Author's Note: I'm still working out a few kinks in my modified storyline, so the next chapter might not be out for a bit. Trying to write as much as I can over break before school starts again... *sob*
I hope you all had a very merry Christmas(:
Disclaimer: DC owns the characters and the mini-series this is based on.
A cold wind chilled the almost-dusk, the sky turning from dark to darker as the Alaskan sun began to set. Angelsport was almost like a set from a Western movie: A single abandoned street of rundown wooden structures for buildings, with peeling signs for small businesses with almost no customers. A warm bubble of a laugh almost escaped Rose's frozen lips despite her thin, leather-clad arms clinging to her torso for some semblance of warmth. This was Will's "empire"?
"The cabin's just a few clicks north."
She swiveled her head towards her heavily-coated escort, who happened to be the doctor who'd fixed her up. Rose nodded, clutching the strap of her duffle tighter, trying and failing not to think about the frigid weather and her inadequate attire. Her growing theory was that the longer she hung around this pathetic town, the bigger her chances were of being frozen solid in this place. Stuck in what passed for Alaska's version of purgatory.
As the anti-hero trudged through the thickening snow behind the doctor towards the truck down the street, she realized that Will had been right. Rose might have been her father's daughter in more ways then she'd have liked to admit, but there was no way she could survive another trip like that through the Arctic tundra. No fucking way.
Her obscure frozen thoughts gave way to sudden surprise as Rose realized that she'd almost tripped over a small bundled-up figure. Her reflexes took over and she backed away quickly, grabbing the arm of what appeared to be a small girl so the youngling wouldn't fall into the slush.
"Sorry about that," Rose amended quickly, feeling an unexpected slash of pity overcome her as she looked over the tiny, shivering figure. "Are you alright?"The girl stood, open-mouthed, eyes wide and seemingly frightened. The Ravager's gaze turned softer. "So, do you talk, or..."
"What d'ya think you're doin'?"
Another hand, large, rough, and scarred grabbed the girl's shoulder, tugging her away from Rose's grasp. The snowy-haired teen immediately recognized the newcomer as one of the men she'd personally delivered a beat-down to at the bar the previous night. The one who had almost broken her collarbone. A corner of her lips turned up a little when she noticed the bloody bandage that covered the majority of his forehead where she had smashed a beer mug into his skull.
"Oh, hi again," said Rose. She smirked slightly as her index finger pointed to his injured head. "Looks good on ya."
She was met with a nasty snarl as the bearded man's face loomed closer, his eyes boring into hers, filled with utter loathing.
Oh joy. Another adversary to add to her rapidly growing list.
"Archer..." Rose's calm escort shot the redneck with a meaningful glance, causing him to lean back with a growl.
"Jus' get 'er up to the cabin, doc. Get 'er outta here!"
"Get 'er outta here." Pfft. Amen to that, Rose thought bitterly as she scavenged through the duffel bag between her legs. The soft glow from the crackling fireplace illuminated her platinum hair and shone across the quilted coverlet of the log bed she sat perched on the edge of.
As much as this little slice of nowhere sucked away at what was left of her soul...she had to admit that it was oddly soothing. It wasn't the peace and quiet, 'cause those two tended to bring her anything but. It wasn't the charmingly rustic ambiance.
As long as she remained here, her life was on hold. Isolated from the world, from Jason, liberated of Titan responsibilities, her father's wrath. And whatever the hell came with them.
Once she left...she had no idea where to go. What to do. Who to be.
Her hand emerged from the nylon clasped around a small tube. An empty vial of epinephrine. The only one that survived her frozen voyage. Rose placed it on the night-table beside her, not entirely sure why. She then reached up to remove her eyepatch, and it joined the bottle on the wooden surface next to her. Really, the best she could hope for was to sleep through the night peacefully.
The former Titan tucked herself under the warm quilt and rested her head on the borrowed pillow. The cold angelic look of her snowy white locks framing her face in a halo was marred abruptly by the reddish scar that ran along the left side of her face from her eyebrow to her high cheekbone. Crossing her ravaged eye in the process. As her breathing slowed and her thoughts drifted further and further away, she felt, for the first time in days, a sense of serenity.
Upon the crest of a snowy hill was where the little cabin lay, and inside those logged walls was where Rose Wilson slept peacefully for the first time in weeks. A sleep so serene that her unconscious mind was miles away from the small thwip-thwip of a chopper and the crunch of gunmen's boots against the snow. A sleep so deep that Rose's acute ears almost couldn't pick up the sound of a white-bearded man sporting a large bandage on his forehead speaking into his walkie-talkie mere fox-tails away from her door. Almost. "We're in position."
"Good." A familiar accented tone crackled through the other line.
"Kill her."
What sounded like a thousand clicks echoed through the silent night as countless men released the safeties on their guns and aimed carefully at the little shack on the snowy hill.
The bearded leader, a small, egg-shaped device in his hand, flicked away the pin and tossed it through one of the windows. The crash of glass followed it's movements and the sound of it dropping to the hard-wood floors of the cabin could be heard.
And then the shack imploded in a flash of bursting inferno and brimstone.
Before Rose Wilson had even met her father, she'd always wondered what he would be like. Wintergreen, Slade's butler and her unofficial caretaker for most of her "childhood", had always avoided the inquiry, usually with an uncomfortable hunch of shoulders or a "You should run along to your akibo practices now, Miss Rose." When he did speak of his master, it was only to refer to him as such and nothing more than the figurehead of the practically empty household. This wasn't what fazed the young girl, however. She could pretty well guess which parts of herself were from her mother. So she took the rest and tried to picture a man made up of those qualities.
He was defiant. Aggressive. Cunning.
Over the years, the young Wilson had taken to these traits. She nurtured them. Sharpened them.
Whoever the man was, she had notably decided that she wanted to be just like him.
It had been a decision that she'd had to bear the cost for severely. But sometimes she was actually grateful for it.
Like now.
The little wooden shack was thoroughly blasted to smithereens, that much she knew. The explosion had caused the underground passageway to heave and deposit clumps of dirt onto her head. She didn't complain, not when grains of sand got into her eyes, not when spiders shoved into niches crawled along the walls this close to her arms, not even when a screeching bat flapped into her face then flew away indignantly. It was damn well better than being dead.
She doubted Will had even known about the hidden tunnel under the couch, or he wouldn't have been so careless as to rent her the cabin. That, or he had expected her to crawl through it, use the grenade as a ways of smoking her out while his armed thugs waited for her at the exit.
But Rose's acute senses were picking up the rushing footfall and revving of truck engines above her that thankfully proved that theory wrong. The men were already preparing to exit the premises, having assumed that her sleeping form had been blown to bits.
But Slade had always said that the greatest advantage a mercenary could harness was the element of surprise.
"Think we got 'er?"
"She's gotta be well done by now, boss."
But neither of them took notice to the shadow behind them, a fully-armored, lethally-equipped Ravager, dual katanas in hand. That was, until she sliced down the lackey, grabbed his AK, and slammed the butt of it into the white-bearded leader. Right in his big, fat ace bandage.
"Yeah," said Rose smoothly, adrenaline pumping and glad to be back in her element. "Gotta be."