks out the window.
—- —- —-
It’s been a week since the commotion on the Watch Tower. Six days since they started developing an injectable cure for Vampires Fog. Five days since his talk with Tim. Four days since his kids have begun to mercilessly tease him over more frequent phone use. Three days since he read Nightwings report on the pink vampire. Two days since Constantine had contacted him with an update. They had some more info. One day since he called Clark asking him to schedule a JL meeting.
Six hours thirty two minutes and 54 seconds since Vlad last texted him.
Bruce debated sending him another cat meme to hurry up the process.
He knew he shouldn’t be worried, apparently his only daughter had gotten the flu. And much like Tim, when they got sick they got really sick.
Bruce sent him- her- them! Bruce sent them flowers. Hopefully she would get better soon. It was painfully obvious that Vlad loved his children and her getting sick had him stressing out.
Bruce debated inviting the Masters family over for dinner.
The kids would bully him relentlessly.
Alfred would love it.
—- —— ——
The entire week has been strange to Damian. For some reason his father has been texting the head of their new neighbors relentlessly, much to his sibling’s amusement. Damian doesn’t understand why father and him suddenly “need” friends. The whole act was a waste of time, Jon was enough friendship he needed anyway.
Damian stalked into the backyards tree line. Today was good day to paint damian thought as he set up his easel. Just a sunny quiet day with no distractions.
Wwhhhooossshhhh!
That, that was probably just some animal on the property. It wasn’t uncommon to see bunnies or cats skittering around the areas of estate that still resembled a forest.
Wwwwhhhhoooshhhh!
Damian followed the sound deeper into the tree line.
Wwwhhhossh!
That didn’t sound like an animal anymore. If anything it sounded like it was coming from above…?
Damian turned his head towards the sky.
It was just a girl. How disappointing, Damian had hoped to find a big cat.
She was sitting on a tree branch, swinging her legs like she had no trouble in the world. Tch- she probably doesn’t. No doubt she’s one of his new neighbors.
Wait … hadn’t she been sick recently? What was she doing out here? What was she thinking climbing that high?!
“Oi! Imbecile what are you thinking? Get down from there! “
Her head whipped around to face him.
He knew that face, he’d drawn it several times for the league files. It was missing the scar and golden eyes. But he knew that face.
He knew that face… Konstelacio ?