Pre-Note: Sorry for not updating on Friday. Forgot about this - been busy lately with both work and working on a new fic. With Camp NaNoWriMo coming up and WrestleMania this weekend (Go Cody! Finish the story!), I think I'm going to go back to weekly updates for now, with update day being Monday.

Nanda Parbat

If Laurel had to compare training with the League to anything, it would be like cramming for law school, except a thousand times more painful and stressful. When she mentioned this to Shado, her friend agreed. "I'd rather be back in medical school," she had complained one night as Laurel treated her aching back. "That was a breeze compared to all of this."

The curriculum, if one could call it that, was staggering. In addition to refining and supplementing their preexisting hand-to-hand combat skills using the League's own style, they were required to master just about every type of weapon in their impressive arsenal. This included swords, ankhs, staffs, whips — everything except a gun, because guns were apparently "coward's weapons", as their trainer Al-Owal had told them scathingly. Laurel supposed the shooting ranges were reserved for arrows and knives only, meaning the loss of her gun in the shipwreck was not as much of a loss as she believed it to be.

In addition to the combat training, they had other skills to learn as well, such as languages, poisons, and first aid (and not the basic kind Laurel had attended classes for as a teenager). Shado had an easier time of it due to already being bilingual and a former medical student, though Laurel was never far behind her thanks to her own dogged determination. Failure was not an option, because that usually involved punishment of the decidedly brutal, if not outright lethal kind, so she was committed to doing well no matter what.

Life fell into a routine of sleeping, training, and eating, with very little leisure time in-between. What free time there was to have was usually spent treating whatever injuries they had from the latest bout of hell they had gone through, and by the time they were done they were so tired that all they could do was collapse onto their mats. Nyssa informed them that if they managed to pass their training, then they would be given another room, this time with actual beds and even a private bathroom for them to share. So at least there was that to look forward to.

Eventually, however, things became easier to handle. The number of injuries started to decrease, not because the training became any easier but rather because of their increase in skill. Languages and poisons became easier to pick up. And then, six months after their arrival to Nanda Parbat, after both of them had managed to disarm Al-Owal in a one-on-one spar, their training was declared completed. There was only one thing left to do: complete the final test.

Ra's al Ghul waited patiently in the main atrium as many of his elite assassins gathered in the room, lining up against the walls. It was time to induct two new members into their ranks. Inductions were conducted once a month, with all the potential recruits that had completed their training brought to the main atrium to face each other in mortal combat to determine who was more worthy of joining the League. The number of recruits was always an even amount; in the event an odd number of recruits completed their training in time for the next induction, the odd one out would have their induction delayed to the next one.

This time, however, there was no need to take such measures. He had four potential assassins that needed to be assessed, two women and two men. The women, Taer Al-Aswad and Qalnaswa had come here together, rescued by his daughter while she was traversing the North China Sea in search of a potential HIVE agent, Anthony Ivo. Survivors from a shipwreck, which his spies within the League confirmed belonged to the now-dead man that Nyssa had been searching for. A regrettable loss, but if it delivered him two more fine assassins, then at least some good came out of it.

One of the men was a man by the name of Saraab. He had come here after the death of his wife and son, offering the Soultaker Sword that once belonged to his lost bride. A former intelligence agent with competent instruction, he had excelled through the training as well. Ra's would not be surprised if he made it through the induction, and would be pleased if he did.

The other was Al-Ahmer. A vicious mercenary who had once been a self-styled vigilante, only to cause a great amount of collateral damage in his attempts to fight crime and eventually turned to blackmailing for profit. He had been captured by the League after attempting to blackmail one of their former members, and tried to offer his services in exchange for sparing his life. Amused more than anything else, Ra's accepted his offer and allowed him to be trained. If he was skilled enough, then he would pass induction and they would be properly able to utilize his skills. If not, then it was no great loss.

Finally, once all his elite were present, the recruits were summoned. All four entered the atrium, clad in their armor but without their hoods or masks. Al-Ahmer had a self-satisfied expression on his face, while the other three's were completely blank. Ra's internally sighed. It seems they wouldn't be utilizing the man's blackmailing abilities after all.

"Al-Ahmer. Saraab. Qalnaswa. Taer Al-Aswad. You have all completed your training. Now, you must all prove yourself to me and everyone else here that you belong amongst our ranks." He gestured to his left and right, and four of his assassins carried in two racks of weapons, setting them on opposite sides of him. "I shall pair one of you up with another of this group. You must then attempt to best each other in mortal combat. Therefore, only two of you will leave this room alive to join my service."

That caused a few reactions. Al-Ahmer's grin widened, while Qalnaswa and Taer Al-Aswad exchanged grim looks. They most likely feared being paired up with each other, and Ra's had to admit that it was tempting. Doing so would allow him one male assassin and one female assassin, the best of both categories and more coverage for the different missions the League undertook. But as the thought crossed his mind, a brief memory followed, one of himself and another young man who had once been as close to him as these two young women were to each other.

No, that wouldn't work at all. They would refuse to fight each other, he was certain, and would die for it. Such a thing would be a waste after all the effort that had gone into rescuing them and nursing them to health. If they were not up to par with their skills, that was one thing, but a refusal to fight thanks to a bond that transcended beyond their former lives was no reason to be rid of them. At least, not yet.

"Taer Al-Aswad. Saraab." He saw the former relaxing minutely, even if she was still tense about the battle ahead. "You shall duel first. Qalnaswa, Al-Ahmer, go to opposite sides of the room. You shall duel after them."

The latter two complied with his order, Qalnaswa briefly lingering by Taer Al-Aswad to give her hand a comforting squeeze. Once they were settled in, the two combatants approached different racks to pick out their weapons. Taer Al-Aswad selected a sword, as did Saraab.

Once their weapons were chosen, the two met in the middle of the room and nodded to each other in respect, before making their first swings. The room echoed with the sounds of clashing metal as steel met steel. Both were supremely skilled for the amount of training they had been given, and Ra's found it a shame that he would only have one of them in his service. Such was the unfairness of life.

Finally, Saraab proved himself to be a touch more skilled and managed to disarm Taer Al-Aswad, before kicking her to the ground. From the corner of his eye, he saw Qalnaswa tense as Saraab raised his blade for the killing blow, only for Taer Al-Aswad to swing one of her legs outward in a powerful kick, striking his hand and wrist and causing the sword to fly out of his grip and towards the gallery of onlookers. The assassins parted as the blade clanged against the wall, while Taer Al-Aswad took advantage of the opening she made to twist her body and do another kick across Saraab's side.

Saraab stumbled backwards as Taer Al-Aswad got to her feet and charged him, engaging him once more, this time in hand-to-hand combat. Now, it was her that had the advantage — while Saraab was skilled and more experienced, it seemed Taer Al-Aswad was one of those rare talents that thrived in unarmed combat. It reminded him of another woman who excelled in such abilities, one that was long gone from the League. Hopefully, Taer Al-Aswad would be easier to control than she had been.

Finally, the battle was decided. Taer Al-Aswad countered a palm strike from Saraab, grabbing his arm and twisting it painfully before outright breaking it. As he clutched his crippled limb, she delivered several debilitating blows to his chest and face, including a powerful punch to the liver. That particular strike caused Saraab to fall to his knees, which allowed Taer Al-Aswad to bring him into position to break his neck.

Saraab's body fell with an ungraceful thud, as Taer Al-Aswad breathed heavily above him. There was no applause. Ra's stepped off the dias as Taer Al-Aswad turned around and went to one knee, bowing her head. From behind her, two of the assassins picked up Saraab's body and carried him out. He would be buried in the catacombs with the rest of the League in a nameless grave.

"Well done, Taer Al-Aswad. Go join your fellows. Qalnaswa, Al-Ahmer, it is now your turn."

Compared to the tense and almost dramatic duel between Taer Al-Aswad and Saraab, the encounter between Qalnaswa and Al-Ahmer was disappointing. Much like the previous two assassins, the two selected swords, but while Qalnaswa showed the necessary finesse and grace expected of a skilled League swordsman, Al-Ahmer seemed to rely on his superior size and strength more than anything. Making a mental note to test the abilities of whoever trained the man, Ra's watched as Qalnaswa easily dodged and deflected each of her opponent's attacks.

Eventually, Al-Ahmer grew frustrated, and drew out a roar as he lifted his sword for another powerful swing — and left himself completely wide open. Qalnaswa took advantage of the opening immediately and gutted him, slicing his stomach before stabbing him in the chest. His sword dropped backwards with a clang! as blood pooled in his mouth, before he finally collapsed. Ra's nearly shook his head in disappointment. Completely shameful.

"I apologize, Qalnaswa," he said as he stepped off the dias. The young woman had gone onto one knee, just like her companion. "For having to face such an unworthy opponent. I do not know how he made it this far with such subpar skills, but I intend to find out."

His gaze flickered towards the crowd, scanning those present until it landed on Athena, who diverted her gaze. Of course. She had always been a fine assassin, but a poor trainer, and far too arrogant for her own good. It seemed another reminder was due about the need to keep her ego in check.

"Taer Al-Aswad, come here," Ra's ordered, watching as the aforementioned assassin complied, going to one knee next to her friend. "Taer Al-Aswad, Qalnaswa. Now that you have completed your final tests and have been properly inducted into the League, it is now time for you to start your duties and beginning serving our objective to rid the world of evil. You will each be assigned a target that needs to be killed and be accompanied by one of my elite as a handler to ensure the mission is carried out."

"Qalnaswa, your target is Konstantin Kovar, a strongman in Russia who seeks to overthrow the Russian government and install a new regime with him at the head. Nyssa shall accompany you." Qalnaswa looked up, before rising to her feet and nodding to him.

He then turned to the other assassin. "Taer Al-Aswad. Your target is Sumaan Harjavti, a former general of the Bialyan army, now a ruling warlord in the ashes of his former country. Al-Owal will accompany you." Like her companion, Taer Al-Aswad rose and gave him a silent nod, accepting the assignment.

"Your handlers will more information on your targets. For now, dismissed."

Laurel only had a brief moment to say goodbye to Shado before she was whisked away by Al-Owal to prepare for her mission. The man was as gruff and cold as always, but a familiar presence nonetheless, and an oddly comforting one to Laurel. For all his icy exterior, he was never too harsh, and now that she was an official member of the League, it seemed she was afforded a bit more respect.

"What do you know of Bialya?" he had asked her as they traveled to the League's private garage, where a car was waiting for them to take them to a private airport. They had changed into regular clothing, part of the general supply, and would change back into their armor once it was time to conduct their assignment.

Laurel pursed her lips, recalling years of high school and college history classes. "It's a small Middle Eastern Country, north of Iran and Saudi Arabia, ruled by powerful dictatorship under Rumaan Harjavti, my target's brother."

"Correction: it used to be ruled by your target's brother," Al-Owal said, as they made it to the garage. "Bialya underwent a revolution recently, where Rumaan was eventually overthrown and killed. His brother, however, managed to escape as the country descended into chaos over the government's collapse. Sumaan has since then been using what's left of his brother's forces to rule as a warlord over a portion of the country, and there are rumors that he intends to eventually accrue enough forces to retake Bialya under his rule. By killing him, we will ensure that will not happen and that his forces will scatter."

Laurel frowned but nonetheless nodded. While technically Al-Owal was correct, it would also serve to cause the collapse of whatever order that Sumaan managed to impose upon the populace. The man was a dictator who was presumably not much better than his brother, but his death would undoubtedly bring a lot of suffering upon the innocent. She was almost tempted to voice her thoughts, but thought better of it — the word of the Demon's Head was law, and she knew better than to defy him.

They arrived in Bialya in the afternoon, and settled in one of the hotels located in Sumaan's domain. Al-Owal confirmed there were already contacts in place to extract them when the mission was finished, so Laurel didn't have to worry about their departure from such a volatile area once she killed Sumaan. Undoubtedly, this portion of Bialya would fall back into chaos once the would-be dictator was dead.

As night neared, Laurel was given a photo and address of her target, along with a floor plan of Sumaan's compound and a general summary of what defenses it would have. She wasn't expected to fight through those defenses, but rather evade them using her stealth training. Another way of testing her skills, she guessed, an exam in the fine ink of her induction. Or maybe Ra's just gave her a hard mission for kicks.

Whatever the case, they traveled to the outskirts of the compound once the sun went down, changing into their League gear in a small cave nearby. Al-Owal would help keep the security distracted and cover her escape once Sumaan dropped dead, while Laurel infiltrated the compound proper, heading towards the direction of Sumaan's private suites. That was where the man spent most of his nights, indulging in luxury and debauchery while his people starved around him. No wonder the League wanted him dead.

The infiltration went off without a hitch. Laurel managed not to trigger any of the alarms and made it to the suites with little trouble. As she searched for an opening that would allow her to corner Suuman undetected, she paused. The sound of laughter was echoing from the doors, and she peered inside to see what was going on.

Suuman, it seemed, was having another celebration. Him and many of his best men were laying around, half-naked, as various scantily clad women danced around them or groped them. Alcohol and food were everywhere, the men red-faced with pleasure. Some of the women looked to be genuinely enjoying themselves. Others were tense, gritting their teeth as they tried to endure. It was those ones that inflamed fury inside her. She knew all too well what they were thinking.

There wasn't any need to sneak in. She could kill him right here and now, and she would. Laurel reached backwards and drew an arrow from her quiver. She wasn't as good a shot as Shado, but she didn't need to be for this. Sumaan wasn't that far, so she wasn't going to miss.

Laurel notched the arrow, aiming for Sumaan's neck.

And then, she fired.

"Well done," Al-Owal told her once they were clear of the compound and on their way to the extraction point. It was a rare word of praise from the man, and despite herself Laurel felt something warm bubble in her chest. Not quite happiness, but a sense of satisfaction. If Al-Owal thought she did well, then that meant a lot.

She didn't know how to feel about the actual assignment itself, however. Laurel didn't feel any real regret about the actual act of killing Sumaan. She knew enough about current events to know what kind of man he and his brother before him had been, and there was no chance of change from either of them. And as for justice — if it hadn't been her, it probably would've been some rebel group or another country's elite that would've killed him, and sparked the same chaos that was sure to spark now.

But she did feel regret about the lives that were about to be ruined by the loss of stability. Her stomach turned as she remembered the children running about the dirt streets, with ragged clothing and visible ribcages. How many of them had she condemned to death with her actions? Even if Sumaan's death had been inevitable, it didn't change the fact that she had been the one to kill him, which meant the aftermath fell on her shoulders.

What choice did she have, in the end? Kill a terrible dictator or let herself be killed. The decision was a no-brainer, even if the aftermath muddled the morality a bit. So Laurel selfishly banished the thoughts from her mind, even as her stomach roiled once more with guilt. She had made her choice, and her choice was to survive, long enough to make it home. And if this was the cost… well, she would learn how to live with it, like everything else.

That was what she had been doing for over two years now, after all. What did it matter if it was a few years more?

It seemed it did matter. A lot.

When Laurel had returned from her mission in Bialya and found Shado awaiting for her in their new room, shaken but still put together, she allowed herself to think, for one moment, that she could do this. That if Shado could endure, she could as well. As long as they were together, as long as they could lean on each other, then no matter how much the League took from them, they would be fine in the end. That they would still resemble themselves when they finally found a way to escape the League.

She was wrong. So, so wrong.

The missions continued. They were given more targets. Sometimes they were partnered with others, most of the time they were partnered with each other, always with a veiled reminder of what would happen if they tried to flee, if they never came back within the allotted time frame. Laurel made sure she never forgot.

Their targets were horrible people, many of which, if not all of which, deserved to die. Laurel repeated that in her mind every time she had to kill one, every single time. That they were horrible. That they deserved to die. That if they did not die, she would die, and everything she carried in her heart with her. Her last memory of Robert hung heavier in her head than ever.

But it didn't get easier. No, it only got harder. Killing people to survive was much easier swallow when they were coming at you with guns and swords, when they were threatening to torture and rape you, when they were trying to kill your friends. Not when you were killing them from behind, in the shadows, when they didn't even know you exist. When they had friends and family too, people who cared about them. Because for all they were horrible, they were still people.

"I can't even look at my hands anymore without imagining all the blood I've shed dripping from them," she confessed to Shado one night beneath the stars. It was one of the rare intervals between missions where they allowed to recuperate and sharpen their skills at Nanda Parbat. So they weren't tempted to desert during a mission after tasting too much of the outside world. "Maybe they all deserve to die, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm killing them in cold blood. Nor all the damage some of their deaths cause."

Sumaan's name hung in the air, a taunting reminder of her first assassination. Despite trying her best to not think of what she had caused, word had filtered into Nanda Parbat about the increasing intensity of the Bialyan Civil War, brought about by the death of the old government's most prominent figurehead. When she heard of the number of innocents that had died in the fighting, her nightmares had gotten so bad that Shado had been forced to feed her sleeping drugs for the rest of the week in order to get her to rest. Laurel had eventually managed to recover, but the guilt remained.

"I know how you feel," Shado replied, clinging to her arm. "Before all this, I was learning to save lives. Now I'm just taking them."

It was a profound statement, one that nearly made Laurel cry, had the League not trained her out of shedding any tears. "What are we supposed to do, Shado?" Not for the first time, she had wished she had never gotten on that boat. She missed her family. She missed Ollie. Tommy, Thea, even Mrs. Queen. Hell, she'd be thankful to see Mr. Merlyn at this point, that's how homesick she was.

But how could she bear to look any of them in the face, knowing what she had become? She couldn't even look at herself in the mirror anymore. Laurel was no longer just a desperate survivor. Now she was an assassin, a killer. A murderer.

"I want to go home," she said, as quietly as possible. Afraid that even saying another word would summon Ra's or Al-Owal or some other League fanatic and prompt them to cut her down, here and now. So much of her wanted to die, and so much of her didn't. The conflict it was making her feel was killing her as much as the killing itself was.

"We will one day," Shado said, trying to comfort her. "We just need to stay strong. An opportunity will open up eventually, I'm sure of it."

Laurel nodded, but didn't say anything. She wasn't sure if Shado was trying to convince her, or herself.

This is one angsty chapter. We get a look at Laurel and Shado's time in the League, and it is not fun. Laurel is trying to justify her actions in order to cope with her current circumstances, but it doesn't last long and it's later clear that it's only Shado's presence that's keeping her from completely breaking down. And vice versa. The League is not for those with kind hearts, people.

Al-Ahmer means the 'the Wolf' in English, a gift from Okoriwadsworth. He's based on the character Savant, from the Birds of Prey comics. Meanwhile, Saraab is indeed Maseo, and yes, both Akio and Tatsu are dead. Without Oliver (or Laurel) around to help him with recovering the Alpha-Omega virus, both of them were eventually killed by the Triad and Maseo ended up leaving A.R.G.U.S. in grief. And like canon, he ended up joining the League to help cope with that grief. Unfortunately, he didn't make it past induction in this timeline. As for the Soultaker Sword, that's a comics shout-out to the weapon Katana uses, but whether it'll play a part down the line is something yet to be seen.

Next Chapter: Laurel and Shado receive a new mission from the League, one that will change their lives forever.