[Lady Shiva's POV]
More than three hours had passed—it was time to check on the comedian. By now, I was sure he had forgotten his jokes, and the reality of his situation had finally sunk in. Alex Reath… No matter how many times I tried to analyze him, I still could not understand from where he drew such reckless courage, such stubborn will for freedom. I had seen many extraordinary men and women in my long life, individuals who carried unique talents, drives, and obsessions. But even among them, this rough young man stood apart, as if molded from a harsher truth.
His courage was not born of ignorance, bad manners, or mere pretense the way it so often is in the arrogant. No—his daring seemed ingrained, almost instinctive. It was a part of his soul, a truth within his worldview.
Yet all of that mattered little now. No matter how strong his will, no matter how brave he fancied himself, courage always dissolved eventually when plunged into bitter cold and drawn-out suffering. Fear and the ice alike wore everything down to the bone. Soon he would be nothing but another broken prisoner of the League.
I descended into the lower catacombs of the fortress, where shadows heavy with dampness and silence ruled. It was there, far beneath Ra's al Ghul's palace, that the slaves and prisoners were kept. Numerous cells spread through the narrow stone hallways, unremarkable pits that held deserters, traitors, and the inevitably condemned. But at the far end of a forbidding corridor, isolated from the others, lay something worse than any prison cell: the chamber that all feared to speak of aloud. The torture hall.
Even the League's most coldhearted killers, hardened against anything, could not suppress the hidden shiver it sent crawling deep inside them.
The place carried an aura that gnawed into the marrow—its memory scarred the fearless and silenced the arrogant. That was where I had confined Alex Reath.
The nearer I drew to the right door, however, the sharper grew the sting of unease in my chest. Something felt wrong. Where was the overseer I had assigned to monitor him? I had handpicked the guard not only for his strength and skill but for exceptional vigilance, the kind of alertness that did not falter. He never would have simply left his post; the thought was absurd. And yet… the corridor stretched before me, empty.
My unease climbed into urgency. No longer willing to waste even an instant, I lunged forward and tore the cell door open.
Shock stopped me in place. Shackled, half-submerged in the freezing water intended for Alex, crashing with exhaustion, was not the prisoner—but my guard. His head drooped, his breaths shallow and ragged, his body trembling violently. Worse: his jaw was twisted grotesquely to one side, lips purple, skin pale and splintered by cold. Blood trickled down his chin in mocking rhythm with his coughs.
I crouched, seized his mask off, and pressed my hand to his chest. The diagnosis was immediate: three ribs broken, lung damage likely. Every inhalation rattled his chest as if knives carved his insides. He tried to speak, lips forming indistinct tremors, but the effort was wasted. No useful words, no clarity. A wreck.
Useless.
Without hesitation, I slid one hand behind his skull, another across his stiff chin. A sharp, precise twist, a clean sound like splintering wood, and his body slumped at once, head hanging lifeless. Mercy was not given, only necessity.
I rose to my feet, furious calculation snapping through me. Judging by the frostbite already clawing his limbs, the overseer had been in those shackles for no more than twenty minutes. That meant Alex had escaped not long before. But how? I took in the perimeter, scanning fervently for signs of toxins, unusual vapors—anything that might explain. Nothing.
Then only one conclusion: Alex himself had subdued my guard, and so quickly that there had not even been time to strike the alarm. My heart pounded. How could such a thing be possible? Had he been suppressing his true strength, hiding his capabilities beneath that mask of insolence? If so—why only reveal it now?
"Shiva," a voice pressed into my ear, carried by the communicator. Talia.
I clicked the receiver. "We have problems," I muttered, low but clipped.
"We do," she returned in her calm, steady cadence. "A bat has come to pay us a visit. And I assume his reasons are not friendly. He and his team began a massacre the moment they landed."
Her serenity barely concealed the chaos she must have been witnessing. My eyes narrowed. "Alex Reath escaped. Less than half an hour ago."
"I see…" Her tone shifted, the faint lilt of realization carried over the line. "Now I understand why Batman appeared here with such speed. Reath must have drawn him. Find the boy. He's surely trying to rendezvous with them, intending to flee."
"And you?"
"I've drawn the reserve forces to me. You'll have to deal with him alone."
"Understood," I answered, cutting the link.
I stood, staring upward to where the stairs curved into darkness. The anger broke inside me like fire let loose. How had I allowed this? Where in all my planning had the flaw been? Damn his audacity! I should have crushed his legs from the start, ground the bones so no thought of escape could taunt him. Rage drove new speed into me.
I exploded forward, racing. My feet hammered the steps of stone with relentless rhythm, devouring the three underground levels in a blur. But mid-ascent, instinct halted me. He hadn't gone further up. Something jarred inside that demanded I slow.
Movement on the landing confirmed it. Two of my assassins sprawled across the concrete, unconscious. He had been through here. Faster, I pushed past them, ignoring their failure, and quickened again.
Every corridor whispered of his wake. All along the chase, I found the fallen—the League's deadly warriors strewn unconscious like discarded cloth. Each turn, each pile of collapsed bodies, pressed into me one truth heavier than the last: Alex Reath dispatched my assassins with pitiless ease. I knew their skills intimately, I had cut such deadliness into their blood with my own hands. Yet he treated them as obstacles barely worthy of thought.
I pursued his trail upward still. Two more floors carried me to the storage sectors, and there, sight froze the breath in my lungs.
The steel doors—gone.
I strode in disbelief to the threshold, staring at emptiness. The armory, once heavy with swords, bows, spears, shuriken, blades, firearms… hollow. Every weapon stripped away.
I darted to the next chamber. More absence. Artifacts retrieved by Ra's al Ghul through centuries—treasures of epochs—vanished. The herbarium of extinct flora, array of venomous blooms… emptied.
The treasury next.
Madness. The caches of gold, the stashes of foreign currencies, the piles of gems, the coins and bars no civilization could calculate—all gone.
Vibranium, adamantium, rare ores? Vanished.
The League's precious library, the scrolls and preserved knowledge from eras devoured by time, the fragments of Alexandria itself—every volume, too. His theft was illness, total, consuming everything within reach.
How vast was his storage? Could it truly be bottomless?
My heartbeat slammed harder, fury and disbelief fighting for dominance. To strip treasures was one thing. But then it struck me as lightning: these were incidental only. He had not plundered for greed.
No. His steps aligned. His target was always singular.
The Lazarus Pit.
Fool! Of course. Why had I failed to see? From the beginning, every twitch of his intention had been aimed to reach the Pit, the League's beating heart, the Immortal's greatest gift.
Fear for the first time in years pierced me cruelly. Without another second wasted, I threw myself down the stairwell that lanced into the earth's core. Gravity fought me, steps cascading endlessly, but I leapt ten meters at a time in desperate descent.
Faster—yet not fast enough. Something in me knew already I was late.
The steps ended, stone flaming with strange heat rising from the depths. My stride carried me into the heart of the mountain. Before me, the entrance where the guardians stood sentinel for a century.
Except they stood no more.
Bodies lay strewn, lifeless forms of Ra's al Ghul's eternal keepers.
My pulse turned to thunder. I bent, checked the nearest. Not unconscious. Dead.
The impossible stretched before me.
Alex Reath was already at the Lazarus Pit.
And I—Lady Shiva, trained without equal—stood alone against the unthinkable.
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Thank you all for reading.
Now listen here, I have a deal, give me all your stones for today on the spider-man fic and I will give you 8 chapters of this fic this week instead of the usual 5.