144 hours before (6 days):
0:00 o'clock

Kayla didn't like Deathstroke the Terminator. She... respected him; his strength, his power, his vigilance, but he was a monster in every sense of the word. She stared down at her hands blankly, watching as her index finger twitched. It was a nervous habit she had developed shortly after Deathstroke had taken her in. Back then she was too young to understand what he was training her for, what she would be molded into.

A mercenary-in-training, a killer, an apprentice.
Deathstroke's apprentice. It really sucked balls.

The fighting was awesome, but the training was gruesome and the killing unforgivable... and still necessary. There was no way in hell she would defy Slade Wilson's direct orders, he'd kill her by the end of the day and she really valued her life, no matter how shitty it was.

A flash of black and white hair flashed before her eyes. Jason had saved her, even though it was all staged, but now she had to betray him anyway. Her wings fluttered. Another nervous habit of hers.

As surprising as it was, Project W.I.N.G. (a scientific experiment, deforming the bones in a human's back so they'd function as wings) actually hadn't been her master's idea. He had forged an allegiance with another man, who had provided him with the financial needs to kick-start this experiment. Before the scientists had been able to perfect the serum, there had been dozens of casualties, until one boy had somehow managed to survive the procedure. Deathstroke had disposed of him and ordered her to undergo the process herself.

It had been excruciatingly painful and she had just barely made it through. Hurray, she thought bitterly. Kayla wasn't 100% sure, but Deathstroke was probably planning on doing the same thing to Dick Grayson. She really couldn't imagine the black-haired boy with wings- but then again, she still had trouble believing she had a pair of those herself.

She sighed, chewing on her cheek. She didn't want to hurt the remaining vigilantes, but what choice did she have? Her feelings were unimportant, she had to complete her mission.

She found Timothy Drake and Stephanie Brown in the kitchen, hunched over images from the security feed of Damian's kidnapping. Deathstroke had made her read up on all of Batman's sidekicks, so taking them down should be fairly easy, as long as they didn't suspect her of being a trojan horse. A pang of guilt hit her hard as she looked away from the two sad and desperate teenagers. They'd be with their brothers soon enough.

She made her way over to the kitchen counter. "Coffee?" she asked, putting on a shy face, shuffling her feet. "Yes, please," moaned Tim, rubbing his eyes drowsily, while Stephanie smiled thankfully. "I'd appreciate it" she answered.

Making sure her body covered the two mugs she had taken out of the cupboard, she poured the hot liquid in and, with a heavy heart, also dripped Rohypnol into the steaming cups. She was careful not to overdose the two, she didn't want to leave permanent damage after all.

Her gaze traveled to the closed door. She had made sure to chose a point of time an interruption was the most unlikely. Right now, Cassandra Cain was... well, she had been staring out of her window for the last hour and was probably still doing so, Bruce Wayne was in the Watchtower, looking for clues to find his missing sons, Alfred Pennyworth (who she really liked, the old man seemed kind, gentle, understanding and totally badass) was doing the groceries and Jason... Kayla swallowed. Damn her irritating hormones. Why on earth did the guy have to look like a dark, gloomy, sexy, teenage version of Thor?! It really wasn't fair.

She scoffed as she realized how pouty her thoughts sounded and put the two mugs on the table. "Here." Tim wolfed the drink down in one go. How in the hell hasn't that guy scorched his throat yet?! The coffee was burning hot! The heroine slurped slowly, taking only small gulps. Kayla turned her back on the couple, leaning against the counter.

She didn't have to wait long before she heard a cup shattering on the floor. Both vigilantes were lying on the table, though it looked like Tim might fall off his chair if he continued to slide to the side like that.

"Sorry," she muttered, pulling out a small, round object. Deathstroke had given it to her as means of transportation. Lately, the man had decided to work together with a lot of other villains. First, the man who had the idea for Project W.I.N.G. and now Abra Cadabra, who had cast some spell on the stone-like object and it worked as some sort of teleportation device.

Ignoring her hurting conscience, she laid it in the palm of Tim's hand, pressed a small button, waited ten seconds and then the boy disappeared with a quiet pop, the stone falling to the ground in front of her. She repeated the process on Stephanie and watched as she, too, disappeared.

Again, she picked up the stone, swallowing. It didn't matter if she regretted her actions now anyway. All members of the Batfamily would soon be in Deathst-

Her thought came to an abrupt halt as something hard and cold pressed against the back of her head. Her breath caught in her throat and she froze, her movements stilling completely as her heart stuttered in her chest, sending small shockwaves of panic through her entire system.

"Where did you send them?" growled someone from behind, voice cold as ice and with no emotions whatsoever, pressing the gun further against her head. Kalya closed her eyes, listening to the blood rushing in her ears. Shit, how does Jason even know what I was doing? He had been in the Batcave as far as she knew, so how did he... He somehow must have known that she was kidnapping the others, he wouldn't have been running around with a gun inside the Manor otherwise.

The gun against her hair jerked forward and she almost fell, but just managed to catch herself on her hands. Right, Jason's still waiting for an answer.

"I send them to my master," she answered after a moment of hesitation. There was no use in lying now, he would have figured it out anyway.

"And who would that be?" Jason's voice lacked any humor, but the mocking undertone was clear as day. She swallowed down the lump in her throat, working up the courage to tell the enraged boy who had four of his brothers in their grasp. Why was this so hard?

She seemingly was lost in her thoughts for too long, as Jason cocked the gun. The klick seemed to echo around the room and Kayla flinched. Well, here goes nothing.

"Deathstroke the Terminator."

Jason sucked in a sharp breath and she dared to slowly turn her head around, seeing the disbelieving look on the teenager's face. "Deathstroke the Terminator?" he echoed, the gun lowering slightly. Kayla didn't move. "He... knows who we are?"
"Yes."
"How?"

She didn't answer, raising her hands and slowly pushing herself off the ground, facing the anti-hero. "Look, Jason, you don't really have any options here. You are going to let me knock you out and I will teleport you to my master. Maybe you could win a fight against me, but even if you interrogate me, I won't betray my master. I am much more afraid of him than I am of you. And if you kill me, Deathstroke will just come to collect you himself. And... the easiest way to free your brothers is by being with them, is it not?"

Jason didn't answer for what felt like forever. He was still pointing the gun at her head, but his thoughts seemed far away.

"What does he want from us anyway?" he finally said, meeting her gaze head-on. She sighed. Why did Jason always have to ask the right questions? "I... don't know any specifics," she started, choosing her words carefully. "But I do know that you are only means to an end, to exert pressure on..." She hesitated. How well would Jason take the news that Deathstroke's main interest was his older brother?

"On Batman?" guessed Jason, keeping his face blank. Kayla shook her head. "No, the Batman is of no interest to him. The only person of importance is... Richard Grayson. And to some extent the al Ghul boy, but mostly the oldest. They seem to have some sort of... linked backstory? I am not really sure, but they know each other."

At this, Jason's mask of indifference cracked and Kayla could see confusion and anger and, hidden behind layers of rage, worry, in those dark blue eyes. She averted her gaze. "What does a merc want from a hero if not kill him?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Only one way to find out, right?"

Jason seemed reluctant to lower his weapon, but something in her eyes must have convinced him that the only way of having even the slightest chance at saving his brothers was to find them first. And the only way to find them was to let her kidnap him. Kayla knew that they have been running themselves in the ground, trying to pinpoint Deathstroke's location. To no avail.

Kayla realized that maybe, this was her only chance to take him down before he could make up his mind. Using the distraction his conflicted thoughts caused, she shot forward, her fist crashing into the boy's temple. She caught him before he hit the floor. "Sorry," she whispered, placing the small stone in his hand and pressing the button, just like she had done with both of his siblings.

After he vanished, Kayla rose to her feet shakily. And now for the hardest part, taking down Cassandra Cain.
_

Cassandra wasn't sure how it had come to this.
When Kayla had come to her room, asking if she was okay, Cass had turned to her to say 'yes', she was fine, but had realized with blinding clarity that something was wrong. She wasn't good with words, couldn't express herself through sentences and synonyms, but she was exceptional at reading people, and everything about the other girl, the tension in her shoulders, the forced casualness, the way she refused to meet her eyes and the nervous flutter of her wings, screamed:

guilty.

And maybe something in her own eyes had given her away, but the next thing she knew, she was trading blows with Kayla (who was not supposed to know how to fight in the first place).

Two seconds into the fight and Kayla had held her own against Cass longer than the latter anticipated. It was obvious that she had been thoroughly trained... by someone associated with the League of Shadows. She recognized the winged teenager's fighting style, it was similar to her own. That realization was enough to push her off balance, even if only for a second.

She caught herself just in time to block a kick aimed at her stomach by twisting her body to the side and deflecting Kayla's leg with the upper side of her underarms, aiming a kick of her own at the other girl's head.

Kayla ducked under her foot and jabbed at her side with the palm of her hand. Cass did a 90° spin and thrust her arm out and down, hitting her opponent's hand away forcefully, roundhouse-kicking at her head again, her heel inches from the pale girl's face, before her ankle was grabbed and she was pulled forward, thrown across the room with much more force than a small girl like Kayla should possess.

Still airborne, Cass planted her hands on the ground, jerking her legs upwards into a handstand and rolling over her back and spinning around at the same time to nimbly rise to her feet again.

She jerked her arm up to block the incoming punch and pushing Kayla's arm to the side, jerking forward to hit her in the nose with her palm, but her attack was avoided and returned with a punch to Cass' chest. She swiftly sidestepped, clamping her hand around her opponent's wrist, pulling her face-first into her elbow. Kayla almost managed to evade the attack, bending backward, but Cass' elbow still made contact with the other's nose, not hard enough to break bone, but still drawing blood.

They stood a few feet apart, both panting, Kayla wiping at her nose with her sleeve.
Cass was thrumming with adrenaline, making it hard to think, but she still needed to know why this fight was happening and why the loud noise hadn't attracted her siblings.
"Why you do this?"
"I don't have a choice."

Flapping her wings back, Kayla was faster on Cass than the vigilante could blink. It only now occurred to her that Kayla hadn't used her wings at all during the fight, maybe because of the tight space of her room. The former assassin backflipped out of the way, pushing off the wall with her feet, pointing a blow to the other's stomach, but Kayla jumped backward, jerking her hand down to hit Cass' fist away form her. Before Cassandra could hit the ground, the young hero rolled over her shoulder, using the momentum to sweep her legs across the floor, doing a back handspring when Kayla jumped over her outstretched feet and kicked at her face in the same instance.

Thinking back on it, using a back handspring to put some space between them may not have been the best idea. The millisecond Kayla was out of her field of view, the girl had surged forward and that's how Cass found herself with feathery wings in her face, slamming her into the wall so hard the wood splintered beneath her head and back. There was a biting and all-consuming pain, then... nothing.

136 hours before:
8:00 am

Cass came to with the mother of all headaches doing a rain dance inside her head. She could feel her heart pulsing in the back of her skull. Blinking sluggishly, she tried to make out her surroundings. White. Everything was a dizzy swirl of white and gray-ish colours. She hadn't moved yet, the possibility of vomiting if she did was too high to risk. The glaring white colours hurt her eyes, her headache worsening as she tried to remember what she was doing in a white room. There were no white rooms in the Manor.

A blurry face hovered above her, the dull throbbing in her head making it impossible to understand what the person was saying. She felt a light touch at her cheek and blinked again, the person slowly coming into focus. Blond hair, worried face.

Stephanie.

Cass groaned quietly and raised her hand to her head, feeling a bump growing on the back of her skull. "Ouch," she muttered, her fingers tingling. Stephanie seemed relieved she was showing signs of awareness, as the blond slowly put an arm around Cass' shoulders and pulled her upright. She lurched to the side as her stomach backflipped, dry heaving and spluttering.

"Shit," cussed the other vigilante, holding the ex-assassin upright. "You okay, Cass?"
She shook her head. "Concussion," she muttered, keeping her eyes closed to fight off waves of nausea. In all 17 years of her life, she's had one, maybe two concussions, this one hitting the three times mark.

Dick and Stephanie, who liked to jump in head-first, antagonizing (or just chatting) with the villains, took more hits than Cass. She liked to stick close to the shadows, sweeping in to take the bad guys out and leaving as soon as possible. That way, she has been able to avoid many serious injuries, concussions included.

Carefully opening her eyes, she glanced around the room. One white door, no windows, a single light bulb which glared white light. The walls, ceiling and floor were also painted white, giving off madhouse vibes. She shuddered. The next thing she noticed were the people. Stephanie knelt next to her, regarding her with an anxious expression. Quickly giving her a once-over, Cass was relieved to find she seemed to be uninjured.

To Cassandra's left sat Jason, glaring at the floor darkly. He had a red spot on his temple and his face was swelling on one side. Tim was lying next to Steph, staring at the ceiling, lost in thoughts. And between Tim and Jason sat...

"Damian!"
The boy in question was watching her closely, a small, relieved smile on his face. "Cain," he said. Cass had to bite back a slightly hysterical laugh. Damian was still fighting to maintain his non-caring facade. She took inventory of the youngest crime fighter's injuries, a small ball of rage steadily growing in her stomach. He was sporting black bruises across his cheek bone and eye, traveling down to form a ring of finger-chaped marks around the kid's throat. It was obvious what had caused those.

Damian sat cross-legged, back straight but leaning to one side to take pressure off the other one, hands resting in his lap, so Cass precluded that he was probably uninjured from the neck down aside from the knife wound he had received on the day of his kidnapping, as the position would provoke a great deal of pain otherwise. It was a small relieve. Damian was strong, but he was small and thin and if Deathstroke decided to hit his chest or stomach with great force, there was a chance of causing internal damage. Cass hadn't even realized how much she had worried about the boy until now. After the fiasco with the Joker two years ago, another kidnapping was not what anyone needed.

Only after making sure her siblings were fine did she realise that someone was still missing. "Where... Dick?" She whispered, dread pooling into her stomach. What if he was hurt? Or worse? And why wasn't he with them?

"With Wilson, probably," muttered Damian, his voice sounding rough and dry, eyes fixed on his hands. "Didn't he come here with you?"
Shaking his head, Jason moved closer to the younger Wayne. "Nope. Dickhead went after you on his own, the dip-shit." He crossed his arms, lips twisting into a grimace. "Guess he found Slade before he found us. Oh, btw, do you happen to know this guy?" he asked, pulling out a photo from his pocket. Leaning over, Cass caught a glimpse of a man's face.

Damian gave him a questioning look (and somehow still managed to look arrogant) and negated the question. "Who is he?"
Tim snatched the picture out of his hand, cocking one eyebrow. "The guy from the night of your kidnapping," he explained. "He was the League's shipment."
Damian scrunched up his eyebrows, taking back the photo. "Are you sure? The League of Shadows usually does not take prisoners, not unless they threaten their business... and that guy does not look like a politician or crime lord."

Steph had scooted over to the boys now too, Cass following behind. "He isn't," the blond said, holding out her hand to take a look at the man. "We already investigated the guy. He's a nobody. No family, no job."
"So no one anyone will miss," concluded Damian, pursing his lips. "It's not the League's MO. Why kidnap a..." he paused, a series of emotions racing across his face as he watched his fingers fiddle with the hem of his shirt. He grimaced.

"What? What is it?" urged Tim, taking the picture from Steph's fingers. Damian narrowed his eyes to slits. "Usually, the League does not kill, not unless they are contracted to do so or someone threatens their power, they operate from the shadows, so casualties are few. But there are situations in which innocents are... sacrificed."
"Sacrificed?" Tim sounded as confused as Cass felt. She didn't know about any sacrifices.

"When a new Damon's Head gets appointed, he or she has to go through a series of trials to prove their worth. It's a tradition which simultaneously shows how well they handle crisis situations. They have to kill three different people. First, someone who has thrown their life away, someone who is at the end of the food chain. Innocent but basically a nobody. Someone without family or friends. It's supposed to show the new leader of the League is merciful to those who have wronged no one or something. In the sense of 'better off dead than continue a life like that.'

"The next victim is someone who leads a normal life. Normal job, normal friends. It's supposed to show ruthlessness. It's important for possible contracts they could accept.

"The last person to kill is a celebrity. Someone who is a danger to the League would be the most suitable. An anti Lex Luthor or something. If the successor of the Demon's Head does that, he proves that he is willing to act against people who threaten the League. Throughout history, that last kill has always had a grave impact on the common people and almost always resulted in the government trying to take action against the League. But they were never successful, since they couldn't very well send soldiers to take them down. They wanted to prevent mass panic. Imagine how the people would act if they knew about a group of professional assassins."

Cass swallowed down a big lump in her throat. A new Ra's al Ghul? Impossible.
"But why would your grandfather just step down?" Stephanie was leaning against Tim, a frown pulling at her eyebrows.
Eyes tracing patterns on his palms, Damian furrowed his brows. "He wouldn't. I doubt he would let my mother take over. Not yet."

"Then why kidnap the guy?"
"I do not know. It makes no sense."
They fell silent, all lost in their own thoughts. Cass wondered if Talia al Ghul would really be the new leader of the League. There had been no sign of Ra's wanting to give up command. She sighed. All things considered, the possibility of them kidnapping that man for different reasons was much higher than Ra's letting his daughter take the lead.
_

Half an hour later (Cass had always been good at estimating how much time she had spent in one place), the white door opened with a metallic screech. She winced and fought the instinct to cover her ears, head snapping up, noticing from the corner of her eye how Damian flinched in a very un-Damian like way at the sound.

"Well look at that, the Bat-siblings united." Cass' eyes locked on the person beside the speaker, baby blue orbs staring at them with growing panic. "Dick," she breathed.