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'Maybe I'll see you in the next life hot stuff, that would be… interesting…' What had gotten into her to say that?! All her life, she had learned to be ruthless, to suppress her emotions and her compassion, to make killing a simple thing. So why had she said that? No. The fact she had said it wasn't the problem, it was something else. It was what she had been thinking at the time. She was thinking exactly what she had said, exactly as if she meant it. But she couldn't, she did not have the right. Not after all that she had done. Why was she even thinking about it now, it was done, her mission was over, Slade was either about to lose or about to win, either way she had no reason to stay anymore. What's more everything was crumbling, if she didn't leave quickly she could die. So why, why was she feeling the unfamiliar pang in her chest, why did it make her sick? Why was she like that? Was she regretting it? Why now? Why not before or, even better, never? Was it him? That proud, annoyingly bragging 'hero'? What did he have that made him so different from he others? Yeah he looked good, but so did many other men she had met. Okay, she liked his style, never afraid and always running straight forward. But that was only because he was easier to take down. Yes, she had to admit she had fun when ever they crossed path. But that was her enjoying toying with him, nothing else. So why? Why was she suddenly questioning her actions over him? She was about to turn around the corner when she heard voices coming from a nearby corridor.

"Hurry up team or we're going to be too late!" It was Robin, the Titans' leader. She would've recognized his voice between any other, he was the only one who had an ego to rival his. Stop this! She cursed herself. He's dead by now. Besides, he means nothing to me.

"Don't worry so much Robin, have a little faith in them, they'll make it!" Shouted another voice to the first. Faith. Che! She thought. What puny values these heroes had…

'Because I believe you are not who you want us to believe you are… I believe there is something else under the mask...' The voice echoed in her mind as an old memory came back to her. The memory of their second encounter. He had tried to capture her and had almost succeeded, only to see his plans thwarted by an unforseen explosion that had opened an escape path for her. Why am I remembering this now?! What is going on with me?! She was about to cross the now empty corridor when another memory jumped in her mind.

'Because they trust me, they're my friends! I will not abandon them here!' This time it was feminine voice that she recognized almost immediately. That little blond pest! She cursed. Bloody annoying even when she isn't here! But why? Why now? Why did she remember these things now? The answer came to her almost immediately, in the form of a third memory.

'Because he is the only one to have seen the real me without pushing me back…' This time it was her mother's voice, a distant memory from a past she had sworn to forget. She stopped in her tracks as an image of the redhead's limp body crushed by the stone popped into her mind.

No! She thought. No! It was going against all she had ever fought for! Her freedom required sacrifices, and that was what he was, just a sacrifice. Or was he? Finally she saw his cocky smile and the night he had offered to help her, his hand extended, opened for her to take. Why? Why even thought he had seen what she was, what she was capable of, why did he still offer to help her? Why her? The simple, but impossible to answer, question turned in her head, over and over. I… She didn't know what to think anymore, she had doomed the only person that had ever offered a hand. Why? Why was she like this? Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn't she… But she didn't finish formulating her thoughts as the ceiling started to crack over her head. In a split second decision, that she would've deemed as completely stupid if you had asked her, she jumped back and landed safely on her feet in front of the stair case, the hallway having completely collapsed. Shit! She cursed again. Was even fate going to do everything to go against her decision? She turned around and ran upstairs. As soon as she arrived back on the rooftop she saw his body, sitting against the wall in front of the door, unmoving. She slowly walked towards him, stopping at his feet, and looked at him. His mask was half torn off and his costume had been ripped in several places, revealing nasty wounds. But the most shocking feature he displayed was the greenish colour his skin had taken due to the poison she had used. She circled around the roof, searching for any possible escape route, but none seemed viable, either they were destroyed or too damaged to use or they had robots or Titans in the vicinity. The whole terrain around the fortress was pure chaos, flames, rays, explosions, water, more rays came and damaged everything as bodies and metal parts clashed. She came back to the hero and dejectedly sat next to him.

"Heh." She scoffed mockingly. "Here I am, back where I left you and trapped like a prey, with nowhere to go. What luck!" She paused, looking at the sky. The hero made a small wheezing sound as he tried to breathe which made the assassin look at him.

"Still alive eh? Well too bad for you, we're stuck here, for good…" Once more she paused, swallowing as she let her weapons, onto which she had held on all along, fall on the floor with a clang. "I might have decided to save you if I had a way to get out… Do you imagine that? Me, helping you out…" She scoffed once letting her body slump. "I had a spark of good conscience back there you know, as I ran. I hesitated, I think… I think I almost regretted leaving you here to die… But before I could decide anything I got trapped and the only way out was towards here. What a twist of fate… You must be quite happy, being able to witness me die with you… I know I would be…" As soon as she said those words she knew she didn't mean them, they sounded false in her ears. But even before a dying enemy she had to keep up appearances, she had to maintain her ruthless image 'till the last moment. "But why?" She asked the sky. "Why did I have to feel something now? If only I had kept going on as usual, I would've been far from here by now… Safe and without any worry. Instead I'm stuck with you, the most annoying Titan scum, slowly dying because of me while I have to wait for my own end… Ironic isn't it?" She asked with a dejected smile before pausing again. She then slowly took off her mask and placed it right beside her weapons.

"Consider yourself lucky, you'll be one of the rare persons to witness the feared Cheshire without a mask, not that you'll see much in your state anyways…" She smiled wryly as she looked at the stars. "What has the world come to…?" She added before closing her eyes and letting her mind drift elsewhere. She didn't know how much time had passed by then but she felt it before she woke up. The ground started shaking uncontrollably and a loud rumble suddenly erupted. Her eyes snapped open as she felt herself falling. What the…? Was the only thing her mind had time to utter before she and the redhead fell towards the ground in a big rumble and everything went black.

She had no idea how much time she had been out when she woke up but she found herself half lying on something soft while everything around her was hard as rock. She tried to recall the last things she remembered before blacking out but nothing came. She had no idea where she was but it wasn't somewhere pleasant, that much she could gather. She turned around to try to see what she was lying on and found the wheezing form of the redhead under her and everything came back to her. She then looked around and guessed the fortress must have crumbled and they must have been trapped under the rubble. A few rays of light were filtering through cracks in the stone, it wasn't natural light so she presumed it was still night outside. Whatever had happened between the Titans and Slade, the mastermind's fortress had been completely destroyed. She tried to dig her way out but there were so much debris that it would take her an eternity. She cursed loudly and looked around for anything she could use as a lever but nothing came. She hesitated to call for help, but whoever might have been outside she would not have been welcomed anyways. So she started removing the debris, rock by rock, stone by stone, injuring her hands to the point where they were completely red but she finally managed to open a whole big enough to peer outside. She couldn't see much, everything was only rocks and more rocks out there. She looked again, hoping to get a glimpse of hope, catching something that might help, but found nothing of any interest. She sat back down, next to the teenager who was having more and more difficulty to breathe. Strangely she realized neither him nor her had been too gravely wounded. What luck… She thought sarcastically. She was about to close her eyes and simply wait for her fate to come when a sound caught her attention. She looked outside once more and noticed a shape moving towards them. Slowly but surely it approached, a mechanical sound accompanying each and every step it made. Finally, as she could discern it's form she understood why it made that sound. It was one of Slade's bots. It seemed to have been damaged by the collapse of the whole building, but it somehow still moved. She hesitated but finally called for it.

"Hey! Tin can! Yeah, you over here! Come help me, I'm trapped!" The robot didn't seem to react at first so she called it again and finally it turned its head towards her direction. "Yeah, under the rocks here, help me! I'm with Slade!" At that ast word it seemed to act a lot faster as it walked directly over to her and studied the rubbles for a minutes before starting to blast them away. In a matter of a few minutes the hole was big enough for her to crawl out, which she regretted as soon as she did. The Slade bot analyzed her and then scanned the hole. It took him a second to recognize the other person trapped there and to associate it with its databank. Cheshire understood what was coming too late and didn't have time to evade the canon.

"Oh hell no!" She managed to utter. But once more, and to her great surprise, luck struck in her favor. The canon, which had been damaged in the battle and when the fortress had crumbled jagged and did not fire, giving her time to evade the robot. By the time it was ready to fire again she had already ripped out its cables in one swoop motion and it was lying on the ground, unmoving.

"Well talk about close…" She said. "Someone really doesn't want me to die today, huh?" She added with a smirk. She heard a couch coming from the mini cave in the debris in which she had been trapped a few seconds ago. She kneeled in front of the hole that now connected it to the outside.

"Still alive?! Well I must hand it to you, you are one tough bastard!" She laughed a bit before getting back to her feet and turning around. "Anyways, got things to do, places to go…" She added before starting to walk towards where she guessed the rear gate wust have been. She had already made it a few meters in the pile of rubbles when she heard another cough, louder this time. This made her stop again and she felt the slight sick feeling that had disappeared since earlier come back. Why was she feeling so guilty damn it?! He was just another of those stupid heroes… She hadn't made another two steps when she quickly turned around and walked back.

"Oh fuck it!" She cursed loudly before turning back. "Very well, alright! I'll take you with me!" She shouted as she came back to the hole and quickly dragged the redhead out. "But don't take it personally, I'm just doing this because there is no more point in having you dead, you got that?!" She added, still shouting, at the unmoving hero that she was now carrying on her back. She spotted her mask on the ground, under a small pile of rubble, and picked it up, putting it back over her face. I was damaged on the top right corner, exposing her right eye, but it would have to do for the moment.

"I'm taking you to your friends and then I'm off!" She added as she neared the remains of the rear gate, but immediately after she had said that she spotted half a dozen Slade bots and two of the villains that she had seen inside the citadel before it was attacked. She didn't remember their names but they seemed quite dangerous, going through there wasn't an option. If she wanted to get out alive she the only way was to get out of here as fast as possible.

"Damn it!" She cursed again. "Damn you, idiot! If it weren't for you I'd be long gone you know! But my conscience had to make me come back… I swear I'm tempted to leave you here…You're lucky to be unconscious, I'd have done it in any other case… Still, even unconscious you're insufferable..." She added with an unnerved huff as she finally got out of the fortress's walls. She crossed the distance between them and the nearby forest as quickly as she could, only stopping briefly at the entrance of the woods to take a last look at the fuming ruins of the citadel. There were still some shouting and battle noises coming to her ears but they seemed to quickly die down. She had no idea who of the Titans or Slade had won, though her guess went to the Titans as the world still seemed in one piece, but she was not about to spend another minutes in this forsaken place. As she walked forward, having no idea where she was going, one last memory popped in her mind. She was still very young and only remembered her mother smiling at her.

'How do you know if you've made the right choice?' She had asked her daughter. She had shaken her head and her mother had smiled brighter.

'If it feels right here, even if it doesn't here' She had pointed at her heart and then at her head as she spoke. 'then you have made the right choice Jade, never forget this...'

Yeah, right… Scoffed the dark-haired girl as the words echoed in her head.

Yep, it's me! You may know I've been back for a day or two on Fanfiction if you were reading my other story, The Masked Ball, of which I published the third and final part! ;) If not, then here I am, back! :D But don't get your hopes up too fast, I don't really have any real new project I'm working on right now, though I may have some ideas. The main reason i came back was to post the third part of The Masked Ball.

But seeing all the reviews I had on this story got me thinking. I wanted to reply to all of you but I didn't want to add a new story nor add a 'chapter' just for that purpose so i waited a little and instead wrote a bonus chapter to the story. Nah, don't thank me, it was my pleasure, I found that I hadn't told you about how Speedy had survived in the end so, here it is, surprise! :D

I hoped you like it! As for many things it could be improved, but I think it's quite okay for something I wrote in a mere three days! x)

Anyways, onto the reviews and their replies!

TheImaginativeFox : Thanks for the support and the great comments all along the way, it's really awesome to see how people enjoy what Iwirte! :D As for a sequel, well maybe, I'll think about it but it'll become real only if I find a good idea :) (I might have one but its really short compared to it and quite sad too so I think I'll end up posting it as a one shot instead).

JasonVUK : Yep, they are, how else could it have ended? x) I'm really happy you enjoyed this story and thank you for all these amazing reviews and encouragements! :D (I so have to check your stories, the one with the garden I haven't went to see in a while! O_o)

malidos : Well thank you for the review then! :D I'm glad you find this story's quality good, you can't imagine how pleased I am hearing that! :D (I was so afraid to have written something bad... :S)

MoonlitShadowsoftheHumanSoul : Thanks! :D I'll be sure to keep up the good jub then (straight A's all the way! x) )

writerzero : Exactly my thoughts! A TT story without some fluff is average but a story without BBRae at the end is not a story... :P

So, I really hope you did enjoy this story all through its course and I thank you once more for reviewing! :D

It's so late here, I have to go to sleep... #RedEyes #Snore

Anyways, thanks again and come by again sometime to make sur I haven't uploaded anything new, you ight get a few surprises, who knows! :P