The Slayer Prophecy
by Magus is a crossover between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Batman, set towards the end of Buffy’s sixth season and shortly before Identity Crisis (2004) for Batman. Starting when the Joker is contacted by the vampire Dala for his assistance in her plan for revenge against Batman, the subsequent plot sees the Bat-Family and the Scooby Gang join forces to fight the resurrected Monk, with some fascinating twists as the plot unfolds.
The Slayer Prophecy contains examples of:
- Adaptational Distillation: It fuses elements with Return of the Joker and Batman: Arkham Knight.
- All Your Powers Combined: Dala’s plan involves using a range of magical artefacts to bring the Monk and Jason Todd back to life (Todd being required as the ritual must bring someone back from Heaven as well as Dala's goal to resurrect the Monk from Hell).
- Alternate Universe: The fic is set basically around the climax of "Seeing Red" except that Warren was sent off to jail rather than escaping, Tara doesn't die and Spike never attempted to rape Buffy.
- Back for the Dead: The Monk is brought back to life and swiftly killed off once again while in battle with Batman and Spike.
- Back from the Dead: Jason Todd is brought back to life as part of a ritual to resurrect the Monk rather than being brought back by Superboy-Prime’s ‘retcon punches’, with the Bat-Family swiftly able to offer him help and emotional support.
- Badass Bookworm: Oracle manages to quickly analyse most publicly-available data on the Scooby Gang and identify the relevant anomalies in their history even before Batman tells her about the supernatural elements of their lives.
- Badass Normal: Applies to the Bat-Family as usual; Buffy only just manages to defeat Robin (Tim Drake) in a three-round sparring session in the Batcave, but she subsequently loses to Batgirl and Batman himself in later matches despite her superior strength due to their own superior combat skills.
- Berserk Button: Realising that the Joker intends to use Jason Todd’s corpse as part of the resurrection ceremony drives Batman into a colder rage than usual.
- Big Damn Heroes: Willow does this when she teleports to Gotham to rescue Buffy, Tara, and the Bat-Family from a warehouse that the Joker just blew up, although the moment is tarred as she accomplished it by drawing on black magic.
- Birds of a Feather:
- Alfred makes such a positive impression on Buffy and Tara that they favourably compare him to Giles.
- After Jason is resurrected, Buffy and Nightwing talk briefly about her own resurrection and Green Arrow's experience of coming back to life; Buffy later tells her own experiences to Batman to prepare him for what Jason will likely have to go through in the next few months.
- Blood Knight: Robin explicitly observes that Batgirl enjoys the chance to fight new people, which leads to her eagerly suggesting a spar with Buffy.
- Call-Back:
- Tara at one point contemplates trying to find the Joker based on the rumour that he sold his soul.
- The Joker received Jason Todd’s corpse as ‘payment’ for his role in Hush’s scheme.
- The ritual to restore the Monk includes a ring that is explicitly identified as a precursor to the Gem of Amara ("The Harsh Light of Day").
- Dala, the Joker, Rack and the Monk use the former Initiative facility as a base.
- Nightwing and Buffy discuss Buffy’s experience at being brought back to life while comparing it to Green Arrow’s resurrection.
- Came Back Wrong: A relatively minor example; due to the Scoobies and the Bat-Family interfering with the ritual to resurrect the Monk and Jason Todd, some of the mystical artefacts involved in the ritual are destroyed and Jason's body is aged to the state he would be in if he had never been killed rather than him coming back to life as he was when he died, but Tara confirms that Jason should be physically all right otherwise.
- Canon Welding:
- It is explicitly stated that the Hellmouth deflects external interest, which is why none of the major superheroes of the DC Universe have visited the city before.
- Rack apparently fought Doctor Fate in the past before Rack and Fate disappeared from the public view.
- Spike observes that Dala and the Monk were members of the Order of Aurelius, with the Monk just a little bit younger than the Master was at the time of his death.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The resurrected Jason Todd is tortured by the Joker.
- Deadpan Snarker: Various members of the Bat-Family come across as this, such as Alfred responding to Buffy's comment about if they have to sleep upside-down by noting that 'Master Batman' doesn't like it when people imitate him.
- The Dreaded: The prospect of facing the Joker is so terrifying that even after facing all kinds of demons, Buffy is briefly stunned into immobility when she realises that the Clown Prince of Crime has come to Sunnydale and is standing right in front of her.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Demonstrated by the Joker of all people in his own strange way; after he (apparently) kills Anya, he offers to let Dawn play a ‘game’ where he will not kill her or Xander if she wins, and he keeps his word. Granted, he was very angry about Dawn winning the game and killed one of his own henchmen while ranting in annoyance about it, but the fact remains that the Joker said he wouldn’t kill Xander and Dawn under specific circumstances and he kept that agreement even when he didn't seriously think he'd have to go through with it.
- Fire Forged Family: Batman adopts the identity of Buffy’s ‘Uncle Matches’ as a convenient cover for their interaction in a civilian environment. In their final solo conversation in Buffy’s house, he and Buffy refer to each other as uncle and niece when they don’t have to keep up a pretence for anyone, basically affirming that Buffy and her friends have earned Batman's respect and he and his family consider them allies; Bruce even gives Buffy Oracle's contact details, advising that she can use that to call others for help (with the understanding that others may call on her for her own expertise in turn).
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Even Robin is temporarily distracted when he sees Willow and Tara making out.
- Kid Sidekick: A villainous example as the Joker kidnaps a Robin with the intent of turning him into his sidekick... and that Robin is the resurrected Jason Todd.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: To stop Jason potentially killing himself because he can’t cope with being back on Earth after being in Heaven, Batman has to take off his cowl essentially in public (albeit on a deserted road with no sign that anyone else will show up) and make an appeal that he doesn’t want to lose his son again. Later, when Buffy decides to tell Batman about her own experience of being brought back to life to help him prepare for what Jason may go through, Batman gently listens to her sharing her insight into this matter and doesn't press for more details as he recognises that anything she hasn't told him is deeply personal to her specifically.
- Prefers Proper Names: Alfred, as always, referring to Buffy and Tara by their surnames even when Buffy starts to say he can call her by her first name as it wouldn't be 'proper' otherwise.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Demonstrated by Batman when the Joker pushes his Berserk Button by revealing that he has Jason Todd’s body;You. Will. Not. Touch. Him. Again.
- Refuge in Audacity: Willow is able to find the chemical formula for the Joker's Smilex gas on the internet, but it's observed that this is actually "safe" because the Joker would kill anyone who used that formula without his permission.
- Reincarnation Romance: Indirectly; Buffy and Nightwing become the hosts for the spirits of the First Slayer and her lover as part of the Monk’s plan, but there is no indication that Nightwing was the natural reincarnation of the First Slayer’s lover.
- Sequel Hook: No indication that a sequel will be written, but the story ends with Dawn exchanging e-mails with Robin/Tim Drake, Giles discovering a prophecy about the child of ‘the Slayer that died and returned [and] the Son of the Bat’, and Buffy takes a pregnancy test that gives a positive result.
- Ship Tease: Buffy and Nightwing swiftly hit it off even before they are possessed by the spirit of the First Slayer and her lover, and Dawn shows an attraction to Robin.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Tara is saved from her canon death, and Jason is ‘spared’ being resurrected under the more traumatic manner seen in canon.
- Underestimating Badassery: The Monk takes advantage of the fact that he has never been seen as a fighter, observing that he tends to kill everyone he actually fights so his true skill level has never been revealed.
- Waif-Fu: Batgirl is such a keen example of this that Dawn initially mistakes her for a new Slayer when seeing Batgirl fight before learning her real identity.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: The fact that Batman paid the Scooby Gang any sort of compliment is a true sign to the rest of the Bat-Family that Sunnydale’s defenders genuinely impressed him.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Batman makes it clear when he and Buffy start working together that no humans should die as a result of her action or inaction, but he will defer to her when dealing with supernatural entities, to the point that he shows no concern with the fact that Willow killed Rack.
