Brotherhood

Chapter 3: Risen

"This place is massive," Beast Boy said with awe as he looked around the spacious room where some of the League of Shadows' soldiers were training. "Just how many people do you have working for you, ma'am?"

"Enough," Shiva answered simply, before she began to walk away and motioned for the Titans to follow her. They skirted the edge of the cavern and made their way over to the Lazarus Pits, where a new figure came out of the nearby shadows to greet them. It was a woman with dark brown eyes, and hair of the same color that framed her slender face. She seemed to the Titans to be quite similar to Shiva, but Raven could tell that this new woman's killing intent was of a much more insidious type than Shiva's straightforward power.

"Lady Talia," Shiva greeted the newcomer with a slight incline of her head, a gesture Talia returned with respect. "I was wondering if you would be here. Where's the prince?"

"Damian?" Talia Al Ghul asked, a clear hint of frustration in her voice. "He's still out on a mission, despite the fact that I issued a recall order days ago. Honestly, I thought he would want to be here for this."

"You really thought I would miss it?" a new voice broke in from above. Those gathered around the Lazarus Pit looked up to find a figure crouched on the guardrail of a catwalk, who promptly leaped down to join them and landed on the hard ground with catlike grace. It was a boy who looked to be about Robin's age, with the same hard eyes as Talia and in possession of an even deadlier killing intent. Messy black hair crowned his head, and a sad smile spread across his face as he saw Robin's body resting in Starfire's arms.

"So, that idiot actually did manage to get himself killed?" the boy mused, a note of melancholy in his voice. "Too bad. Can't say I didn't warn Grayson that shit would go bad for him if he left us, though."

Beast Boy started forward with a snarl at the offhanded provocation, but Raven blocked him with an arm.

"I do not wish to be rude by interrupting," Starfire spoke up, "but can we not hasten to begin… whatever it is this Pit will do, exactly?"

"Of course," Talia answered with a short nod. "Please forgive my son for his bluntness; he gets it from his father. Shiva, is the Pit ready?"

"It is," Shiva answered, motioning to Starfire and taking the body gently from her hold, moving to lean partway over the mouth of the Pit.

"Before I do this, I should warn you that it isn't within the power of the Lazarus Pits to guarantee a completely successful resurrection. Even if he does come back to life, Richard might not be entirely sane; amnesia is also another possible side effect of the process."

Raven and Beast Boy both held their silence, deferring to Starfire to make the final decision. The Tamaranean paused for a moment, gathering her breath and her strength before speaking.

"I would rather have Robin back, in any form, than have nothing but a corpse and memories. Do whatever you have to in order to bring him back, and I will be in your debt until I can repay you for your efforts."

"Heavy words, child," Shiva said as she lowered Robin's limp form into the liquid, "and yet, they do not seem to burden you."

"I wouldn't expect them to," another foreign voice joined in, its tone smooth and eloquent. "The duty of making grave decisions does not weigh down the hearts of royalty."

Those gathered around the Pit followed the voice and saw an older man standing partly in the shadows, with silvery hair and one blue eye exposed to the light.

"Father," Talia said with a smile as Ra's Al Ghul moved forward to appraise the Titans more closely. "How nice of you to join us."

"But of course, my dear," Ra's parried easily, looking from Starfire to Raven to Beast Boy and back again. "It would be abominably bad manners for the lord not to come and greet his guests personally. Although it does pain me that we had to meet under such circumstances, Titans, it is a pleasure to finally do so. And I can see quite clearly that Robin's leadership has made each of you into a more-than-capable warrior: I would expect nothing less from the protégé of my heir.

"Shiva, Talia," the leader of the League of Shadows continued, changing his tone from welcoming to serious, "come with me; there is a matter we must discuss. Damian, be a good host and look after our guests until Robin is finished rejuvenating in the Lazarus Pit."

"Yes, sir," Damian replied with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, brown eyes rolling once in disdain before he sighed and turned to the trio of Titans.

"C'mon," he said, "I'll show you to one of the common rooms."

Starfire, Beast Boy and Raven followed Damian through a few doors and some hallways before finally ending in a room roughly the size the main room of Titans Tower had been. Mats were arranged on the floor in a circle, and a lone table with a pair of bottles on it sat at the circle's center.

"Make yourselves at home," Damian said apathetically as he sat down cross-legged on a mat. "By the way, where's that cyborg friend of yours?"

"He's dead," Beast Boy replied flatly, fire smoldering in his eyes. "And if you don't hold your freaking tongue, you'll be joining him shortly."

Damian smirked, his own eyes flashing briefly with mischief.

"What, I pull your asses out of the fire and this is all the thanks I get?" he asked with mock indignation. "I should've left you all to get crisped by Chang, clearly."

"What?" Starfire exclaimed, shocked. "How do you know of that fight? Who are you, and why did you claim to have saved us?"

"My name is Damian Wayne, cutie," the prince of the League of Shadows said smugly as he snaked a hand behind his back, pulling out a tube of red liquid and holding it up to the light,

"But I think you know me best as Red X."

"So, what is it you wished to speak with us about, sir?" Shiva asked as soon as she, Talia and Ra's were alone in Ra's' own private quarters. "Is there a target that needs disposing of?"

"Yes, Shiva, there in fact is," Ra's answered calmly, "but you won't be doing any of the disposing; I thought I would leave that to your pupil. Seeing as how Damian is your son, however, Talia, I also thought it best to ask your opinion as to his fitness to undertake another mission so soon after this most recent one."

"That depends on the target, father," Talia said. "If it's someone on the level of Poison Ivy or The Joker, absolutely not. A target on par with The Penguin or Killer Croc, though, would be well within Damian's competency."

"I would say that this target falls squarely into the latter camp," Ra's replied. "Have you heard of the Black Hood?"

Talia shook her head. "Who is he, the Red Hood's apprentice?"

"No," Shiva rebutted, "not quite. The Black Hood is new blood; came to Gotham about two and a half years ago. I tried to convince him to join up with us once, but he was having none of it. He struck me as a real lone wolf, that one."

"And the last thing we want to have on our hands right now is an unemployed freelancer," Ra's concluded. "Batman has agreed to lay off of our operations here for a while as payment for Robin's resurrection, but that ceasefire means nothing to the rest of Gotham's criminals and hired guns."

Talia spent a moment in thought, but eventually nodded her agreement. "Very well, send him. Damian gets stir-crazy after more than a week here, anyway. Some more experience would be good for him, as well."

"Agreed," Shiva said. "Which takes us from the matter of our prince to the matter of our prodigal son. What are we going to do about Richard?"

As if on some perverse cue, a chorus of screams and shouts of alarm sounded out from the main room.

"Looks as though he's up," Talia said casually. "We can talk to him ourselves when his rampage is done. Unless, of course, you'd like to stop him early, Shiva?"

The League's sensei smiled, and she shook her head.

"No," Shiva said, turning and heading for the door to Ra's' quarters. "I'll let him work through his bottled-up hatred himself. Besides, I want to make sure my old student hasn't really gone as soft as I fear he has."

In the large room that housed the Lazarus Pits, a strained growl that quickly escalated into a blood-curdling scream was all the warning that nearby ninja had of their swiftly-approaching deaths. Robin vaulted over the edge of the Pit he'd been submerged in and back onto solid ground, nothing but madness and anger shining in his now-unmasked blue eyes. Charging forward with abandon, his fist smashed pitilessly into the face of the first guard dumb enough to turn around and face him. The blow broke the man's nose and forced the bone fragments up and into his brain, killing him instantly.

But Robin took no notice of that as he moved onto his wrath's next target, his mind shattered by the effects of the Lazarus Pit. All he could feel were his most primal instincts, and being surrounded by dozens of trained, armed assassins jumpstarted the 'fight' side of his 'fight-or-flight' reflex. Drunk on adrenaline, the resurrected Titan snapped one warrior's arm like a twig and wrested the katana from his grip, quickly getting used to the weight of the weapon in his hand before using it to reap even more of the increasingly-hostile enemies that gathered before him.

"It really is such a shame that he chose to leave us," Shiva commented from her place by the room's far wall, melancholy lacing her words. "That boy would have been an incredible asset to us, Talia."

"Yes, he would have been," Talia agreed, "but we both knew that boy's ultimate loyalty lay with Bruce, and no one else. And if he was feeling too claustrophobic to stay directly under Bruce's command, Richard would have chosen to leave Gotham completely and go somewhere else rather than pledge his devotion to someone else. Wayne does have that certain charisma about him, I'll give him that: he might be a stubborn bastard sometimes, but it's almost impossible to turn your back on him."

Ra's watched the youth slash through the horde of soldiers with ease and sighed, remembering the day Robin had announced his intention to part ways with the League for good after his training.

"I'll never understand why he chose a bo-staff as the weapon he wanted to be trained under," Ra's lamented. "That boy was born to wield a sword."

Shiva smiled as she remembered Robin's reasoning, words that he had only let his sensei hear.

"Because the staff isn't a lethal weapon."

"He might have been born to use a blade," Shiva countered, "but he was raised to be a protector, and not a pure warrior. Whether that is his greatest weakness or his greatest strength, however, remains to be seen."

Back in the middle of the giant room, Robin was on his knees, straddling an unfortunate ninja and viciously pounding their face into a pulpy mass. Which was when his mind began to become vaguely aware of just what, exactly, he was doing. The first sensation Robin felt was the sticky dampness of the blood that had coated his hands during his brawl, and the first sound to reach his ears was the pitiful, retching death rattle of the person beneath him. Robin groaned and closed his eyes tightly as pain slammed against the inside of his forehead, but soon shook it off and got shakily to his feet. The room spun around him, but not so quickly that he couldn't make out the steadily-advancing and murderous-looking group of ninja as they inched closer to him.

Wait… ninja? Wearing that kind of armor? What the hell were ninja… doing… here…

Robin doubled over in pain and clutched his forehead as another stab of pressure spiked up in his skull. He was unable to do anything but wait for the end as the ninja closest to him lifted up their katana high into the air, blade poised for a flawless killing strike.

"Enough!"

The sword froze, and both Robin and the ninja looked over to see the trinity of Ra's Al Ghul, Talia Al Ghul and Lady Shiva watching them keenly; it was almost as if they were daring the warrior to follow through with their attack on Robin. The ninja bowed at once and backed away, while Robin just stood still in shock and tried to put the pieces of this bizarre puzzle together so that things would start making sense. He hadn't set eyes on his old teacher in six years... where was he, and what the hell was he doing here?

The resurgent memory of his last moments and death at Slade's hands answered the question with cruel bluntness, and Robin's eyes gradually came back into focus as he came to the now-obvious conclusion. Looking over at Shiva and trying not to be too concerned by the pleased look on her face, the Titans' leader spoke.

"How many, sensei?"

Shiva's smile widened.

"Fourteen, I believe. Not bad for a post-Pit rampage, boy."

Robin said nothing, sighing and looking down at his ragged, dirt-stained uniform.

"You know, for some reason," he mused, "I thought it would be easier the second time."

Ra's laughed.

"It never gets easier, child. Ever. And believe me, I know."

Robin sighed again, turning around and walking towards a nearby door.

"I'm going to get changed," he said. "Where're the rest of my friends?"

"With Damian, in the second common room," Talia replied, and Robin cursed.

"Wonderful," the Titan growled. "Because he's exactly who I want to see right now."

"So, if you're the heir to the leadership of an insanely powerful group of assassins ready to die for you if you so much as give the word, what the hell were you doing running around Jump City as Red X?"

Damian looked over at Raven and shrugged, taking another pull on the cup of sake he'd poured himself from one of the bottles on the table.

"Because it's fucking boring being here, maybe?" he shot back. "Everyone treats me like I'm made out of glass, Raven. It's totally suffocating."

"Wait a second," Beast Boy broke in, finally connecting the dots in his head from something Damian had mentioned twenty minutes ago, "did you say your last name was 'Wayne'? As in, Bruce 'Wayne Enterprises' Wayne?"

"Yeah," Damian said flatly. "He's my father."

"Then what the hell are you doing skulking around the sewers of Gotham, man?!" Beast Boy pressed him. "Shouldn't you be living in a penthouse somewhere, lighting piles of money on fire just because you can? Someone with as much dough as you on hand shouldn't risk their life being a thief; that's just crazy!"

"And Damian struck you as someone who was sane, Beast Boy?"

Beast Boy's head turned toward the new voice, the other two Titans following suit. When they saw who was standing there, though, the only looks in their eyes were those of confusion.

The speaker was a boy clad in a uniform identical to Damian's, a light karate gi overlaid with pieces of leather armor to cover the chest, shins and shoulders. A wakizashi was fastened to his back, held in a sheath. His hair was somewhat spiky and black, as unruly as the bright, piercing blue shade of his eyes.

"Um, dude," Beast Boy began uncertainly, "do I know you?"

Damian laughed, amused by the effect that such a seemingly simple change had on his old friend and former comrade-in-arms.

"It's about damn time you hauled your lazy ass up out of that Pit, Chuckles."

The three befuddled Titans recognized the nickname as one that Red X had used in the past to describe one of them. When they remembered exactly which one, however, their mouths hit the floor in shock.

"Robin!?" all three of them exclaimed at once. The newly revived Titan smiled, laughter visible in his uncovered eyes for the first time since he'd donned on the mask of 'Robin' so many years ago.

"Hey guys," he said. "Sorry for the wai—oof!"

The leader's apology was cut off sharply as Starfire collided with Robin, wrapping him in a fierce hug and kissing him as hard as she could. The embrace lasted for a few moments, before Raven, Beast Boy and Damian looked at each other and came to the mutual decision that the display of affection had gone on long enough.

"Ahem," Beast Boy said as he coughed theatrically, "we're still sitting right here."

"If you need it," Damian chimed in, "there's a room through that door back there and to the right."

The prince had been joking, but Starfire took Damian's words to heart. She broke apart the embrace just long enough to grab a hold of Robin's wrist, before hauling him behind her and out of the room.

"Daaaamn," Beast Boy said in awe, "I've never seen Star like that before. What do you think's gotten into her, Raven?"

"I don't have to think about it," the empath groused, pinching her forehead and wishing she had an amnesia spell. "I could feel Starfire's emotions. All of them. In explicit detail. Suffice to say: thinking that the person you love is dead and then seeing them again in front of you, looking more attractive than they ever have before, does crazy things to your hormones."

"And that's all the information we need to know right now, thanks," Damian broke in hastily, all but jumping to his feet. "While Grayson and his girlfriend are back there doing… whatever it is they might be doing, we should try to be a bit more productive."

"Just what did you have in mind?" Raven asked suspiciously, only succeeding in drawing an equally suspect smile from Damian.

"I overheard my grandfather talking about a mission he was thinking of giving me the other day," the prince explained, his smile widening.

"Of course," he continued, "I would have to clear it with my mother and sensei, but would you guys like to come along for the ride?"

…………………….

……………………………

A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter! And don't worry, the ramifications of Robin, you know, killing those people is going to be addressed next chapter. Reviews are, as always, much appreciated, especially since the low hit-count for this story is downright depressing. Before I get to the glossary for the new Batman-verse character, though, a shout-out is in order.

Mad props go to the reviewer known simply as 'Anon', for their downright amazing knowledge of the DC universe and almost unsettling knack for knowing where the plot is going to head next (Nice job calling Damian showing up, for example). But since their reviews are anonymous, I can't reply to them normally. Which is a damn shame. So Anon, if you're reading this, it would be awesome if you could get an account and remedy that. Also, stop reading my mind.

And now, onto the glossary!

Damian Wayne: Son of Talia Al Ghul and Bruce Wayne (Batman). Heir to the throne of the League of Shadows, and trained in their ways since childhood.

Note: I know I messed with continuity a bit, as technically Richard 'Dick' Grayson is much older than Damian in the comics, but sacrifices must be made from time to time.