*Krios "James," League Of Shadows Temple, Himalayas
In the great hall that served as the de facto cafeteria for the League of Shadows, Krios sat enjoying a bowl of porridge with a torn chunk of bread to the side. He ate with a certain level of gusto, and could not keep the smile off his face.
For the other acolytes sitting around, the appearance of the mysterious new and special acolyte of their master was always unnerving due to his powers. But his level of happiness clear on display added to the discomfort the others felt.
'Why is he in such a good mood?'
These were the thoughts of many as Krios continued eating his meal, either oblivious to their thoughts or not caring.
As he ate another spoonful of porridge he remembered his first few weeks hating this meal but after over a year and a half he finally grew to appreciate it. Possibly because he adjusted, but also because all the hours of training and studying made anything taste like mana from heaven.
But beyond enjoying a well deserve dinner, he was excited for tonight. After weeks if not months of work he felt he would finally make his biggest leap yet with his powers. For a few weeks he had been able to move the clump of the mountain tip only about a foot with it often sliding back down to its original place.
But unlike before when he lost control and caused a minor earthquake, the fact he could move it at all was enough of an encouragement for him to push forward. And now just a few days ago he felt a subtle but significant change. Like a muscle that had been exercised sufficiently, his telekinesis could feel around the entire mountain tip and for the first time ever, tonight he felt like he could actually achieve his goal!
Of course someone had to come and ruin his good mood...
"Greetings, Krios."
The distinct oily voice from Bei Liu spoke in Chinese, an obvious attempt at annoying Krios as languages were never his greatest strength and it did take him a long time to become proficient in.
Krios ignored Bei Liu and made an exaggerated gesture of continuing to eat his meal.
There came a snort as the man sat right beside Krios. His 'friends' who were usually with him sat a few chairs further down on the table watching the two closely.
"What has made you so happy?" Bei Liu asked annoyed.
Krios stopped eating for a moment and gave him an appraising look.
Perhaps Bei Liu could be a metaphor for his life as no matter what he did, people would never leave him alone.
Mind you, while Bei Liu and his deceased siblings did antagonize him first, Krios had escalated well beyond what was probably fair. Does that make him a hypocrite? It was a question he put far in his mind as he knew he would not like the answer.
Bei Liu took his gaze as mocking and opened his mouth in anger but was interrupted by a loud noise.
BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM
The chamber shook and small bits of stone and dust fell from the ceiling. All the acolytes stood up prepared though confusion was evident. It was only with the sound of a specific gong that they knew what was happening.
They were under attack.
Immediately everyone began running to the various positions and responsibilities they had been assigned, even Bei Liu with a narrowed gaze got up and went to report to his position. The League of Shadows primary defense was secrecy and remoteness. The fact that someone was willing to expend so much effort to actually attack such a remote part and well defended region in the world meant a certain level of seriousness.
Krios got up and began running to the central gardens where he knew al Ghul would be. Running through the corridors he could feel the mountain shake and distinct booms of explosives. Reaching the entrance to the gardens another explosion sounded in the distance with various cries of assassins, followed by the clattering of machine guns.
He decided to ignore that while he made his way to the center of the garden where al Ghul sat listening to a few of his lieutenants.
"Rockets, and heavy automatics..."
"More than a thousand with some tanks and helicopter support..."
"We are worried about potential air strikes..."
"Contacts in Beijing confirm officers of the Tibet garrisons are performing exercises in the area..."
Ra's al Ghul held a hand to stop the chatter.
"So Beijing is claiming the officers are performing training exercises and not that they have been bribed?" Al Ghul asked.
One of his men nodded which caused a grimace to come his face.
"Then that means whoever is attacking has also bribed our officials in Beijing... must of cost a fortune."
Krios respectfully stood to the side, all the men and women around the Demon's Head stood silently waiting for what he would decide. The increasing frequency and growing sounds of gunfire was growing as time passed.
Finally, al Ghul spoke, "Michaelson, I want you to take Talia and all non combatants through the escape routes and head to the island."
Michaelson, a man of some northern European and Russian descent hesitated but then gave a confirmation before leaving to complete his task.
A funny thought came to Krios' mind as he considered in the year and a half he had stayed here he had never really seen any 'civilians' or this Talia, Ra's al Ghul mentioned. Perhaps he should of gotten out more and explored.
"Ngozi," al Ghul said to the African skinned woman to his left, "Begin purging all books, databases and anything that ties us to this place."
As the woman left al Ghul looked to the last of the lieutenants, "The rest of you will engage the enemy as we always do. Make them bleed for every foot of ground they take!"
The cheers from the assassins may of sounded enthusiastic, but Krios knew it was a forlorn conclusion that most would be killed in the next few hours.
Everyone soon left leaving Krios with the Demons Head in the garden watching the small water feature fill the pond.
"What would you have me do?" Krios asked quietly.
Al Ghul sighed, "I would prefer for you to flee to one of our other bases, perhaps even Infinity Island. We could continue your training and make you a force that no one could withstand."
"But I suspect fate has decided for now that our time is at and end. Is it not?" he said with a knowing gaze to Krios.
With gratitude apparent in his voice Krios said, "I will always appreciate what you have done, the training, knowledge, even the stories of my parents."
But then his voice became more serious as he stared deeply into Ra's al Ghul eyes.
"But I think we both know that you and Slade would never have done all this just because you liked my parents or as you put it, 'sensed my potential.' You have kept information away from me with the context I was not ready but now I am sure its because it was what limited control you could have over me."
Ra's al Ghul began to smile, "I worried you were not so naïve, I am happy to have the worry confirmed."
Krios felt annoyed and allowed it to show on his face, "And am I right to assume you won't tell me now?"
The immortal continued smiling causing Krios to scowl. He had hoped that with their time coming to the end he could finally get answers. But it seemed he would still have to wait.
With the chaos of the fort being attacked he was half tempted to force al Ghul to talk but he dismissed such thoughts for two reasons.
The first was that he felt indebted to the man and for now at least they were allies. With how things were going in his life he did not want to poison the relationship with one of the most dangerous living assassin in the world.
The second was the uncertainty if such an action would succeed. Despite his impressive growth he was uncertain if he could beat the Demon's Head. After all, the immortal knew most of Krios' combat abilities, he had taught him a lot after all. But Krios had yet to learn all that the immortal could do, and that unknown made him nervous. Unlike Slade, Ra's al Ghul never sparred with Krios, but he knew that despite the looks the man could fight Slade and Batman to a standstill. And if rumors were true, he had a few mystical tricks up his sleeves to counter even metas.
'Much better to pressure Slade to talk rather then an unknown fighter.' He thought.
Boom Boom Boom
More explosions sounded in the distance causing both men to look in that direction.
Ra's al Ghul spoke in a conversational tone, "I will be leaving soon, but I wish to grab a few documents and artifacts before leaving. I wonder if as a favor you could go and distract the attackers for a little while?"
Krios laughed at that, and pondered.
Finally he came to a decision, he wanted to see how far he had come in a real combat situation anyway.
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*Barbara Gordon (Batgirl), Himalaya Mountain Range
It had taken Constantine longer then expected but he eventually was able to build a rudimentary magical relay that was able to point roughly to the epicenter.
Mind you, that epicenter was a section of the Himalayas over a 100 miles wide. The warlock had been beyond annoyed when while powering the relay it experienced a massive backlash that exploded his lab.
He had known something was blocking searching spells but had proudly thought he found a way around it. He had not.
Still while 100 miles was a lot of ground to cover, the Team felt confident as they flew low to the ground in the bioship, stealth mode enabled. The controversy behind the Leagues creation of a covert team that performed missions outside the scope of the U.N. Charter was still under debate. To make matters worse, the region they were exploring was Tibet, and China had made sure to enforce a no League activity zone.
Batman had spent an entire half hour emphasizing the importance of the covert part of their mission to the point Robin had stood up and left.
The tension between Bruce and Dick had reached far past boiling points. Barbara had stayed far from the arguments that had erupted between the two.
To be fair she saw both points of view.
Dick was chafing under not being granted leadership positions within the team and the League. It didn't help that working under Batman was always a difficult endeavor. Withholding information, holding certain trainings back, and prevented them from participating in missions despite their qualifications or opinions. And perhaps that was the biggest thing, Bruce for all his brilliance did not trust them to handle the job, and Dick was fed up with it.
From Bruce's point of view, Dick was simply not ready for the next stage of his vigilante career. He wanted him to be more then ready, to be nearly perfect in all aspects before handing more responsibilities. Bruce knew more then just about anyone the dangers of the job as well as the sacrifices that would need to be made. She remembered Wonder Woman once criticizing Batman that he was raising another like himself, to which he responded what he was doing was preventing that.
It frustrated her that both men refuse to see that they both were right. Mind you, Bruce usually maintained his cool during the arguing while Dick would rant and yell like you would expect from a teenage boy. It somewhat lend credence to the fact he was not ready. Add to the fact he was taking his irritation out on the Team and especially Barbara, it made her less sympathetic by the day for his troubles with their mentor.
M'gann spoke, breaking Batgirl out of her thoughts, "Guys! You are going to want to see this!"
She got up from her seat and joined the crowd of Connor, Kaldur, Robin, Wally, Artemis and Zatanna at the front of the ship. Looking out the main port they saw a large scale military operation that appeared to be attacking a mountain side.
Helicopters flew overhead with some turning on spotlights to illuminate the darkening mountain side. While dusk was beginning to set it was still light enough to see the mass of troops with their equipment scurrying around.
A mixture of tanks and artillery fired their rounds into the mountain side from the rear of this force while troops made their way to the front of the mountain face.
"How many are there?!?" Artemis whispered.
Kaldur with a concern look said, "A few thousand, Robin, Batgirl, do you guys recognize who these guys are?"
Robin had already pulled out a data pad from his gear and had punch some information in before responding.
"This appears to be the Chinese army, I haven't been able to get much information why they are here except that they are performing military exercises."
Giving a glance to Kaldur he said, "But this is no military exercise."
Barbara tapping a few of the controls in the bioship sharpened and zoomed in on a small corner in the rear of the forces where a command tent was set up. Zooming in she was able to confirm a strange sight that only became stranger as they look.
At the command tent was several officers wearing similar fatigues to the soldiers. But amongst the group was a handful of men in pure black fatigues and what appeared to be fully enclosed body armor that bulged their frame. The helmets they wore gave a gas mask and skull look, something she had never seen any military use.
Robin came to her side to look closer at what she had pulled up.
His eyes narrowed, "Those are not known Chinese military operatives. You think a covert group?"
"That or a secondary party," Barbara said, "The fact that the mystical, cosmic energy erupted somewhere around here and now an army is attacking a random mountain side is too much of a coincidence."
Boom Boom Boom
Another artillery strike hit a portion of the mountain except this time the ground instead of sliding down collapsed underneath. Ground peeled away to reveal stonework and a gaping tunnel leading into the mountain. At that sight the artillery held its fire as troops began swarming the hole, the flash of gunfire illuminated the tunnel as it appeared the soldiers were fighting something.
"Guys," Wally said with trepidation, "What the hell do we do now?!?"
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*Felix, League Of Shadows Temple, Himalayas
The command tent of the Chinese brigade the Order had both bribed and tricked into attacking the League of Shadows temple was rather spartan. Several foldable desks with chairs were filled with operators directing the militaries efforts while a main table held multiple digital maps and satellite feeds showing the area from a birds eye view for the commanding officers.
Off to the side was a small table of food, drinks and even to Felix's bemusement a Italian coffee maker which he assumed was not standard practice for the Chinese army.
Sitting in a chair drinking some decent coffee he watched as the men worked to break through into the temple. The front entrance had been breached and troops had already encountered several assassins. As for how much longer it would take to breach the core interior was up for debate, but based on the success so far he estimated not much longer.
On his left stood the commando in charge of the squad The Order had sent to ensure the capture of Krios. Standing in rigid attention the man was tall and broad enough to be intimidating to most, the skull helmet he wore added to the effect.
"We should deploy soon," he said in German.
Felix shook his head, "Not yet commander, let the Chinese take the brunt of the force. Your sturmtruppen cost significant resources, the dead Chinese nothing."
The Commando nodded before returning to his straight back attention.
Felix prepared to take another sip of his coffee but another uncontrolled spasm caused him to spill some on the floor and his pants.
Even after all this time he had not and based on now would never fully recover from the Commandant's punishment. No matter how many treatments and energy drains he performed the scars whether mental or physical remained.
Taking a handkerchief from his breast pocket he began cleaning the spots of spilled coffee on his pant leg.
While doing that a flurry of activity began to take place in the command tent. Men started running back and forth on computer pads and inside and outside. Something was happening and based on the hurry it was causing some panic.
Seeing this, Felix stood up and walked to the Brigadier General's side who was barking orders to his men.
"General, is there a problem?"
The older Chinese man gave Felix a cold look. It had not been his idea or choice to assist the Order with this particular mission. But bribing the regional governor and a few officials in Beijing helped insure his forced participation.
In slow but fluent English the general responded, "My troops have punched through to the main halls of this hidden fort. Casualties have been heavy with these assassins fighting a guerilla style combat."
Felix gave a fake sympathetic look, "I am sorry to hear that general, a shame to lose such... admirable men."
"It is," the general replied curtly, obviously knowing the lack of any true sympathy from Felix.
The general continued, "But just now I am getting reports of the assassins deploying a enhanced individual against our forces."
As if to confirm such a statement from the mouth of the underground fort came a blur. One of the smaller personnel carrier vehicle that could fit in the narrow tunnels was sent flying out. The armored vehicle flew till it hit a standing artillery piece causing all the men to scramble. In the tunnel a few men were crushed with many being luck to duck or dive down to avoid the thrown several ton vehicle.
Watching this, Felix eyes narrowed. Krios had gotten significantly stronger in his strength and distance ability. Perhaps they needed to move things along quicker.
"Commander," Felix motioned for the sturmtruppen to come closer to him.
"Prepare your troops, it appears our quarry has revealed himself."