Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Teen Titans: Future Storm ❯ Side Story 6: Rose Blade ( One-Shot )

 

“Teen Titans: Future Storm”

Side Story 6: “Rose Blade”

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it is owned by DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Ravager and Slade (Deathstroke) do not belong to me, either, and neither does anyone else you might recognize from the comics or any other form of DC-related media.

Author's note: Has anyone wondered just what started The Ravager on her path of darkness? If so, hang on, because you will finally see what made Rose Wilson the woman she is today. Of course, to keep your attention, I'll intersperse the story of Rose's origin with a story set in the present. Note that the present portions will be typed in normal font and the past portions will be in italics.

Are you ready to begin?

A slim katana cut through the air as it attempted to slice its target, who moved out of the way and retaliated with a swing of his broadsword. The katana-wielder easily dodged the broadsword and swung her katana at her opponent, who once again moved out of the way of the swing. The swordsman thrust his blade at her, only for her to bend backwards to avoid the broadsword. She turned her bend into a back-flip and sliced her opponent in his chest, cutting through the Kevlar-reinforced leather to reach the more vulnerable flesh.

The swordsman's wound bled only slightly before it healed and he retaliated with a fierce swing at her. She jumped over the swing and landed on his blade, balancing herself on it as though it were a beam. She proceeded to flip off the blade and strike her opponent in the head with a kick. The outcome, rather, was that he grabbed her by her ankle and swung her in an arc, starting low and finishing by releasing her while she was high in the air, letting her fly at the gears of his lair. The katana-wielder performed a triple somersault and uncurled, landing gracefully on the floor.

“That's enough for today, Rose,” the swordsman spoke, sheathing his sword behind his back. He reached up and removed his mask, revealing the face of a man whose blond hair had gone nearly completely white and a single blue-gray eye, the other covered by an eye-patch. Despite his apparent age, he was still extremely fit due to both intense physical exercise and his own enhanced physical skills.

Rose reached up and removed her mask, revealing a girl of mixed Asian and European features. Her single eye was blue, the other covered by an eye-patch much like her father's but on the opposite side, and her hair was long and silvery white.

The two were dressed nearly identically to each other, both wearing Kevlar-reinforced black leather with chain mail and armor plating, as well as one-eyed masks that were orange on one side and black on the other. The differences lay primarily in design. The swordsman wore his chain mail between his shoulders and forearms and around his abdomen and his armor plating on his upper arms, shoulders, forearms, legs, and feet. His mask was orange on the left side, the side where his remaining eye was, and the other side was completely black. In contrast, Rose wore her chain mail on her shoulders and her armor plating on her knees, shins, and feet. Her mask was the reverse of the swordsman's, orange on the right side where her remaining eye was and completely black on the left side. Unlike her trainer's mask, hers stopped at her nose, leaving her rosy lips exposed.

“You did very well today, Rose,” the swordsman said. “Whoever trained you was very thorough.”

Rose bowed. “Thank you, Father.”

Slade smiled. “We have another job.” He walked up to a very large computer monitor and hit a few keys on the keyboard in rapid succession, summoning the image of a chrome-and-reinforced steel spire. “Grayson Enterprises has been working on a way to use nanotechnology in medicine. Their theory is that they can use the self-repairing qualities of nanotech to assist damaged immune systems.”

“You mean it could be a cure for AIDS,” Rose deduced.

“Yes, which has certainly gotten the Religious Right up in arms,” Slade remarked snidely. “Of course, Grayson's little nanotech solution has military applications, ones that they refuse to allow because `they're not in the business of killing people.'”

“Are we going to steal it?” Rose asked.

“Yes and sell it to the highest bidder,” Slade replied. He picked up his mask and put it on again.

Rose was ten years old and living in Thailand. Her mother, Lillian Worth, was the princess of a clan in the Orient but had relocated in the wake of a war in her homeland. As a clan princess, Lillian was considerably wealthy and a portion of that wealth went into Rose's physical training.

At that tender age, Rose could already use a sword with some skill, though her trainers used blunt wooden swords instead of sharp metal swords. In addition, she was capable of fighting hand-to-hand at an intermediate level. However, what supplemented her skill was her unusual strength and reflexes. She was definitely faster and more physically powerful than a child of her age and size, but how much so her trainers didn't quite know.

In addition, Rose didn't really look like the other children. Her hair was a snowy white color compared to the other children's black locks and her eyes were blue while the other children had dark brown eyes. This led to the question that she asked her mother almost incessantly.

“Mother, who is my father?” she asked.

“You don't have one,” Lillian replied simply.

“How do I not have a father?” Rose asked. “It's not as though you impregnated yourself.”

“It doesn't matter,” Lillian answered. “You have me and the rest of your family and that is all you need.” She kissed her daughter on her forehead gently. “Don't trouble yourself anymore with this.”

The next day, Rose was playing with the neighborhood boys. Lillian didn't approve of this, but Rose was stubborn and she preferred the boys to the girls.

“Girls are too prissy,” she'd stated simply before going off to play with the boys.

At first, the boys hadn't wanted to involve a girl in their games, thinking she'd slow them down. Rose proved them very much wrong when she beat them all with ridiculous ease and from then on they let her play with them.

They had been wrestling on that day, as they did on many others, when they spotted what looked like soldiers. They were dressed in olive drab with helmets protecting their heads and body armor over their torsos and joints.

“Who are they?” Jian asked.

“They look like soldiers,” Su replied.

Rose pressed her hand to her head as a vision intruded upon her mind: a vision of the soldiers killing everyone in the neighborhood with savage abandon. When it was over, she shivered.

“We have to get out of here,” she said.

“Why?” Li asked.

“Because they'll kill us all if we don't,” Rose answered fearfully.

Slade and Rose, now Deathstroke and the Ravager, traveled to Grayson Enterprises' Jump City headquarters by way of a sleek two-person stealth jet. Deathstroke stopped the jet over the rooftop of Grayson Enterprises and jumped out of it, Ravager following. The two landed agilely on the rooftop and Deathstroke pulled what looked like a laser pointer out of his belt. He pressed a button on the device and it revealed a laser cutter that neatly sliced off one of the panels of the skylight.

The two masked warriors slipped into the corporate headquarters and began prowling. They'd memorized the layout of the building on the way over and they both had virtual photographic memories, so this mission should have been a snap.

As it turned out, it wasn't.

When the father-daughter duo reached the lab where the nanotech solution was kept, they found someone else there.

“If it isn't the infamous Deathstroke,” he remarked with a gravelly rasp. “Back from the dead.” He looked at Ravager. “And your little girl, too.”

“Who the hell are you?” Ravager asked.

“I suppose it's only fair that I introduce myself,” the man replied. “Call me Manslayer.”

Manslayer wore what looked like Kevlar-reinforced wine-red-and-black leather. The top was wine red with black sides and shoulders and the pants and boots were completely black. His face was covered by a red mask that had a vaguely Y-shaped black front. A pair of swords crossed on his back in sheaths while a pair of guns was strapped to his thighs. A belt of collapsible boomerangs wrapped around his waist as the final touch on his uniform.

“Manslayer, huh?” Deathstroke remarked. “A rather ambitious name to refer to yourself by.”

“No more ambitious than Deathstroke the Terminator,” Manslayer retorted. “Or the Ravager.”

“Doesn't matter,” Deathstroke answered, drawing his broadsword. “You're a dead man, anyway.”

“Says you, Terminator,” Manslayer retorted, drawing one of his katana and one of his guns.

The Ravager drew her katana.

“Oh, good, we all have weapons out now,” she remarked. “But who's gonna be the first to let their trigger finger get the better of them?”

“Good question,” Deathstroke replied. “You see, you could open fire on either of us, but I bet our reflexes are good enough to avoid the bullets. You could attack us with your sword, but I bet either of us have greater skill with the blade than you.”

“You think so . . . old man?” Manslayer challenged.

“Enough talk,” Deathstroke answered. He lunged at Manslayer, who immediately blocked with his own sword while opening fire on the Ravager, who easily avoided the salvo of bullets. She withdrew three kunai from her belt and threw them at Manslayer, who dodged them all while still fighting her father.

“Not bad,” Manslayer remarked, jumping away from Deathstroke's second charge and sheathing his blade. Deathstroke slashed at him again, but Manslayer grabbed his wrist and used his grip to perform a cartwheel over his head, maintaining his precarious position long enough to shoot at Ravager again. Ravager dodged his gunfire and made a move to attack him, only to be stopped by Deathstroke.

“The solution,” the masked mastermind said. “That is what matters, Ravager. Get it.”

Ravager dutifully went for the nanotech solution, which was a small canister of silvery liquid. This caused Manslayer to halt his battle with Deathstroke and block his daughter with a boomerang, which a cut on her exposed cheek told her was razor-sharp. The cut sealed itself within moments, though.

“You're not getting your hands on that,” Manslayer said.

“So you say,” Ravager retorted, swinging her katana at the red-and-black-garbed fighter. Manslayer dodged the swing and holstered his gun, replacing it with a katana and retaliating with a swing of his own, which Ravager evaded. She dropped and swept her leg out in an attempt to trip him, but he jumped over her leg and moved to kick her in the face. However, Ravager's move hadn't stopped with her low kick; she'd continued her sweep in an upward motion until her foot solidly planted itself in Manslayer's stomach.

“You are good,” Manslayer remarked, staggered by the force of her kick.

Ravager pressed her advantage, attacking with a combination of sword strikes and kicks. Manslayer blocked as many as he could and counterattacked whenever possible, but Ravager saw his moves coming before he even made them, as per her sixth sense. The two combatants separated as Deathstroke made his way toward the solution, only for Manslayer to see this and throw another razor-edged boomerang at him. The mastermind-slash-assassin whirled and caught the boomerang before throwing it right back at Manslayer, who moved his head out of the way.

Deathstroke picked up the canister and slipped it into a pouch on his utility belt.

“We have it, Ravager,” he said. “Let's go.”

Ravager broke away from her fight with Manslayer and went to her father's side.

“We're not finished yet,” Manslayer snarled, both swords out this time.

“You really want to die, don't you?” Deathstroke remarked.

“Mother!” Rose screamed.

She'd managed to give the soldiers the slip and return to her home, only to find more soldiers there. Two were holding Lillian down while a third was settled between her legs, committing the most horrific crime a man could commit against a woman. The others stood guard over the three soldiers committing the deed and Lillian.

“Mother!” Rose screamed. She ran at the guarding soldiers, yelling, “Get the hell away from my mother!”

Rose tackled one soldier, her momentum enabling her to knock him over. She began beating the soldier, screaming, “Stop hurting my mother!”

Another soldier grabbed Rose and pulled her off the soldier she was beating. The soldier she was beating joined the second soldier in restraining Rose.

“Let me go!” Rose screamed. “Let me go! Stop hurting my mother!”

Rose thrashed hard, but the soldiers' grip remained firm, never loosening quite enough to allow her to free herself. She was helpless to watch as the other soldiers took their turns with Lillian before one of them finally shot her in the head.

“NOOOOO!” Rose screamed, tears streaming down her face at the sight of her dead and violated mother.

“My boss sent me to do a job,” Manslayer stated. “And I'm gonna do it.”

Deathstroke and Ravager pointed their blades at Manslayer, all three poised for an attack. Manslayer attacked the duo, who each blocked a sword. Manslayer pushed back against them, but his strength wasn't quite up to par with his opponents'. He bent his legs and swung them upward, kicking Deathstroke in the sternum and Ravager below her bosom. The kick didn't really knock either down, but it startled them both enough to allow him to break free and press his attack, slashing and kicking both.

Manslayer sheathed his swords and withdrew two boomerangs from his belt, folding them out to their full size and throwing them at the father-daughter duo. Deathstroke and Ravager deflected the boomerangs with their swords and Ravager retaliated with kunai, which Manslayer evaded.

He's agile, but it's no more than someone like Batman or any of his ilk could do, Deathstroke thought.

Manslayer drew his guns again and launched into the air, twirling and firing at Deathstroke and Ravager, who acrobatically evaded his bullets. Manslayer didn't exactly stop firing; he merely somersaulted and twisted before shooting again. At first, it seemed like he was shooting wildly, but the technique seemed too polished for it to be just random shots.

“Oh, hell,” Ravager muttered. “He's bouncing his shots.”

Indeed, he was. Even though the bullets were missing her and her father, they were ricocheting everywhere . . . and even they couldn't be so lucky as to avoid each and every one.

Fortunately, that's what they had Kevlar-reinforced black leather for. Of course, Ravager could also predict the immediate future, so that was an added bonus in keeping them safe from Manslayer's trick shots.

“I think you've gone far enough,” Deathstroke said, withdrawing a knuckle-like hand laser from his belt and shooting it at Manslayer, who proved unable to avoid the blast.

“That hurt, asshole,” Manslayer growled, holding his wounded shoulder.

“You'll live,” Deathstroke drawled. “Not for much longer, but you'll live.”

Manslayer holstered his guns and ran.

“Coward,” Ravager hissed.

“No, daughter,” Deathstroke spoke. “There's something else he's planning.”

With that said, both assassins went to the room where the guard watched the footage from the security cameras. Not to their surprise, they found said guard unconscious on the floor and the security cameras turned off. Ravager immediately embedded a tranquilizer dart in his neck.

“To keep him unconscious longer,” she said, sitting down in the guard's chair and turning the security cameras back on. She looked in the various screens, checking angle after angle and room after room until she found Manslayer in the room that housed Grayson Enterprises' mainframe.

“He's hacking the mainframe,” Deathstroke deduced. “No doubt attempting to get his hands on the notes for Grayson's little solution.”

“So even if we have the solution, he has the means to recreate it, means he can give to his employers,” the Ravager finished.

“He won't get that far,” Deathstroke said, turning to exit the room. Ravager rose from her seat and followed him.

“You have come far in these past three years, Rose,” the True Master spoke. “I have never quite had a pupil like you.”

“Thank you, True Master,” Rose said.

“Please, call me Chui-hui,” the True Master offered. “You have earned the right.”

Rose bowed respectfully to the True Master. She had managed to escape from her homeland and the guerilla force that had overtaken it, but she had found herself lost. However, she had had a goal to keep her going.

Revenge.

To that end, she had sought out the True Master. She had endured the challenges. And it had gained her an audience with the True Master, who took her into her home and trained her.

Rose had become extremely skilled in the three years that followed. She could most likely defeat men twice or three times her size. However, there was something about the silver-haired girl that troubled Chui-hui.

Her rage.

Yes, her rage. Chui-hui had sensed from the very beginning the rage that hid within the depths of Rose's soul. She had taken the girl into her care despite that, hoping that her training would give her peace of mind and enable her to let go of her rage. Unfortunately, as time passed, that rage had only festered. Rose kept it controlled enough, but it slipped out occasionally when they trained, particularly when Rose's strikes were more forceful than necessary.

“Rose,” Chui-hui spoke. “Why did you seek me out?”

“I wanted to become strong,” Rose replied.

“For what purpose do you intend to use your strength?” Chui-hui asked.

“To make the people who made me an orphan pay for what they did,” Rose answered.

“I see,” Chui-hui uttered. “You want revenge. I have told you this before, Rose. Revenge only blackens the soul. You must fight first and foremost for justice and life, not for revenge and death.”

“It is justice,” Rose stated. “They took my mother and my home. It is only fair that I repay them in kind.”

“There is no room for that sort of thinking in these mountains,” Chui-hui spoke. “If you cannot comprehend that, then you must leave.”

“I see,” Rose said. She rose and turned away to walk out of Chui-hui's mountaintop home. “Good-bye, True Master.”

Manslayer continued hacking into the Grayson Enterprises' mainframe.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” he muttered. “Why the freak can't I get in? What kind of firewalls are these?”

He picked up a black visor with a red lens and slipped it on over his mask. The visor, in reality, was a remote interface tool. Hopefully, it would enable him to get inside the mainframe.

He didn't quite fare so well. Still, he pressed on, mentally cutting through layers of programming meant to block him from what he sought.

“Yeah . . .” he muttered. “Just gotta get through.”

Suddenly, the cyber-world around him went completely black.

“What the freak?” Manslayer asked, pulling off the remote interface visor. To his shock, the mainframe screen had a smoking puncture hole in it. He whirled around in anger, razor-sharp boomerangs in hand.

Deathstroke held his knuckle laser by his side, ready to fire again at a moment's notice. The Ravager stood beside him, katana in hand.

“You can't access the files now,” Deathstroke said. “Meaning your employers won't have the tools to recreate the solution.”

Manslayer chuckled. “Just means I'll have to take the solution from your cold, dead hands.”

“Try it,” Ravager sneered.

“Your funeral, babe,” Manslayer remarked, throwing all four boomerangs at the duo, who evaded them. As it turned out, though, the boomerangs were just a distraction, since Manslayer immediately opened fire on the two in the shadow of the boomerangs. Deathstroke and Ravager dodged the bullets as well as they could, but as the boomerangs had distracted them, they couldn't dodge all of them. Fortunately, the Kevlar-leather fabric of their uniforms stopped the bullets. Not like it mattered that much; if the bullets managed to pierce the suits, their wearers would simply heal very quickly.

He's better than I expected, Ravager thought as she began deflecting bullets with her titanium-steel katana. As she did this, Deathstroke returned fire.

Manslayer somersaulted into the air, avoiding Deathstroke's shots and returning fire amidst acrobatic moves.

“What the hell is this?” Deathstroke wondered.

“Way of the Gun,” Manslayer replied as he shot at the masked mastermind.

Deathstroke and Ravager had heard of the Way of the Gun. Supposedly, it was a martial art that mixed gunplay with death-defying acrobatics, much like capoeira mixed dancing, elements of acrobatics, and fighting.

Ravager threw sharp, armor-piercing darts at Manslayer, who managed to dodge about half and deflect the other half with his bullets.

“Honestly,” the red-and-black-clad mercenary admitted, “I've wanted to test myself against you for a while. At first, I thought if I could bag the daughter of Deathstroke, as the rumors claimed you to be, I'd be number one. But now . . . I bag both you and your old man and I'll really be number one.”

“Ambitious, aren't we?” Ravager remarked, reaching into her belt and withdrawing flash-bang grenades that she proceeded to throw at Manslayer. The grenades disoriented him, not for very long, but long enough for Ravager and Deathstroke to beat him in a combined attack.

Manslayer was left trying to recover his breath after the brutal blows from the father-daughter duo had knocked it out of him.

“I'd suggest giving up,” Ravager said. “We have the solution and I don't think you're good enough to take it from us.”

Manslayer simply detached more boomerangs from his belt and threw them at the duo, who caught them all.

“Is this all you have?” Deathstroke asked mockingly. “We're not impressed.”

Manslayer merely pressed a button on his belt buckle and the boomerangs made one long beep before exploding. Fortunately, Deathstroke and Ravager had thrown the boomerangs away and ducked for cover before they could be blown to pieces. The mainframe room wasn't as lucky, looking worse for wear in the wake of the detonations.

Rose sat in a dank, dark, and dirty prison. She had returned to her homeland with the intent of slaughtering those who had raped and murdered her mother. She'd only been able to take down about seven before the soldiers had gotten the better of her by sheer force of numbers. Thanks to her extremely strong constitution, she'd survived the experience mostly intact. However, she was now awaiting her execution, which would take place the following morning. It would be public, just to teach the people what happened to rebels.

“Are you Rose Wilson Worth?” a feminine voice, strong and clear, asked.

“I'm Rose Worth,” the silver-haired girl replied. “I know nothing about a Wilson.”

“Very well,” the voice spoke. “You'll find that out later.”

“What do you want with me?” Rose asked.

“To save you,” the voice replied. “To teach you to harness the potential you possess. I'd hate to see it go to waste.”

“How'd you get past the guard?” Rose inquired.

“Easily,” the voice answered, its owner stepping out of the shadows of the prison cell.

Rose beheld the woman before her. She was of medium height, perhaps slightly taller than average. Her dark hair was in a short, feminine style and clear blue eyes stared out of a classically beautiful face. She wore a black leather zip-up vest over a navy blouse and black pants that molded to her hips and thighs.

“You know my name,” Rose said. “Isn't it the polite thing to do to introduce yourself?”

“Yes,” the woman responded with a smile. “Nyssa is my name.”

“Why do you want me?” Rose asked.

“It's certainly better than spending the last days of your life here,” Nyssa replied. “If you come with me, I can teach you to harness your potential - and the power that your rage gives you.” She extended her hand.

Rose took it.

The silver-haired young girl soon found herself in the mountain stronghold of Nyssa's organization the League of Shadows, leadership of which she shared with her half-sister Talia. She looked around and saw men and women clad in form-fitting black with masks that concealed their entire faces except for their eyes.

“What is this?” Rose asked.

“The League of Shadows,” Talia greeted, dressed in a skintight black suit similar to what the men and women around her wore but sans mask. “This organization's purpose is to avenge the injustices wreaked upon this world by man's inhumanity to man. Here, we will train you so that you have the power to do the same.”

“Sounds good to me,” Rose said.

Over the next three years, Talia and Nyssa trained Rose in various forms of unarmed and armed combat with a focus on Jeet Kune Do, ninjutsu, and kenjutsu. In addition, she trained in gymnastics and deductive reasoning. Furthermore, the sister leaders of the League of Shadows educated her in mathematics, sciences, literature, general sociology, criminology, and criminal justice as it was applied throughout the world. She even learned a thing or two about governments throughout the world.

Nyssa had a rather scornful view of democracy, Rose discovered. She remembered the woman's words with clarity.

“It's a good concept, but all too often the process is corrupted by those with money and when a crisis strikes, the people are all too willing to give up the liberties granted by democracy because they'd rather have a `strong' leader to protect them.”

Those words would stick with Rose for a long time to come.

One night, while Rose rested from her training, Nyssa asked her, “Do you know who your father is?”

“No,” Rose replied. “I never met him.”

“His name is Slade Wilson,” Nyssa replied. “He was a soldier in the United States Army who underwent an experiment that was supposed to make him resistant to truth serums. However, it was actually meant to create metahuman soldiers. Your father survived but found himself able to use ninety percent of his brain, which enhanced both his mind and his body. He decided to go into business for himself and sell his abilities to the highest bidder, becoming an assassin of the highest caliber. Eventually, he took his profits and used them to amass considerable power in the criminal underworld, going simply by his first name to maintain an aura of mystery. He clashed for years with a team of young heroes called the Titans, even taking several members as his apprentices at one time or another. Of course, they all left him.

“The last time anyone saw him alive, he was working with a yakuza syndicate called the Kokuryu. Before that, he rescued your mother from her homeland when it was torn apart by war and left her in Thailand, where you were born.”

Rose swallowed, taking the information in. So her father was a criminal? A mercenary and then a boss? The same kind of person she was supposed to loathe and battle with every fiber of her being?

“This cannot be easy information for you to bear, Rose,” Nyssa spoke. “I will leave you for now.”

Manslayer threw a fast punch at Ravager, who swatted it aside and shot her hand at his throat. Manslayer moved out of the way, but she anticipated that and swerved into a brutal kick to the gut, which knocked him into the damaged mainframe. Deathstroke leaped over Ravager's head and came down with a punch to Manslayer's head that would have surely knocked him out if the red-and-black-clad mercenary hadn't moved out of the way at the last minute.

Ravager and Deathstroke came back together, attacking Manslayer as one. Whenever Manslayer dodged one, the other would use his momentary distraction to land a blow. When Manslayer attacked one, the other would use that as an opportunity to strike.

In other words, the crimson-and-obsidian clad mercenary was so screwed it wasn't funny.

Or maybe it was. At least to the father-daughter duo that was tossing him around like they were playing catch.

“Are you ready to give up yet?” Deathstroke asked.

Manslayer pulled up his mask enough to spit blood and a tooth out at the masked mastermind.

“I'll take that as a no,” Deathstroke remarked nonchalantly as he drew his sword. “Shall we kill you here?”

Manslayer glared as he pulled his mask back down.

“If your boss is the sort of person I think he is, it'd be better if you let my father kill you now,” Ravager said. “At least he'll make it quick.”

Manslayer raised his middle finger. That resulted in Ravager grabbing said finger and breaking it. To his credit, Manslayer didn't scream or make any audible sign of pain.

“Oh, let's finish this already,” Deathstroke said and withdrew his knuckle laser, shooting Manslayer in the head with it. “Too bad. He had spunk. I could have done something with that.”

By the time her seventeenth birthday arrived, Rose was capable of fighting a handful of opponents with ease, an ease that was aided by her unusual strength, reflexes, and agility, and could probably battle a roomful with effort. In addition, she had discovered that she could see glimpses of the immediate future and honed that ability so that she could predict what her opponents would do in a fight. This was only part of the reason she was such a dangerous opponent, the rest owing to her sheer skill.

On her seventeenth birthday, Nyssa brought Rose to the main room of the League of Shadows' stronghold. The other members of the League were there as well, parted like the Red Sea to reveal Talia standing with a man whose hands were tied behind his back. The man was dressed in rags and his face and hair were dirty.

“Who is he?” Rose asked.

“Him?” Nyssa asked. “Once a peasant farmer. Then he coveted his neighbor's land and became a murderer.”

“What will happen to him?” Rose asked.

“Justice,” Nyssa replied. “Crime cannot be tolerated. Criminals thrive on so-called `civilized' society's pathetic attempts to understand them. There is nothing hard about understanding the mind of a criminal. Criminals do what they do for their own gain.”

“Why do you think justice is represented in some parts of the world by scales?” Talia asked Rose. She proceeded to answer her own question. “Justice is balance. When crime is committed, the scales are unbalanced. The counterweight is punishment.”

“Do you expect me to punish him?” Rose asked.

“Yes,” Talia replied as Nyssa handed Rose her katana. “You'll kill him. He is a murderer and his own death will bring back balance.”

Rose looked at the man. “A murderer,” she muttered. “He's a murderer.” The word “murderer” repeated itself in her mind, driving her forward.

Finally, she was before the man. She raised her katana and brought it down in one swift, graceful motion, dousing herself in the blood that splattered from her victim's sliced body.

“Good,” Nyssa spoke. “We are ready to begin.”

“Begin what?” Rose asked.

“Our mission,” Nyssa replied. “It is not just individuals that are responsible for crime; society is largely to blame for this. Some societies are so corrupt by their very nature that crime flourishes. For the greater good, those societies must be destroyed.”

“And what happens afterward?” Rose questioned.

“If there are any survivors, we allow them to rebuild, to make something better out of the ashes of what came before,” Talia answered.

“Bull,” Rose spat. “What if those survivors are the same kind of scum that those societies created? We ought to do the rebuilding ourselves.”

“And take charge?” Nyssa finished. “You do not understand, Rose. We are liberators, not conquerors.”

“That's what you think,” Rose said as she leaped out of the window, taking the bloodstained katana with her.

Deathstroke and Ravager carried Manslayer's corpse back to their stealth jet, Ravager having to bear the burden of holding said corpse on her lap as Deathstroke flew the jet until they were over the ocean. He opened the cockpit of the jet.

“Throw the body into the ocean,” he ordered. “It's very unlikely he'll be found there.”

Ever the dutiful daughter, Ravager threw Manslayer's body overboard, watching with idle interest as it plummeted into the ocean.

Rose fell on her rear end for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Up, girl,” the woman known as Lady Shiva spoke.

Rose obediently rose to her feet and shifted into a combat stance, closely watching Lady Shiva's stance as well. There were no weaknesses in that stance that she could see, no vulnerabilities unless they were deliberately planted to draw her into an attack.

“You're doing far better than I would have expected of you,” Shiva stated with a hint of an amused smile. “And this is only the second day.”

Lady Shiva was no ordinary martial artist. She was the best, a woman who had dedicated her entire life to mastery of the art, often proving said mastery by challenging, defeating, and killing other masters. She also kept a list of people who were within her range in terms of skill and another list of people who had the potential to reach her range. Those on the latter list she usually tended to kill before they could become a threat to her, unless they fascinated her enough so that she trained them.

Rose Wilson turned out to be one of those people, hence the training. The way Shiva trained her students, she demonstrated a move and then used it on them to see if they could counter it and use it themselves.

While Rose had the edge in terms of enhanced strength and agility as well as her ability to predict Shiva's next moves, Shiva was a greater martial artist than her and could read an opponent's body language, effectively granting her the same ability as Rose. Due to Shiva's superior skill, Rose found herself knocked on her ass more often than she was able to evade.

On the third day, Rose finally landed a blow on Shiva, the heel of her palm striking the older woman in the jaw and knocking her off her feet.

“Very good,” Shiva said. “Your lessons are complete.”

“Complete?” Rose wondered.

“Yes, you agreed that I would teach you for three days, as that's all I actually needed to make a fearsome opponent out of you,” Lady Shiva answered. She presented Rose with her katana, which looked even better than before. “I took it upon myself to re-forge your blade while I trained you. You'll find the metal far stronger than it was.”

“Thank you,” Rose said.

Shiva chuckled.

Over the next year, Rose found out more about her father, particularly the chemical solution that had enhanced his abilities. While she herself was no real slouch in terms of physical power, she could only lift three times her body weight, which wasn't exactly impossible for a physically normal human.

She learned to synthesize her own version of the solution, her knowledge of chemistry good enough to facilitate this. She rolled up her sleeve and mainlined the serum right into her bloodstream. Immediately, she began to suffer spasms. She collapsed as the spasms wracked her body, resisting the urge to cry out in pain.

“Won't scream,” she muttered. “Won't scream.”

Hours later, the spasms stopped and she rose to her feet, feeling power coursing through her veins.

“That's better,” she said with a smile crossing her face that could only be described as demonic.

Deathstroke and the Ravager returned to their headquarters no worse for wear. Once there, Deathstroke removed the canister from his belt pouch.

“The only viable sample of Grayson's little solution and it's in our hands,” he said.

“Shouldn't we test it first?” Ravager asked. “I mean before we sell it to the highest bidder.”

“Good point,” Deathstroke agreed. “If we are to really stoke our potential buyers' desire for this product, they have to see that it actually works.” He smiled under his mask. “I'm glad I have you for a daughter.”

“Thank you, Father,” Ravager said.

In Thailand, the guerilla force that had overtaken the land was standing guard over the home of their leader. To their shock, a shuriken embedded itself in one of the guerillas' throats, causing him to choke on his own blood.

“What is going on?” another guerilla asked, only to be sliced in the back by a katana, the blade cutting through flesh, muscle, and bone.

The other soldiers met death in similar fashions, none of them knowing who their killer was or the reason their killer had targeted them.

Meanwhile, the leader relaxed in his home, about ready to call in one of his “comfort women” to tend to his needs. He was a fierce-eyed man with slicked, well-kept hair and a fit body that had been scarred in many battles, such as the battle that had delivered this land into his hands.

He saw the shadow of a feminine figure enter and he thought it was a comfort woman for an instant, an instant that ended when he saw the shine of a katana pointed at his throat.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The figure stepped into the light, revealing a young woman dressed in what appeared to be form-fitting black leather with chain mail covering her shoulders and arms and armor plating on her knees, shins, and feet. Her gloves were black with matching bands wrapped around her forearms. A silver belt hung loosely on her hips and a bisected red-eyed mask, orange on the right side and black on the left, covered her face up to her nose, leaving wine-red lips that twisted in contempt exposed.

“The Ravager,” she replied simply.

End Notes: Man, this chapter was fun to write. Hopefully, you liked the two stories within it. At first, I was going to do a straight origin piece, but as I thought about it, I figured it would be a good idea to show how Ravager and Slade/Deathstroke work together. So I decided to do an origin piece interspersed with a present-day piece.

With the exception of Manslayer, who is my own character although I drew upon elements of Marvel's Deadpool to create him, everyone else is pretty much owned by DC Comics. The True Master, Chui-hui, comes from the Season 4 TT episode “The Quest.” Lady Shiva comes from the Batman comics primarily. Talia and Nyssa are also from the Batman comics, both being daughters of Ra's al Ghul although the latter wasn't revealed until about two years ago.

For those of you who did watch Batman Begins, you'll notice that I've used the League of Shadows and its mission in place of the League of Assassins that's more commonly recognized in the DCU. The reason was that I thought the League of Shadows was a pretty cool idea, considering that they're essentially breeding Batmen that'll do whatever it takes to serve their idea of justice, even if it means destroying entire societies.

When I came up with Manslayer, I intended him to have photographic reflexes. What that means is that he would be able to master any physical action as long as he saw someone else do it first. In this manner, he would become a master martial artist, swordsman, and gunner. Of course, I couldn't really figure out a way for him to demonstrate that skill, so I decided not to mention it. Just assume that's how he did all the stuff that he did.

If you're wondering about Grayson Enterprises, it's Richard Grayson's company. In this continuity, Richard became convinced that what Blüdhaven needed was an honest business to bring clean money into the city, so he studied up, got his degree in business and finance, and started that business. Combined with his actions as Nightwing, it was able to bring honest revenue into the city and thus cleanse the city's air of corruption, although a faint hint of the smell still remains. As you may have inferred from this story, Grayson Enterprises' specialty is medical technology, although some of that has military applications that Richard refuses to explore.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.