Talon chapter 8 -

Chapter 8 - Roadtrip!

"You know, this is not where I expected to be at this point in my life," Jason admitted to Harry as the two walked through the forest they currently found themselves in.

After the battle, Jason carried Harry's body with him as he escaped and brought him to the nearest village, where the locals were all too happy to help Jason once they found out that he was working for the betterment of the grandson of the 'Great RA's Al Ghul'. Once they had some time to rest and eat, the pair left the mountains and made their way to the next village, where they were hoping to find some transportation to somewhere with an airport or a dock.

As of right now, they were walking on a path in the middle of the forest, something that Jason was unhappy about. Firstly, because all of the trees kept reminding him of that time he had fought Poison Ivy, and she tossed him out a window. Secondly, it was very easy for any animal or human to sneak up on them. While Jason remained cautious, Harry appeared to be downright calm in comparison as he walked alongside Jason.

"What were you expecting?" Harry asked curiously.

"I...to be honest, I don't know," Jason replied with a shrug, his face mask and goggles held in his hands. "Certainly not walking through a forest in a different continent with the son of a hero and the grandson of 'The Demon'."

"Fair enough," Harry replied.

"You should be more cautious, you know," Jason advised him. "Here, anyone or anything can attack us."

"We'll be fine," Harry told him in a reassuring voice. "There's nothing in our area that's an immediate threat to us."

"Oh yeah, how would you know?" Jason challenged.

"If there was anything dangerous, then she would let me know," Harry gestured up. Jason's gaze followed where Harry was pointing, and he spotted Hedwig fly down and land on Harry's shoulder. "Owls have ridiculously good vision, and Hedwig didn't spot anything concerning, did you, girl?" Harry asked as he patted Hedwig's head. She let out a happy-sounding noise before she started playing with his fingers.

"So, you can understand your owl? You speak bird or something?" Jason asked genuinely. He had known for a while now that Harry was not your typical kid. Normal kids don't get raised by a bunch of assassins. Besides, even without the environmental factors, Harry's chance for normalcy had likely been fucked from birth when you consider whose genes he inherited. But now, Jason was starting to see Harry in a different light.

He had already known that Harry was skilled for his age, and would even now present a hard fight for Jason, but the battle at the League had opened his eyes to the fact that Harry was far more dangerous than Jason had given him credit for. Harry had found and killed one of their attackers before the rest had noticed, he claimed that Hedwig had told him. Could Harry actually talk to the owl? When Harry had talked to him about the price of killing, he sounded more like an old soldier than a child. Logically, Jason knew that was probably just because he had been hardened by killing at such a young age, but he couldn't help but feel like it was more than that.

One thing that was on Jason's mind was the moment when Harry had taken his gun and had shot down a trio of attackers that Jason hadn't even heard coming, yet Harry had managed to shoot them down with pinpoint accuracy without even looking. Did Harry hear them coming? Did he perhaps have enhanced senses? Jason wasn't sure, but one thing he was sure about was that there was no martial arts technique in the world that allowed for ten-year-old kids to shoot fire out of their hands! Yes, Jason hadn't forgotten about that, thank you very much. But once again, he was left wondering just how that happened. Was Harry lied to about his parents, and was he actually the child of at least one metahuman? That wasn't even the end of things because Harry could also create force fields! One that stopped bullets was one thing, but then this actual ten-year-old had managed to stop a missile!

In this day and age, where you had aliens flying around the planet, women who could bend steel and men running faster than the speed of light, Harry wasn't the most abnormal thing in the world. But still, it was hard to wrap your head around.

"I don't speak to her how I speak to you," Harry told Jason. "I just understand her. I know what she feels, and vice versa. It's easy enough because she's so smart," Harry said in a proud voice, causing Hedwig to puff her chest up.

"Right," Jason said slowly, not sure what to say to that. "So, are we going to discuss what happened back there?"

"We're not really under any obligation to do so." Harry pointed out mildly.

"Yeah, well, I kind of want to." Jason huffed. "Listen to me, Harry, I don't know what they've been telling you here, but it is not normal for someone to shoot fireballs out of their hands."

"I'm aware," Harry replied dryly as Hedwig leapt off his shoulder and returned to flying in the air.

"Do...do your family know?" Jason asked him. "They know that you can shoot fire?"

"I hadn't deemed it necessary to inform them," Harry told him honestly.

"So they don't know," Jason summed up.

"No, they don't," Harry confirmed. "I'm not sure how Mother would have reacted, but I feared Grandfather might end up getting more ideas than he already has. He was already training me to be a weapon. Imagine if he knew that I could use magic."

"That's what you're calling it?" Jason asked, giving him an odd look. "What you can do, you're calling it magic?"

"It is magic," Harry said simply. Part of him rebelled against the idea of telling Jason, but a larger part of him was all for it, especially since he wasn't likely to be punished in any way for it. He had learnt very early on that there was no Ministry of Magic in this world, or at the very least not in this country. He had, on more than one occasion, used magic and never had a single witch or wizard come to find him. It was likely that they simply couldn't track wandless magic, but even then, there was something in Harry's gut that told him that that wasn't the case. He'd have to verify it later, but he was fairly sure that he was right in saying that there was no Ministry of Magic here. Besides, from what he understood, this world was full of superhumans. If these ministries existed, then how would they handle beings like 'Superman' who could level buildings with a single swing of his arm? How would they react to the 'Justice League'? A world-famous group of superheroes with abilities far beyond what most people could hope for.

"If you're sure," Jason frowned. He knew that magic existed, of course, one of the members of the Justice League was a man named Zatara. He wasn't one of their more publicly known members, usually keeping out of the spotlight, but Batman had known him. Apparently, he was the one who taught Batman many of his escape techniques, and Batman himself fully believed that Zatara had magical abilities. In Jason's experience, if Batman believed something, then it was probably true. But Zatara and Harry seemed wildly different, not just because of their ages. According to Batman, Zatara spoke backwards when casting spells. Meanwhile, Harry at one point had shouted what might have been a spell incantation, but nothing like what Zatara supposedly did. 'What was the word that Harry had said?' Jason thought to himself. 'Protego? What's that backwards? Ogetorp?' Not a word in the English language that Jason had ever heard of. "Anyway, what about when you shot those guys who tried to sneak up on us? How did you know they were there?"

"Magic," Harry answered once more. It was a valuable skill he had managed to retain from his own life, having his magic be able to alert him to threats before he ever knew about them. He had managed to replicate the ability from his old wand, which had a thunderbird core; the wand would, at times, shoot spells without his input if it sensed a threat. Studying it and teaching his magic to do the same had proved invaluable; having the ability allowed him to lower his guard somewhat, as he didn't have to constantly look over his shoulder since his magic was doing that for him, and if a threat came close, then Harry's body would automatically respond to it.

"Of course," Jason sighed, vowing to talk more about this magic stuff with Bruce when they finally meet up. "Alright, what about your grandfather?" Jason asked, deciding to change the topic for now.

"What about him?" Harry asked in response.

"Do you think he made it?" Jason asked, earning a look from Harry that made him feel like the younger boy was questioning the quality of Jason's brain. "What?" Jason asked defensively.

"His head was cut off," Harry said very slowly, as if trying to explain something to a dim child.

"I know that," Jason rolled his eyes. "But he's got the Lazarus pit, right? Doesn't that thing bring you back from death? If Talia and Nyssa didn't manage to destroy the pit in time - "

"They would have," Harry said confidently.

"-Then it's possible that Ra's could be brought back to life if one of his followers could get him to the pits, right?" Jason continued.

"The pit can bring someone back from near death and heal most injuries, something it can't do is reattach a head to a body," Harry told him with a small huff. "The thing has limits, thankfully. Grandfather is dead, the permanent kind. Slade knew what he was doing."

"He got away," Jason remembered.

"Mother will probably try to track him down," Harry said with a frown. "I hope she doesn't. He's dangerous."

"Don't need to tell me that," Jason huffed.

(.)

"You look like you're having fun," Jason noted.

It had been a long journey to the nearest village, where they were able to sneak aboard a ship that was heading to the next closest country; from there, they had managed to sneak onto another boat, which managed to take them across to France, where Jason had found out that Harry spoke fluent French when the boy had asked someone for directions to the airport. Once they got to the airport, it was relatively easy to sneak onto a plane that could take them to the USA. As of right now, the pair were currently sitting in a cargo hold full of dogs. Jason guessed that their owners were probably sitting upstairs in the human area of the plane.

About an hour into the plane journey, Harry had opened the cages and let the dogs out to play, against Jason's protests. Not that Jason had anything against dogs, he just thought it would be a massive headache to get them all back in their cages before the flight ended, not to mention if they started crapping all over the cargo hold. But instead, the dogs had all rushed towards Harry. All of them had been non-stop competing for his attention and affection, ignoring Jason as if he were a non-being. This kept on for about half an hour until Harry simply gave the dogs a pointed look, and they all settled down and simply sat around him. One black German Shepeard had its head in Harry's lap and was enjoying head scratches from him. Harry shared an amused look with Hedwig, who was perched on top of one of the dog cages.

"I have a soft spot for dogs," Harry said with a small smile. "What about you? Did you ever have any pets?"

"Not really, could never afford any until I moved in with your dad," Jason shrugged. "After that, I got kind of busy kicking criminal butt and studying, never really had time to get a dog. Only real animals we had were the bats in the 'Batcave'."

"The Batcave?" Harry repeated.

"It's what everyone calls his base of operations," Jason began explaining. "His hideout, lair, that type of thing. Being a cave, it comes with bats, plenty of them. Wait, Hedwig doesn't eat bats, does she?" Jason couldn't help but ask. Things were going to be awkward enough without Hedwig killing bats.

"Not if I ask her to. So long as she's well fed, then she won't mind," Harry told him.

"Hmm," Jason looked down at a baby pitbull that had walked up to Harry and started cuddling up to his leg. "Don't think about taking any of them with us; they belong to other people," Jason said, gesturing to the dogs. "Besides, you already got the one pet."

"Hedwig is not a pet," Harry said, sounding mildly offended. "She's family." He finished with Hedwig hooting in agreement and flying over to Harry's shoulder, where she began rubbing her head against his.

"Right, sorry," Jason said apologetically. "Well, I'm sure you can convince Bruce to let you keep her around."

"Good, because I'm leaving if he doesn't let me," Harry said bluntly.

"Wait, really?" Jason blinked. "Your own dad in a massive mansion with a bank account big enough to buy half the country at least, and you'd give it up for one owl?" He asked, unsure if he should be impressed or not.

"She's family," Harry repeated. "Father will have to accept that if he wishes for me to stay with him," Harry said firmly before frowning. "Presuming he doesn't kick me out straight away."

"He won't, Bruce is the stubborn sort. Trust me, I know better than most about his hangups, but one thing he never does is give up on family." Jason smiled warmly.

"And if that family is a trained killer?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. "Father's taken a vow to never take a life, right? How do you think he'll react to knowing that his own blood son has taken so many?"

"I..." Jason trailed off as he realised he didn't really have an answer for that. He had been trying to ignore that particular question for quite a while, blocking it out every time the thought had come into his mind. He was far more focused on simply getting back to Gotham, to seeing Bruce again and introducing Bruce to Harry. He hadn't really given much thought to what would happen after that. "...We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Jason decided.

"You don't know," Harry translated.

"I don't want to make guesses," Jason corrected him.

"Meaning, you don't know." Harry summed up.

"You're a cheeky little thing, you know that?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, I do know that." He answered, earning an amused snort from Jason. "You're looking far happier than before." Harry couldn't help but comment. It was true as well; previously, Jason looked like he had a heavy burden on his shoulders. Now, he looked lighter as if some of the burden had been taken away; he was even smiling more.

"Yeah, I am," Jason admitted, grinning slightly. "It'll take some time still, but we're close. Soon, we'll be in Gotham."

(.)

A.N: Hi guys, hope you liked the chapter. If anyone's interested in my upload schedule, then currently I plan to release another chapter of Talon (the chapter where we finally meet Batman) before or after another chapter of Hydrus Black and then the final chapter of Bonded. Hopefully you'll all enjoy it.

Also, for the record, I've recently made a new youtube channel called 'Casual'. I'd appreciate it if you guys check it out. So far I've made three badly edited videos along with one badly edited short. Plus I have another video at the ready that I plan to upload tommorow.

The channel will be discussing a mixture of nerdy topics like Ben 10, Marvel, DC, Harry Potter etc. I'll be the first to admit that the videos aren't the best quality as I'm still teaching myself everything about editing and I'm a slow learner. Still, I hope you guys will check it out. You'll be able to hear my actual voice in the videos (including all of my horrible breathing sounds that I'm trying to work out how to get rid of.), though I'm not sure why anyone would want to hear my voice. Either way, the link is below.

https://youtube.com/@casual-23?si=LjspPr8Wf7n_obf0

Thanks again for reading, feel free to leave a review.