"What a poor little lost soul we have here, wouldn't you say, Minister?" Lipov leered over Angel and the Odmience as their blades clashed again and again. Strikes were thrown aside, parries were blocked at the last moment, neither surrendered any ground for more than a second. "Doesn't she know she doesn't have to weep for them? Didn't you teach her they had already been rejected?"
With some struggle, Gram managed to wet the inside of his mouth to speak again. "I never said to run around killing people! This isn't what I meant at all!"
"No?" Lipov tilted his head in faux-confusion. "What did you mean when you said their beliefs were incompatible with your country's then? That you should just leave them to kill one another in wars in the desert? They were already here and this method was much cheaper, I assure you."
Angel and the Odmience rushed and pushed back one another in a constant dance for control. Neither managed a direct blow across their many swings, steel clanged against steel as both searched for an opening the other refused to provide.
"There are plenty more people to punish up there, Minister. Who do you suppose should be next?"
With the gun still pointed at him, Gram went into a shaking silence.
For all his talk of wanting to beat Cain at his own game, Lipov was cheating. Angel couldn't allot all of her attention to the Odmience when she was also struggling for how to save Lipov's captives. After the Odmience threw her from one of the blade locks, she drew her grappling hook. Maybe if she could reach the rafters, she could help the people trapped above. The Odmience closed the distance, knocked her to the floor with a tackle and knocked the grappling hook out of her hand after she'd fired it.
Lipov laughed, "That was just pathetic! What were you going to do you got up there? I can see your every move." He turned toward the silent and quivering Gram. "Who shall we punish next, Minister? Perhaps the immigrants who ruined their own land and have come to ruin yours? Maybe those godless Sodomites?"
The Odmience raised his fist high. His close proximity made Angel nervous to attempt any piece of her endgame, but she needed to take advantage of the moment. She pulled a batarang from her belt, blade-side out and swung it across the Odmience's throat. Her opponent grabbed at the wound, a little blood trickled, but Angel judged from the resistance she had mostly just cut through his costume. She released the hand still on her sword, grabbed and raked across the Odmience's eyes. He grabbed at them in pain as Angel forced him off.
"Let them all down from there!" The way the shakes forced their way into Gram's voice spoke of the fear he felt, and not just for himself. "I didn't say this, I didn't want any of this!"
"I heard you the first time," Lipov said. "You're a lot more fun on the radio." He stepped over to another of the levers. "The Communists out from China, perhaps?"
The reach of Lipov's arm lit a fire in Angel's belly. She threw the Odmience out of her way, drew another batarang and ran toward Lipov.
"Well, this one first." Lipov turned the pistol toward Angel and pulled the trigger. Her foresight was enough to anticipate where it would hit the ground and dodged the shot. She threw the batarang toward his gun hand, but Lipov lowered it in time. "Five then."
Lipov yanked back on the lever.
Angel screamed, "No!"
The Odmience got a handful of her hair, wrenched her backward and smashed her against one of the scaffoldings. Though it hurt, her eyes were shut tight in anticipation of the terrible snap. But none came.
Lipov frowned and looked upward. "What the?"
Even held against the scaffolding, Angel dared to look up as well. Another five trapdoors in the lighting rig had indeed opened and bodies had fallen through them, but there were no hanging corpses to speak of. Others on both sides of the execution line hand joined hands as best as they were able, the combined force enough to hold the next five would-be victims from falling to their doom.
Lipov stomped his foot. "God damnit, you're ruining the game!" He pointed the handgun upward and fired off two rounds, but poor lighting caused him to miss.
Angel managed a moment of relief before the Odmience smashed his fist into her, once in the gut, again in the face. As she fought back the pain, she reeled back her head and crashed it into his own. Both were briefly dazed and fought back pain, but Angel was more prepared. One hook, then another to his face before the Odmience found strength enough to catch his fist and twisted it. With two fingers of her free hand, Angel thrust into his throat and forced him off. The demon retreated backwards and grabbed not only his own sword, but Angel's as well.
Despite his rush with the two swords, Angel glared at him, remained in place and only dodged when he swung. The Odmience clanged the two swords into the scaffolding as Angel dodged him at the last moment and threw a series of pressure-point strikes into one of his arms. The Odmience released his own sword, which she caught and raised to parry the swing from the dulled katana. Angel tried to get ahold of the hole she'd cut into his costume, but the Odmience dodged backwards before she could.
Angel looked down at the sword in her hand and shuddered. If she wasn't careful, she would claim another life, possibly even her own if she didn't keep it balanced properly. She and the Odmience moved in small jumps and fake outs for a few seconds before he swung and she blocked again.
"Well, this is taking too long." Impatience was thick in Lipov's voice as he moved over to the next of his levers and glared toward Angel. "Sodomites it is."
Angel screamed, "Gram! Be the man of God you say you are!"
Gram flinched. From his perspective, he'd been in a daze since the first set of hangings. He was disoriented, he was confused. But the words of the girl he had so long despised snapped him back to lucidity. He slowly looked between her and up at Lipov.
Lipov threw back his head and laughed. "Really? You're calling on your too pious friend for aid now? Just how mindless are—"
As he reached for the switch, he was interrupted. The minister knocked him to the ground with a tackle. The gun flew out from Lipov's hand as the terrified preacher held him against the floor.
"I told you that's enough!" Despite his racing heart, Gram held on tight.
For a moment Lipov gnashed his teeth with disgust. "You fool!" Then he shifted the look to a grin. "Are you really so quick to abandon your principles?"
"These aren't my principles!"
"Then why did you make it so easy to be misunderstood on the radio?" Lipov punched him twice in the face and forced him off. Gram struggled to regain his sense of equilibrium as Lipov got back to his feet.
As Angel threw off a slash from the Odmience, she shouted toward Gram, "The gun!"
Lipov was already scrambling up for it, but Gram kicked it out of his reach and stepped into his way.
The old assassin snarled as he looked up at the preacher. "You don't want this, you little son of a bitch."
"The Angel said something that got me." Gram slapped his chest over his heart. "I have a role to play. If it was my sins that endangered all these people, I have to help save them."
From just before them, Cain laughed at the sheer absurdity.
Lipov spat at his feet. "You're going to pray for death."
From the floor, Angel saw as Lipov laid the first few fierce blows into Gram's face. She cringed and was desperate to help him, but the Odmience's slashes had already forced her onto the defensive. She overstepped a parry as the Odmience dodged to the side and smacked her hands with the dulled katana. As Angel clenched in pain, she released the sword and the Odmience abandoned the dull blade to remain his own. Angel got ahold of her own weapon in time to block his next slash, but the one after it cut into her cheek and she yelled as she backed up and held the wound. She was on the edge of exhaustion. Of all her opponents, Gotham's criminal clans, the immortal Seraphim, her own near-unstoppable mother, he was perhaps the most skilled and ruthless.
Please, she pleaded internally. Jesus, God, my savior. For them. Save them. Save all of us.
She looked again at the lighting fixtures and double took. Of the five who had been dropped and supported by their companions, two had been pulled back onto the platform. The closest to the trapdoors even stood with freed hands. She squinted and, as she raised her sword and caught the Odmience's slash, she could have wept with joy.
Green Arrow had slipped into the church and was hard at work freeing Lipov's captives above.
Thank you.
-000-
Jillian Miranda Fanning sat confined in what had once been her own dorm room at Gotham University. It sat empty since her expulsion and her former roommates were all out for the night, but Lipov thought it was a place no one would look for her. She was pinned to the floor in the hot pink Miranda armor she had come to loathe, forced in place with Lipov's electrical shocks and the threat he'd gladly set off all the explosives running through the suit. The armor had been switched off, it was too heavy to move in and too awkward to remove manually. She was aware she was probably waiting for death either way, she really didn't think she had any more tears to cry over the matter, but she did anyway.
Jill never knew why she'd been selected to test out the armor or what the company that sent it in the first place hoped she'd accomplish. And she'd always looked at Lipov with complete suspicion. He'd assured her and her comrades again and again that if they cooperated he wouldn't hurt them or the people they captured. No one would really be harmed, he was just orchestrating a kidnapping scheme for a greater end he couldn't tell them about. She knew it was bull, but she went along with it anyway.
So she was waiting to die by a series of explosives built into the suit she'd used to help rob banks and kidnap innocents. It was a cruel fate, but it didn't strike her as unfair.
She wasn't fazed when she heard the main door of the dormitory open. She knew she probably should have tried to make a commotion and convince whoever had come to run for their lives. But she was too exhausted by everything.
Jill only looked up when she heard the door of her own bedroom rattle a little. She flinched when she heard one loud bang against it and then another until it flew open. There, garbed in the same black and purple she'd come to hate so much, stood Batgirl.
Her eyes went wide. "What the hell?"
Batgirl slipped something, it looked to be a small flash drive, out of her utility belt. "Hey there. I need to get at your neck."
Jill clenched. "What? What are you doing here? You know Lipov's got a switch he's itching to flip to blow me to bits, right?"
"Yeah, obviously." Batgirl bent down and scanned the armor. "I'm here to rescue you."
Jill flinched as Batgirl bent down and poked at a slot. As she slipped in the flash stick. "Careful!"
Batgirl looked up and their eyes met. "Trust me, okay? I know you're freaked out, but your buddy gave me the instructions to defuse your suit."
"My buddy?"
"Yeah. The one who multiples. The one I saw get thrown out a window."
Jill's look widened, a little smile came across her face and she shook her head. "Richie, you wonderful little bastard."
"Okay, so the flash stick is disabling some of the suit's defenses, but we've gotta give it a minute or two," Batgirl said.
The two sat for a few seconds as tiny whirling sounds emanated from the Miranda armor. "So, what? Back in the slammer as soon as this is over?"
"Well, that kind of depends on a couple of things," Batgirl said. "But I'm pretty sure none of you actually had any interest in this kidnapping plot, right?"
"It was the old man's idea," Jill said. "He electroshocked the living hell out of us to do what he said. That part was all him, he just said he could get us back out of prison."
"And you were getting coerced via electroshocks before, right?"
Jill couldn't tell why she sounded off, but the question sounded a little slower than she'd have expected. "What? No. We were—"
"Are you sure?" She was still talking slow. "Because if you guys were wearing these suits of armor and were basically tortured into robbing banks along with kidnapping people, the legal system might be a little more lenient on you."
Jill's heart pounded in her chest as the mechanisms loosed within her suit and a panel at the stomach dropped to reveal its inner workings. "Why are you doing this? Me and the other Reapers tried to kill you guys. Like, a bunch of times."
"I got a solid reminder from my best friend." Batgirl slipped a pair of clippers from her belt and leaned in to cut the wires. "Sometimes anger just leads to more anger. I beat the snot out of you guys, you came back with a vengeance. So I'm trying something different this time." As she cut the first wire, she raised and shook the cutters at Jill. "And hopefully you'll all learn to behave yourselves after this.
-000-
With Arrow above, Cassandra could concentrate on below.
When their swords clashed again the Odmience sensed Angel's renewed resolve. In the midst of their sword lock she looked into his icy blue eyes and quietly said, "Rafal."
He acknowledged the name with little but a tiny twitch of one of his eyes, but Angel saw it. Her entire childhood had been spent identifying anything that could be a potential chink in her opponent's armor. The name still troubled him, he had given it away.
The Odmience slashed at her neck, Angel repelled the blow and swung at his side, another twitch was visible in his eyes. He pushed past the pain, struck Angel in the face and knocked her backwards. The Odmience pursued her as her cheek began to swell, but she parried his next strike, reversed her grip and smashed the base of her katana against his stomach. Within his facemask the Odmience wheezed and gasped for breath. The moment to regain his composure was time enough for Angel to grab the cut in the costume she'd made in his throat and yank it up over his face. As if in retaliation, the Odmience clawed upward for her eyes and ripped her domino mask off in the process.
Angel retreated backward, felt where the mask had been and momentarily considered the troublesome loss before she concluded she had no time to worry about it. The pale, hairless, scar-ridden boy only a few months older than her glared across the small divide.
"You're not a monster, Rafal," Angel said. "If you don't want to be one."
By the micro-expressions that twitched across his face, it was clear he at least partially understood what she was saying. Tiny spasms and convulsions ran up and down his arms as he reached to pull the mask back on, but Angel interrupted the motion with a rush. With only one free hand, he was unprepared when Angel brought the katana down on his sword and knocked it from him. She followed with a pair of two-fingered strikes to his chest that contorted his expression and an open palm to the nose that forced him backward. The boy grabbed at his face, grit his teeth and tried to feel for blood through his gloves.
"Don't want this!" Angel threw open her arms. "Let it stop."
On the center of the stage, Lipov threw a battered Gram next to the chair Cain remained tied to and scoffed. "What do you think this is, girl? This is not something you can appeal to. He's not a creature with empathy. I didn't make your father's mistakes."
"He doesn't control you—"
He stepped back to the edge of the stage and grabbed his gun. "Get back to work! Get on with it!"
As if to match her renewed fervor the Odmience ran at Angel, dodged the next swing of her sword and got ahold of one of her arms. Fueled by the anger Lipov had thrust upon him, he began to twist Angel's arm. The heroine forced down a shout of pain as her hand opened and the dulled katana hit the ground. As she anticipated a sickening crack, she stomped on the Ormience's foot, the force enough to make him loosen his grip. Angel reeled around to face him, both clenched their fists save for two fingers as they faced one another again.
Even the flexible but durable armor they both wore was unprepared for the barrage of pressure point strikes the two thrust into one another. Both of their defenses had dropped, within moments both gnashed their teeth and struggled to stand upright. Their arms and legs cooperated, but only with force that had to be pulled from their assaults. Neither could throw another attack with their bodies so overwhelmed with the pressure strikes.
"Well, Minister, it seems you too need reminded of the tenants of your faith." Lipov stepped up to one of the levers again.
"I won't let you put that blood on my hands!" The beaten Gram pushed himself off the ground and tried to rush at Lipov, but his strength was too far gone and he hit the floor after a stumble.
By some strange chance, both Lipov and Cain retorted, "Pitiful." The first glared at the latter, the latter laughed. Lipov grabbed ahold of the lever and yanked it downward.
Angel realized too late she should have given the act at least some response. Maybe then he wouldn't have been so swift to look up in confusion when the trapdoors in the lighting rig slipped open but no sound came. Lipov frowned and looked up at the oddity before his eyes went wide and his teeth began to gnash. A few of his captives were still bound in place, those whose hands and necks were already free were hard at work liberating their fellow prisoners. Although they couldn't get down from the rig without assistance from one of the scaffoldings, they could at least maneuver around the trapdoors. Mexicans from their street festival untying Asians from their own. Muslims from the mosques hard at work releasing the noose from the young men and women from a gay nightclub. And a boy with dark skin and light hair, bow and arrow strapped to his back, knife in his hand as he cut the restraints of his captives.
"Little bastard!" Lipov raised his pistol.
Angel forced herself past the still-recovering Odmience and ran toward Lipov. "Stop!"
The old assassin fired into the darkness. Then fired again. With the third shot, the bullet struck Arrow in the shoulder. He shouted in pain, stumbled and fell over the side of the rig. Angel screamed, Lipov laughed and Arrow fumbled in the arrow. As his body clenched against the shock of the bullet wound he felt something with one of his hands. Without even knowing what it was he took hold of it tight. The rope of Angel's grappling hook, still latched to the lighting rig, slowed him just a little before he crashed into the ground.
Angel ran up to him as the Odmience shook his body and tried to regain feeling. Any ordinary care for her work was lost on her as she yelled, "Connor!" and kneeled to examine him.
Though his voice was weak, Arrow managed to say, "I'm all right… I'm all right." His shoulder was bleeding from the bullet and at least a few bones were surely cracked, but it seemed the rope of the grapple had greatly softened his impact.
"What's this? I told you no one gets to interrupt this!" Lipov reached into his coat and produced a small, remote-like device. "You've killed all five of those little worms, and anyone else close enough to be caught in the blast!"
Angel jerked up and drew another batarang, but there was no way she could stop Lipov from hitting the button at the center of his remote. The church went quiet for a few seconds, as if in anticipation.
When the moment passed, Arrow let out laugh that slipped into a dry cough. "Batman and the others already disabled your suicide bombers. They deactivated the explosives in the suits before I even came in here."
Lipov's eyes grew wide as the color drained from his face. Cain uttered the most boisterous bout of his laughter the whole night.
"They'll be here soon." Arrow tried to push upward, but crumbled and fell back to the ground. Angel remained at her side, but motioned she could leave him be. "And you just killed five people and prepared to kill three dozen more. Including one of their own."
Trembles ran through Lipov as he raised his gun toward Arrow and gnashed his teeth.
Between his laughs, Cain said, "It's over, Vic. You'll be outnumbered and outmaneuvered."
Without saying a word, Lipov turned the gun toward his old teacher.
"That's a standard six-shot, right Vic? You've used five already. As soon as you pull the trigger again, you'll be a sitting duck." He held his teeth together and sneered, "Choose wisely. Because almost everyone in this room is ready to beat the ever-living hell out of you."
The assassin looked up and held the gun toward the bloodied Gram as he pushed back to his feet. Then he eyed the captives in the lighting rig, who still couldn't hope to get down from their position without a raised scaffolding. In spite of how much had gone wrong, he could still get what he wanted.
"Odmience!" He looked toward his creation as Angel rose and slowly approached him. "Forget the hangings, forget what I said before. Just finish her!"
Angel was busily taking account of the situation as well. The prisoners on the lighting rafters above were, at least for the moment, safe. Gram had Lipov stuck in place, both unprepared to make a move out of fear of the other. Connor was injured, but at least stable. And the Odmience had been disarmed. Every piece was in place for Cassandra's endgame. She swallowed the last of her fear, faced the Odmience and threw open her arms.
"It's done," she said. "Fight is over."
From up on the stage, Lipov scoffed. "What are you on about now, girl? He's bloodied, not beaten!"
Cassandra gave him no mind and held her eyes on her opponent. "Have a choice, even if he told you you didn't. Only a monster if you choose to be one."
"This again?" Lipov demanded. "This is idiotic! This is what he was trained for, you stupid bitch! You think he'll give it up when victory is so close at hand?"
She still paid him no mind and approached her opponent slowly. "Give me your hate. I can take it. Just remember how it feels, Rafal."
Connor tried to stand again. "Angel, what are you doing?"
The Odmience stared at her as she held the open stance. He looked back and forth between her and Lipov as if he expected some trap was about to be sprung, but she did nothing.
Lipov glared at his student. "Zabij ja."
He looked at her again and hesitated.
"Zabij ja!"
The boy swallowed hard and looked toward Lipov a final time.
"ZABIJ JA! ZABIJ JA! DO CHORLERY, ZABIJ JA!"
Fueled by fear, the Odmience rushed at Cassandra and smashed a hook-punch into her face. As her head flew to the side a little blood and spittle flew from her mouth, but the boy flinched when she didn't even attempt to block the strike. He feinted back and forth, threw a few punches that just stopped short, but Cassandra still didn't respond.
The Odmience punched her in the gut, Cassandra keeled over and gasped, but still didn't retaliate. The boy-turned-demon struck her over and over. Closed fist, open palm, two fingers poised at her pressure points, it didn't matter. Cassandra didn't have the strength to mask her pain anymore. She spat up, clutched at her face and her stomach. A punch to the center broke open her nose, covered the Odmience's hands with her blood and, already of weak legs, she collapsed backwards.
Lipov cackled in laughter. "Yes! Yes that's it!"
"What are you doing?" Connor shouted. "Don't let him hit you like that!"
As he struggled to watch, Gram yelled, "That's enough! Call him off!"
"Or what, Minister?" The threat had only fueled Lipov's laughter.
The Odmience sat down on Cassandra's stomach and pulled back his fist.
"Cassandra!" Cain could hold his silence no longer. "Fight back, damnit! You're better than this!"
The Odmience brought his fist down on Cassandra's face. A freshly closed sore cracked back open, her teeth shook in her mouth and her brain rattled in her skull. He punched her again. And again. Her eyes, cheeks, everything began to swell or bleed, every strike wrecked her body with agony.
In spite of everything, she raised a hand to his face and placed it on his cheek. With what seemed like it could be the last of her strength, she whispered, "Rafal... better than this."
His strikes slowed and softened until he was frozen in place.
Minister, friend and father all shouted at her. "Get up! Get up!"
Lipov called from the center of the stage. "She's still breathing! You're not finished yet!"
As if fueled by something after all else had run dry, Cassandra managed to mutter, "Rafal." She set a hand on his cheek, as if to comfort him, and stroked it softly.
The boy clasped her hands over his ears and shut his eyes tight. In spite of all of Lipov's years of abuse and singular focus, the memory of so long ago burned in the boy's mind. He remembered the woman in her habits who held him as he sobbed. Who gave him a home and food when he was a vagrant. The woman who met his suffering with kindness. One more thing Lipov had ripped away from him. Sister Mary Katya.
"I SAID—"
Lipov could not complete his threat. A blunt-ended arrow struck his hands and the gun soared from his possession. The old assassin shouted in pain and grabbed at his now empty hand.
In the part of his mind he always fought hardest to quiet, he wondered if there hadn't been something more he could have done for her. If he could have turned on Lipov and hoped of winning, if he could have figured a way to save her. He was never sure of the answer.
But in that moment, as he faced another person who offered him kindness while Lipov roared he kill her, he was only controlled him through fear. He had no gun, no other means of defense and no chance he could defeat him in a fight.
"ZABIJ JA!"
"Rafal."
The boy threw back his head and released a shrill scream. For a second thereafter, the entire church was silent.
He rose from Cassandra's near-limp body and faced Lipov. In spite of her best efforts, she hadn't excised the boy of his rage. She'd only redirected it.
Fists clenched and blood boiling, he ran at his mentor. At long last, it was Lipov's turn to be afraid.
