A/N This is a challenge I got from t-rex989, who gave me the basic plot idea and then my brain took off. If you don't like it, t-rex989, then I'm sorry, but this is what I've come up with and I personally like it so far. :) Thanks again for the challenge, I'm looking forward to it :D

Chapter 1

A young man stumbled through the cold, mountainous region, a small, blue flower delicately clutched in his hand. His hair was long and ragged, dirty from lack of care, being on his own, on the road for too long. His handsome facial features were hidden behind a rugged beard, blue eyes set with determination.

You want justice for the wrongs done to you?

The stranger's voice echoed through his head, motivating him to keep moving, even though the cold wind was biting through his ragged coat, chilling him to the bone. All the man wanted at that moment was a warm fire to thaw his frozen toes, but something told him that the destination he was heading for had no such thing.

You wish to change the world? Truly change it, not what the petty government leaders pretend to offer?

The young man cared not for politics, nor the world, but the power that was subtly being offered was something he was very interested in. This… Ducard fellow certainly knew how to convince a person.

You wish to become something more: an ideal, a legend that will endure for centuries.

The young man quickened his pace. He could see the top of the mountain, looming before him. Just a few more feet, and he'd be at the gates that would lead him to answers.

You may find your answers with the League of Shadows.

The few snippets that Vlad Masters remembered from a conversation with the mysterious stranger, Ducard, were all he needed to move forward. The young man was looking for answers, for a purpose: he had no friends and had suffered for years in a hospital thanks to people he thought were friends, but turned their backs when he became a freak.

It's their fault I'm like this. A freak. Monster. If this… League of Shadows can truly make me great, make me more, then I'll do everything in my power to learn everything they can teach me.

Vlad Masters lifted his eyes and squinted at the large, black monastery built into the mountain. It was certainly an impressive piece of ancient architecture. The oriental building sent a wave of fear through Vlad's system, almost making him turn invisible.

No. Don't give in. You're not a monster: ignore it. It's unnatural, wrong.

The young man took in a few deep breaths. He managed to control his fears enough to find the courage to walk up to the door and knock once, twice, thrice.

He almost ran. He almost thought, screw it, and stay in his lost state, but he planted his feet and stood his ground.

The doors opened inward, and from that point on, there was no going back.

Three rows of candles on both sides of the doors lit the small and narrow entry way. As Vlad shuffled inside, the doors behind him closed. He turned around and saw a man dressed in black leather barring the door.

More men dressed in black leather began to surround him. Vlad's breath began to quicken as he saw all of his escape routes quickly disappear.

Not all of them.

No! I am not a monster. I am not a ghost!

Vlad caught sight of an oriental man sitting on a throne like chair at the back of the room. The man was bald, sporting a long, white, thin oriental beard and mustache.

Vlad took one look at the man and knew that he wasn't the master of the League of Shadows. He didn't know how he knew, he just knew that he wasn't it. The man put up a good display, but something within Vlad told him that he was not the authority figure he was looking for.

But Vlad didn't know what to do about the men surrounding him, intimidating him. Vlad's eyes flickered back and forth between each man, all dressed in leather armor and armed to the teeth, assessing his strengths and weaknesses, and creating a fight plan. Nobody moved: Vlad's muscles kept twitching, itching for a fight, but the men surrounding him had complete control over their bodies.

A voice echoed around the small room. Vlad recognized it to be Ducard.

"Why are you here?"

You know exactly why I'm here.

"I…" Vlad swallowed his nervousness. "am here to seek answers. I seek justice for myself and others and to fight the injustice in this world."

Vlad's voice was strong and echoed powerfully around the room. He saw one of the men's eyes twitch at his words and knew he had hit a nail on the head. He always had a silver tongue: ever since the… incident that hospitalized him, Vlad discovered that his talent had transformed into a gift. His tongue could entrance all who heard him.

He hoped and prayed that it worked with this League of Shadows.

Ducard's form melted from the shadows, startling Vlad enough to take a step back. The man sitting on the throne spoke in a dialect that Vlad did not recognize.

"You are not being entirely honest with us," Ducard translated from the fake-leader.

"I wish to…" Vlad paused, contemplating what to say. "to overcome my demons so I can bring justice to those who have wronged me and others. I seek answers. A greater purpose."

Vlad turned and latched Ducard's eyes.

"I seek a better life."

Ducard lifted his eyebrow and turned back to the faux-leader. His nod was so slight Vlad almost missed it.

The man on the throne spoke again and Ducard translated.

"To seek purpose is a… noble goal. You seek us for purpose: you must be prepared to accept our cause. You seek to overcome your demons, also a noble cause; but before you can overcome your demons, your fears, you must accept them as a part of who," Ducard stepped down a step, "you", he stepped down another, "are."

Ducard was now mere inches from Vlad's face. The two men studied each other for any sign of deception.

Vlad slowly reached within his coat pocket and withdrew a small, frozen blue flower, still intact. He twirled it in his hands before offering it to Ducard, who plucked the flower gently from his hands and placing it decoratively on his suit pocket.

"Are you ready to begin?"

Vlad did not answer immediately. His eyes were narrowed at Ducard's back.

This is the leader of the Shadows.

"Yes."


Eight years. Vlad stayed with the League of Shadows for eight years. When Vlad had passed the trials, and become a full-fledged member of the Shadows three years prior, he was on top of the world. He could finally make something of himself, make a difference in the world, attacking the evils within it from the shadows and disappearing like a ghost.

Vlad learned to accept his demonic ghost and trained his abilities in secret, away from the other assassins. He always kept a lid on how much he used out in the field, if he ever used them, simply to help him keep his training up. He would not forge his path by cheating the competition: that would inevitably get him caught. He kept his abilities (for they truly were abilities, and not a monstrous demon as he thought it to be when he first discovered it) secret from everyone around him, simply because it was his queen: his wild card, so to say, and it would ruin his plots if he revealed them too soon.

Vlad craved Ra's Al Ghul's power, as a vampire lustfully thirsts for blood. He was superior, he should be in control.

But Vlad was also a patient man. He knew when the time would be right.

Vlad breathed in the incense wafting around the room and let out a deep, but quiet sigh. This monastery was his home, and had been his home for eight years. All who came were tested, trained, and tested once again, continuing in that cycle until they either died (from exhaustion or cowardice) or passed their trials and became a Shadow.

Many died. Few became Shadows. And Vlad was proud to say that he was one of the few that became a Shadow.

The day Bruce Wayne came was just another day to Vlad. He was an initiate, who passed his first trial before passing out, and was accepted like any other initiate.

Until Ducard (but Vlad knew now that he was really the leader of the Shadows, Ra's Al Ghul, he just didn't tell anyone he knew) took a special interest in Wayne and oversaw his training personally.

Ducard oversaw all of the initiate's final trial, but Wayne received personal training from the man. The other Shadows simply believed the man to be gifted if Ducard decided to train him personally. Vlad, like all the other Shadows, trained their own initiate until said initiate was ready for Ducard's final trials, where they presented their student and left, waiting in another room close by, not knowing if their student passed the first trial, driven insane from facing their fear, or killed. For this was a kill- or be killed- world, and weakness could not be accepted within the League of Shadows.

But Vlad knew that Ducard was not a mere right-hand man to Ra's Al Ghul: he was Ra's Al Ghul, and for Wayne to be trained by Ra's Al Ghul himself was an honor that no Shadow assassin could ever remember being given.

But Bruce Wayne was gifted. While most took three to six years to pass their final trial before being accepted as a Shadow in the League, Bruce Wayne was able to finish his training required in the space of one. All of the Shadows were highly impressed, and Vlad was honored to be included in the group that would be a part of Bruce Wayne's final trials, even though they wouldn't be doing much.

As always, Bruce Wayne never ceased to impress. He had managed to trick Ducard.

Ducard was never tricked.

Well, mostly never. Vlad smirked to himself. He smirked often, it was his characteristic face he pulled right before he went for the kill, be it an extremely witty joke, right before winning a game or bet, or the moment the light in his enemies' eyes died.

But nobody could see his smirk at the moment, only his drawling eyes that screamed, "I know something you don't and I will use it against you."

There were no innocent eyes in the League of Shadows. Most assassins had cold, dead, stone eyes. Some had a certain insanity visible beneath those irises.

Some, like Ducard, had a small shred of empathy, of compassion, left within.

Vlad's eyes were the only ones that had a playful attitude showing. Not the innocent playful, simply deadly. And Vlad knew this.

He watched as Bruce Wayne lifted his sword, preparing to strike the criminal that deserved death.

Vlad wished he could see how Wayne's eyes would change as he took the man's life. Watching an initiate kill his first man was something Vlad loved to do, which was why he had gone to every initiate's final trial, just to see the eyes change.

It was within the League of Shadows that Vlad discovered something about himself, of that side of himself that would have made him commit suicide if he discovered it before finding his home among the Shadows.

He could feel the instant a man's soul left its body. The severing between the body and spirit released a pleasurable feeling within his ghost side that soon became his addiction. Especially if that man's spirit was so broken from crime that it sang Vlad's praises at its release from the evil body it was tethered to.

Vlad felt no pleasure in cutting the connection between a whole, innocent spirit and the body it was connected to. He had felt it before, and the pain that surged within him was so excruciating that he'd passed out.

That didn't stop Vlad from soaking in the pleasure from killing like a sponge. He always looked forward to when he would be called to remove an evil from the world, and he took every chance he could to feast on death.

Vlad's eyes widened, but stood his ground when Bruce Wayne rebelled and refused to kill the criminal, the murderer before him.

Such a disappointment.

Ducard moved against his student, pain clear in his voice from the betrayal of his prize student. If Wayne would not kill the murderer, then he had no place among the League of Shadows and could not live. Vlad stood his ground with the rest of the assassins and watched as Bruce Wayne knocked Ducard out with a quick elbow to his head.

With Ducard knocked out, Vlad, along with the other assassins, unsheathed their katanas at the same moment, prepared to restrain the prodigy. However, a command from the faux-Ra's kept Vlad (and the other assassins) from moving against Wayne. Faux-Ra's attacked Bruce Wayne with a hell-bent rage, moving too quick for an untrained eye to see: there were no untrained eyes in that room except for the criminal Wayne was meant to kill, so every assassin saw Wayne's undeniable skill with rage and envy.

A sudden explosion destroyed the upper room and showered debris over the group of assassins. Vlad rolled quickly to the side for cover and narrowly missed being impaled by a wooden stave.

Some assassins kept their ground and waited for a command from their leader, while others panicked and ran off.

Cowards. Vlad mentally spat, cursing them to hell.

Several waves of intense pleasure flowed through Vlad, and he knew exactly what it meant. He soaked it in quickly, drawing energy from it before ducking to the side to avoid being crushed by a huge chunk of wall that was about to fall on him.

An enraged cry rang throughout the room before being violently cut out, and Vlad felt an intense wall of pleasure burst through his system. He removed himself from his hiding position and found that the faux-Ra's had been crushed by the very same burning wall that was about to crush him.

He took in his surroundings and noticed Bruce Wayne carrying Ra's Al Ghul away from the burning building, fighting off the few assassins that went against him. Vlad moved to engage them, but something suddenly stopped him and urged him to turn intangible.

Vlad usually didn't pay attention to the urges to use his ghost abilities, but that moment he did.

And it saved his life.

As soon as Vlad was completely intangible, the entire building exploded, setting off the other explosives in the training room next to it. The flames quickly spread until the entire monastery was ablaze.

And Vlad almost fainted with the unbelievable amount of pleasuring emotions that simply overwhelmed him, liquidizing his arms and legs. He was practically drowning in it, the strange energy that leaves humans when they die was surrounding Vlad and he soaked it in until he couldn't hold any more, but more was still coming. Vlad's system was stretching to the limit, the power from the death surrounding him left him shaking from overload.

Vlad didn't know where he was going, but he knew that he would implode if he stayed where he was much longer. He moved quickly through the destroyed monastery, not paying attention to which direction he was headed until he stepped on nothing and fell over the cliff.

Vlad's heart clenched with fear as the ground quickly approached him, or as he quickly approached the ground, Vlad didn't know, he was about to die, and he couldn't die, he just couldn't-

The man blacked out and remembered no more.


Until he woke at the bottom of the mountain, a little scratched and bruised and cold, but other than that, perfectly fine.

I'm- I'm alive?

Vlad patted his arms, astounded that he felt little to no pain. A small chuckle burst through him, which quickly turned into a relieved laughter.

It didn't take long for that laughter to transform into painful sobs. Vlad looked up and saw a few wisps of smoke.

Maybe some other Shadows survived!

Vlad scrambled through the snow and started climbing up the cliff, hoping, praying that there were other survivors.

I can't be alone. I can't!

As Vlad spent the next hour climbing the dangerous, rocky cliff towards his home, Bruce Wayne reached the small village situated a few kilometers away from what used to be the League of Shadow's monastery.

It was there Bruce left Ducard's unconscious body and turned his back on the League of Shadows forever.


Vlad's grief could clearly be seen in the way he slowly pulled his mask off of his head. There was nothing, nothing left of his home. Vlad's legs trembled before his knees buckled, sending Vlad to the ground.

"No," Vlad's tears fell freely as he took in the remains of the League of Shadows. The already onyx black monastery was now a charred set of ruins, ashes gently floating around him.

There were several bodies within his line of sight that were too gruesome to take in. Whenever their assassins killed, they made their kills clean and quick. A direct blow to the head or heart, or decapitation.

Vlad couldn't bear to take in the charred bodies that suffered a slow death by fire. There were some Shadows that were too close to the explosives when they exploded and had their legs or arms blown off, the bones and muscles still clearly visible. Vlad had to resist the urge to empty his stomach as the smell hit him.

He slowly stood and moved forward, still hoping for any signs of survivors. He had to look away from one of the assassins that had his face blown in. The head was still intact, but the nose and upper lip and the bone underneath was nowhere to be seen, burning the image of a gaping black hole in Vlad's mind.

There were other Shadows that had been impaled by flying beams torn apart from the explosion. Vlad used all his senses to find any survivors. He called out, he listened for any sound of movement, felt for pulses whenever he came across somehow that might have survived, only to be disappointed by cold, quiet death over and over again.

Vlad finally resorted to using his ghost senses. He closed his eyes and searched for a sign of life, any hint of a survivor, but his core remained silent and cold. Vlad shivered. He wasn't used to what he understood to be his ghost core being cold. It didn't feel right: it always kept him warm, allowing him to stay in extremely cold environments.

Vlad had long before connected the warmth his core gave as the sign of the life forms surrounding him. For his core to be this cold…

Vlad knew he was alone.

No… no… no…

Vlad's mind was too overrun with grief to be able to think anything else than that simple, two-lettered word. His sobs quickly broke out and Vlad collapsed to the ground, hands clenching the snow and ash mixture in front of him. His tears fell quickly to the earth before Vlad broke and roared, head reared to the sky.

His broken voice echoed around the mountainside, returning his mourning to his own ears and spreading his grief to the others in the mountainous region.

When Vlad had no more tears to shed, he gathered the emotions still warring within him and locked them away in a box. It was time to decide what to do now that his home was gone.

I could search the world for other Shadows.

No, that won't work. You can't find the Shadows, the Shadows find you.

Then what can I do to find other Shadows? I can't find the other Shadows, and the other Shadows can't find me if I disappear. I'll be alone, again.

Remember your training, Vlad! Ninjas hide not only in the shadows, but in plain sight as well.

Where can I go, then?

You can go back to America.

America? Vlad literally scoffed at the idea. What do I have in America?

You have your history, your past. You wouldn't need a new name, or any other such nonsense. It would be hiding in plain sight.

And what would I say when I suddenly show up? What would I say when people ask me where I've been?

You could claim you wanted to connect with nature and became a hermit for eight years.

That's a bit much, isn't it?

You could also say that being in a hospital for so long, that suffering the aftereffects of the incident has traumatized you and you wanted to find yourself. That could be more believable. Thoreau lived by himself in the woods for a year, and hermits are a thing. You could claim after eight years, you were tired of staying away from civilization and wanted to return.

Except it's been closer to ten, not eight, years.

Nobody's going to ask what you went through. People know that that kind of thing is private. They'll suck it up like a sponge, anyway, and who honestly cares? It's America. You don't have many friends left there, and after disappearing for nearly a decade, most people would probably think you're dead. And who says you have to stay there? The Shadows will find you, and you'll be back home.

But… the Shadows weren't all that innocent, either… do I even want to stay with the Shadows? Should I?

Vlad was… humbled. For years, he believed that he was doing good by cutting off certain heads (literally and figuratively). What if he hadn't? What if the Shadows were a group that should have had their head cut off as well?

The Shadows had a noble purpose and idea, that was undeniably true. Removing the evil from the world was something that Vlad was proud of doing.

Vlad's heart ached when he remembered the lovely emotions that flowed through him as the League died. Only truly horrible people had that effect on him as they died, and Vlad had felt as if he had entered pure bliss as the Shadows died in droves.

They'd strayed from their purpose.

It was then that Vlad knew his answer. His purpose.

He'd return to America, but he would make a name for himself. The remaining members of the League over the world would hear his name and recognize what he had done. They would recognize his call.

They would find him, and he would reunite the Shadows and put them back on the right path. The League would return to their original, noble goal and the world would once again be protected by the Shadows.

As Vlad stood, stronger than ever, he surveyed the wreckage before him one last time before leaving his home forever, his purpose giving him strength and power to move forward.

He would reunite the League. The Shadows would rise again, refined by fire, like a phoenix, and the evils in the world would finally be purged by fire.

Vlad would assure it.