A/N 1: You know the drill - ideas for fic and character development, questions, plotbunnies, suggestions, flames, character pictures, ficlets, corrections, additions, comments, and everything in between can be mailed to hack_heaven@usa.net.

A/N 2: Maxwell Dark: Plans? *smirk* We'll find out...eventually.

WritingMoose: Thank you ^^. And I'm majoring in economics, of all things...*g*

A/N 3: One last update before I move - I'll be offline from tomorrow and for at least the next three weeks, so don't expect any updates until sometime in the middle of September. Sorry ^^

Italics indicates thoughts/telepathy

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Chapter Fifty-Four: Revelations

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"We *what*?!"

Zach stared dumbfounded at Deirdre, his mind still not completely able to comprehend what she'd just said. Things were moving way too fast for his liking, and the harsh accusation did nothing to help his mood.

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!" Deirdre yelled angrily, glaring at Zach with eyes that burned with hatred. "You. Killed. Prue!" she repeated, biting out each word, as if she could strike Zach down with that one sentence alone.

"What the fuck are you talking about?!" Zach demanded. "We've never even met the girl! How could we-"

And suddenly it struck him, that last piece that completed the puzzle and showed him a picture he did not want to see. That night when he'd seen the others down in the parking lot, that night when Nike for some unimaginable reason had changed her clothes while downtown, that night that Blade refused to talk about...

His eyes widened, pain, confusion, and betrayal intermingled, fighting for control, and showed beyond any doubt the shock he felt.

"No..." Zach trailed off as the full impact of the words hit him. Jhonen had been downtown that night with Nike, Blade, and Jordane, meaning that-

He helped them.

The realization hit him hard and painfully, and Zach felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he finally understood what Nike had done. Because this was Nike's fault, Zach knew that. It had to be - she'd taken Jhonen; innocent, harmless Jhonen whom Zach had actually started to like, and turned him into her obedient pet, her little toy. She destroyed, that was all she could do. She destroyed whatever goodness she came into contact with, contaminated it with her very presence, and turned it into a twisted version of what it once was.

And now that included Jhonen.

No...

Deirdre faltered slightly at the look of clear shock on Zach's face and felt her anger diminish - you couldn't fake that shocked a look, it was impossible. But still...how could he *not* know? They were his teammates!

"You mean you didn't - they didn't tell you?" she asked confused, almost not believing the conclusion her mind had reached. Zach was a part of the Shadow Alliance and had been so for a long time. He should know what was going on, shouldn't he? "But I thought..."

"...That we already knew about it?" Zach finished, faint bitterness tainting his voice, speaking its clear language about the betrayal he felt. "It doesn't work that way, girl. Blade tells us what we need to know, that's it." He shook his head, frustration clear on his face. "What happened?" he demanded, a bit of strength returning to his voice.

Deirdre clenched her fists, felt the nails dig into her skin, and welcomed the pain as a brief distraction from the emotional wounds she had.

"They cornered us in a diner," she explained, eyes heavy with grief, but still she refused to break Zach's intense stare. "They forced us outside...and then Nike killed Prue. She didn't even give her a chance!"

She had expected denial from Zach, to hear him say that his team would never do something like that, but his only reaction was a look of burning anger in his eyes at the sound of Laetitia's name and the atrocity she'd committed.

"Laetitia?" he asked. He clenched his fists, his anger turning into cold fury, and it became obvious to Deirdre that teammate or not, Blitz did *not* care much for Nike. "I'm not surprised," he continued, not bothering to wait for a reply. "She doesn't care about fair fights - she kills for money. That woman is a-"

"- Monster," Deirdre finished quietly, never taking her eyes off Zach. She'd always seen the Shadow Alliance as a group rather than individuals, and the thought that they, like any other team, had their arguments and disagreements, had never crossed her mind. And not only arguments - Zach's behavior went beyond a simple disagreement. It was hatred, there was no other way to describe it.

Zach sighed and ran a hand through his unruly hair. "Yeah...that pretty much covers it."

Deirdre blinked, her mind finally starting to catch up with the things she'd just heard. It was shocking to say the least. The past few minutes had taught her more about the Shadow Alliance than a year and a half with the Guardians had, and the sudden revelation that they weren't as close-knit as she had always thought, made her mind spin.

"I just thought..." she trailed off, not sure how to explain what she felt.

"That we were all a bunch of homicidal maniacs?" Zach suggested, a hint of anger in his voice. "You're basing your opinion on two infamous assassin - you don't even know the rest of us!"

Deirdre didn't reply, and Zach sighed and turned away.

"I'm not like Blade and Nike," he said, tired from the argument and the shock and confusion Deirdre's explanation had brought. "I don't kill people unless it's in self-defense; none of us do."

"Then why do you stay?" Deirdre asked quietly.

Zach turned around to face the girl again. "Because they gave us a place to belong," he explained, and this time there was none of the hatred in his voice, only a seriousness that was rather unusual for him. "They're my teammates - I owe my loyalty to them, whether they deserve it or not."

"You don't have to stay with them. You could join us instead," Deirdre offered, but Zach just smirked.

"And what? Help you protect the people who got us here in the first place? I don't think do, Deirdre."

Deirdre didn't reply, but merely leaned back against the wall, doing her best to ignore Zach's argument. Zach watched her for a moment, then lay down on his bed, nursing his aching head.

Neither of them noticed that he'd just called her by her real name for the first time ever.

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"You can't be serious!" West demanded angrily. "You're suggesting a truce with the people who killed Prue? Are you out of your mind?!"

Diana sighed and rubbed her temples. Things were going a lot worse than expected, and her headache had returned with renewed strength at the prospect of an argument with West. And they shouldn't even have been able to have this argument, should they? If West had even half the headache that Diana had woken up with, there was no way he should have been able to summon this amount of anger without any trace of pain.

But unfortunately, either logic didn't apply to her new teammate, or he had managed to push aside his discomfort by the sheer energy of his anger alone. Either way, it meant that Diana's headache was bound to get worse once the real argument started.

"*They* didn't kill Prue, Nike did," Diana explained, with as much patience as she could muster in her current state. "Hal and Pheonix didn't even know what had happened until I told them!"

"That's what they tell you, yeah!" West snapped. Usually, it wasn't in his nature to show such displays of anger, but in this case he was more than willing to make an exception. The grief and fury he felt needed an outlet, and crying like a baby in front of Prue's killers was not an option.

"They're telling the truth," Diana stated, fighting her growing impatience.

"How do you know?" West challenged.

Diana sighed. "I don't," she admitted. "But I don't think they're lying about it." West didn't reply, and Diana tried one last time. "I know what I'm doing, West. Trust me. *Please*."

For a moment she saw doubt enter West's eyes, then the boy made a frustrated sound and sat down on his bed, resting his head in his hands. Diana sighed quietly.

No...this wasn't going well at all.

* * *

At the other end of the small cell, Pheonix and Hal watched the argument silently, both caught up in their own thoughts. Diana's revelation had been stunning to say the least, and both girls were still trying to come to terms with what they'd just heard. It wasn't the fact that Laetitia had killed someone that shocked them - they weren't stupid; they knew what kind of assignments the leaders of their team sometimes accepted - it was more the nature of this particular murder. To cold-bloodedly slit the throat of an innocent teenage girl, and be more than willing to let her friend watch...that was beyond what both Hal and Pheonix thought Laetitia capable of. Blade, yes, maybe - after all, through her powers Hal had seen that he was more than willing to go to extremes when needed be. But Laetitia...?

"How could she do something like that?" Pheonix asked quietly. "I mean, sure, I know she's killed people before, but..." she trailed off uncertainly.

"I don't know," Hal replied in the same quiet voice. "Revenge, maybe...she wasn't happy about Ryan knocking her out."

"How could Blade let her do it? How could *Jhonen* let her do it?! How could he just stand there and watch her kill one of his former teammates?" Pheonix demanded, irrationally hoping that Hal had an explanation.

Because she's slowly been turning him into her pet ever since he joined us, and you didn't want to see that, Hal didn't say, and instead settled for a small sigh. "You know that Blade lets her do pretty much what she wants to do," she reminded Pheonix. "And Jhonen...he's too smart to go against Nike when she's like that."

Pheonix didn't reply and for a moment the two girls just stood there, silently watching West as he sat unmoving on his bed. Diana, too, was watching West, all of them aware that the boy needed his time to consider things before he made a decision.

"How could you not have known?" he finally asked; harsh, demanding, and one some level probably deserved as well.

Hal took a step forward, unconsciously taking charge of the situation. "Do you think they tell us everything?" she asked, but West didn't reply. "They tell us what they feel we need to know. We were all aware that they had been downtown that night, but we didn't know what had happened."

"And you didn't even ask them?" West asked disbelieving.

Hal raised her head slightly, meeting his harsh words without blinking. "Zach did. They told him to stay out of it. And in all honestly, most of us didn't *want* to know what took place. We assumed it was an assignment and left it at that - if they were paid to kill someone, we would prefer not to know about it."

"How can you let them get away with that?!" West demanded angrily.

So far Diana had listened to the argument with growing worry, all too aware that it was only a matter of time before Hal or Pheonix lost their patience. For a moment she considered stepping in and put a stop to it, but decided against it. If they should have any chance of working together at all, they needed to get things out in the open. And so Diana pushed her worry a bit aside, and stepped back to watch with Pheonix.

Hal's eyes narrowed slightly, her patience slowly starting to wear thin thanks to West. If he wanted it rough, then fine by her.

"We 'let them get away with that' because they helped us when no one else wanted to," she snapped. "They keep us safe and off the streets, and make sure that we have what we need. And if we have to look the other way when they disappear for days or weeks, then we'll do that."

West blinked in surprise, taken aback by her sharp reply. "But there're alternatives - you don't have to-"

"*What* alternatives?" Hal interrupted sharply. "Orphanages? Shelters for homeless people? Or maybe with a team that protects the race that's trying to kill us? No - we made our choice, West, whether you like it or not!" Hal's voice grew sharper and more clear and demanded by each passing second as she found herself drawing on her impatience to shut the boy up. "Now listen carefully - Diana was smart enough to propose a temporary truce. I strongly suggest that you accept that offer. We don't need your help, understand that? We couldn't care less about what happens to you, and the only reason why we have tolerated your accusations so far, is because you're too high on your anger and grief to think straight."

West didn't reply, but he seemed to falter slightly at the angry outburst, and Hal found herself absurdly pleased that she'd managed to get that reaction through words alone.

"I don't trust you," West finally stated.

"We don't ask you to," Hal replied.

"You killed Prue." Some of his anger seemed to return, and Hal decided to handle it before it got any worse.

"We already had that discussion," she replied curtly, drawing on the cold, uncaring attitude she'd seen Blade and Nike display so often. She didn't like it much, but in this case she was willing to make an exception - there was no way West would listen to reason, and she didn't want to listen to his constant accusations for however long they were stuck there. "Do you accept the truce, yes or no?"

For a long moment there was only silence. Then West sighed and looked away.

"Yes...I accept it."

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