Damian stood, surrounded by a large number of opponents. They were, each of them, skilled members of the League of Assassins. And they all wanted him dead.

The young man was in a state of heightened awareness; he could practically hear the heartbeats of those around him, slow, calm, steady. Therefore, he was ready for the sudden attack.

Several of his adversaries, rushed him; coordinating their attack perfectly, the men and women kicked, hit and stabbed at him. Damian managed to avoid all serious injury, but was forced to take a couple of glancing blows in order to evade more serious ones.

He allowed them to attack, observing their patterns and the way each individual moved. But his opponents were clever, before Damian was certain about their tactics and weaknesses, their comrades joined the fray. A melee of flying fists, harsh kicks and sharp, deadly blades flew around him as the heir to the Demon's Head began to attack as well as defend.

As one man aimed a kick at his shins, Damian sprang into the air before bringing his feet down upon the extended leg. The man's leg broke, but Damian barely paid attention as he snapped the wrist of another who tried to slit his throat with a dagger. Snatching the dagger, Damian ducked and stabbed at another of his opponents; his attack was evaded however and he paid for the foolishness of his action when a sword came slicing down at him. Damian rolled away and sprang into a standing position once more.

Battle barely ever offered reprieve, and before he could draw a single breath, he was running back into the fray. He used his knife to stab one person in the chest before snapping that same arm back to elbow another in the face.

Suddenly, he was on the floor; his legs having been swiped out from under him. Using his new position to his advantage, Damian was able to stab two of his adversaries in the backs of their knees; they fell heavily and both instantly tried to hold him down. But Damian grabbed the hand of a standing Assassin who had attempted to drive a sword down through his chest, and used their body's resistance to pull him back up again.

Jumping away from the two downed opponents, Damian assessed his current situation in an instant; three were down, but not incapacitated; one's wrist was broken, but was still in fighting condition; there were several minor injuries to the remaining six fighters.

There was still a long way to go and Damian was already worried about his stamina. Against a single adversary, he would surely win in a battle of contrition, but against an army of several skilled assassins, Damian was under no delusions. He might have been the pinnacle of the line of al Ghul and the bringer of blood and a litany of other impressive titles, but he was still just thirteen years old and his body was unable to sustain the state of battle adrenaline for as long as several adults each expending only a fraction of the energy he was. He had to finish this fast. The problem was, his opponents knew this too, and they were charging in for a mass attack.

With that in mind, Damian did something unexpected.

In the split second before the others reached him, he threw his knife towards the face of a woman who was aiming to stab him in the stomach with a katana. Killed instantly, her aim veered off track and, instead of hitting Damian in the soft, fleshy stomach, her sword grazed the boy's shoulder.

Quickly, Damian kicked his dead adversary in the groin. The cadaver released its grip on the hilt of the sword and Damian grabbed the hilt.

Now that he had a katana, his opponents warily hung back from their target; the youngest al Ghul was one of the best blade wielders in the League.

Damian didn't give them a chance to decide on a new strategy. Now in his element, he jumped into their midst, slashing and hacking at anything that moved.

After less than a minute, the heir to the Demon's Head found himself standing in the middle of a bloody mass of dead Assassins.

Through all of the mayhem, and the grievous injuries, not a sound had escaped any of the fighters. They had been, each of them, worthy members of the League. Damian tutted in disgust; such a waste of talent.

Dropping the blood-soaked sword onto the corpse of its former master, Damian made his way out of the room. Just outside the door, he was confronted by a familiar figure.

"Hello mother," he greeted stiffly.

"My son, I am glad to see you survived." Talia replied coldly. "A part of me thought you would be unable to fend off such an attack."

"Would you have been disappointed if I had perished mother?"

"Of course, I just hope that you understand that I do not take betrayal lightly. Especially from my own child."

"Is your revenge now satisfied?" Damian asked neutrally.

"It is," replied his mother, "now we can return to our usual relationship, my son." With that, she placed her hand on the small of Damian's back and started leading him down the corridor. "Come, let us get that shoulder attended to."

Ever since Damian had betrayed her by resurrecting Ra's al Ghul and effectively ending her control of the League of Assassins – or the League of Shadows, as she had rebranded them – he had been expecting some form of vengeance. Now that it was over, and he had suffered as a result of disobeying her, his mother would resume treating him as she always had.

Just as they were approaching the chamber containing the Lazarus pit, a messenger appeared before them. The trainee dropped to one knee.

"Bringer of blood," said the man. "The Great One demands your presence."

Damian felt his mother's hand tense slightly against his back; obviously she had not failed to notice her lack of an invitation.

As Damian followed the messenger towards his grandfather, his mind was on his mother. Perhaps his misdeeds had been forgiven, but clearly Talia al Ghul still held some resentment against her father. Damian would have to keep a close eye on her; if it came to a choice between his mother and grandfather, Damian would side with Ra's al Ghul every time.

He was led to a balcony overlooking one of the small training areas. There he found his grandfather standing by the railing, looking down at two combatants below. Damian made his way over to the man while the messenger bowed and disappeared back into the building.

Standing next to the Demon's Head, Damian followed his grandfather's gaze.

Below, two women were exchanging blows. Lady Shiva was clearly the superior combatant, but her opponent was fending off the majority of attacks and was even landing a glancing hit or two of her own.

"Impressive, isn't she?" commented his grandfather.

"Yes," Damian agreed, slightly taken aback at Ra's' compliment. "She is the best martial artist in the world."

"Not Lady Shiva boy, I am talking about the devil-child."

Confused, Damian stared down at the fighters once again. Sure enough, Lady Shiva's advisory was none other than Raven.

"You are right grandfather," said Damian, "she is progressing much more quickly than I would have thought."

"Agreed," said Ra's, "when she first appeared to us, I was concerned that she would be weak and unworthy. But I am pleased to be wrong in this instance."

The two stood there in silence for a minute, observing the training session below them.

"Damian, I have a task for you," said his grandfather eventually.

Damian turned to look at the older man expectantly.

"I want you to begin training the devil-child in the ways of wielding weapons. Lady Shiva is to continue her hand-to-hand combat training, but I have a mission for her to carry out elsewhere, so now is the perfect time to start the girl on another subject. You will start tomorrow."

"Yes grandfather."

They resumed their silent observation, though Damian noticed that, every now and again, his grandfather would glance at him with a strange, calculating look on his face. Damian wondered what it was that Ra's was looking for, but he did not question; it was not his place to question the Demon's Head.

xxx

The next morning, Damian woke deliberately earlier than usual. After taking a quick shower and dressing himself, he made his way to the female sleeping quarters.

As silently as a ghost, he slipped into the room of the devil-child. She was huddled into a ball under her blanket, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

"Impressive," Damian commented, "though your eyes are too tightly shut."

Sitting up, the girl glared at him.

"How did you know I was here?" asked Damian, genuinely curious; he had been trying to remain undetected, and he was very good at it.

"I'm an empath," she said grudgingly, as she began to get dressed, "I sensed someone's presence. Though," she added reluctantly, "I didn't know it was you exactly. I can usually tell who it is."

Mollified somewhat, Damian waited for his new student to finished pulling on her shirt.

The League of Assassins understood that lust was one of the greatest weaknesses of men, as well as embarrassment in women; it was not a belief based on flawed stereotypes, but on centuries of observation. For this reason, all potential members of the League were forced to spend their initial time as naked as the day they were born. They would remain thus until they no longer showed any signs of embarrassment or self-consciousness. But more than a few that had passed the test, most of them men, had been forced back into nakedness, if they were unable to ignore the bare flesh of others.

Having been raised in such an environment since birth, Damian found the naked bodies of men and women to be to be completely uninteresting. Though, for the past few months, he had found the effects of his burgeoning puberty beginning to show. Even as he stood here now, he started to wonder what the girl's skin felt like to touch, or how her mouth tasted.

Mentally berating himself, Damian opened the door as soon as she was ready.

"You will be training with me today."

She followed him to one of the underground training rooms. Inside, the floor was composed of hard, compacted Earth rather than stone; and various weapons lined the walls, either standing in racks or resting on stands.

Damian strolled over to one of the racks and retrieved two Bo staffs. Turning back to his new student, he threw one of them at her, she caught it easily and Damian found himself satisfied that they would have to spend less time than average going over reflex techniques.

Without a word, he stood, waiting. It didn't take her long to understand the exercise. Within moments, she was striking at him with the staff, each blow easily parried.

After several failed strikes, she stepped back, looking at him oddly. It seemed as though she was confused about something, but she quickly shrugged it off and began attacking again. This time, she tried jabbing at him with the end of the staff, she aimed for his stomach which he easily sidestepped, but the next time, she went for his face. This was better; jabbing at a person's face made them panic, not only that but it was more difficult to perceive the distance between the end of the staff to the face. This time, he knocked it out of the way with his own staff.

The girl stepped back for a moment; she seemed to be deciding on a new strategy. Damian saw her contemplatively weighing the weapon in her hand, experimentally twirling it. Having decided upon her new attack, she swiped at his face with one end of the staff.

Damian easily batted it away with his own staff, before bringing it quickly down to block the second swipe to his legs.

He found himself impressed; it usually took trainees weeks to realise that the Bo staff had two ends.

She looked at him, a slightly self-satisfied look on her face.

Damian's mood darkened; he had forgotten what she had told him this morning. Empathic.

Deliberately, Damian created a void in his head, empty of all emotion and feeling, and entered it. Here, he was detached, thoughts generating from cold logic. Here, he wasn't a human being. Here, he was a weapon.

He observed the girl frowning slightly at him. In his current, cool way he deduced that she was probably unable to sense his emotions when he was in this state. Useful to know; he would have to test his theory's validity sometime.

After a while, the devil-child attempted another attack.

Their training progressed until the midday gong sounded throughout the complex.

Panting, the girl followed him out of the room.

As they made their way towards the food hall, she spoke. "Your teaching style is very different from Lady Shiva's; she just kept attacking me for the first few weeks, we worked on me hitting back later."

"I would rather have an opponent who is able to strike at me." He replied.

"Opponent?" she sounded surprised. "I thought I was meant to be your student."

"When you become proficient enough, you will be both."

She was silent for a while, as they both joined a queue for food.

Serving the meals today were his mother, aunt and cousin.

As soon as his eyes fell on Mara's heavily scarred face, Damian couldn't help but curl his lip into a contemptuous sneer. What a pathetic waste, he didn't understand why his grandfather didn't simply kill her; she was a travesty of an assassin and only brought shame to the name al Ghul.

"Wait," Raven's voice snapped him out of his reverie. "Why aren't you serving food?"

Tearing his eyes away from his cousin, he focused his gaze back on Raven. "We take it in turns," he answered. "Myself and the other top members of the League; it is a great honour to provide sustenance for your inferiors."

"Inferiors?" She mussed, glancing around at the hundreds of Assassins in the large room. "Yes, I suppose they are." She said the last statement with such melancholy that Damian frowned slightly at her. She seemed to be absorbed in her own thoughts, so he did not enquire as to her meaning.

xxx

That evening, as Raven entered her meditative state, she thought back to the Arrogant Boy's statement from earlier in the day – she had had to change his nickname as he had become as tall as her over the past few months; it was almost disconcerting how much he had grown in such a small amount of time – he thought of his fellows, the people he had grown up around, as inferior. That was the same way her father regarded everyone else.

It was odd, but her new teacher seemed to share many traits with her father: he was arrogant, merciless – he had proven that today with the ruthless way he had trained her – and carried an air of command and absolute authority. It was as though he expected all those around him to either obey him or die.

Raven shivered.

Her whole life she had seen humans as the antithesis of Trigon, as good and noble. The monks of Azarath were human, they had travelled from Earth to benefit from the teachings of Azar and had dedicated their lives to preventing the spread of evil.

Her human heritage was supposed to be the key to her salvation. She did not want to contemplate the possibility that her humanity could so swiftly succumb to darkness.

Dispelling this unhappy train of thought, Raven opened part of herself to her father's influence.

Instantly, any feelings of respect for humanity fled the part of her connected to Trigon, and all she felt was contempt for the short-lived, weak-willed creatures.

This evening, her father was angry. As soon as they connected, she could feel it slamming into her as though a planet was crushing her. She felt her own physical body cry out in rage, as Trigon's fury flooded through her mind.

One of her brothers was dead. The fool had taken his own life rather than open a passage for Trigon into his home dimension. What an idiot; now his soul would be tormented for all eternity by their father. He will be regretting his decision before the week was out.

With the un-linked part of her mind knowing that there would be no reasoning with her father in his current state, Raven presented him with her recollections of the day's events, and terminated the connection.

Her entire body shaking uncontrollably, Raven's tears of rage slowly morphed into those of fear. She had never met this brother and so felt no sorrow, but the absolute rage of Trigon was something she prayed would never be directed at her.

xxx

I want to give a big thank you to jnate101 for inspiration!