Damian was different than Lady Shiva. He should know; he'd been taught by her himself since infancy. There was no one who knew more about hand-to-hand combat than her, so it had only been natural for her to be his instructor in that area; he was the heir of the Demon's Head, he had to be the best at everything.
He gained the skills necessary to be so by practising tirelessly. Every single move in his repertoire had been slaved over for hours, until he was satisfied that it was perfect. This, he did in his spare time; he had been taught in his cradle how to cram the necessary level of sleep into the minimum time of unconsciousness, leaving him with a few hours every night and morning to practice.
The girl, Raven, was clearly not doing her homework. It annoyed him; she had been honoured with the chance to be taught by the most skilled combatants in the world, a privilege never-before offered to those with no intention in joining the League of Assassins.
Damian knew that she was not entirely human; his grandfather called her 'Devil-child' and Ra's al Ghul was not one for inaccuracies. He also strongly suspected that she was somehow connected to the Lazarus Pits owing to the fact that she had arrived in the League a few days after his grandfather's proclamation that they owed a debt to the creator of the life-giving liquid. So, who created the Pits and why, as repayment, did they want the girl to be trained as an assassin?
Sometimes, Damian was tempted to ask his grandfather these questions. Sorely tempted. But Ra's al Ghul should never be questioned; he would tell his grandson when and if he ever needed to know.
For the past few weeks, he had been drilling the girl in every movement of the Boe Staff. In the beginning he had actually been moderately pleased with the speed of her progress; she was not the most elegant or fluid of wielders, but she seemed determined to prove herself, and that determination had seen her through a couple of difficult manoeuvres. The latest series of moves he was instructing her in though, seemed to be too much.
"Just do it," he snapped at her after another failed attempt. "I know you can; you flow through the sequence with ease. It's just the final strike that you freeze on."
The girl glared up at him with her strange, amethyst eyes. "Well, I'm sorry if I'm a little concerned about smashing your skull to pieces."
Damian blinked, the only outwards appearance of his surprise. "Firstly, do you think for a second that I would allow myself to be injured by you, girl? Second, knowledge that you could kill your opponent shouldn't stay your hand, even for an instant."
"I know your family are all heartless assassins or whatever," she growled menacingly. "But I quite like the idea of having a soul."
"Then you'll die." He replied simply.
"Look!" she shouted, and Damian could have sworn that her eyes flashed red for an instant. "I don't want to kill anyone OK? So just show me the other moves, the non-lethal ones."
For some reason, a cold fear had settled itself over Damian's body. But he pushed it away, just as he always did; fear was not something an assassin could afford to submit to.
In an instant, he had the cold steel of a katana lightly touching the girl's throat.
She stilled instantly. Flicking her brilliant violet eyes up to his briefly.
"After you have mastered the wooden Boe Staff, we will move onto the metal one, and then we will be fighting with swords." He stepped towards her, until he was centimetres from her expressionless face. "And how many non-lethal moves do you think that has?"
He pulled away from her as soon as he was sure his point had been made, and returned the sword to its stand. He placed the blade carefully into its supports before whirling around to block the wooden staff flying towards his head. The girl growled deeply when she felt the resistance of his own staff blocking the blow.
It was strange; somehow, this didn't feel like the girl he had been training for the past few weeks. Raven had always been precise with her moves, but she had never put any force of malice behind them, it was one of the reasons that she was only adequate at combat. But the Raven in front of him now, was staring at him with the cold intensity of murderous intent. Damian found his mind entering a true battle mentality in response.
His heartbeat slowed into a steady, strong rhythm and he allowed all of his emotions to recede even further away from his conscious mind than they usually were, until he was left with an empty awareness of his body and surroundings. He relaxed his muscles into a state of complete readiness.
Momentarily, he noticed Raven's cold look flicker to confusion, before an even greater anger overtook her. With wild swings, she attacked him. Though her technique was beneath his contempt, her intensity and ferocity left him with the gut feeling of joy at a good fight. Wondering how persistent her anger was, he jabbed at her with his own staff, easily fetching her a painful blow to the chest and side.
The girl let out a strange, deep, guttural sound; a noise that echoed in his head and triggered his instinct to run. But he ignored it, and aimed a blow at her head. A move she ducked to avoid. He subsequently jumped to avoid the kick she aimed at his feet, and rolled to the side before winding her with the full force of his staff to her stomach.
Coughing and spluttering, the girl seemed to lose what little self-control she had left. Running at him, she snarled as she swung the staff at him again and again, over and over, getting angrier every time he blocked her, which he did with ease.
There was no mistaking it this time; her eyes were an intense red, glowing in the dim light of the training room. Even her skin was beginning to darken into a deep, blood-red hue.
He knew she was magical; knew she wasn't quite human. Was this the reason his grandfather had cautioned him to keep an eye on her? Was she really as dangerous as the bone-chilling fear in his gut told him?
Despite his curiosity, he would not let her know that he was ignorant about anything. "That's better," he said, easily swiping away another swing, "now, do the move."
Furious, the girl moved into the opening stance of the movement they had been practicing. Quickly and with ease, she flowed through the motions and finished the array with a determined aim at his head, which Damian dodged.
"Next," he said, and proceeded to demonstrate a series of movements which resulted in several hits to Raven's body.
Eyes filled with a furious calm, she attempted to mimic him. As soon as she made an incorrect move, he ordered her to begin again. Every time he did that, she would glare, but comply.
In such a state, they progressed quickly that day, they didn't even break for the midday meal, as Damian didn't want her to lose the focus she had somehow acquired. By the time the evening gong sounded, Raven had mastered several new motions and Damian was suitably impressed.
"Well done." He said as he knocked the Boe Staff out of the girl's hands.
"What?" red eyes widened in amazement.
"You did well today." He elaborated, before strolling out of the room.
xxx
Raven was stunned; never before had the Arrogant Boy ever given her a complement.
She stood completely still for a minute, before making her way dazedly towards the food hall.
She wasn't entirely sure what had happened during training; ever since she had experienced her father's unbridled fury several weeks ago, she had been in a foul mood. She was conflicted on the issue of her brother's suicide. On one hand, she was sympathetic to his desire of keeping his realm free of their father's influence – her accidental betrayal of Azarath still caused her sleepless nights – but at the same time, she was concerned that this would cause Trigon to focus more on Raven's own realm. This inner turmoil had been simmering for the past few weeks, but she hadn't realised just how much it was truly affecting her until she had lashed out with such anger today.
Her condescending, perfectionist of an instructor had pushed all the wrong buttons and she had felt herself losing control. She had wanted to hurt him, to kill him, to make him suffer. She had wanted him broken and bleeding at her feet. She had wanted him to realise that he was wrong to mock her, wrong to assume that she was a weak little girl. She had wanted him to respect her.
It hadn't worked; after a brief, satisfying flash of surprise from him, he had closed his emotions off to her entirely. It was beyond frustrating to her, how these people were able to deny her use of one of her senses; it was as if she had suddenly lost the use of her eyes or ears.
Her attack had been furious and frenzied; her pride would not allow her to use magic against him. He deserved to be beaten in the area he felt superior.
But again and again her blows were blocked, until her rage had simmered down to a grudging respect for her teacher; she had known he must be skilled, but she hadn't expected him to be able to fend her off with such ease. Her father's DNA gave her strength beyond anything humanly capable and yet he redirected her attacks easily.
After a while, she even realised that he was teaching her many new moves, and she was mastering them quickly. The fluid movements and sudden jabs sated her bloodlust and she even found herself enjoying the lesson by the end. When the gong had rung at the end of the day, she had even felt a pang of disappointment.
When he had congratulated her, there had been a flash of satisfaction from him.
xxx
That afternoon, meditation was difficult; she didn't want to lose this feeling, this feeling of self-pride, superiority and confidence. A part of her knew this was a dangerous state to be in, knew that she was giving into her father's influence, but she just couldn't bring herself to care.
And so, she did not clear her mind that night before opening it up to Trigon's influence.
Rage, anger, contempt.
Hurt them, kill them, make them suffer.
Stab the old man, rip the souls out of his daughters, tear the boy apart. She was Raven, daughter of Trigon, heir of Hell and darkness and all things evil; why was she even acknowledging the existence of these pathetic mortals?
xxx
Raven awoke in the morning.
As she dragged her thoughts out of the fog of unconsciousness, she shivered. A chill that had no relation to the temperature ran down her spine. Clutching her cloak to her, she forced her sleep-muddled mind to remain calm.
She had had that dream again last night. For the first time since she had started living with the League of Assassins her mind had wondered back to that horrific memory, the one she tried her best to disregard, to bury. The one that had delighted her father and horrified her and had sealed the fate of billions. She could still hear them dimly in her head; the screams of terror and delight and insanity echoing around.
Tearing herself away from her memories, Raven forced herself to start her day. Bitter experience had taught her that wallowing on those thoughts was a dangerous path to tread.
She hastily dressed and headed out of her room. As she walked down the corridor, she sought the eyes of a woman walking towards her. The Assassin refused to meet her gaze. That was odd; she usually found that the assassins were expected to make eye contact when passing, as a form of greeting. Never had a member of the League been unable to look at her.
When she reached the weapons training room, she found the Arrogant Boy practising with a sword. Raven couldn't help but stare. He was a master of the blade, so much so that he made the deadly practise look like an art form.
He stepped lightly around the room, allowing his limbs to move hypnotically through the forms. The silver blade glinting and flashing in the candlelight. The dance was so beautiful and mesmeric that she didn't notice the direction of his motion. It wasn't until he stopped right in front of her, and stared at her, eye to eye, that she regained her senses. It was with a slight shock that she realised that he had the blade against her throat.
She couldn't move.
They remained like that for some time, and Raven could do nothing more than stare into his eyes. They were an intense bottle green; she hadn't realised eyes could be that colour, they were definitely nothing like those of the people of Azarath, who mostly had brown or grey eyes. Currently, they were staring at her intensely, flickering all over her face, before settling on her eyes.
"Shame," he said eventually, stepping away from her, allowing her to move once more.
He turned towards the weapons rack and retrieved their wooden Bow staffs. He threw one to her.
As she caught it, she asked "what's a shame?"
"You have reverted," he answered simply, as he began demonstrating to her a sequence of movements.
"Reverted?"
"Don't worry," he said. "We'll get you back into the right state of mind."
Before Raven could puzzle out the meaning of those words, he attacked. It felt as though every inch of her body was being slapped, whacked and jabbed by his Bo staff. In desperation, she tried to fend of the constant battery, but she was only able to block one or two blows. The barrage was relentless, and within minutes she found herself curled into a ball, sobbing on the floor.
After what felt like an eternity, the attack stopped.
Sore and in more pain than she had ever experienced in her life, she tentatively raised her head from the protection of her arms, and stared up at her 'teacher'. She was unable to stop the tears from streaming down her face and saw her attacker's face only as a blur.
Her eyes followed him as he walked away from her, towards the door. When he reached the other end of the room, he spoke.
"I was actually impressed with you yesterday; you were cold, uncaring, and sincerely trying to kill me. You were showing the qualities of a true assassin. But today? Today you're just pathetic."
She flinched as he threw his weapon and it clattered to the floor in front of her.
Raven stared at it dumbly for a moment. Then gazed up at the Arrogant Boy. Slowly, sorely, with every muscle screaming at her, she grabbed the staff and rose to her feet.
Angrily, she wiped her tears away and glared at him. Running through the motions in her head, she began one of the attacks he had taught her. Blocking theoretical countermeasures as she neared him, before whacking at his shins with full force.
To her absolute horror, the staff found its mark.
Dropping the weapon, she backed away from the boy, who hadn't even flinched at the blow. In fact, Raven even sensed an impatience in him, a sense of anticipation for her to hurt him again.
Suddenly, she was furious; he was trying to provoke her into losing control!
"You, you bastard!" She shouted at him. "Stop trying to turn me into a monster! You have no idea what I'm capable of and, trust me, you do not want to provoke me to find out."
"I think you showed me some of what you are capable of last night." He said simply. "But we both know that that was only the beginning."
Raven blinked in confusion. Last night? What had she done last night? She couldn't remember! When she looked back all that came to her mind were vague sensations; delight, revelry, satisfaction.
Why couldn't she remember?
The gong for the midday meal sounded throughout the complex, saving Raven from having to struggle for memories with the young heir staring at her with those piercing eyes of his.
She practically ran out of the room.
Her mind was desperately trying to think of anything but the possibility of what she had done last night. She was so consumed with her own thoughts that she barely registered her path to the food hall. But, when she found herself at the front of the queue just after picking a bowl, she was brought back to reality.
She was far from the first to arrive, and there were the usual queues of League members, so why was she at the head of the line already?
Looking behind her, she saw a line of Assassins, but the one closest to her was standing several meters away. Puzzled, she observed members of the other queues, also avidly trying to avoid her notice.
This was surreal. There was so much fear in the air, she could almost taste it. It was overwhelming her, to the point where she was barely able to reconcile the fact that the fear was not her own.
It was too much.
With a lurch, she ran past Lady Shiva and the heavily-scarred girl, who were serving that day, and out into the courtyard beyond.
Finally, she was alone. Once free of the atmosphere of terror, she found herself calming down once again. Breathing in the freezing mountaintop air, she allowed her eyes to fall closed as she contemplated the situation.
It was clear that, whatever had happened last night, it was not exclusive to herself and her teacher. Furthermore, the fear of the other Assassins meant that she must have done something terrible.
She needed to remember, she needed to know what she had done.
Resolutely, she turned and walked back into the hall. Standing in the doorway, she noticed that there were far fewer League members today than there had been yesterday; was there a training exercise she didn't know about?
This time, she was prepared for the emotions of the others, and was able to cut herself off from their fear. Silently, she joined the back of a queue, ignoring the clear avoidance of the others. When she reached the front, she was glad to find that at least Lady Shiva was treating her like usual; paying no more attention to her than a fly on the wall as she ladled broth into her bowl.
Raven ate quickly and hurried back to the training room. Surprisingly, she found it empty, clearly her teacher was still enjoying his meal. Restless, she paced the room, desperately searching her mind for memories of the night before.
She remembered going to communicate with her father. Remembered blatantly deciding against meditation and opening up her connection to her father. But, try as she might, she could not remember much after that, other than fleeting emotional imprints, and some scattered thoughts and images that chilled her to the core.
At one point, she recalled marvelling at how many organs were packed into the human body; at another, an image of demons streaming through a portal flashed before her eyes. She must have completely lost control.
Suddenly, she realised that her teacher was standing inches behind her back. Crying out in shock, she stumbled away from him. He merely stood, staring blankly at her.
His slightly contemptuous expression galvanised Raven into confidence. "What happened last night?" She demanded. "I remember flashes, but not everything. What did I do?"
He stared at her for a few moments before answering.
"You," he paused, and Raven was shocked to realise that the Arrogant Boy was lost for words. "You demonstrated why you deserve to be instructed by the League of Assassins. To be honest, I truly believed you to be the most disgustingly placid person I had ever met. But you proved your worth last night."
"What did I do?" she asked, quietly.
"I'm not entirely sure," he said. "There were these, creatures, everywhere. They just kept on coming. About a third of the League were either torn apart, eaten alive, or dragged back through the portal that you made."
Raven felt faint and slightly nauseous. She had allowed them through, had she…had she let him through? Was it too late?
No; if he was here, she would have felt him. Besides, in order for Trigon to enter this dimension, she had to assimilate the magic of this universe and act as a sort of transformer for her father's Hell magic. There were also certain artifacts that had to be gathered and Old-Man Assassin had yet to locate any of them. Trigon was not yet in this universe; she was certain of that.
But she had let through lesser demons. She had stood there and watched; enjoyed the sight of hundreds of humans falling before the hordes of hell.
"You shouldn't be ashamed of what you did," she looked up to find her mentor standing much closer to her than usual. "You demonstrated incredible power."
"Well, it's not incredible," she muttered, averting her gaze. "It's horrific. And my father wants me to do much worse to this world." Sighing, she looked up at him. "That's why I'm here. It's not to understand the world my mother is from. My father, a being more terrible than any of the creatures you saw last night, wants to come to this realm and cover this entire universe in darkness. That's what he does; drags everyone and everything to Hell and feeds off their pain and suffering."
Bitterly, she held his gaze. She was a monster, a creature that only existed to torture and kill, and now he knew. And he would tell the others and, if they had any sense, they would either reject her, throw her back to her father, or kill her. She would not blame them; knowing what they would endure at her father's coming, she would kill her too.
"You really know nothing of humanity, do you?"
Blinking, she peered up at the Arrogant Boy. He was staring at her intensely with an almost feverish look in his green eyes.
"Human beings deserve to be tortured for all eternity. Murder, rape, drugs. People outside the League put on respectable facades; they pretend to be kind and thoughtful and compassionate, but as soon as they go home, they beat and cheat on the people they're supposed to love. They gamble and drink and exploit others. They fuck and kill and force children to fuck and kill. And ravage the planet with their insatiable lust for money.
"The League of Assassins attempted to curb humanity's lusts for a thousand years. We tried to dispose of the worst, to protect the innocent. But as the years went on, as the decades passed by, my grandfather realised that it was pointless; no one was innocent, no one deserves our sympathies.
"This world is dying; humans have stolen its natural resources and poisoned its air. We have passed the point of no return and those responsible should pay.
"If your father is what you claim he is, if he can do what you promise. Then I welcome him onto this Earth with open arms. I would gladly suffer an eternity of Hell, as long as I know that all the disgusting maggots of this rotten world is suffering right along with me."
He hadn't held back during his speech; he had opened up the defences to his mind that he usually kept tightly closed. The intensity of his conviction of humanity's worthlessness was overwhelming.
Raven found herself agreeing with him; she knew nothing of the reality of human beings. She had only been exposed to the best of them, to the men and women who had dedicated their lives to overcoming the lewd vices of the rest of their weak species. She shouldn't feel ashamed of what she had done yesterday. It had been practice; a prelude of things to come. She existed to help her father bring pain and suffering to all.
Raven gasped suddenly, pulling away from the young man in front of her. What had he done? Why had she so suddenly and completely started thinking with her demonic side?
Suspiciously, she glared at him out of the corner of her eye, but he was still agitated by his outburst; erratic emotions were swirling around him with such intensity that she found herself being swept up in their tempest again.
Angrily, she gritted her teeth and forced back the dark will that was encroaching the edges of her mind. She couldn't allow herself to lose control.
"Your lessons are over for the day," muttered the boy. "Go. Meditate. Practise your magic. Do whatever it is you do in that circle of yours."
He swept out of the room, leaving Raven standing alone, lost in her thoughts.
xxx
Her father agreed with the Arrogant Boy. Of course, he did.
As soon as Raven allowed him access to her experiences of the day, she could feel his pride in her. His praise of her powers and cruelty filled her with a mix of delight and disgust.
She was forced to endure her father's imagination as he mused about the horrors that she might have committed the night before. Some of the images he came up with made the part of her mind not merged with his almost break the connection out of revulsion.
Once she had bluntly reminded him that she was ready for another lesson in magic, he imparted knowledge of a truly horrific spell. The concept, from beginning to end, repulsed her.
That night, she was more relieved than usual when she was able to disconnect from her father.
Reluctantly, she practiced the new spell; her father would expect her to have made progress the next time they connected and though she was able to manipulate the information she shared with him, even implanting false memories, she could not hide her lack of true understanding of magic.
The evil that caused through her body as she practised made her sick with its alluring caress. Oh, the temptation was so strong to just let go again. To kill the rest of the fearful humans. But, as she almost always managed to do, Raven resisted.
Finally, she decided it was time to sleep. With an effort, she stopped channelling the dark magic.
As she showered and prepared for bed, she mulled over what had occurred that day. The Arrogant Boy, Damian, had been sincere in his conviction about the evils of human-kind. Arella had told stories of goodness within all people and of many humans who had overcome evil in the world with valour and love. It was the thoughts of such selfless deeds that had allowed Raven to keep her humanity whilst with her father. At some point, she couldn't quite recall when, she had begun to understand that the stories she had heard were fantasies, tales of how people should act rather than how they did act. Though, the morality contained within allowed her to believe human beings were worth saving.
But Damian had been born and raised in this world, it was all he knew, and he believed passionately that there was nothing worth saving.
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps her father was right. Maybe she shouldn't be at all hesitant to abandon her humanity, and condemn these people to existence under her father's thumb. After all, she had never seen any of the fabled good Arella had spoken of in any human outside of Azarath; the woman herself had never treated Raven with anything but resentment and bitterness.
Raven sighed as she sunk onto the floor of her room and pulled the woollen blanket over herself.
Would it be such a bad thing if the evil humans were tortured forever? If even half of what Damian had told her was true, didn't they deserve it?
Just as she was about to fall asleep however, she spotted her cloak, lying innocuously in the corner of the room.
Why was she thinking like this? She had struggled her whole life to prevent her father spreading his hate and misery. She couldn't give into her dark side now. If she did, there would be no turning back.