Chapter 67: Echoes of Regret

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"Killing is an art, and I am a master"

- Thane Krios, (Mass Effect 2)

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<(Bruce Wayne POV)> 

"TAKE THIS" Ubu yelled as he threw another huge boulder toward me to crush me which I effortlessly dodged. He had become massively stronger than before but his intelligence on the other hand seemed to have decreased a LOT as well, resulting in him having to resort to more brute and savage forms of attack than actual martial combat which was a complete letdown to the warrior in me.

Also, no matter how big and strong he was now, it still didn't change the fact that I was faster and quicker than him with a level of strength no less magnificent than Ubu who was amped up by the venom super steroid.

"Don't MOVE." He yelled as he increased the rate at which he was throwing things at me but was still unsuccessful in hitting me even once.

This made him even angrier which further limited his intelligence making this joke of a fight far less entertaining and more disappointing for me than I initially thought it would be.

"Stop running away you coward and fight me. I have sacrificed my humanity but I have become something much greater." He yelled as he threw an assassin who was too close to him in an attempt to hit me but unfortunately for both him and the ninja, I was successful in effortlessly dodging the living projectile, resulting in the unlucky assassin getting splattered on one of the walls due to the sheer force he was thrown with.

"Now that I am finally the monster that I was always meant to be, I can not only defeat you but even serve the master with the effectiveness that I always lacked. I can finally fulfill my purpose." He roared with glee as his body further mutated and bulked up while he broke a huge pillar from the structure and threw it at me.

But this time, instead of dodging, I took a deep breath and simply punched the incoming piece of cement with a significant amount of my strength, instantly breaking it into pieces.

"Sacrificing your humanity and becoming a monster for just a little more power. Even if you are a monster for a noble purpose like protecting someone, it still doesn't change the fact that you are a monster nonetheless, a strong creature with a weak will. So, you are still weak Ubu. Infact, you are even weaker than before." I finally opened my mouth as I seriously spoke while looking him straight into his eyes.

"As for the reason I am not fighting you, it's because I don't fight weak-minded and weak-willed creatures like you. I looked forward to fighting the real Ubu with his amazing skills and experience. I looked forward to having a real battle with you but you chose the cowardly way and made yourself a disgusting monster, forgetting your own lessons of always being in control of one's body.

You disappointed me Ubu and I don't fight with disappointments. I can sense it. You are dying anyway because of the defective incomplete steroidal compound you took, your body rapidly burning your own chi and life force to keep you going. So why should I have anything to do with your death? Dying a disappointment in a cowardly death with a drug overdose, that's what you deserve for betraying my expectations and hope." I said as I simply dodged the next big projectile that came towards me.

 "No No No NO NONONONONONONONO. FIGHT ME. FIGHT ME... Please... let me have this fight. I need it... FIGHT ME." He cried out more like a berserking beast than a human as he rushed towards me with a burst of speed that was extremely surprising for someone his size and punched me with everything he had, hurtling me towards the opposite side of the hall.

"FIGHT ME." He screamed like a true maniacal monster as he again jumped toward where I had landed and began to punch me in rapid succession. Each of his punches was powerful enough to grind rocks to dust. I could dodge some of them even if they were in point-blank range but a major portion of his punches successfully landed on my face and upper body directly.

"FIGHT ME." He screamed again with a crazed yet desperate look on his face. Almost all signs of intelligence were already gone from his eyes making him look like a savage unintelligent beast fueled only by a drug-induced rage.

"No," I said calmly as I stopped both of his fists and held them tightly, not even letting him move the least as he struggled desperately to hit me.

"GROOOWL" He roared mindlessly as he headbutted me but it wasn't anything I could not endure. Despite being a huge hulking monster, his monstrous physical strength still wasn't above the limits of my own. 

The monster version of Ubu continued to struggle in a desperate attempt to hit me and maybe even subconsciously tried to get a raise out of me to force me to fight back but I didn't. I was determined not to.

It was stupid but it was simply my personal petty revenge and most of all, it was a way for me to not feel guilty for killing one of the few people I liked here. For me, even if it was for the briefest of moments, Ubu had become a friend, a friend I knew as a fact would betray me one day and not hesitate for a single moment in sacrificing my life for his master but he was still a friend nonetheless.

And since, I had no real danger from Ubu, at least not this version of Ubu who didn't even have the mental capability to use chi or any mystical martial arts anymore, I didn't have any reason to kill him and give him the satisfaction of dying in a glorious battle like a real warrior. No, he chose to be a monster and favored blind strength instead of skill, so there was no way he would get to die like a human warrior.

I began to manipulate my own chi and send it into his body, trying to cleanse the drug from his system. I still wasn't a master at this but due to the absence of any real obstruction inside his body, I was still succeeding.

Gradually after a few minutes of struggling Ubu slowly became more and more docile as strength seemed to rapidly escape from his muscles and his physique began to release some mild warm steam while becoming smaller and smaller, quickly losing his monstrous size. It looked like the effects of the harmful steroid were finally ending.

But unfortunately, Ubu didn't at all look like he was ever going to get his normal mental capabilities back. He had stopped moving at all and just stared forward with a blank look. He had made his choice and as a result, the untested early version of venom had forever changed him into a monster, both body and mind. He was no longer a human and he never would be.

"I might not have fought you to give you the satisfaction of dying in a glorious battle but I can at least give you mercy and grant you a peaceful death." I picked up a small kunai from the ground and slowly drove it straight through his neck, slitting half of his entire throat and ending whatever life was left in him.

I would have liked to use an All-blade on him to give him a more... pure death but unfortunately, the pair of blades can only be used on either truly evil threats or those of supernatural origin and I was sure Ubu wasn't either one. He was definitely a bad person but he wasn't truly evil. He was just a stupid blind loyal follower of someone who was.

As the last breath left from the now six-feet figure, I noticed something peculiar. There was a trace of a few drops of tears near his blank eyes like he wanted to cry but wasn't able to. It didn't look like tears of anger or sorrow but more like tears of regret.

"A monster never cries, huh?" I mumbled to myself in a low voice, releasing a deep heavy sigh as I caught a glimpse of Talia and the now somewhat recovered Nyssa fighting with about a few dozen assassins on their own outside the monastery, even looking like they were winning. Some assassins even seemed to have joined their team and were fighting the others on behalf of the two sisters. 

But I knew that they wouldn't be able to win. More and more assassins would keep coming here from the town below as they get the news of our little 'rebellion'. In the next couple of hours, even the ones who had been sent on a mission would come back and once those experienced ones returned, our chances of winning would be next to moot.

So, I need to find and get rid of Ra's Al Ghul as soon as possible, preferably within the next hour before those experienced assassins realize what was happening and come back. As for the ones who were already on their way to reach here from the town below, well... 

"Cortana, are they here?" I asked as I rubbed a slight bruise on my face, a result of the monster Ubu's repeated punches. The bruise had almost healed fully and was on the verge of disappearing completely, but it reminded me that I was still human and could feel pain and sorrow, unlike monsters. 

"Eta T minus 15 minutes. There was a snowstorm, so they got delayed. Also, additional hostile armed forces were detected. Permission to commence the project, 'Firefly'?" Cortana's voice chimed in from my bracelet. She almost sounded a little sad, maybe she felt pity for Ubu... or perhaps she felt it for me instead.

"Do it. You have full authority to use them as you like. Keeping the two sisters alive is your primary objective. Just try not to destroy all of them. Constructing even a single prototype Hive made more than a 10-million-dollar dent in my pockets." I answered as I went towards the direction Ra's fled earlier.

"No promises," Cortana responded.

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<(Omniscient POV)>

A strange matte black cylinder kept on a desk in Bruce's room in the hidden town of Nanda Parbat suddenly began to make a beeping sound like it was being activated somehow. 

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After a few beeps, the surface of the cylinder began to turn into scores of small insectoids looking exactly like glowing fireflies as they began to fly away on their own with a light wheezing sound through a slightly opened window towards the direction of the ongoing battle.

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They currently had only two objectives in their program, observe and eliminate.

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