Chapter One

Drake was awake even before his ears could pick up her purposefully, percivable footsteps. He yawned and stretched like a large cat on the couch he had been sleeping on every night since his escape from Happy Harbor. He rolled onto his stomach and blearily blinked his eyes open just as The Woman entered the room. She stopped in the doorway, studying him, observing his movements. It disturbed Drake greatly but he never said anything about it.

"It's not necessary for you to pretend that you just woke up, Drake." Lady Shiva told him, cocking her head to the side. Drake just shrugged his shoulders.

"It's also not necessary for you to stomp around just so you know I know you're in the vicinity." Drake smiled. "It makes me think you're angry. You're more frighting to me when you're angry than if you had been silent and invisible." And again, that evaluating look. "Now that that's over with, what is it? Have your skills been temporarily bought again?"

Lady Shiva understood that Drake didn't mean to sound rude when he said that when his real question was 'Who are we killing this time?' "Pack your bags, Drake, we have a plane to catch." And Drake did just that. He didn't care much for the noise and bustle of Hong Kong anyway.

There was a strange relationship that Drake shared with Lady Shiva, one that Drake didn't even try to begin understanding. He would speak when spoken to, question when Lady Shiva purposefully kept information from him, act when provoked to, and stop when he thought there were more pressing matters. Lady Shiva watched the boy in the seat next to her toss and turn in his seat and try futilely to sleep. She didn't understand him, he was... what was that he called it? 'Just being phantasmagoric', Lady Shiva shook her head. It sounded like a silly word anyway.

She noticed Drake's behavior, she always did. On a good day, he would be lounging about on the couch or on the carpeted floor like a feline, what he did with his time when he wasn't around the master martial artist was a mystery. But on a bad day, he would childishly feign sickness or storm about swearing like a sailor in every known language except English and Chinese. He was amusing sometimes. But, something she always found intriguing about him was his ability to pull himself away from a fight.

Well, it wasn't like Drake abhorred fighting and violence, he enjoyed it, welcomed it, even. He loved a thrilling fight just as much as Lady Shiva did but one part of his mind never let go, the logical part that always told him when he was fighting a losing fight, that sometimes, losing a fight to win a war would do him better in the long run. Shiva just wanted to take that part of his mind into her hands and crush it. She wanted to see it, the Drake St. Allen who could throw himself whole-heartedly into a fight and come out victorious. The Drake that had nothing to lose.

Drake finally gave up on sleep after the first half hour of the flight and nudged Lady Shiva's arm to get her attention. "Do you mind telling me where we're going now?" he asked, Lady Shiva shrugged her shoulders.

"You'll see."

"Really? The League of Assassins!" Drake tried his best to sound impressed and was failing badly. "I'm... I don't know what do say, Lady Shiva." Lady Shiva smiled at him.

"Don't worry, the fun begins after this pit stop." A man approached Lady Shiva and Drake. He was towering over Drake and intimidated him greatly, although Drake merely shifted from one foot to the other and imagined schooling his expression into a blank slate.

"Lady Shiva!" the man greeted cordially, Lady Shiva returned the favor.

"Ra's al Ghul." Drake tried not to choke on his own spit. "This is my... companion, Drake."

The Demon blinked and Drake could almost hear the gears in his ancient head turn. He did know Batman's identity, after all, didn't he? It was quite obvious that Drake was not, well, Drake... the Tim one. "St. Allen." Drake filled in hurriedly for the man.

Drake had thought Lady Shiva had come to speak to Ra's al Ghul, but her attention was elsewhere. "Have your assassins fallen behind on their training?" she asked darkly, causing Drake to flinch slightly, no more than a twitch.

"Their trainer has been gone for long." Ra's al Ghul replied simply, Lady Shiva leveled a glare at him and stalked off to retrain her students. Drake floundered mentally, should he follow her? What should he...? His train of thought was abruptly cut by Ra's al Ghul turning to him with interest.

"You are Lady Shiva's newest apprentice?" It was more of a statement than a question, Drake shrugged his shoulders. "She doesn't take many apprentices, she usually kills them before deciding whether they have potential, or not." Drake quite honestly didn't know why Ra's al Ghul was telling him these things. It wasn't like Lady Shiva, or him, for that matter, cared.

"She tried to kill me, and I simply did not want to die, Sir." he told Ra's al Ghul curtly.

Ra's al Ghul nodded. "Understandable. Quite, understandable." he hummed, it sounded somehow eerie to Drake. In a way, it was the voice of ages, after all.

"And... to clear things up about us, I'm not her apprentice, per se." Ra's al Ghul raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?" Drake nodded.

"We... work alongside each other, in a way. We are both assassins, both mercenaries, both keep a watchful eye on Batman, and both love a good fight. We are simply... using each other." he explained. "Anything that is learned during our fights are just useful bonuses."

"I would have thought Lady Shiva would have demanded your loyalty and attention, or something along those lines by now." Drake shrugged his shoulders with a careless air.

"Lady Shiva trains women as her successors, men are, more often than not, for her entertainment." he explained, Ra's al Ghul nodded understandingly. Drake heard the 'swish' of air being disturbed only a second before throwing himself to the ground. He heard a sharp clang and the offending knife fell to the ground uselessly. Drake pulled himself to his feet and brushed dirt off himself. "You must be Damian." He turned around to say to the boy. Damian just sniffed condescendingly and turned away as if offended that Drake had dodged. Drake decided to ignore him from now on.

"Charming. Anyway, I should be getting to Lady Shiva now." he said, turning his attention back to Ra's al Ghul. "If you will excuse me."

He wandered around for a while before he finally found Lady Shiva. She was just finishing up her training and was toweling a few drops of sweat off her face. "You're looking bored, Drake." she told him, Drake smiled back.

"Really? I thought my acting skills were better than that." Then he heard a commotion, someone was coming. Someone important. He cocked his head and sent a questioning look to Lady Shiva. "Nyssa Raatko?" Shiva just took him by the shoulder and guided him firmly out of the room.

"Just someone of importance." But nobody of your concern. Drake pouted a little but let himself be brought away, it wasn't his place to pry. He threw a last glance over his shoulder just in time to catch a glimpse of a dark form with a bat insigna branded into her chest. "Drake, I hereby release you from our contract. You are free to go." Lady Shiva murmured in his ear as she nudged him out of the vicinity and closed the door behind him.

Drake returned to his temporary room where he had left his meager belongings and began calling contacts, making plans. He had promised to meet Batman to relate the League's movements to him. He was no longer working for Lady Shiva, he had no more reason to stay here.

By the time he emerged from the room all of the commotion had died down, in fact, there was not a soul in sight. Drake bit his lip but continued on his way out, then he smelled blood. He stopped dead in his tracks, his instincts dragged his feet to the source of the stench. Then he saw her, Lady Shiva hung limply over the Lazarus Pit suspended by a metal hook through her shoulder. Drake approached her in an almost trance-like state.

He reached out and stroked Lady Shiva's still warm cheek with a reverence. Then his reflexes kicked in again when he smelled an ample amount of fresh blood directly behind him. He spun around 180 degrees, gun in hand, pointing the barrel directly between Batgirl's eyes. It was the first time Drake had met her face-to-face, he wasn't sure if Batgirl even knew who Drake was.

Batgirl's hands fisted tightly but the action was not lost on Drake. "Don't bother." he said curtly, lowering his gun. "You're in no condition to fight with me." He turned back to face Lady Shiva. "Leave." And Batgirl did.

Drake watched blankly as blood flowed from a still fresh wound on Lady Shiva's face. Even in death, she was beautiful, the light from the Lazarus Pit caused bright shadows to dance across her skin. Drake let out a soft sigh. "Such a waste." he murmured before he pushed Lady Shiva's body lightly. The chain suspending her in the air groaned in protest and gave away, sending the warrior hurling into the Pit.

He watched for a few moments as the cuts on Lady Shiva's face closed and healed. He shook his head in amazement as he took a sample from the Pit, sometimes, it was hard to believe some of the things he saw in his line of work.

He cast one final glance at the fallen Lady Shiva and walked away.