Teacher, Not Hero (femPercy Jackson X YJ)

Fifty-Six: Riptide

3rd P.O.V:

The dark haired girl fell off his sword easily, limp, and unmoving. Blood pooled around her prone form and her eyes had a glassy look to them as she started at nothing.

Wally screamed bloody murder was he was restrained,  kicking and yelling as his mentor, his savior, dropped to the ground with a dull thud.

Robin responded in a similar fashion, cursing out anyone near him and struggling against his restraints to try and reach his teacher.

Megan was crying amd Connor looked just about ready to kill everyone in the room.

Artemis looked like she has been the one to be stabbed.

And Kaldur?

Kaldur looked horrified. Broken in a way they had never seen him.

It made sense.

Percy had fallen.

It had happened so fast. They had been in the kitchen when men dropped into the cave and restrained them so fast they couldn't blink. Dressed in civies and guard practically on the floor, they were easy targets.

Percy came in at the sounds of struggling looking on edge. She had taken only a second to register the situation, ready to move at a moments notice when she heard movement behind her.

She has spun around to face whatever it was but just as she turned she ended up with a sword in her cut, stabbing her all the way through. She had been pushed back, hands holding the blade as Deathstroke drove it into a kill spot.

They couldn't see her face from where they sat. All they could do was watch as she slid off Deathstroke's sword, lifeless; blood pooling around her.

Deathstroke turned to them.

"Ah, the Young Justice Team. What a pleasant surprise." Slade said, faux enthusiasm in his voice as he gently swept across the room to them, flicking Percy's blood off of it as he did so.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" Connor screamed, raging against his restraints, nearly tearing out the wall.

"My my, struck a nerve have I?" Slade calmly replied, not at all surprised by the out burst.

"I didn't know she was so important to you. Pesky thing about being a contract killer, you never end up with all the information." Robin looked up.

"Then why did you murder her?" He seethed, the word murder spitting off his tongue like the worst kind of poison. Slade turned to him blandly.

"She was getting in the way. She was too powerful to be left alive, so I'm told, and it was a show of good faith."

"A show of good faith?" Artemis questioned, her voice rigid to keep from shaking. Slade tiled his masked head, as if he were smiling.

"I don't see how that is any concern of yours, Artemis." His patronizing tone chilled all of them. After all this time, all these missions, all this work, they were still just seen as children.

Slade let out a suffering sigh, but it was easy to pick up on the blatant joy behind it.

"Well. I suppose, I might as well kill you while I'm here. No sense not to. There is, after all, still a bounty on each of your heads. Granted, not as great as your mentors, but what can you expect from a kiddie meal." Slade swung his sword low, stalking up to them like a smooth predator.

"Hey!"

Slade turned and you could almost see his eyes widen comically at the sight before him. Gasps of joy came from the team as Percy stood. Drenched in blood, hand on her abdomen, and  breathing heavy, but standing.

"That's my word." She spat. Carefully, she reached into her hoodie pocket, pulling out the cheap, blue plastic pen they had seen so many times before. Kaldur let out a faint gasp.

She spit off to the side, a blob of blood cutting from between her teeth as she slowly lowered herself into a ready stance; the same one they had seen her use on that fuzzy monitor so long ago when she faced off against the monster of their worst nightmares.

As a unit, the entire team had the same collective though:

Holy shit, Slade is going to die.

____________________________________

It had been a simple mission.

Kill some girl their new partner didn't like as a show of good faith, get paid under the table, be home for dinner.

Apparently she had some kind of super powers, not that she looked like all that much. He had seen the footage from Bel Rev. So she could fight, so what. He could fight too. She had some kind of water powers, so the easiest solution was to limit her access to water.

Before he entered the mountain, he just cut off the water supply. A simple fix, really.

She was boring. Went down fast.

Too fast, now it seems.

She had surprised him. He didn't like being surprised.

Then again, not people were on their feet just moments after being run through. Perhaps she could offer him some excitement.

"You know," the girl began, "I was perfectly content with faking my death for you." He raised an eyebrow under his mask.

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah," she continued nonchalantly. "You know like, I'm dead, you killed me, you get paid, and, bonus points, you also get to walk out of here intact." She shrugged, twirling some ridiculous pen in her hand. Slade narrowed his eyes.

"You think you can kill me, little girl?" He felt the children tense behind him. Percy slowed. Her eyes turned hard and she looked ar him with more malice, more darkness, than any person he had ever met.

Suddenly, Slade Wilson felt very, very, afraid.

He didn't like it.

"But then you threatened them." The dark haired woman said to him. Her tone has lost a juvenility. Her shoulders squared and in her stance, Deathstroke saw no version of the playful teen he had first been talking to. He was beginning to understand why their new partner wanted her dead.

"You have one chance." She stated, voice blank. "One chance to leave here, unharmed. Tell them you killed me. Tell them no one else was in the cave. You do this and you get to walk away. One chance. I would take it." She finished coldly.

He had to admit, it was a good deal. He was tempted to take it. But Slade was a man of pride. He wouldn't take credit for a kill he didn't commit. And he had always known he was going to die fighting. At least fighting this woman would lead to an honorable, warriors death.

He readied his sword.

"I am prepared to face my death." The woman had a faint smile trace over her lips. She uncapped the ridiculous pen she had been fiddling with and from it grew a 3 foot long, bronze sword, almost glowing in the light and looking sharp enough to kill him from a scratch. She rose into a lethal position.

"Who said anything about killing you?"