The night was quiet. The children were asleep. The staff moved through the halls, making sure everything was in order.
A crimson portal twisted into existence outside the orphanage. The air crackled. The ground trembled.
And then...
They came.
Lady Shiva and her assassins stepped through the portal. Their eyes burned with unnatural hunger, their faces twisted with pure bloodlust.
Mephisto had done something to them.
They were killers before, but now?
Now, they were monsters in human skin.
Shiva's gaze was cold and focused as always. She did not question the rage in her veins. The urge to destroy, to kill, to rip apart everything in her path felt… natural.
And so, she did not hold back.
With a flick of her wrist, she gave the order.
The League of Shadows attacked.
..
Alarms blared.
Security drones activated, rising from hidden panels in the walls. Their weapons locked onto the invaders, opening fire.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Energy blasts lit up the night. Assassins dodged, weaved, and struck brutally. Some were hit, their bodies thrown back, but more kept coming.
One leaped onto a drone, driving a blade into its core. SPARKS FLEW. Another flipped over a security turret, slicing it in half before it could fire.
There were too many.
The defenses held for a moment... just a moment.
Then the assassins breached the walls.
Children screamed. Staff members shouted, scrambling to protect them.
Then...
BOOM!
A door slammed open. Hela stood there. Her breath was heavy. Her heart pounded. She was mortal now. No divine power. No kingdom. Just a woman.
A woman standing between an army of killers and the innocent lives behind her.
She touched her bracelet.
A nanite suit that Bruce gave her a few months ago.
She had mocked it when he gave it to her. "I am the Goddess of Death," she had said. "I do not need mortal armor."
But now?
Now, she put it on without hesitation.
The nanites rushed out of the bracelet, forming the armor. It was a shade of dark green and black. The HUD flickered to life, scanning the battlefield. Targeting systems locked onto approaching assassins.
A voice in her earpiece.
"Took you long enough," Bruce's voice. A recording. A message he had left for her. "If you're hearing this, then I was right. You do need it."
Hela exhaled sharply. No time to think. No time to doubt.
The Goddess of Death was no longer fighting to take lives.
This time...
She was fighting to save them.
However, Odin's words echoed in her mind. He warned her not to take another life because if she killed someone, then she'd never regain her power again. But... Her eyes went toward the scared kids. She felt rage. Everything was perfect, yet these bastards dared to spoil her peace and even made her friends scared.
Hela didn't care about regaining her power.
She charged.
The first assassin lunged.
Hela dodged, twisting just in time. Her instincts, honed over centuries, had not faded. Her elbow struck the assassin's throat. He dropped his blade and staggered back while gasping for air...
She grabbed his wrist, twisted... SNAP!
Another came at her.
Hela ducked, grabbed a fallen blade, and slashed across his leg. The assassin fell with a scream.
Then, more came.
Too many.
Hela fought.
Her fists blurred, and her kicks struck like iron. She used every lesson she had ever learned, every trick, every technique. She had no godly strength but she had skill.
And she had something else.
She had something to protect.
She fought for the children.
For the people behind her.
For something greater than herself.
But Lady Shiva and Cassandra Cain were watching. They were waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Hela panted, sweat dripping down her face.
She had taken down six. Ten. Fifteen.
But there were more.
Too many.
The assassins kept coming. Their attacks were perfect, and so were their movements. Hela could tell that they were pros. They weren't just throwing their lives away. They were pushing her, testing her, forcing her to react.
And she realized something.
They're only attacking her.
Not the children. Not the staff.
Only her.
Hela's mind worked fast. If they wanted her, why fight in here? The orphanage was too tight for her suit's more destructive weapons. 'They're boxing me in.'
If she stayed inside, she'd have to hold back to avoid hurting the kids and staff. If she went outside…
Her eyes went to Lady Shiva and Cassandra, near the main entrance.
They're waiting.
Waiting for her to make the mistake.
Waiting for her to step outside—where she would be free to unleash her full arsenal. And the moment she did?
They'd take hostages.
They'd force her to surrender.
Clever.
But she wasn't an amateur.
Her HUD flickered, displaying enemy positions. She made her choice.
She activated the plasma blades.
SHRRRRRRRK!
Twin, crackling red-hot energy blades extended from her forearms, humming with lethal intensity. The suit adapted instantly, the nanites reinforcing her body for close combat. She activated the blast doors.
The heavy BOOM of the blast doors locking echoed through the halls.
Hela's breathing was steady. Controlled.
The children were safe now. The reinforced doors to their rooms were shut closed. There's no way to enter there.
The staff, the people she swore to protect, they wouldn't have to see what was about to happen.
She turned back.
The assassins hesitated for a brief second as they realized what had just happened. No more leverage. No more hostages.
And now, they were trapped with her.
Hela exhaled slowly. "You shouldn't have come here."
Then she moved.
Faster than they could react.
SHRRRRRRRK!
Her plasma blades sang through the air.
A head flew. A body crumpled. A scream died mid-sentence.
The first assassin never saw it coming.
The second barely had time to raise his sword before she sliced through his wrist, severing it clean before ramming her blade into his throat. His gurgled cry was muffled by the hiss of burning flesh.
The third tried to flip backward, tried to get distance...
Hela was already there.
She grabbed his leg mid-air and yanked him back down, slamming him into the cold floor so hard his spine snapped like dry wood.
The fourth lunged with a dagger, aiming for her ribs.
Hela twisted, sidestepped, caught his wrist, and drove her other plasma blade through his gut. She ripped it upward, bisecting him from the waist.
Blood sprayed against the walls.
The air smelled of burning flesh, of charred bone.
She did not care. Heck, she was enjoying this. The blood, the sound of bones breaking, the blade slicing through flesh... She felt so alive after so long. Her old instincts were coming back and well... It wasn't a good news for the assassins.
Another came. Then another.
The next ten seconds were a blur of red and fire.
One tried to run...
Hela threw her blade. It spun through the air, embedded itself into his spine, and he collapsed, twitching, dead before he hit the floor.
Another swung an axe...
Hela caught his wrist, crushed it with a single squeeze, then stabbed him under the chin. The blade erupted from the top of his skull.
The last few screamed as they rushed her. Desperation. Fear.
They knew.
They knew they had made a mistake.
SHRRRRK!
SHRRRRK!
SHRRRRK!
The walls were painted crimson.
Their bodies fell one by one, limbs scattered, blood pooling around Hela's boots.
Until finally…
It was over.
She stood there, her dark armor soaked in red, her blades dripping with the lives she had just taken.
The room was silent except for the slow drip-drip of blood hitting the floor.
Then...
A slow clap echoed through the halls.
Lady Shiva.
Standing by the main entrance, arms crossed, unimpressed.
Beside her, Cassandra Cain stood still, her expression unreadable.
Hela turned to them, her glowing blades humming with death.
For a brief moment, no one moved.
Then, Hela exhaled, rolling her shoulders. Her bloodlust was fading, her mind sharpening. She tilted her head, lifting one of her plasma swords and pointing it directly at Shiva.
Her lips curled into a mocking smirk.
"It's cute," Hela mused, voice dripping with amusement. "A child playing dress-up, thinking she can fight the former Goddess of Death. I have millennia of experience, and you? You are just a mortal with delusions of grandeur."
Shiva's expression didn't change.
Then...
SHRRRRK!
Both Lady Shiva and Cassandra Cain activated their armor.
The black vibranium weave shimmered over their bodies, forming a deadly second skin. The design was similar to the Black Panther suit, but with noticeable modifications... adjustments made by the League of Shadows, optimized for pure assassination.
"Wakandan technology," Hela narrowed her eyes. She spent long enough on Earth and learned enough from Bruce to know things. She even heard Bruce talking to Shuri about the stolen technology from Wakanda. She tapped her plasma blade against her palm. The sparks danced in the dim light. "So, you stole from a dead kingdom. How poetic."
Shiva finally spoke. "You are strong. I acknowledge that." Her voice was smooth, controlled. "But you are arrogant. You fight like a warrior, not an assassin. That is why you will lose."
Hela chuckled. "Oh? And what makes you think—"
Cassandra Cain moved.
Faster than sight.
One second, she was standing still.
The next...
BOOM!
Her fist slammed into Hela's gut, the force sending a shockwave through the air.
Hela's eyes widened.
The impact hurled her backward like a missile, her armored body smashing through the walls of the orphanage. She crashed through concrete, wood, metal, and finally...
BOOOOM!
...she exploded out of the building and skidded across the pavement outside, carving a trench through the street. Cars flipped from the sheer force, alarms blaring.
The world spun.
Hela coughed, feeling pain.
Pain.
It had been so long since she had felt that. Since she had been touched.
Her HUD flickered, running diagnostics.
[IMPACT REGISTERED: 6.2 TONS OF FORCE.]
[VIBRANIUM ENERGY ABSORPTION: PARTIAL.]
[SUIT DAMAGE: MINIMAL.]