2006-11-02 - A First Kill

/Breathe./ Talia's self-admonishment helps fight the rising panic. There were always uprisings within the League-- an organization that prided itself on strength, guile, and bloody victory breeds such things. 
Usually they were stomped down, viciously, quickly, before they grew too dangerous. The agitators killed brutally as examples to others who would rise up against Ra's.
Not this time. Trust was a commodity in short supply normally, but now? There was no one she could trust. Their primary facility above the pits on their hidden island due northeast of Gamorra?
The facility was burning. Loyal men and women had their blood painting the walls, splattered beside those who had dared to rise and betray the Al Ghuls.
"Protect the heir," Ra's had said. "Get him out." Out meant the facility on Isle Murjeno where she had brought her Little Wing into the world. Out meant to the helicopter pad above, and killing her way through dozens of League-trained assassins and fighters to get there. Out meant her father, who had driven himself deeper into the facility, might die alone without her there to fight at his side.
She glances back, her green eyes resting on her son... her world. To Ra's, he was the heir, the one devoted to the cause, his grandson, the perfect one, the one promised.
To Talia, Damian Wayne was her baby, her Little Wing. Her most precious student, her only child, and the only piece she had left of her beloved. She would destroy the entire world in flame and terror before allowing him to come to his end. She gives him a comforting smile-- or what she tries to make a comforting smile, as such is difficult with the tightness in her expression, the splatters of blood across her face, the normally perfectly put together woman mussed with hair slipping out of the loop she had it held back with, her bodysuit cut and ripped in places. Getting this far had been bloody. She had managed to kill her and Damian's way up two levels, but there are four more to go to the roof. Only four more. 
Only four more, and her son will be safe.
Her sword hangs loosely at her side, the grip in her hand, the blade dripping blood as she moves down the hallway quickly, though not at her full-speed. She has an eight-year-old that must keep up. "Four more floors, Damian," she says with a hint of cheerfulness. She doesn't want him to know the truth: she's afraid. Not of dying. But of losing him. He's so young, and his training is incomplete...
Damian is too young to know the fear of death. The warrior-child returns his mother's smile "No problem," he says confidently adjusting the grip on his sword. He hadn't been given the chance to face his opponents one on one yet but he had helped his mother and there was blood on his sword as was expected of him. He had a gun as well something his mother had thrust into his hand before he'd taken the sword, though as soon as he'd gained that proper weapon, the gun had been exiled to the sash of his league armour. He was ready to make these upstarts pay for their attack on his family and for making him feel that sliver of doubt that the people he cared about most would make it safely from this fight. 
He glances behind him a moment, driven by regret of having to leave his grandfather but Ra's was strong and dangerous, everyone knew that; he would survive. He looks ahead in the corridor and says "Which way? The south stairs would be harder to reach from their point of attack." It would also put them further from the helipad.
Talia's lips thin and flatten as she considers. "No," she says. "We'll take the west corridor to the north stairwell. The helipad is on the north side, Damian." And with that decided, she leads the way down the westernmost corridor. A man in League black bursts from one of the rooms; almost lazily, she cuts him down, her sword biting into the flesh of his throat and chest and spraying blood across both the Al Ghuls.
Talia does not even pay it any mind. Her focus is on getting her son out.
So when they step into the open area just before the door to the north stairs, and she sees the three waiting for them-- her expression is still tight, but indifferent. She moves fluidly to meet them... but then her eyes widen as she sees the reflection of what is behind her and her son. Four more closing in.
A slash, a backhanded parry. She continues her bloody dance, glancing to the side. Two more are joining. Nine, in this space. Eight now.
Her son. Difficult enough to fight this many alone, but how can she defend him too?
Damian watches his mother in her deadly dance. Her glance back and widening of her eyes told him what he needed to know. Someone was coming up behind him. He waits letting them draw closer before he turns, sword slashing out in a wide arc. One of the men parries it, using his size and strength to force Damian's sword aside so one of his fellow traitors could deliver the killing blow. He doesn't get that chance, Damian reacts quickly, drawing the gun from his sash and shooting his would-be killer and one of the other traitors before he rolls back out of their reach. The men keep coming and so regretfully he has to shoot one more before he faces off one on one with the final assassin. The man slashes quickly but Damian is faster he blocks with the gun in his left hand and swings with the sword in his right. He slashes the man's legs to bring him down to his height. The man falls, still swinging his blade. Damian ducks and slides his own blade into the man's throat. Blood runs down the blade and bubbles from his mouth as the assassin dies. When it's over Damian kicks the sword free and flicks the blood of the blade like he was taught turning back to his mother, both eager to see how she fares but also to see if she saw him make his first real kill.
Talia did see, but there is no time for praise. Black-clad assassins fall around her like leaves in autumn, their lifeblood oozing out onto the floor in macabre puddles. As the last one dies, she turns to her son, leaning down slightly, her lips parting to issue a command or a word of praise or a question-- Damian never finds out.
The League prefers the blade for a reason-- a bullet is an unsure death. The first of the men Damian had shot had fallen, indeed, but not to his death.
His blade juts out from Talia's chest, the gleaming metal marred with Damian's mother's life dripping from it. Her eyes are wide and for a moment, there is fear there.
And then the light and life fades, and the green eyes of his mother are glassy and unfocused as she slumps to the floor by her killer.
Damian's eye go wide as he watches his mother be stabbed through the chest. His heart sinks with the cold certainty that this was his fault he had not followed through and confirmed the death of his enemies. The sinking feeling lasts only a second before it is replaced with rage and the need for vengeance. He rushes across the room and leaps into the air the gun barking out shots as he does. The clip goes dry and Damian lets it tumble from his fingers before he grips the sword in both hands and slashes downwards with his weight behind the blade. "Die!" he screams. "Die! Die! Die!"
The shots ring. Men die. 
As the echoes fade, the only sound in the room is Damian's heavy breathing.
And a ragged, wet sound as Talia draws a breath into her punctured lungs. She lives.
But not for long.
It takes a second for Damian to hear the noise of his mother's breathing but when he does moves to her side. "Mother!" he shouts as he crouches down next to her. "Hold on. I'll get you to a Pit," he slides his sword away still bloody and grabs her arm to help heave her shoulder over his own as he tries to drag her back the way they came. "Hold on," he urges her as he moves. "Hold on."
She doesn't reply, not as he half-lifts her to drag her. Not as she slides down the hallway, leaving a bloody smear on the floor.
Down. Two levels pass, and though the fighting can be heard in the distance at times, the hallways here have already been scoured. Death has already come. Bodies and blood and gore fill them.
The red-painted line that follows them is a mixture of Talia's blood with so many others by the time the final stairwell looms before Damian, behind a door that is off-limits to any but Ra's and his immediate servants. 
Damian has, of course, heard of the pits. But the boy had never seen them, only knowing of them in an abstract way from his mother and grandfather.
Talia's breathing has all but stopped. The furious pumping of blood has slown to a mere trickle.
Sweat mingles with the blood on Damian's face as he reaches the door to the Pits. He lowers his mother to the floor and then taps in the code he'd seen Ubu enter one time, hoping it hadn't changed. The door slides open and the modern corridors of the base gives way to the rough stone passage beyond. He grabs his mother, moving quickly now, knowing he doesn't have much time. He makes his way down the cut into the naked stone with a unnatural green glow from ahead lighting his way. 
At the foot of the steps the pit is there, a writhing green pool from which wafts a chemical haze that stings Damian's throat and eyes. /This/ was a Lazarus Pit? He draws back a step but then his mother makes a rattling cough and he knows there is no time for weakness or doubt and so he drags her onwards to the edge of the pit and shifts his weight to throw her in.
Talia sinks beneath the green waters of the pits, disappearing. To drown, perhaps?
Ere Damian can decide to go in after her, a voice, smooth and calm, echoes across the cavern. "Grandson. You must go, now."
Ra's still manages to look regal, despite his disheveled clothing and the bloodsplatter that graces him. Ubu stands, a mute giant, looming at his side. "Now."
His tone brooks no argument.
Damian glance back "Grandfather!" he says with evident relief in his tone. Though the whip-crack tone of command quickly replaces relief with confusion. "What? Why should I go?" he demands. "I want to make sure Mother is alright."
Ra's only lifts a brow. "Ubu, remove my gran--"
A splash from the pit. The Head of the Demon moves down, quickly, putting himself between the pit and his heir. "Leave, Damian. At once. Ubu, escort him to his rooms. Defend him with your life." Apparently the uprising had been taken care of.
The beefy guard steps down, placing a hand on Damian's arm. 
Damian's eyes turn towards the pit at the first sound of the splash and are fixed there when Ubu lays his hand on his arm. "What?" he says distracted then seeing Ubu he turns to plead with his grandfather. "Wait, let me see, I want to see her." He tries to slip free of Ubu's grasp.
A murderous snarl and a roar comes from the pit, the waters churning and splashing as Talia rises from it. Her expression is crazed and fever-mad. A howl of pain and hate bursts from her lips, and she lunges forward towards her father, son, and Ubu, hands outstretched like talons.
And Ra's is there to intercept, slamming the woman aside with some difficulty. Rage and hate give her a strength she otherwise does not possess, and the older, more skilled man is shoved back a step. He grabs at her arm to throw her. "OUT!" he roars to Damian.
Ubu's hand closes around Damian's arm and he begins to drag the youngest Al Ghul towards the door.
A hour later, Ra's opens the door to Damian's room, where Ubu had deposited the boy and had stood guard outside, wordlessly, until the leader of the league had arrived. His face is bruised-- in the fighting, perhaps, or in the pits?
He sweeps in majestically, though, and stands in front of the door, surveying the room and his grandson within it. Satisfied the boy is in one piece, he leaves, the door slamming shut behind him-- refusing to answer any questions the heir may demand of him.
Category:Historical Log