A quiet and still night on the old roads of New Jersey, broken only by the sound of crickets. And, briefly, by a custom armored and rocket-powered black car, that broke the silence a little as it veered down a service road that's been closed off as long as anyone can remember. And then the silence returns.
But I suppose you're more interested in the car than a pretty evening.
The car roars into a hidden entrance to a hidden cavern, through a hidden shaft to a hidden turnstile. Really, it's a hidden cave, everything in it is hidden, by definition, so just assume everything is hidden from here on out.
From the car emerges a grim figure, a man bedecked as a beast. His spine is erect, his moments precise as he climbs out of the car and walks to the nearest wall. From it, he selects the mask of a bat, a garish thing of wood and paint and dangling red threads and fixes it over the bat-mask he already wears. Then he seizes a bundle of herbs from the stand beneath the wall, lights the end on fire, and in this cold place of reason and high technology begins the practiced purifying ritual to prevent possession, mind control, or other lingering bits of magic.
By this point, it's habit. Routine.
Only a great fool would take no precautions against a known danger. This man is nobody's fool.
After he finishes, he pushes a button, beginning the video playback. Only after someone inside has confirmed the ritual was done properly and in full will the nonlethal traps and security measures around the turntable be disabled. There are other protocols, of course, for extreme circumstances. Such as a returnee in desperate need of medical attention where the time simply cannot be spared. Or refusing to do the ritual, or leaving out the invocation that makes it work. Hard lessons, learned from necessity. Also from mental practice.
The minutes of waiting are not idle, as the man reviews recent events or plans improvements. If he were controlled, how might he evade the defenses? Any spot he could reach with a grapnel had already had explosives planted and slaved to the security system, ready to remove that anchor at a moment's notice. The turntable offered no cover, save the car itself, which could not protect from all angles. Nor could he drop over the side without risking serious injury, the platform itself making a poor tether. Still, the man believes he sees a flaw. When faced with impenetrable security, exploit the people behind it. He could be compelled to hold himself hostage at the edge, where any impact or incapacitation could knock him down to serious injury or death.
He estimates a reasonable chance, roughly 60% that this stratagem would work against his allies.
Would John Binder think to try that? The man's mind was twisted and inconstant on his best day. He was capable of brilliant and intricate planning, but more likely to act on a whim. As ruthless as any crime boss, and sometimes shockingly naive. Insistent in his belief that he was James Moriarty, at least when he wasn't Miles Vorkosigan or 'Tavi.' Unpredictability was nothing new, though, not to this man. Best to never take the chance.
With a pneumatic hiss, a door hidden in the cave's shadows swung open. A sure sign that he'd passed review.
"Welcome home, Master Bruce. I trust you are uninjured?"
"Not a scratch, Alfred."
"Very good, Sir. And was your evening productive?"
"Hn. Prevented some petty crimes and caught Mad Hatter, but this new incident with Bookworm..."
"Yes?" The butler seemed to sense his odd mood.
"He left Arkham today, and this evening announced his candidacy for Mayor. I spoke to him after. He seems sincere, everything I know about reading people tells me that he really believes in what he's doing, and it's not a ploy."
"I sense a 'but' coming."
"... but he's clearly still unstable. Fit to enter society, perhaps. But to give him political power this soon? I tested him with some lines from "the Final Problem" and he responded exactly as he always has."
"Be that as it may, sir, I dare say after Mayors Hill, Hady and Skowcroft, Bookworm may not even be in the bottom half of recent politics."
The man in the cowl stalks to a computer console. "You may have a point." A minute of typing and four faces appear. "Armand Kohl is up for reelection, I thought this was a good time to replace him. We only just got Jim reinstated and the man is just looking for an excuse to boot him again." A gesture towards the sole woman onscreen "The Democrats are running Marion Grange against him, she's been a district attorney for fifteen years, and as far as I can tell she's completely clean. Jim trusts her, another point in her favor." A general wave encompassed the last two men, one old and one young. "As for the independents, Kevin McCluskey is another lawyer, young and with a Navy record, he'd be a fine choice if he weren't a bit dim and so obviously a puppet for Amos Force. And Skeffington is an old crook."
"As I recall, he didn't do so badly in his old term. Certainly there was less violence in the streets."
"At least where anyone could see. But all the syndicates and bosses made out like bandits when the price of every public works project suddenly tripled. Follow the money, Alfred, in politics as well as crime. In Gotham, there isn't always a difference."
The pictures are dismissed in place of an extensive crime file. The upper left corner is dominated by the image of a gangly young man with messy brown hair and an awkwardly large nose, in a trench coat, jeans and a black t-shirt proclaiming the wearer a 'BOOK WIZARD.' A smaller photograph beneath had the same man in a black coat with a light grey shirt reading 'I FEEL SORRY FOR MUGGLES.'
"The problem," Bruce said, pulling back his cowl, "is that he has too much variety. In temperament, in character traits, in weaponry." A decision reached, he pushes a button on the console. "Oracle, are you aware of the situation?"
"You mean Mayor Bookworm? It's all the late night shows were talking about," answered a female voice. "In theory, the newer lenses and audio protection should have you covered if he tries the hypno-ring or that sword again. But removing one or two options has never really helped us much before."
"Neither has leaving ourselves exposed to tricks that worked once. It's still mind-control I'm most worried about, can you cross reference popular fiction for items he might use? I may also need you to research wards."
"I'm guessing you don't read a lot of pulp erotica? There's way too many options to easily check even if there were a convenient database for this sort of thing, and I'm pretty sure he got that body-swapping stone from one..."
The conversation continued as the butler left, and was ongoing when he returned an hour later with a (very) late supper. He was confident that everything would work out in the end, however.
It always did.
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So, to anticipate your most obvious questions and complaints: Batman is not a Wizard. However, he has had the existence of the occult rubbed in his face from early on and has learned a few tricks in response. Purifying and exorcism rituals that can undo much of what Bookworm does, but are too involved for field use, a touch of healing magic to speed things along a little and remove lasting effects of some stuff that should really take him out of the crime-fighting game over time, and he can make an ointment that rubbed over the eyelids lets him see through many magic illusions.
Even this much is only possible because he has a unique and deep connection to his totem animal, having been thrice reborn into the Bat, taken it's image and made it his own, and healing, purification and truth (also death and rebirth) are part of it's associations. Also he has exactly the dogged sort of determination needed to tell the universe to shut up and sit down, and to keep at the magic despite his lack of native talent and the pointed suggestions by those who know better.