The Demon's Head | Talia al Ghul | Assassin Talia al Ghul
Age: Mid 30's
Aliases: Talia Head, Miranda Tate, Daughter of the Demon, Talia Demon, The Demon's Head, Kali, Tiamat, Medusa, Red Queen, Mother of Skeletons
Skills/Abilities: Genius Level Intellect | Business Management | Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced) | Marksmanship | SwordsmanshipTalia is a regular human with no superpowers. She is in peak physical form, on par with Bruce and other elite heroes from Gotham. Due to her training, Talia is a master of both armed and unarmed combat. Her weapons knowledge extends from simple weapons to advanced modern weapons. She is also a master tactician, which has been necessary in her dealings in crime and espionage. These skills also transfer well to her being adept at seduction. She has also shown exceptional strategic ability, proven by her proficiency in commanding the complex and multi-faceted crime empire established by her father Ra's al Ghul.
Weaknesses: Loyal to a fault | Impulsive | Arrogant | Immensely protective of her son, Damian | More vulnerable than she lets onHistory: Talia is the daughter of Ra's al Ghul, serving as his closest advisor during his time as the leader of the League of Assassins. Though she has often been used as a tool or weapon for her father's schemes she is nevertheless a highly intelligent and capable fighter and strategist in her own right. Her achievements and capabilities were often overlooked by Ra's, seen as less admirable because of her gender. Despite Ra's lack of affection and respect toward Talia she was unfailingly loyal to him, a product of her training within the League since she was a child. Just the same, Ra's never considered Talia to be a worthy heir, thinking of her as simply a means to an end in achieving a male who might inherit his empire. He targeted Batman, considering the world's greatest detective to be the ideal heir to the al Ghul legacy, and commanded Talia to capture his attention. Ra's plan backfired, however, and while Talia was successful at seducing Batman she also found herself attracted to him. As their affection toward one another grew the conflicting nature of their paths would become an increasingly troublesome problem. Talia and Bruce would turn out to be star-crossed lovers, as her loyalty to Ra's and her love of Bruce often found her at odds with herself. Matters only became more complicated when Talia discovered she was pregnant, and Bruce nearly died trying to protect her. Realizing she would only endanger the man she loved, Talia feigned a miscarriage and ended her tumultuous relationship with Bruce.
Nine years pass and Talia now has a son with hair as black as pitch and icy blue eyes, the spitting image of his father. She has named him Damian. Ra's has seized control of the boy's life, grooming him to be a killer, a leader, and a conquerer. Talia's contact with her own son is limited, and Ra's feels her judgement as a mother and a woman compromises her ability to tolerate what he considers necessary cruelty in training Damian. Talia wanted nothing more than for Damian to receive the love Ra's had never shown her and that she felt incapable of giving him. She also desired for her son to be free of the influence of the League so that he might retain some semblance of the humanity her own father had denied her. Impulsively, she secreted Damian away and took him to the only man she trusted to keep him safe: Bruce Wayne.
Another two years pass, and Talia has inherited leadership of the League of Assassins after her father's sudden and inexplicable disappearance. While in service as the head of the League she has redirected the objective of the empire, both in the use of her assassins as well as cultivating alternative uses for the many Lazarus Pits Ra's had discovered. Her son, Damian, has been living with his father and has informed her that Bruce has been missing. She returns to Gotham with the League in tow, taking up headquarters in the highly reinforced Nykawa Center. While her primary concern is to stay close to Damian and see to his safety, she's also attempting to mine her resources to decipher details on the possible whereabouts of the Batman. Simultaneously, Talia is orchestrating secret experiments to develop a Lazarus Serum, an advanced healing and anti-aging treatment derived from diluted samples taken from the Lazarus Pits. There's just the matter of eliminating the pesky side-effect of insanity afflicting the human test subjects before making the serum available for purchase to the highest bidder. And in a city like Gotham such an item falling into the hands of the wrong person could prove
very dangerous.
