A/N: Hello, hello, hello! I'm real sorry I haven't updated in a while but I can announce that I'm getting close to finishing up this story. I'll let you know when the ending is coming up. Please let me know what you think of the story in a review! I would really appreciate it! Oh, and thank you everyone who has reviewed me! I love you all so, so much!
Resurrection
The Shadow
Since there was no one to guide her on proper vigilantism techniques, Anastasia decided to start off with something simple enough: dealing with the small fish–the thugs, the pimps, the drug dealers, and all the other assorted criminals. After all, the whole learning to crawl before you can walkspeech applies to being a vigilante, too…or so she assumed.
One thing Anastasia could be certain of was that the near future would be the hardest part of her life aside from loosing her little sister. She would have to make sure that no one found out her identity, make sure that Batman and Robin were unaware of her presence on the scene, keep up with her training sessions–that were becoming more brutal as time passed–and schooling at the academy.
It'll be hell, Anastasia thought while tugging the black mask over her face. But I've dealt with the demon himself.
Adjusting the black suit that Talia had given her for training in stealth, she then glanced over the edge of the abandoned apartment building she had climbed up to. Beneath her, a man surrounded by a group of children collected his profit from them while giving them a small share and another cut to sell. The rest of the children left except for a smaller girl who he commanded stay behind.
The teenager on top of the roof hissed in anger before she glanced toward the fire escape. The pedophile was preoccupied with reprimanding the little girl before actually hurting her, so Anastasia took the chance to quickly make her way down to the ground without a sound.
While she approached the man from behind, the girl–who looked terrified as the man approached her, tugging his zipper down as he did–noticed Anastasia and opened her mouth to speak, but the elder held up a finger to her mouth to silence the child. Receiving the message loud and clear, the girl said nothing and looked back up at her attacker in terror.
"What the hell are you looking at?" The man snarled while turning around, but Anastasia had already blended in with the shadows surrounding them. "Stupid little bitch. You can't do a damn thing right, can you?" He turned back around and stalked toward the whimpering girl.
Anastasia approached him silently, jumping on his back and wrapping her arms around his neck. The man made a strangled noise and jerked around, trying to get her off him. After a few moments of his struggling, he slammed his back–along with her–against a nearby wall, but she still held on without a sound of pain.
"Let…go…" He murmured breathlessly, dropping to his knees. "The hell…going on?" He tried to use his hands to grab her, but his slow movements were easy enough for her to dodge.
At this point, Anastasia could have easily taken the knife hidden on her person and ended this scum in various ways. With the right technique, she could have even snapped his neck. The training might not have been long, but she had learned enough to be deadly. And something like this was what that very training prepared her for–taking out someone that deserved death.
The man went limp against her and she stood up straight, shoving him to the ground with her foot. When she glanced up at the girl, older than Karina by a few years, who stared at her in wonder and awe, the horrifying realization that she couldn't kill this man hit her head on.
Anastasia might have been angry at the world and the scum on the ground in front of her might have been as low as someone could get, but even he had a family, someone that would be as upset as she was about loosing Karina.
"Go get someone to call the police for you." The teenager commanded. "And don't you mention me, kid. You tell them someone else attacked this guy. You got that?"
"Thank you, ninja lady." The little girl squeaked before shuffling out of the alleyway.
The man on the ground was groaning and she hopped on his back, making him groan and come to full consciousness. "Listen here," she murmured darkly in his ear, "I'm not going to kill you. Dying is too good for you. You need to suffer like the worthless piece of shit you are."
"Fu–" when she pulled out her knife and flashed it in front of him, he went silent.
"You're going to suffer tonight. And if you even mention me to the cops or any of your dealing buddies, I'm going to find you and turn you into a woman without the formal surgery. That'll be just to start."
Killing someone and crippling someone were two completely different things. Anastasia might not have had it in her to murder another person, but she wouldn't let him get off the hook like that. He was going to suffer for what he had done. That was a more fitting punishment, she assumed, living with the reminder of his crimes for the rest of his life.
Throughout the past week, she had been making her mark on Gotham. At first, there was debate on whether or not it was the Batman, but when the style was deemed to brutal for him, she had been dubbed the Shadow because of her ability to blend in with the darkness and swallow up the criminals. And thus far, she hadn't come into contact with Batman, Robin, or any suspicion from Talia and she hoped it would stay like that.
Speaking of the daughter of the demon, she had left Gotham for the weekend on business for her father. Considering it had been six months to the day that Karina was murdered, it was welcomed by the teenager.
Even when she didn't want to have the thoughts of the league on her mind, she couldn't stop thinking about her first night of vigilantism. To be an assassin meant she had to take the life of someone Ra's al Ghul deemed unworthy to live and if she couldn't do that then she would be killed. And it wasn't as if she could go to Talia and tell the woman that she had a change of heart and promised not to tell about the league.
Anastasia had no way out but death and it terrified her.
The dark-haired teenager shoved the heels of her hands against her eyes that were slowly filling with tears, trying to shove the thoughts into the back of her mind as well. A bump in the road sent her sleeping best friend's head onto her shoulder, pulling her away from her mind for the moment.
"Um, was Dick up late last night?" Anastasia looked toward Bruce with a raised brow.
"You're more likely to know that, aren't you? The two of you are constantly talking to each other." Bruce looked up from the paperwork in his lap and smiled in amusement when her face went red.
"We don't text each other that much, you know." She mumbled under her breath before clearing her throat. "I've been thinking that I should say sorry for coming over to your house so much. It seems like all I do these days is go to school, work, and come over. I'm pretty sure I'm living with you guys. And I'm sure that you and your girlfriend want some alone time with Dick but I feel like I'm hogging him and I'm–"
"Eden's work has her away from Gotham most of the time. When she manages a visit, she'll find time for Dick whether you're there or not. If you happen to be visiting–which you don't have to apologize for because we enjoy you at the manor–when she comes, she'll have no problem including you. She's eager to finally meet you."
Anastasia smiled slightly before she frowned. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"
"Go ahead."
"Someone I'm close to in my neighborhood got initiated into this gang and the head boss wants my friend to do something bad. My friend doesn't want to do that bad thing, but if they try to get out of the gang now, they'll be killed. What can they do? It's been bugging me a lot over the past week and you're one of the few adults I'm able to take advice from."
The two of them stared at one another, tension rising in the air between them. Anastasia tried to keep the rising desperation from reaching her eyes, but she needed some kind of opinion, even if it was from someone that came from a life of luxury, the worst thing in his life being the murder of his mother and father when he was just a child–but that was enough to make her trust him because he knew that pain she felt.
"Your friend should contact someone that can help. There are people who can protect this person."
She shook her head, trying to quell the rising panic. "But this gang has…connections. I don't think the police could protect my friend forever. Plus, the police don't exactly care all that much about people from my neck of the woods."
"There is more than just the police force, Anastasia."
"Who? The Batman?" She snorted and he raised an eyebrow. "No offense, but I think he has a lot more to deal with than some kid from the Narrows." Her voice lowered. "No one cares about us. We're a place full of broken dreams and broken people. Gotham wishes it could get rid of us. I think that's the reason why the police stay out of our area most of the time. The city is letting us duke it out, survival of the fittest and stuff."
"To see someone so disillusioned at such a young age is a sad thing." Alfred commented from behind the wheel.
Anastasia leaned her head against the window, giving a shrug of the shoulders. "I guess something like that happens when you get cheated out of your childhood. And I think everyone in this car can agree with me on that."
"I smell cookies." Anastasia mumbled under her breath while her fingers flew over the controller in her hand.
"Loser has to go to the kitchen to get them." Dick replied while he shot another random player in their game. "Loser meaning whoever gets killed by the other first."
She snorted while avoiding bullets that came from a random soldier. "That might take a long time and you know how Bruce likes to hog Alfred's cookies." While dodging the bullets of another player, when she finally registered Dick's screen name getting close to her own, it was too late and he had stabbed her. "That's not fair!"
"Totally is!" Dick laughed while throwing his arms up in victory.
Anastasia pouted at him and he grinned while motioning toward the doorway. Stomping her feet, she sulked out of the room and headed downstairs toward the kitchen where Alfred was placing the cookies onto a plate. When his back was turned, focused on finishing up dinner, she took the chance and slowly tip-toed toward the plate.
"I assume you have come for a drink instead of partaking in dessert before dinner which will ruin your appetite, I might add."
Anastasia stopped in her place, looking longingly at the cookies. "And that goes for you as well, Master Bruce." She turned around, blinking at the larger man who had the same look as her when she had been caught.
"Alfred, I'm an adult and Anastasia isn't a legal member of the family."
The butler turned around, sending a stern look toward the both of them. "Legal is a loose term, Bruce." She giggled but when he sent her the same look, she was quickly silenced. "Miss Anastasia is a part of our family and will be treated as such. Now, the two of you will step back from the cookies and wait until dinner is announced."
Both Bruce and Anastasia made their way out of the kitchen and as they marched back up the staircase, he slipped her two cookies. When she looked up at him, munching on a cookie of his own, he winked at her and she grinned while slipping back into the room where Dick yelled at the screen where his player had been shot dead.
