It took half a minute for the shutter to rise into the ceiling, revealing an already lit, large room. A battle raged inside. Nearly twenty figures dressed in black clothes were fighting each other with swords. The ringing clash of metal spread like music throughout the room, echoed by the rustle of black clothes and the sound of slicing flesh, and a second later, the roar of gunshots joined in.
Dozens of barrels spat out hundreds of rubber balls. They bit into each of the fighters with painful impacts, knocking them to the floor and forcing them to break into painful groans. The roar of gunfire died down as quickly as it had appeared; Deathstroke entered the room and nodded, approving of his plan. His soldiers followed him, securing the perimeter.
A second later, a powerful EMP charge swept across the mountain peak, instantly burning out all the electronics both at the base and the little electronic gear present in the attackers' suits. The soldiers in yellow armor lost their unified communication, many helmet functions—including aiming assistance—magnetic weapon grips on their gloves, and similar grips on their belts, causing dropped items to clatter against the wooden floor.
A lull ensued. The destruction of the earpieces was accompanied by loud hissing and other audio garbage, essentially deafening and concussing all 50 soldiers. Some fell to the floor, some grabbed their helmets in an attempt to remove them, but the majority simply froze, enduring the concussion and waiting for everything to return to normal.
"Tch," Deathstroke shook his head. The mercenary recovered almost immediately thanks to his weak healing factor.
Suddenly, several hidden alcoves in the walls of the room opened, revealing 5 figures in black clothes. Shuriken flew from their hands, unerringly hitting the firearms of the yellow soldiers. Only Deathstroke was able to react. His accelerated consciousness immediately assessed the unusually thick appearance of the shuriken, and following his caution, the mercenary drew a katana from his back and deflected the shuriken aimed at him. Validating his observation, a small explosion occurred upon contact between the shuriken and the katana, followed by 29 more just like it.
Just a couple of seconds, and none of the attackers except Deathstroke had a working firearm left.
"This didn't happen before," the mercenary managed to marvel, but did not allow himself to linger, realizing that the target might prepare something else otherwise.
The mercenary threw away the mangled katana, drew a second one from his back, took a pistol in his hands, and headed in a direction known only to him, until one of the four doors slid aside, revealing Ra's al Ghul himself with fourteen of his fighters behind him.
"So this is how you answer my decision, Slade? Bringing mercenaries from H.I.V.E. into the temple of the League?" Ra's al Ghul asked in a calm voice.
The mercenary was not deceived by the outward calmness. In the old man's eyes, he saw sparks of burning anger and irritation. He had only seen him this angry once before.
"You are too attached to your family, Ra's. The Head of the League of Shadows must be stripped of all attachments and weaknesses. You taught me this yourself when you were preparing me to be your successor." The mercenary tried to make his voice calm, not allowing the anger boiling in his chest to break through.
He had been groomed for a decade to head the League of Shadows. A great future was prophesied for him until 11 years ago, when Ra's al Ghul changed his decision in favor of his grandson. Ten years of his life, his efforts, his blood and sweat were flushed down the drain and trampled like dirt. They didn't consult him; they just threw him aside like a used condom.
"So you think I chose Damian as my heir because he is my grandson?" Ra's al Ghul raised an eyebrow. "You are smarter than that."
"The reason doesn't matter now. I came for the League of Shadows."
"So you just got offended that your expectations weren't met?" completely unexpectedly for Deathstroke, a child's voice rang out right in front of him.
Lowering his gaze, the mercenary saw a small, twelve-year-old boy dressed in the League of Shadows uniform. The boy stood before him with his arms crossed over his chest, relaxed, as if madness and bloodshed were not happening around him. Incredible self-confidence.
But what was more important was that Deathstroke had not noticed him until he spoke. He literally feels everything within a radius of 5 to 10 meters around him with his skin! A fly flying by was perceptible, the breath of a person standing a few meters away was felt, a bullet flying past was tangible and visible, but the boy had been invisible to him, as if he had appeared before him in a fraction of a second.
His single blue eye scanned the anomaly from head to toe, and noticed no cloaking devices or anything of the sort on him. This made Deathstroke tense up.
"So you are Damian, brave for your age, brat," Deathstroke said, lowering his tone of voice.
"Do you get pleasure from calling little boys names?" the child raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're one of those."
Damian abruptly stepped two paces to the side.
"I won't let you take me alive, just so you know, you cursed pedophile."
The mercenary's eyebrow twitched nervously with extreme irritation. A growl of anger escaped his mouth, and veins bulged on his forehead, hidden beneath the mask.
The hand holding the naked blade swept toward the small figure, blurring into a smudge indistinguishable to the human eye, but it pierced only air. The boy leaned his body back, letting the sharp iron pass over him.
The mercenary's eyebrow rose in surprise. He was moving at the limit of human capabilities; a twelve-year-old boy should have died.
Ra's al Ghul immediately drew two curved sabers and rushed into the attack, raining down a hail of fast, precise, deadly strikes upon his former student. The physical characteristics of the six-hundred-year-old man were at the peak of human capabilities thanks to constant bathing in the Lazarus Pit. He was almost on equal terms with his opponent, trailing only slightly in raw physical strength.
Deathstroke parried every strike, despite holding a katana in one hand and a pistol in the other.
The two masters of fencing were not fighting, they were dancing. Their feet barely left the ground, each step gliding across the smooth wooden floor, the blades blurring into unrecognizable spots. Periodically, gunshots were heard.
From the corner of his eye, Deathstroke caught sight of two of his fighters attacking the small boy. The figures encased in modern armor swung their swords, but every swing was softly parried by the short tanto in the child's hands.
But then the unexpected happened. The boy's figure broke the distance from the attackers in a single leap and tossed his tanto into the air, freeing his hands. His fingers rapidly formed several mudras from the Sino-Japanese school of martial arts, and froze in a gesture of concentration right in front of his lips.
The boy froze in that position for a moment, and then spat two small Fireballs from his mouth. The projectiles the size of a baseball flew at the speed of that very ball, quickly crashing into the two fighters and illuminating the room with a flash of bright light. This was followed by the hum of flaring flames, which pulled along the screams of agony of the burning people.
After that, a small hand caught the falling tanto.
The picture momentarily knocked the mercenary off his rhythm; he did not have time to block a combination of three strikes, from which a bloody cut appeared at the base of his neck, protected only by a few layers of Kevlar.
At the same moment, Damian jumped up to Deathstroke. He kept to the right side, where the mercenary had no eye, and with a quick lunge poked into the belt area. But even without looking at the child, the mercenary felt him with his skin. A shot from a pistol forced the boy to defend himself, to beat off the bullet with his tanto, and a reflex swing of the blade forced him to break the distance.
Slightly to the side of the battle of titans, the remaining fighters of the two organizations clashed in a battle. Ninjas dressed in black clothes confronted fighters dressed in yellow armor. From the first glance it was visible that the ninjas of the League of Shadows were a head if not two superior to their opponents in skill, and did not yield a drop in strength. But the attackers had modern armor. Too heavy and constraining. It deprived them of dexterity and speed, in return forcing the Shadows to aim at vulnerable zones. The confrontation of mastery and new technologies.
There were fewer League fighters than their opponents. Even if 23 of the 29 figures who broke into the base remained combat-ready after the EMP charge worked, this was more than the 14 League fighters.
The room was filled with the ringing of metal clashing. The nimble ninjas parried attacks, constantly moved, creating chaos, and even though they acted separately, they worked as a single practiced mechanism. But there were few of them, and the enemy was excellently protected.
Exploding shurikens did not show any effect; the charge inside them was too weak to overcome the layers of Kevlar and ceramic armor plates, and the League of Shadows simply did not have time to prepare anything more.
The Shadows barely held back the onslaught, and after some time completely focused on distracting attention. It was clear that gradually the fighters in yellow armor would crush them.
Damian drew part of the attention to himself. The boy was eager to help his grandfather, to impose a fight on Deathstroke, and understanding this, the H.I.V.E. fighters did not let the youth go. For this they bore the consequences.
The twelve-year-old child, despite the chakra flowing in him, was only slightly weaker than the trained fighters in raw physical strength, but he was a head superior to them in speed, and three heads superior in the mastery of working with a blade.
A downward strike of an adult was softly parried to the side with a movement, and until two hands returned the sword to its original position, the twelve-year-old child with one step rubbed up against the fighter's side (considering Damian's height it was a damn convenient place for the kid), from where with a swift poke he plunged the tanto under his ribs, exactly under the armor plate covering the upper part of the ribs.
Immediately the small figure took another step, going behind the fighter's back, tilted his torso to the side, easily dodging the sword of the second fighter, and with a third step was at his side. Again a poke under the ribs, and another fighter fell to the wooden floor. Still alive, but bleeding profusely.
Noticing two more fighters running to him, Damian quickly, spending a little more than a second, folded several hand seals, stopping at a prayer gesture in front of his chest, and spat four ice needles from his mouth. Saturated with chakra, they were not inferior in strength to iron, albeit for short seconds. They flew a little slower than a bullet. They were as sharp as a molecularly sharpened knife.
One needle shattered against a ceramic armor plate, while the rest, piercing Kevlar, plunged into the neck where they immediately dissolved into water. The attackers grabbed their throats, trying to stop the blood. The pain piercing their brain forced them to remember the fear of death, which in turn forced them to forget about everything except their own life. Had they remained more cold-blooded, they would have noticed that important arteries were not hit and a simple bandage to stop the blood would save them; the damage was too small.
A couple of seconds later, using the Body Flicker Technique, Damian ended up behind two H.I.V.E. fighters. It took a second to fold several hand seals, after which he touched their backs and the transformed chakra issued a charge. Immediately the crackle of electricity sounded, bright blue discharges danced on the yellow armor, and the figures shook in convulsions. After another second the electricity disappeared and they collapsed to the floor unconscious, and one heart completely could not withstand the electricity that passed through it and stopped.
Deathstroke noticed the actions of the small figure and cursed at the incomplete information provided by the traitors. They did not say that Ra's al Ghul's grandson possessed a meta-gene. The whole worked out plan went to hell. If a couple of seconds ago the mercenary was sure that his fighters would come out winners, now he was sure of the opposite; they would be defeated, by one little boy spitting fire and lightning.
All this time Deathstroke and Ra's al Ghul continued their duel. The swords in their hands blurred from speed, the figures constantly moved, circled around each other, as if dancing a waltz. A deadly waltz. Several cuts bled on the body of the head of the League of Shadows, bruises from rubber bullets were visible (Deathstroke did not have time to change the magazine), on the Kevlar joints of Deathstroke's armor, cuts from the molecularly sharpened sabers of his opponent were visible. However, it was noticeable that Ra's al Ghul began to give up.
Plunging the tanto under the ribs of the next fighter in yellow armor, Damian noticed his grandfather's difficulties. The brain, accelerated by adrenaline and chakra, quickly compared the remaining fighters of both sides, and the boy rushed to help his grandfather.