Six years ago.
The air lay stagnant and wet over the Shadow's mountain fortress. Rain would come soon when the winds on the other side of the mountain peaks sought to drive off the colder winds on the fortress side. A large group of assassins clad all in black herded a group of white-clad children onto the roof and into the cold, wet air. The children learned from these assassins for now. Soon they would each be given masters. Only one student already had a master, and her master stood in a corner watching carefully.
The children, all of various ages, eyed each other warily. They studied their competition. Today, they came in no cosmetics, no clothing aids for the girls, no styled or dyed hair. They came as they were. And they judged each other as they were. Children with black hair stared down children with light hair. Children with dark skin frowned at the proudly tilted chins of those with lighter skin. Blue eyes stared over the sneering mouths of some children as they peered into the dark eyes of others. All eyes alike measured heights, assessed musculature, guessed at level of acrobatic skill, wondered if there was any way to guess at someone's computer skills by looking at their fingers and wrists. These were their rivals. Each sought out the ways in which they were better than the others, even if it was only the shape of their chin. Each tried to hide their shortcomings, even if it was only their too-short neck.
The master in the corner watched her apprentice with interest as she too assessed her peers but attempted to hide nothing, sneered at nothing. Then one of the teachers pushed a young boy of about eight forward, and all together as if by signal the children began to cycle within the circle their standing teachers made. They made seven turns before one student pulled inside the circle and stood there. By instinct to keep moving, the other children kept cycling, but now all eyes were on the one student who had stepped away. They knew her. She was Talia's apprentice. Raksha, she was called. It was said that Ra's himself had given her that name, a name that meant "Demon". Before they had been chosen for this program, they would have been in awe of her, had been in awe of her from afar. Today, though, as they met her for the first time, they met as others who had been chosen specially. As they met on this rooftop, they met as equals. Their narrowed eyes watched her in careful anticipation. Her infamy guaranteed her no success here. They studied her dark eyes, her brown skin, her curly black hair cut short. She was short too. She was all wrong to be a Robin. She would be no threat to them.
Then suddenly, they all stopped where they stood. Raksha was smiling. The smile was open and kind. She turned in a tight circle so that she could smile at all nineteen of them. Then, she walked forward and began shaking hands with them, clapping them on their shoulders, giving her name and greeting them with silly word-play and cackling laughter.
As she made her way around the room giving a personal greeting to every baffled child there, the teachers nodded to each other and talked quietly in each other's ears. Talia smiled.
The other children, had they been wise enough to see it, could have known that day who would eventually rise above them all. Talia knew. The other teachers suspected. Only Raksha had known to finish her assessments quickly and seal them with a warm welcome.
For this is what Robin would have done.
The wind howled in the mountain peaks, and thunder sounded. From high on the rooftop, the children could feel the heavens shake. They had arrived on that rooftop as equals, but they would not leave so.
Running
Dick pulled a green hoodie over his head as he got dressed. It was six months since the mission in the Alps, one since he'd woken from his rehabilitative coma, and he felt no pain or stiffness in his chest anymore. Actually, he never had. He'd been perfectly healed the moment he'd come out of that capsule. He was currently in his room at Wayne manor and had been practically quarantined there since he'd woken. Healed or not, another problem had kept him from going back to his civilian life or seeing any guests. It was normal and necessary, apparently, to be ill after the treatment he'd received. After so long in that chemical bath, his body had to eliminate the medium which had seeped so far into his body. At first, it had been terrifying. Constantly vomiting up his insides only to realize that it wasn't his insides at all but some foul-tasting yellow ooze had been anything but asterous. Which was to say nothing of any of the other ways his body had found it convenient to eliminate the chemicals. After a few hours, it became less terrifying and more painful and exhausting. A few days and it was . . . still painful and exhausting. A few weeks and it was annoying, down to just infrequent vomiting. After a month, it was just routine. He still felt the need to empty his stomach without warning sometimes, so he carried a few small trash bags in his pockets everywhere he went. The chemicals inside him had made his skin and breath stink, so he'd grown used to wearing strong cologne and periodically stopping to use mouthwash. Some days he'd take three or four showers. At least he'd stopped actually being yellow after the first two weeks awake.
The hellishness of his month hadn't been just due to his illness, though. It had been boring. There were times he'd wondered if sheer lack of anything to do wouldn't finish what the harpoon had started. His teammates couldn't speak to him – they didn't know who Dick Grayson was – and life went on for Bruce, but he'd used up his time looking into everything that had happened on that mission in France and some of what had happened afterward. Bruce had provided him with the reports and testimonials of all his teammates and the League members who had been involved that night. He was also able to hack into the League computers and pull out some video footage from the Watchtower and DuLacque's home security. The Watchtower images were not worth much. The girl had miraculously, surely not skillfully, managed to never face a camera. The security footage the League had lifted from the home in France had been good, though. Bit by bit, he'd pieced together answers to a lot of questions. A lof it came back to this girl who had saved his life. Raksha, Bruce said her name was. The home security footage had shown the girl had been the one to spot M'gann. Apparently she wasn't saying much to anyone wherever she was being held in confinement, but what she had admitted to Batman had included being a member of the League of Shadows. That solved that mystery. Dick wouldn't expect a Shadows-trained assassin to be fooled by Martian camouflage alone. The girl had been the one to alert the rest of the security force that his team had entered.
Well, the assassins hadn't actually been security. Robin hadn't missed his guess: the whole thing had been a set-up by the Shadows. DuLacque had not been an ally of the Shadows but a target. After they'd stripped away the framework of his wealth and killed him, the assassins had conveniently used the home as a place to catch his team off-guard. The person who had tried hacking him back had, as he'd also guessed, been part of the trap. The assassins had moved into position under the vents while he was distracted. They'd been ready when he crawled right over them.
Having read Connor and Kaldur's reports, he'd also learned of a few other mysteries the girl solved. She had harpooned the sharks. Then she had snuck aboard the bio-ship after Artemis, Wally, and Zatanna were on but before he, Connor, and Kaldur were. The assassins had stopped attacking of their own accord after his fall. Based on all of this, Bruce believed it was obvious that the girl was a plant, that the whole trap had actually been a ploy to get her in among the League, and Dick had to agree. But if so, it was a suspiciously obvious plant, and they had no idea what her objective was. That seemed to be the only question left. Today, Robin was going to get the chance to ask her. She'd been tight-lipped, but she had agreed early on that she would submit herself to any and all questions as soon as Robin was able to be present. Dick wasn't entirely sure why she had been given a choice, but Bruce hadn't been willing to elaborate further. Her hearing, so that Robin could be present as agreed, had been set for today.
Dick slipped his trash bags into his jeans pockets; scooped up his phone, wallet, and sunglasses; grabbed a black jacket off his coat-rack; and made his way down to the cave. Batman was waiting next to the Batmobile, so he hopped straight in. He would have been in uniform right now, except that he'd tried at one point during his convalescence to don it and do something productive. He'd been stopped before he'd even made it out of the house, and Bruce had confiscated all of his uniforms. The dark tint on the Batmobile, his shades, and the sheer speed at which Batman drove would be enough to protect his identity anyway. Batman leapt into the driver's seat and they were on their way to Gotham's zeta tube.
Batman kept glancing over at his ward as he drove. Dick finally rolled his eyes.
"What? I threw up in the Batmobile once," Dick said, "just once. You can stop looking at me like that; it's not like it was motion sickness."
Batman just stared forward at the road. "You didn't have to clean up the mess. It nearly ruined the upholstery," he said in his typical deadpan humor.
"I feel fine, Batman," Dick sighed, "honestly. Asterous."
"You should prepare yourself for this," Batman replied, ignoring Dick's statement. "This girl is . . ."
"An assassin, I know, but she saved my life. I can see that clear as day on the Watchtower security."
Batman frowned. "That's not what I was going to say, but since you bring it up she may have saved your life but we still don't know why. That alone should make you cautious."
"Yeah, about that," Dick said. "How has she been in confinement for six months but we still don't know what she wants or why she's here?"
Batman frowned. "I didn't say that. It's complicated. She's talked to me, but no one else, and I don't believe for one moment that she's told me everything. Hopefully we'll learn what we need to today, and we can get this over with and handled."
"Fine way to talk about the person who saved me," Dick said, frowning.
Batman's jaw tightened as he pulled into one of the places he liked to hide his vehicle when he took the zeta tube. "I don't need to be reminded of how much I owe her, Robin. That won't stop me from doing what I have to with her." With that, he exited the Batmobile and struck off toward the old phone booth. Dick scrambled out after him, not so much as blinking at Batman's statement. That was just the way Batman worked, and he was used to it.
"But you said she had talked to you about something at least," Dick pressed him. "And I don't believe for one minute you'd be bothering with this hearing if you thought she meant anyone harm."
Batman stopped outside the phone booth. "That's what this hearing is to find out. Raksha asked that I not tell anyone what she told me with the understanding that she would eventually answer all questions when you could be present to hear. The fact that I allowed that compromise should tell you I don't take what she did for you lightly. But one thing I do know," he said turning to look at Dick, "is what she's told me she wants. I'll keep my end of this compromise and let her say it for herself at her hearing today, but I'm warning you to be prepared. Don't mistake her for a saint, Robin. She's anything but."
Dick stood still for a moment, then sighed and nodded. Whatever was going on, he supposed they'd all figure it out as soon as they got to the Watchtower and got this hearing started. He took Batman's silent command to zeta out first and waited on the other side as his mentor came through behind him.
As Batman and Robin stepped away from the zeta tube in the Watchtower, Robin was busy pondering everything Batman had just said, which was why he was taken by surprise when M'gann zipped into view and enveloped him in the absolute gentlest hug he thought he'd ever felt.
"Robin!" she cried. "We've all missed you so much! Are you ok? We heard you were healed, but . . ."
Robin grinned. "Sure am, Miss M. So you can stop hugging me like you're worried you'll break me."
M'gann giggled and squeezed him tightly, then pulled away. She turned as the rest of the team stepped into the hallway a little uncertainly. Zatanna was the next to move, jerking forward and practically collapsing on Robin. He tried to hold her comfortingly. It was a little awkward with everyone watching, but he supposed he'd died on her. She deserved to be cut a little slack. Still, he could see over her shoulder that Wally was about to vibrate a hole in the floor if he didn't get his turn, and Zatanna seemed to be too preoccupied trying not to cry to actually say anything. Robin gave his girlfriend a squeeze and pulled back a little, hoping she'd take the hint. As soon as she finally did and let go of him, he turned a blinding grin on Kid Flash.
"Dude, Wall-man! You miss me?" he asked. His last syllables were spoken through squished cheeks as Wally zipped forward before he'd even finished speaking, took his best friend's head in both hands, and leveled a very serious stare at him.
"Never. Do that. Again," Wally said.
"Um, dude," Robin said, "stop squishing my face and I won't."
"Good," Wally replied, nodding and dropping his hands. "As long as we understand each other." He smiled softly.
M'gann was sweetly trying to help Zatanna calm down, holding her while she finished the cry she had started when she'd hugged Robin, and Artemis was just stepping up when Batman swept forward from where he'd been waiting.
"We're starting in five," Batman said curtly as he passed through the small reunion on his way toward the council hall where the League held their meetings. The team collectively flinched. Robin guessed they'd been feeling the pressure the last six months after the thoroughly botched mission.
Artemis glanced at Robin who just shrugged, smirking. Artemis returned the smirk. "Staying traught?" she asked.
"You know it," Robin said with a wide smile.
"Good," Artemis said following where Batman had gone. "That's all I need to know."
Connor simply nodded to Robin and left, and most of the remaining team members took their cue to go too. Aqualad, though, stayed where he was as though rooted to the spot. Robin sighed. He had expected that Kaldur, as team leader, might have something more to say about what had happened.
"Kaldur. I saw the security footage from the house we raided. Thanks for the save," he said with a friendly smile.
Kaldur's jaw tightened. "I . . ." he paused, floundering for the words, "I did not save you, my friend. This stranger, who by all accounts should be an enemy, she saved you. I brought home your corpse." Robin opened his mouth to speak, but Kaldur silenced him with a gesture. "No, my friend. I made mistakes. You rightly said that I should not make you the new rendezvous, and I ignored you. I allowed myself to remain trapped, useless, in the underwater tunnels for fear of being discovered when we clearly already had been. And even if I had not made mistakes." He shook his head, eyes lowering to his bare feet. "What happens to this team is my responsibility." He took a deep breath and looked back up, his blue eyes boring straight into Robin's shaded ones. "I have always believed that I was holding the place of team leader for you. On that day, I almost cost this team the leader they deserve. We will speak later of you taking my place as leader of this team. Perhaps it is time."
Silence fell between the two. Robin was for once having a hard time thinking of something to say, and Kaldur had said everything he meant to. Finally, after a few moments, Robin spoke up softly.
"They're probably waiting for us in the council chambers," he said. Kaldur nodded and the two of them walked together to the meeting. Chairs had been added to the ones already at the oblong table to accommodate most of the league and all of the team. Each member of the team had been assigned a place beside their mentor, so Robin and Aqualad parted ways without a word and took their seats.
Looking around the room, Robin noticed there was still one person missing.
"Where's Black Canary?" he whispered to Batman. His mentor said nothing, but a moment later Black Canary walked in through a door toward the back, waiting there as the subject of this hearing herself came in. Robin never saw Black Canary take her seat. He had looked up the name "Raksha" to see if anyone came up. No one fitting what he knew of the girl had. He had found a reference in Rudyard Kipling's writing, though, and due to that he had been expecting someone a little more . . . exotic. He had not been expecting to be looking in a mirror. He felt himself go cold as his eyes, riveted on her, noticed hers riveted on him. When had she found him in the crowded room? Had he missed the moment she swept her eyes over the audience or had she known somehow where he'd be? He wondered briefly, through his tunnel-vision, if this was how Red Arrow had felt when he'd realized he was a clone. If he had felt like his world had ground to a halt and would never start again unless he figured out how this could be possible and where he fit into the explanation. But the moment, as shocking as it was, didn't last. Robin's detective training kicked in almost immediately, and he noticed what he hadn't seen at first. This person was certainly no clone. She wore a red hoodie, black skinny jeans, and tennis shoes and shades. There was no jacket, but he admitted that looked very like his own style. Her hair was cut and styled like his, and the skin tone was even the same. No, wait. She, and she definitely was a she, was wearing powder that matched his skin tone. Although his sharp eyes could tell she had the body of a trained acrobat and martial artist, her proportions also weren't his. She was shorter and not as angular. Her nose and chin weren't right. Her ears were smaller, which in another situation he might have had time to be envious of. In fact, he was beginning to wonder how he had ever thought she looked anything like him. He frowned in confusion.
"It's her posture," Batman said to him quietly. "Watch when she moves and you'll see it."
The girl finally stepped forward to the council table, and Robin saw what Batman meant. No, she wasn't his clone, but she could move like him. His head spun with how disorienting it was. He got the feeling if he watched long enough he'd start to wonder if he was the one who didn't look like Robin. Part of him was very impressed. Part of him wished Batman had given him better warning. Either way, Batman didn't need to worry about him taking her lightly anymore. All his guards were up.
Batman stood up, apparently acting as chair of this meeting. "Six months ago, we knew nothing about this girl," he said in a voice that would carry. "We still know nothing," he said, fixing her with an intense stare. "She has agreed to answer any and all questions at this time, so I'll begin." Raksha stood up straight and tall in exactly the sort of way Dick would put his back up when scolded, and Batman's eyes narrowed threateningly at her. "State your name."
The girl hesitated, then spoke clearly. "That was not a question," she said in a juvenile voice pitched to be a little rough. Robin's jaw dropped ever so slightly open, and people in the room shifted uneasily. Even her voice mimicked his. And she was sassing Batman! He glanced up at his mentor for his reaction, but across the room Black Canary's voice rang out.
"You are not here to test us!" she yelled, standing up in anger. "What is your name?"
The girl smirked and cocked her head slightly before replying. "Thank you for your question. It's Raksha, but I have been called Meredith. Raksha was the name given to me when I became a true apprentice to the Shadows." Black Canary was practically shaking with anger, Green Arrow trying to get her to sit down. Robin would have found Canary's loss of temper surprising if he had noticed, but he hadn't. He was thinking. The girl wasn't sassing Batman at all. She was treating this like an interrogation. Like he would treat an interrogation. Robin swallowed and stood up next to Batman. He asked the only question on his mind.
"How are you doing this?" he said. The room went quiet. For most of those present, this was the first time they had heard his voice in six months. This girl's imitation aside. His voice had been soft, but Raksha had heard it clearly.
"I have been trained to do this," she said, shrugging and glancing briefly at Batman.
So she hadn't completely believed that Batman had told no one what she'd said to him, Robin thought. He looked up at Batman, who nodded and sat down.
"Trained by whom?" Robin asked. "And why?"
"Many people," she answered, finally taking the questions seriously. "To destroy you."
Robin blinked confusedly at that, but he was finally getting his feet underneath him. Talking to this girl had the strange effect of counteracting the confusion her appearance and movements cause him, as though his brain at least could tell that if he was talking to her she must be another person entirely. Not Robin. "That doesn't make sense," he said flatly. "If you wanted me dead, I would be."
Her lips thinned thoughtfully, and she seemed to mimic his confused blink. "That . . . was also not a question."
Robin smirked. "And here I thought you were just giving everyone else a hard time. Wasn't I the one you really wanted to talk to? Well, I'm here. And apparently you're a little obsessed, so go ahead and get this off your chest. Talk to me. You've got my attention." He was hoping to get a real reaction, not a Robin reaction, out of her, and he got one. She went stone still. Her lips twitched, and she gritted her teeth. He imagined her eyes behind her shades glaring daggers at him. It grated on him that he couldn't help imagining those eyes looking like his.
"There was a question in there," she finally ground out, voice dripping anger. "Yes, you are the one I wanted to talk to."
"Why?" Robin asked immediately. If she was going to treat this like an interrogation, he'd treat her to one.
"Apparently, because I'm obsessed," she said, smirking.
"No, not apparently. That was my conclusion. I want yours," Robin fired off.
Her smirk fell. "Well, you said it was apparent," Raksha said.
"No, I didn't," Robin said.
The girl hesitated, thinking. Then she huffed a small laugh that could have turned into his cackle if she'd wanted it to. "Yes, you did. You should pay better attention if you're going to try to give me the run around." She smiled at him, then, not unkindly, and Robin had a thought.
"Whatever. If you want me dead, why did you save me?" he asked carefully.
"False premise," the girl said, still smiling. "I don't want you dead."
Robin frowned. "But you said-" he stopped, thinking. He needed to consider more carefully. She was as good at word-play as he was. "You said you wanted me destroyed. Fine. If you want me destroyed, why did you save me?"
"Destroyed doesn't have to mean dead," she said, voice falling soft. "And, again, I never said I wanted to."
Robin huffed in frustration and looked up at the ceiling. "Ok, so you're going to- wait, scratch that. Are you going to destroy me?"
"I hope not," the girl said.
Robin looked at her and just stared. She stared back. He broke out into a smile. "Wait. The League of Shadows wants me destroyed. They trained you to do this. They planted you here to do this. But you don't want to. Is that right?"
She smiled, her Robin-like face looking almost motherly. It was odd seeing that on a copy of his face. "Took you long enough," she teased.
"Well, it would have gone faster if you didn't insist on everything I say being a question," he said, teasing her back. "You do realize that everyone in this room knows the reason you're insisting on questions is so that you are not forced to give away as much information?" To his right, Wally made a noise of surprise. Robin and the Robin copy both watched each other struggle not to smile. "Ok, well, most everyone in this room knows that," Robin corrected himself.
"Yes, I realize that," Raksha said, nodding.
"Then why do you still insist on it?" Robin said, spreading his hands questioningly. "If you're not here to destroy me, then you saved me, and I'm thankful for that. I know many people here are. Do you want us to not trust you? Because as thankful as we are, there are still people in this room who don't trust you." Suddenly, he remembered his conversation with Batman in the Batmobile. He remembered the words Batman had opened this hearing with, and it hit him. All her answers made everything sound fine, but whatever she was hiding would make it sound less fine. That was the true side effect of only answering questions: she was only telling him what he wanted to hear.
"Everyone has their secrets," the girl said, but she was no longer smiling. She had seen the change in Robin's demeanor, knew what it meant.
Robin gritted his teeth and sat down. He looked over at Batman, and his mentor took his silent cue to take over. Robin himself crossed his arms, sat back in his chair, and closed his eyes. It was time to start distrusting this girl, and no one would do that better than Batman.
"Who trained you?" Batman asked sharply.
"Many people," Raksha said.
"So you said. Who specifically?" Batman pressed her.
She frowned. "Many people you probably don't know."
"Try me," Batman growled.
"One you do know. My master was Talia al Ghul. She oversaw all my training," Raksha replied. So far they were repeating information he already knew, so she wasn't surprised he leapt straight into his next question.
"Past tense?" Batman asked.
Raksha gave him her best Robin shrug. "That's what I said."
"Were you intentionally planted here by the League of Shadows using the trap of DuLacque's home?"
"We've already established that. Yes, I was," Raksha replied curtly.
"And was the sparing of Robin's life also intended by those who sent you?" Batman asked. Robin cocked his head in surprise at that question, but kept his eyes closed.
Raksha hesitated a moment. This was not a question he had asked her before now. "Yes," she said.
"Did you steal the equipment necessary to save Robin?" Batman asked.
"No," Raksha replied.
"Then, did the League of Shadows give you that equipment for exactly that purpose?"
Raksha paled, finally seeing what was happening. She needed to be viewed as positively as possible after this, but she'd lost her finger-hold on the course of this hearing in just a few short questions. Robin may not have given her the run-around, but Batman was doing just fine at it. "Yes," she answered after a moment. She watched as Robin's mouth formed a hard line. She had lost. And the Batman wasn't even done yet. He knew so little, she'd told him so little, but he was still going to pick her apart.
"How were you chosen for this mission?" Batman asked next.
"There was a contest," she answered, ignoring the thrill of fear at this question and choosing her words carefully.
"A contest," he repeated. "So there were other contestants?"
She couldn't help it. She went cold, and it felt as though her knees might buckle underneath her. She waited for them to. But of course they did not. She had not been trained to give in to her emotional responses, but the fact remained that she had responded emotionally. She looked at her questioner in a dull, removed horror as she saw what was coming. He had seen through her response, steady knees or no, and knew he'd hit on something important, hurtful. He was going to keep digging until he found out what.
"Yes," she said softly.
"How many?" Batman asked, to all the world uncaring that he had found a wound and was digging in it. It was like looking at a crushing weight falling on his own partner's shoulders, but he had grown used to having his responses tugged at by her Dick impersonation after just the first time he'd questioned her. He no longer allowed it to bother him.
"Nineteen others," Raksha said quickly.
"How were you chosen above nineteen others?" Batman asked.
"I had the appropriate skill set and . . . attributes. To greater degree than the others," she answered, still trying to get around the issue even though she knew he wouldn't let her.
"With what sort of contest were your 'attributes' tested?" Batman said, finally asking the worst question. She steeled herself visibly.
"We were placed together in . . . a location, and required to engage each other in combat," she said.
A derisive voice cut across the room from the opposite side of Batman. "Do we even want to know how that ended for the other nineteen?" Green Arrow asked, his face pale with anger. Next to him, Black Canary was glaring at her hands in her lap. All eyes in the room but Robin's locked on this new questioner, including the subject of the questioning. She dimly recognized the humor of her situation as the shock of being asked this question by this man saved her from the hold Batman had been quickly tightening on her.
"No," she answered calmly, truthfully.
"No, I didn't think so," Green Arrow spat. "Did you slaughter them all or did you have enough pity to leave a few to squabble amongst themselves for a while until they died? That is to say, I'm a little unclear on the actual rules of this contest. Maybe you'd like to tell us exactly how it worked? Did you have to kill your mark in under a certain time frame? Was it a free for all or round-Robin style? Oh, sorry," he laughed nastily, "no pun intended. Maybe you'd like to regale us with your finest kill from the event," he said, leaning forward on his knees, hands in tight fists.
Raksha fought with the fury and wailing despair that rose up in her. It was placeless. It was baseless. It was needless. It threatened to overwhelm her, but in the months that had passed since she had survived that final trial she had stopped trying to make sense of these feelings. She knew that there were reasons for them; there was a reason it made her so angry she could kill all over again and so lost she could make herself the one she killed in that fit of anger. But she had long exhausted the energy to discern why. It just did, and it was worse than useless to feel that way now. She felt herself falling into a place safe from any emotion at all. She had trained and lived in this place for years. Perhaps she should have been in this place from the beginning of this interrogation and saved herself a lot of confusion, hope, and pain. No matter, she was there now. This place of calm had saved her from falling to pieces during the final trial itself as she killed five children in cold blood, and it would save her now.
She looked back at Green Arrow with a dangerous calm. "Green Arrow. Do you have something to say?" Raksha asked.
The archer's mouth opened then closed again in disbelief. He swallowed thickly then stood, turning away from the object of his anger and toward his fellow heroes. "If we're on the subject of the character of this assassin," he said, "I do have something to add. Black Canary and I have both met this person before. About five years ago, she brought a hit list and a team of assassins to Starling City. I intervened and was able to take out her team of assassins, but she lived to confront me for getting in her way. And by 'confront' I mean shoot me in the leg and threaten to blast my brains out to get Black Canary to help her take out the rest of the names on her list." He placed a hand on Black Canary's shoulder, seemingly without noticing he'd done it. "And if you're thinking that killing is all she's good at, you'd be wrong. Turns out even that was a ploy! She had Black Canary, as a civilian, drag one of the names into court on a fraud charge, so that she could snipe him while he was in court. But she did it in such a way as to start a whole gang war right then and there in the courthouse and almost got Canary killed! I offered . . ." he swallowed, blushing with shame, "I offered to take the list myself. Demanded it. It was only after I'd killed every person on that list that I realized she had used Canary to manipulate me into doing her dirty work." His hand tightened on Black Canary's shoulder as he wheeled on the assassin who was watching his tirade impassively. "You are a cold-blooded murderer and a manipulating witch! And I'm not even sure why we're letting you explain yourself! So you murdered a few kids? I for one am not surprised!" He turned back toward his fellows. "And the longer we let her talk the more time we give her to work us over, manipulate us into doing what she wants."
"You forget," Raksha said calmly, pausing as he turned stiffly back to her, "that you were killing long before I manipulated you into doing it for me. And you forget that the reason you noticed me and my team on our very first hit was because you were there too. My list was your list. You're a cold-blooded killer too."
"I was," Green Arrow ground out. "Emphasis on "was". Meeting you was certainly a wake-up call. But I can see you haven't changed a bit."
Green Arrow was still staring her down and she was still bearing it bravely, when a voice cut to her heart yet again. "How did they die?" Robin asked, still not looking at her.
"Badly," she answered softly, turning away from him after a glance and back to Green Arrow. She could take his hate. "And that is all I will say about it. I'm certainly not going to go into gory details, and in any case," she smiled ruefully at Green Arrow as she answered one of his earlier questions, "I only killed five of them. For the rest, my estimations of how they died would be guesses."
From near the front door, Wonder Woman spoke up for the first time. "Why? To what purpose would the League of Shadows arrange such a contest? To discover the best copy of Robin in order to destroy him? I do not understand."
"Yes and no," Raksha said, turning toward the new questioner. "To discover the best of us to take the mission of destroying Robin, yes. But not to discover the best copy of Robin. The honor of being the best copy belonged to someone else. I was the one to kill him." She forced herself not to dwell on the sight of his crushed body six floors below her. He had been one of the ones with true blue eyes. "It was never the intention of the Shadows to create a copy of Robin. They wanted to create a destroyer. The copying was simply a side-effect."
"Of what?" asked Wonder Woman.
"Of of one of the oldest military principles: know your enemy," Batman said. "The Shadows didn't want a Robin copy. They wanted someone who knew Robin well enough to destroy him. So they taught a group of children how to be Robin then pitted them against each other to see who would rise above the rest."
As Wonder Woman sat back, looking troubled, Robin sat forward in his chair, feeling suddenly defensive. "But a copy isn't the real thing," he blurted out.
"No," Raksha said, forcing herself not to look at him. "It's not."
Robin hesitated a moment, then abruptly stood up. "Then get this over with. Let's have it out right here. No copy is going to be able to take me out."
"Robin!" Batman said, his voice like a whip. "You haven't been listening. She's not a copy of you, and this is ridiculous. Sit down."
Robin just gritted his teeth. "I have been listening, actually. And I think we've gotten back to square one. So we don't trust her. Makes sense. But are we worried about her? Are we concerned that she can really do what she's been trained to do? Well, there's only one way to find out. No one here is actually going to let her kill me." He looked around the room at the assembled heroes. "So let's see her try."
"No," Batman said, eyes narrowing in warning.
"Batman," Robin said looking up at his mentor calmly, "I want to know where I stand here. We've just learned that the League of Shadows has spent probably years coming up with a way to end me. Why, I have no idea, but I want to know if I stand a chance. This girl was trained by Talia al Ghul herself. To destroy me. I have to know if I'd be dead right now under any other circumstances. I died once," he said without pause, "I want to know if I'm in danger of dying again or if I can hold my own."
The room went silent. That seemed to be happening a lot today. Robin blushed, suddenly feeling oddly guilty for what he'd just said. He hadn't meant to throw the death card – he hadn't in the whole last month ever given it much thought –, but suddenly he was being faced with the idea of not an accidental or job-hazard death but an assassination and death mattered. He probably could have phrased that better, though, if he'd had the time to think about the sudden shift in his perspective. He ducked his head away from Batman's piercing gaze and snuck a glance at Kaldur. The look on his leader's face made him wonder if Aqualad still intended to force him into the leader position or if he'd now decided Robin would be better off retired. Feeling like he'd said enough, Robin waited for Batman to refuse again, but the refusal came from elsewhere.
"No," Raksha said. "I understand your argument, but if you want to see what I'm capable of I'd rather spar with Batman."
At first, Robin just blinked at the sheer oddity of that statement. Then his face grew even more red. She wanted to "spar"? And she'd rather match up against his mentor like she'd already decided Robin wasn't worth her time.
Suddenly the floor seemed to explode in front of him, he was blown backward, and a solid wall with arms caught him. He squinted through temporarily blinded eyes at the arms holding him. It was just Batman. And the soot from the small explosion left a mark on the tiled area of floor within the oblong meeting table. He blinked. He hadn't even realized that he had leapt onto the table in his anger and tried to rush the girl. The whole room was standing, but Green Arrow's raised bow, already knocked with another arrow, made it obvious who had intervened. For her part, Raksha was standing all the way against the chamber's windows at the far end of the room. She looked troubled, but she wasn't so much as wind-blown. She must have already been moving away before the explosive arrow even hit.
"Running?" Robin asked, sneering.
"Enough, Robin!" Batman growled. Oddly, it was Green Arrow he was glaring daggers at, though. "Tell us what you want, girl," he said.
Raksha looked back and forth between Green Arrow and Batman nervously. "You . . . I already told you-"
"And you're going to say it again for the benefit of everyone here," Batman interrupted, turning his glare on her.
She visibly flinched, but collected herself with admirable speed. "As I told you." Her voice was calm again, even cold. "I want what he has. I want the home, the cave, even the team."
Only Batman was not surprised. The room collectively turned toward him, waiting for the shoe to drop on her for asking such a thing, practically demanding it, after everything she'd admitted. But it never did.
"And in exchange, you won't kill him," Batman said, matching her cold demeanor. "Is that it?"
"No," Raksha said. "I'm offering more than that. In exchange, I'll help you keep him alive."
"You," Batman pointed out, "are the biggest threat."
"One of them," Raksha said, shaking her head. "A good reason to keep me close."
The other occupants of the room started to stir from their shock at Batman entertaining her proposition, but Batman released Robin and held out his hand in a demand for quiet before anyone even opened their mouths.
"Why?" he said. "Why turn on the Shadows, expose yourself to the League and old enemies," across the room Green Arrow subconsciously tightened his grip on his bow, "and open yourself up for the biggest hero organization and the biggest crime organization in the world to both be out for your blood?"
Looking back into Batman's veiled stare, Raksha struggled against the fear slicking over her shell of calm. Until she looked away from him and at Robin for the first time in several minutes. Her eyes widened. Robin probably didn't know it, but standing in front of his mentor he radiated confusion right now, not anger, not fear, not apprehension. She was tempted to smile. Robin knew the Batman better than anyone, and judging by him she could tell that Batman was no longer threatening her with his questions. This time he was just giving her a chance to talk, and she'd need to choose her words wisely. She didn't expect him to ever give her another chance to recover from her spectacular exposure to the League as a loathsome murderer. She took a breath and directed her gaze back to Batman.
"Because I had a life, and Ra's al Ghul and his daughter took it from me. Then they didn't even bother to replace it with a new one. I was a child when I lost my family to a disaster the League of Shadows was responsible for." In her mind, the memory of the massive tidal wave the Shadows had created to wash over her coastal city was blurry and faded. So many of her memories had been corrupted by what her mind had endured to think like Robin. "They called it social justice, a cleansing. I was too young and lost to care if they were right. Ra's saw promise in my anger and took me in. He had me trained. When I showed still more promise, he promoted me to his daughter's first apprentice, a teenager to be trained by a teenager." Seeing the confusion on the faces in the room, she added, "I'm older than I look. Talia wasn't yet the woman she is today. Or maybe she was. She was a jealous teenager who had just been handed authority over an upstart she worried her father had vested interest in. She handled that by staying my physical growth at thirteen years of age, one day's chemical injection at a time. Because she was my master, no one needed her to give a reason, but she gave me reasons. I believed them. So if you're asking why I want out of the Shadows, I don't have a simple answer to that, but it would have a lot to do with being tired of being someone else's tool.
"On the other hand, It was years later before Talia finally saw fit to replace the life that had been taken from me with a new one, and it wasn't even my life. The program into which I was placed was designed, as you said, to make me know Robin inside and out. They went as far as they had to to achieve that. We weren't just trained to fight like Robin, we were trained to act like him, move like him, talk like him, think like him, and when they decided even that wasn't enough they tried to teach us to feel like him. They took our trainers, loaded them into helicopters, flew them twenty feet into the air over a mountainside, and made us stand and watch them be dumped out. So we could watch them fall."
She paused, wondering if she'd said too much that could lead back to Robin's family history, then thought of Robin and charged ahead anyway. She shouldn't let him dwell on that memory. "Even our fears weren't allowed to be our fears. You know how it is with the Shadows. Sooner or later they make you face your fears, but we were different. The fears we faced weren't ours; they were his. I'm not sure I even remember what I used to be afraid of. Now I'm afraid of things that have nothing to do with me. So if you're asking why I would want to help you keep Robin alive, I . . . fear, for him. At this point, killing him would be like killing myself. Which," she grimaced, "I would do if I thought it would help."
Batman waited to see if she was finished, then asked the question most important to him. "And why wouldn't it help?"
Raksha slowly blinked. This time Batman let her remind him of a young Richard Grayson when he was still a boy just starting to want to become something more. Dick had accepted Batman's philosophy about killing, had made it his own. Raksha wasn't Dick, but if she was to have what she wanted she'd need an answer to this question that at least showed she had the potential to do the same.
"Frankly," Raksha said, confused by the question and unaware that she was being tested, "because the League of Assassins won't stop just because I'm gone. The threat of death won't end with my death, but my life can still be useful."
No one but Robin was watching Batman at this point. Only Robin saw the tiny upward twitch at the edge of Batman's mouth, and his eyes widened as he realized what this meant. There was going to be a new bat in the cave.
Batman brushed past Robin on his way to the door. Robin followed, recognizing this as the cue that they were leaving. So when Batman paused on his way through the room and said, "We're leaving," before continuing on in his long strides, Robin recognized it wasn't for his benefit. So did the girl, who pushed off the window and sprinted around the table as though afraid Batman would change his mind. Then, the rest of those present realized what was happening. Shouted protests crashed over the room. The loudest was Green Arrow; the shrillest was actually Zatanna. The most comprehensible was Wonder Woman.
"Batman, we still have not decided how to deal with the girl!" the Amazon shouted over the chaos.
"The League can decide what they want," Batman said, "I've made my decision." With that, he passed through the doors, Robin behind him, and Raksha a short distance behind him.
Robin, though, pulled to the side of the hallway near the zeta tube, watched Batman zeta out, and then just stood there. Raksha took the hint from the boy's hard stare and went next. Robin waited. As he'd expected, Zatanna came running down the hall alone, but she wouldn't be alone for long and Batman didn't like waiting. He'd have to make this quick. His girlfriend was practically hysterical, so he spoke first.
"I don't like it either, but this is Batman's decision," Robin said.
"She's dangerous! We all heard it!" Zatanna cried. "You're taking a killer with you!"
Robin sighed. "I know, Zee, but you know how Batman is. Firstly, he's not going to change his mind, and secondly," he placed a firm hand on her shoulder, "he's not going to let anything happen to me."
Zatanna looked murderous at first, but then she seemed to wilt under the weight of Robin's hand. "Then where was he when you . . . I can't lose someone else, Robin. I really can't." Her eyes grew desperate. "You can stay at the mountain then! You don't have to go back with them!"
Robin dropped his hand in surprise. "I have to go home, Zee. Not . . . I mean . . . well, you don't. That's why you and Connor and M'gann are at the mountain, but there are . . ." he grimaced, realizing he was saying this all the wrong ways, "people waiting for me. Look, Batman is waiting; I have to go. We'll talk later?"
Zatanna looked absolutely stung. She nodded. "Yeah. Later. Later we'll talk about how you died and Batman's going to get you killed again and I have no home or anyone waiting for me, not even you. Just go."
"Zee, that's not . . ." Robin tried.
"Just go," Zatanna said, turning away from him and battling against tears.
Robin sighed. "See you, Zee." He turned and zeta'd out, the call of his name and identification number the most comprehensible words Zatanna had heard all day. They meant nothing more nor less than that Robin was gone. Again. Too bad they couldn't tell her if she'd see him again.
Making his way toward the Batmobile, Robin saw that both Batman and Raksha were already in it. At least his front seat spot was still open for him. A distracted part of his mind wondered what the new girl would call herself. The world at large might not know it yet, but there was already a Batgirl Gotham was just becoming aware of. For that matter, he wondered how Barb would handle this.
Climbing into his seat, the roar of the engine didn't drown out the hum in his ears as everything that had happened in the last however long – did it even last an hour? – washed over him. He was keenly aware that he'd have his back to his personal assassin for the whole drive home. So much for at least still having his front seat spot. Now he wished he had the back seat. Or better yet that Batman had never redone the Batmobile after Batgirl joined so that she could have a seat. He reached into his pocket and gripped one of his small trash bags tightly, but for the first time in a while the nausea settling in his stomach had nothing to do with any residual yellow ooze.
Author's Notes
Quick complaint: this chapter gave me so much unnecessary grief. Blech.
Also, I thought this might be a good time to point out that, if it's not obvious by now, I'm drawing from a smattering of different places for the continuity and setting of this story. The great thing about writing Young Justice fanfiction is that the show is completely off canon, making it easy for fans to throw in or toss out anything from canon or other AU that they like and really play with it. For example, a small thing I toyed with was what to call Ra's organization. I'm drawing some inspiration from the Dark Knight trilogy, though, so I went with League of Shadows as a nod, instead of League of Assassins, even though I'll be drawing almost entirely from the comics for the assassins later on. Something perhaps bigger, at least in Raksha's backstory at this point, is the influence the show Arrow is having on my story. But while I like the show and want to let it influence me, I'm trying to keep the story open to being understood as a stand-alone. So when Green Arrow says Canary was manipulated into bringing a crook into court, that can be read that she was the defendant or it can be read that she was the attorney for the defendant. The downside to Young Justice being such an open canvas is that it's easy to get turned around trying to make things make sense! I apologize if that ever happens. :p I'm trying hard not to let it.
A quick shout-out to allGreeekToMe who gave an intense review of my last chapter (not posted for public consumption; sorry!) . . . and then softened that review with a funny joke about the classic live-action Batman's use of Bat-shark-repellant and how Robin really could have used some of that in chapter one. -_- I apologize to everyone ever for unintentionally creating a situation in which Bat-shark-repellant could be a legitimate need. Yeesh. Haha!
- Lux
