Mask of Glass

Ch 2

Previously::: The attack eventually did come. A large and heavy figure jumped onto Talon's back and stabbed a knife through his heart...

That was how his training began.

***Five years later***

Batman could feel himself going insane. The owls had trapped him in their infernal maze. He'd lost track of how long he'd been wandering in there, there wasn't really anything to judge the time by anyway.

Everything everywhere Batman looked was the same bright white, that in and of itself was almost enough to drive him mad... almost.

Wherever he went in the maze, no matter how many turns he took, Batman always seemed to end up back in the same place. A large fountain sat there and the clear, fresh water mocked Batman's thirst. At first he thought better of drinking from it, but after a while he eventually gave in to his thirst and drank.

That was definitely a mistake. As soon as he swallowed the water Batman's vision blurred with images. People that he knew floated around him, distracting him and blurring the lines of what was real and what was not.

Batman knew he was completely defenseless. He didn't have his utility belt, he was fatigued, and to top it all off he was hallucinating. Naturally, this was when the court chose to strike.
—

"Your target is in the maze. Kill him." Grandmaster said gruffly.

"Keep in mind your last punishment for insubordination. If you refuse to kill again, your punishment will be far worse." William Cobb, Talon's 'handler' added in an ominous tone.

Talon's mind was frenzied as he nodded, making sure to keep his face blank, before walking out of the room and towards the maze.

When he was all alone, he started panicking. He couldn't kill this person. Whoever it was. Ever since he could remember he had a sort of moral code. He could kill... he had been instructed in great detail on that topic, but he wouldn't. Talon knew this only caused himself more pain. More often than not the punishments he was supposed to inflict on his intended victims were instead inflicted on him when he refused to take a life. The court had definitely tried to beat and threaten this moral out of Talon, but anything they tried only seemed to make his resolve stronger. He would not kill.

Talon knew that Grandmaster was most likely trying to use this as a way for Talon to prove himself to the court. Talon needed to kill this man to prove his loyalty, to prove that he was worth keeping around... keeping alive. Talon had failed to kill so many different captives of the court over the five years of his life, and he had heard the underlying message in Cobb's threat. 'Kill him or we kill you... permanently.'

Just thinking about that made Talon shiver and he subconsciously reached up and touched his neck. If he failed this time his punishment would be much worse than the cryo-pods. This time... he would pay with his head.

As he continued to walk down the hall, nearing the maze, Talon decided to himself that he not only had to help the prisoner of the maze to escape, but he had to escape with them.
—

Talon walked into the maze and quickly hopped up onto one of the tall white walls. He scoured the maze as he moved from wall to wall. He assumed that whoever the captive was would be close to the fountain. They always were.

A shudder went through Talon's body when he saw the fountain sparkling innocently. He had been thrown into the maze numerous times, until he could navigate through the maze flawlessly. The first time he had been in the maze he had drank the water from the fountain and experienced the horribly realistic hallucinations.

There was a man dressed in a black and grey suit with a long black cape pacing in circles around the fountain and muttering to himself. The man had pointy ears and a picture of a black bat on his chest.