A/N: We're getting really close to the end of the story! I just wanted to take the time to thank all the people who have reviewed and/or favorited/followed this story! I love you all!
Disclaimer: I own nothing that originally belongs to DC Comics!
[1]: "My God..."
Resurrection
The Redemption
Ever since she realized that the world would not stop because she had lost her sister, Anastasia had dreamed about the moment she could meet the man who murdered Karina and end his existence. The endless amount of time she had put into fantasizing about the fateful encounter, she imagined there would be something sweet to it, that there would be a sense of satisfaction. Day after day, month after month of being consumed with her wrath and despair had all come down to this moment that Ra's al Ghul had presented her with and all that she gained in return was more anger, more anguish and no satisfaction. The more she pummeled the man into oblivion, the more she was beginning to lose touch with who she was and that terrified her, but she continued to tell herself that she needed to take him out, keep him from taking another innocent child and ruining more lives. It was justification for her selfishness and that was what she had come down to–rationalizing the murder she was about to commit.
After all that she had done to build herself up, overcome where she lived to become something better–it had all shattered. This would be her life from now on–assassinating for the League, trying to take out people the League dictated bad, and never recovering from the darkness she would be drowning it. The inevitable fate of her becoming a rage-addled, cold-blooded assassin made her angrier, made her punch a little harder. In the end, she was about to become the same as the man who caused all her pain.
Anastasia had been so sure before that she had reached rock bottom, but she had been wrong about that. Her in that moment, as she took the life of Antoine DuPont, it was her true rock bottom.
"Please…please…don't kill…me…" The man underneath her foot sputtered and reached out to grab the hem of her shirt. "My baby…my Sophie…needs…needs her papa…" Tears rolled down his cheeks as he stared up at her in desperation.
Then there was more rage. "You're going to beg for your life because you've got a little girl at home?" There was more desperation. "When you took my baby sister from me?" And there was no satisfaction.
"No!" Antoine choked out while grabbing at her leg despite how she tried to shake him away from her. "Mon Dieu, I… he paid…me. I…didn't…saw my baby Sophie…but he…money and we…in with wrong people…we were desperate. Please believe me." [1]
When he sputtered, his blood splattered onto her cheek and she wiped at it as dread ran through her veins like ice, cooling the fiery rage for a moment. "You were…paid? But who would…do that?" She dropped to her knees and reached out to grab the front of his shirt, but he jerked back in terror and she wrapped her hands in her shirt. "Please tell me what kind of a man paid you to kill her. Please," she pleaded.
"Shadows…he was hidden in the shadows…but the guards…I remember them. The men that kidnapped me were…the same people…" The criminal fell back onto the stone ground as he cried out in pain. "Mon Dieu, I can't feel my legs! I…I can't walk. I can't...move…no…" He sobbed into the ground, turning away from her.
Shame washed over her for a moment because she had crippled this man when she was blinded with rage. Although he had deserved pain–even death–for what he had done to her sister, he had a daughter of his own. Now, because of what Anastasia had done to him, never again would he be able to put her on his shoulders, follow behind her when she was on a bike or any of the small things that had made her childhood worth something, the small things that she had done with her own sister.
But then the rage returned, stronger than ever because she had been manipulated from the start. Now that she had been guided through the veil by the very man who was the trigger, it all made perfect sense. Because of her abilities, she could provide Ra's al Ghul with protection from the Batman, but she needed some kind of a push or she never would have accepted his otherwise insane idea. And she, like an idiot, played into his hands because she was desperate to ease her pain instead of just pushing through it like a normal person, like she had pushed through all other obstacles before.
Anastasia knew what she needed to do, knew she needed to stand up and save both Bruce and Dick and then run from this place, never looking back. But she was stuck there on the ground, unable to move because she was breaking down on the inside. She leaned over, touching her forehead against the cold stone before she leaned back a little, throwing up on the floor because her stomach had been flipping ever since Antoine revealed he had been crippled. Nothing she told herself made her budge until that evil little world revenge ran through her head.
While the teenager stood to her feet, pushing through the dizziness and overall sickness, she swore she would have her revenge on both Ra's and Talia al Ghul. It wouldn't be at that moment, but it would happen, and she didn't care if she had to behead the immortal man then burn his bones but she would have vengeance. It pushed her out the large metal door and running down the hall toward the cell holding both Batman and Robin, but she was stopped when a guard came down the staircase as one had been since she had started on Antoine.
"Is the prisoner dead?" The assassin questioned.
"Yes. I was coming in here to...kill Robin. Master said that Batman doesn't want to become the heir, but if he doesn't have Robin holding him back then he might be more willing..."
"Your enthusiasm to please is noted and you can torture the boy, but do not kill him yet. Our master is in a meeting and when he is done, I will discuss it with him then. Until then, torture," he stressed, "and nothing more."
She bowed to him, dark hair falling over her shoulders and hiding her cringe. "Understood, sir."
The man nodded in acknowledgment before moving back down the hall and heading up the stone staircase. When she could no longer hear his footsteps echoing through the dungeon, she dashed into the room and shut the door behind her. Bruce looked at her with a piercing blue gaze and she avoided the look, instead looking down at his metal chains. Focusing, she held out a hand and met the invisible force that was the metal unwilling to bend to her will. With a little noise of frustration, because she was too mentally exhausted to do this, the chains broke and Bruce flexed, the chains falling off as he stood up.
"I didn't kill him." The teenager blurted when Bruce ignored her, instead turning around to tend to Dick who was still unconscious which made her even more nervous.
"I know you didn't, Anastasia. I knew you would do the right thing."
The faith he had in her made her squirm. "But I...I did...I crippled him." He turned around to stare at her, something behind the blank expression and her lower lip trembled. "Bruce, I'm scared of this...of me. What am I supposed to do? The only thing that got me up and going was the thought of getting revenge on Ra's. I don't know what to do..."
"The two of us are going to talk, something I should have done with you months ago. But now, we need to get out of here. You're going to wake up Robin while I go to get DuPont." Her mouth opened, but when he pulled down the cowl, her words were lost. "You're going to make up for what you did by saving his life. Even scum have families." He reminded before running out of the door.
Swallowing the anger, she walked over to her best friend and bent down on a knee, touching his cheek before shaking his shoulder. "Dick?" She called out weakly. "Dick, please wake up." He groaned and she perked up, breathing out in relief when he opened his eyes to stare at her. "Hold on. Let me get you out of these." She murmured while staring down at the chains with an open hand which she clenched, the snapping chains echoing through the room.
Once he was free, his first action should have been to reach for the domino mask at his side, but he instead reached out to embrace her. "Sorry I lied, Ana."
"It's not like I was all that truthful either." She breathed out against his shoulder. "Just get me a new necklace without a tracing device and we can call it even."
"Not making any promises," he murmured while grabbing at his domino mask and standing up, her arm supporting him as he did. "I wish I could've told you that it was Ra's, but until we figured out how to get you away from him, we didn't want to risk your life by telling you."
"Yeah, I'm beginning to learn that I'm not good at controlling my anger." Bruce came back into the room, Antoine DuPont unconscious and on the vigilante's back.
"Ana, you didn't..." Dick trailed off while grabbing her hand in his, making her feel shameful all over again. "Did you?" He asked when she gave no immediate answer. She shook her head, not wanting to admit she'd crippled a man, and he clutched her hand tighter.
"Going out through the mansion is suicide. With DuPont injured and Robin still drugged, we have to find another exit. Or," he glanced over at her, "make our own."
Anastasia's stomach dropped and she made a noise of protest. "No, no, no. We're, like, hundreds of feet in the air and how are we even supposed to get down? That's a thick wall and there's no way I can get through it. No, no, no. Don't you have, uh, your belt or a bomb or something you can Macgyver?"
"Ra's had us searched and seized our belts. You have to get us out of here. You can create a makeshift staircase down. Use your imagination." She glanced back over at the wall and let out a small whimper just thinking about the mental strain that would take. "You can do this, E."
The small smile was almost instantaneous as he referred to her with the name she had chosen when she was doped up on morphine. "Sticking with that, old man? I wasn't sound of mind when I said that, you know."
"Well, it could be something stupid like Element. E is short, sweet and to the point." Dick commented.
Anastasia made a small sound of agreement before turning to the wall again, bracing both her hands against the stone. She sucked in a deep breath, focusing on what her grandfather had told her about using the elements, that she needed to become the element. With so much rage in her heart, all that she could fuel was fire. To use earth, she needed stubbornness and had to suppress her anger which is what she could do, but the wall was thick and struggled not to budge against her will.
All that she could think about was that she would not allow Bruce and Dick to die. They might have lied, but so had she and she still loved them both with all her heart. She was not as weak as she was when Karina died and she would not loose more people because she was too weak to move a wall.
Groaning against the wall, she shoved harder against the invisible force and watched as the wall started to buckle, a crack running down the middle. After one more mental shove, the wall blew open, pieces of stone falling down into the darkness below. Sucking in a gulp of air, she looked over the edge and wondered how she was supposed to create a staircase to get them down, but there was a sound coming from above them and she figured the wall breaking had been too loud.
Running a hand through her dark hair and huffing, she looked down at the stone of the mountain, imagining it jutting out to become a stepping stone. Pulling her arm back, she shoved her hand forward and watched as the rock jutted out somewhat. With about three more repeated motions, the first stepping stone was large enough for them all to step on. When all of them stood on it, she looked back at the gaping hole and lifted her hand up, pulling it back down so that a slab of rock was in front of it.
"Do you know what motions to make or were you taught?" Dick inquired while staring back at the now-closed hole.
"I am so winging it at this point."
The process continued like that, with her pushing out a stone slab for them to step on and make their way down the mountain inch by painful inch, it seemed like. She knew that neither of them understood just how hard it was for her, the mental strain it took to keep doing that and with loosing her stubbornness because she was loosing the will to go on, it made it even harder to move forward. Halfway down the mountain, she had to stop and double over for a moment, her entire frame trembling while she panted.
But then, the a portion of the mountain close to their position exploded and sent them all spiraling down toward the beach at the bottom of the mountain. Bruce grabbed at both her and Dick, putting them in front of him as he fell so that when they all landed, he would hit the ground first and perhaps save their lives. Anastasia, though, would not let them die and looked up at the nighttime skies. In the next moment, she threw her hands behind her as if she were a bird spreading her wings and a gust of wind blew up from behind them all, slowing them down enough that the fall was hard, but not hard enough to leave any kind of permanent or fatal damage.
Both of the teenagers rolled off the adult underneath them, Anastasia groaning and Dick laughing breathlessly. "Am I allowed to tell you how awesome your superpowers are?"
"Boost my ego later, D." She replied while looking around with a scowl. "We're missing someone. Where's DuPont?"
"He was grabbed during the explosion, most likely." Bruce stood up, but it was slow so she had to assume that he had been hurt in the fall. "You two are going to stay here and contact Alfred or the League." He pointed at something behind them and they turned around, looking at the assassin sprawled on the ground–dead from the impact when he fell from the hole. "Use him to patch through and then send for help."
Dick started to shake his head, lips pursing and glaring at his mentor. "You need someone to back you up. Ana can stay here and do it. Right, A?"
Anastasia sent him an apologetic smile. "Sorry, D, but I'm going with him. Someone has to stay behind to get some help." Now both mentor and protege went to speak, but she cut them off. "You said Antoine is my responsibility now. I crippled him, so I have to save him now. Besides, I have superpowers that none of these other people do and I can make escaping easier for us since, you know, nature is everywhere."
"You both know this is a trap, right? Ra's is going to kill you–"
"Dick, this man is my responsibility now. I made him suffer for what he did, but even he has family so I'm not going to let him die like that." He made a face and she grabbed his hand for a moment, making him look right at her. "And as for Ra's, he can try."
For the first time since she had met him, Richard Grayson never said a word.
