Confrontation

In the middle of the Great Saharan Desert as the golden sand shined reflexively as the reddish sun set in the distance stood many figures in dark surrounding a lone man.

The man seemed unperturbed by the situation as he stood calmly observing all.

Observing him at the lead was a beautiful teal eyed black haired woman who unlike her appearance screamed 'Danger'.

The man kept looking at the woman straight into her eyes as she gazed back increasing the tension in the environment with each passing moment.

"Who are you?" said the woman finally breaking the silence.

"Shouldn't you introduce yourself first lady." the man countered.

"Don't think that you are safe just because you know how to fight to a high degree."

Hearing the woman the man was a little surprised but thinking of the woman standing in front of him he didn't bother much as he said "Well I could count people with one hand who would really pose a threat to me in martial arts."

The man, Marcus was quite confident on his ability of combat arts due to his two blessings of the War God and Unarmed Mastery and the only few he considered his equal would probably be Lady Shiva, Richard Dragon, Val Armorr and the likes.

"But being the gentleman let me introduce myself."

Taking an attention pose as he kept a hand behind his back and the other at his heart he bowed.

"My name is Marcus Dwight Astrea" he said as he took the hand of the woman and kissed on her knuckles "It's a pleasure to meet a beautiful lady like yourself."

Taking her hand back with a jerk she said plainly "Talia Al Ghul" not surprising Marcus as the amount of men she might have met over the past centuries.

"Now what are you doing here."

"Me?!" exclaimed Marcus "Oh well was trying my hand over some treasures but apparently some grave robbers got a head over." he lied with a straight face.

Marcus tried lying his way out but he forgot that the woman he was facing has been living for a few centuries and detecting as simple as a lie was a child's play to her not unless he had a divine blessing to counter that.

"You're lying, the slight dilation in your pupils and the slight raise in the heartbeat says otherwise." she said again this time in a much fiercer voice as she stared dead in his eyes.

Seeing his lie get caught even before convincing her Marcus sighed tiringly.

"Sigh, they double crossed me so I let them die." he said expressionlessly.

This caused Talia and the other assassins to be surprised slightly as to how uncaring he was towards them but didn't care much as it was something they related with.

"And before you ask about treasure there is nothing there, it's empty" he continued speaking the technical truth as the place was now barren and in his hands or the runes in his hand.

This caused Talia to frown as she detected no lie but she was slowly growing impatient and angry as she in rage ordered her men to aim for Marcus.

"Then you have no use to me" she said as she gestured four men to attack him while she and others walked inside to make sure.

Escorting Marcus as they pushed him to a certain distance they readied themselves to kill him as they knew that he was a trained man and could cause them some hard work being confident in themselves by underestmating Marcus.

'Good for me.'

And the result was expected as Marcus quickly dispatched all four within a minute as he left them there and himself walked towards the North, the nearest town.

With his swiftness it took Marcus only a few hours to reach a port town before midnight where he was able to get himself a ferry and get away from the League.

It was not the fact that he feared them, Marcus was sure he was strong enough to content easily with their strongest fighters but what held him back was the sheer size of their organization and other affiliates.

For example, Marcus if choose to try annihilate the League it would not take long for the Talos to be dispatched by the Owl Society or the other companies under Ra's Al Ghul especially when his empire was in its baby steps without much influence and integrity as a whole.

Thus Marcus decided to grit his teeth and wait for a later date to deal with them once and for all and possibly to have an entire assassin organization under him.

Those were his last thoughts before he decided to go to the bed in his cabin amidst the silent shaking of the ferry as she sailed across the sea in the dark of the night.