A/N: This story has been sitting for some time in a little folder on my phone and I've never gotten around to really post it, mostly because I forget it's there, or something else. Hopefully that changes now.
I'll try to post, at the very least, three chapters a week from now on, maybe more depending on how much time I get. So that's that I guess.
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Slade Wilson was a man of morals and an upright code of ethics.
Others would say otherwise but no one got to the heights he's reached without a strict rule of guidance. He abides zealously by his and it was because of his astuteness in keeping to these rules that he became a figure whose words were his bonds.
That is how he became one of the most honorable and honest men in his line of work that even heroes like Batman and Green Arrow respected him and were more than willing to cooperate with him or even let him go scot-free if he were so inclined to ask.
All this because of a simple code he abided religiously to: Anything fucking goes.
Deathstroke, Slade Wilson, was a man who knew as many things as he has seen. Even in his line of work, he knew and have heard of figures that were just as good as he was and sometimes even better.
All these were the reason he knew this fatso was full of shit. People of his skillset and mastery were part of a close-knit community that made it impossible for anyone to remain totally unknown. Someone always knew someone.
And he is someone that is in the business of knowing people and things.
"It seems I underestimated you a bit." Deathstroke laughed as he pushed himself off the ground and cracked his knuckles. "It won't happen again. I promise you."
Deathstroke and Taro both took an equal number of steps until they were both in each other's faces. They lowered their center of gravity and took their stances, each had one of their hands forward that it formed a cross between them.
They both attacked at the same time, Deathstroke throwing a barrage of punches filled with feints, while Taro defended and counterattacked at the same time.
Against a masterful fighter like Deathstroke, it highlighted just how skilled Taro hid behind his obese skin.
Punches, kicks, grapples and lunges were traded with equal and greater ferocity, dodging, evading and flipping all to get that one advantage over their opponent.
And the first clean strike went to Taro.
His hand went to Deathstroke's face, fingers outstretched, the latter who thought Taro was aiming for a grab and aimed to stop the action before it started by grabbing Taro's wrist, only for Taro to drive a palm heel straight into his face, forcing Deathstroke to stagger backwards.
What most would never know from fighting Taro due to his fat, was the amount of strength and force his simplest actions could generate. Physically, he was a monster wearing bloated cuddly skin.
Deathstroke, who was disoriented, barely rolled out of the way to dodge the heel drop from above, only to be kicked across the face for the second foot that came for a straight back strike.
As he fell backwards his hands went to his chest holster and drew out a gun and shot thrice at Taro who deflected the bullets with a dagger he stole from Deathstroke's waist.
Taro closed in as threw the blade and knocked the gun out of Deathstroke's hands and complimented his accurate throw with a flying kick to Deathstroke's open chest that sent his rolling a few meters, only for Taro to look at his leg and frown.
Deathstroke was good. He had attacked Taro's leg at the last second to weaken the damage and it had worked.
Taro kicked his leg a few times and poked at it twice before nodding to himself. Now it was good as new.
"Ah, there it is." Deathstroke patted his chest, likely finding the point of any broken bone.
He didn't say another word but flung thin needles ahead before lunging at Taro who quickly took the cover of the pen in his breast pocket and easily snatched all the needles midair, despite it being nighttime, and threw them back at Deathstroke who ignored them and hacked a slash at Taro and forced him to retreat several steps.
Deathstroke didn't let up for a single breath. He continued forcing Taro to the backfoot with a mixture of his sword and hand-to-hand combat.
Taro was already spotting a few tears on his shirt and shallow cuts on his skin as he tried to avoid the Deathstroke's sword, which sometimes left him open for a few smacks.
"Taro!" He couldn't help but smile when he heard Raven's concerned shout even as she hurled one of the assassin's blades at him.
He caught it as he flourished a spin to avoid the two side slashes from both sides and parried Deathstroke's center stab at the end of his spin.
He spun the short sword around his fingers with the flair of excellent showmanship, even passing the blade between both of his hands without interrupting the spin around the fingers. He threw it from his back and caught it in his front before beckoning at Deathstroke with the sword.
His little theatrics wasn't just for that but to get the precise weight, feel, balance and spin of the blade.
Deathstroke answered the call and rushed at him, this time with gun and sword in hand, while Taro waited for him without moving from his spot.
He dodged the first shot and parried the overhead sword only to dodge the bullet's path again and stopped the sword again.
Deathstroke went for another shot only to find his gun jammed so he threw it away. The two excellent fighters fell into straight swordplay.
Sparks and sharp clangs were the only reply that could be heard from their fight.
"We have to leave. A bunch of ninjas are coming over." Raven warned Taro who nodded as he clashed again with Deathstroke.
"You think I'll let you leave that easily?" Deathstroke asked with a rasp in his voice.
"Yes." Taro simply replied, even giving Deathstroke an honest nod.
Before Deathstroke could reply or even start another endless series of attacks, something rushed at him from behind and smacked him so hard that he practically flew for a couple of meters before crashing to the ground.
He had barely bounced off the ground when a short sword flew in from the darkness and pierced through his armor to pin him to the ground and missing his skin by mere centimeters.
His consciousness slowly came back when he sensed someone coming towards him from the shadows.
His sword sank into the ground beside his head, something that made him smile from behind his mask.
"Do you find the ground amusing for some reason?" A cold enchanting voice entered his head, clearing the last fog of dizziness off his mind.
"As you can very well see, Lady Shiva, I'm nailed to the ground." He said humorously but that changed nothing in the cold woman's expression or voice.
She just stared hard at him before he shrugged and pushed himself off the ground with little effort along with the blade still lodged tightly between his skin and his armor.
He could see the question in her posture so all he could give was a noncommittal shrug.
"A white haired fatty in glasses laid some of your guys to sleep so I stepped in. It was going well before the girl that was with him did her magic jumbo and flung me 30 meters in the air."
Geez. He could practically feel being cut up just by that glare she had.
"He's not some average chump, that's for sure." He could see the way her brows quirked up just the faintest bit and smirked behind his mask. "Trust me. I'd rather fight Bats anytime than to fight whoever the hell that was. Not that I won't fight him the next time I see him, just saying."
"Why do you say so?" She asked. Her curiosity was baited the moment he made the Batman comparison, like he knew it would.
His smile widened and he was sure she could tell just how large his smile was.
"Because dear fatty did not try to kill me throughout the fight. Not even once."
"Hmm." A soft hum was her only reaction, but that was telling enough. "Did you get his name?"
Deathstroke shook his head. "Kept silent the whole time… wait, I think the girl mentioned his name when she sensed you guys coming. Pretty sure she called him Taro. With skills like that, I doubt he's such an unknown."
When he turned to face Lady Shiva, his hands gripped around his sword tighter. At that moment he was ready to fight or die because of how murderous the intent in her eyes were.
"Taro… white hair… glasses." Lady Shiva repeated to him and he nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving any part of her body.
"You know him?"
She was about to nod but paused in confusion as she looked at him. "Did you say fat?"
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"This is all your fault, you know that right?" Raven said as they stepped inside the house.
"Please, don't rub it in anymore. I'm already dreading when tomorrow comes." His mustache trembled.
"You willingly dipped in red and did unnecessary shopping. We got bombed at. Twice." His mustache seemed to shrivel as she listed the highlights of their day. "The van broke down in the woods, so we had to abandon it there WITH the truckload of unnecessary shopping. As if that was not enough, we got attacked by ninjas. And then got attacked by a master ninja. And we still have to hope they don't hunt us for a grudge."
Taro. The man who had shrugged off Deathstroke's attack, whimpered as every bad thing that was listed came from his one harmless decision.
"I'm already at my wits end with my demonic stalkers and you just had to go find your own with a bunch of assassins. Hopefully we don't die in our sleep." Even her attempt at sarcastic humor came out dry. For an average day, she could have gone without this particular batch of headache.
"I'm going to bed. Goodnight." Raven sighed and gave him a lazy wave. She was completely drained by today's events.
As soon as Raven disappeared into her room, Taro's eyes turned cold as he walked towards his room. Today was completely unexpected. Never would he have thought of losing his car and running into Deathstroke and the League of Assassins on the same day.
Things were getting riled up lately so he'd have to take some… precautions.
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Raven never liked dreaming. She was fine with sleeping, but the experience that came after was one she would gladly do without. She stopped liking dreams the day Azarath was destroyed. Her dreams died with it that day.
From that very day her dreams stopped being hers and hers alone. She hated dreaming because all she saw after sleeping was the continuation of an unending nightmare and the raucous laughter of a prideful animal even choing in her ears in every passing second.
No one knew the extent of the battles she has fought in her mind just to maintain a semblance of normalcy. She did not chain down her emotions because she didn't understand them or because she didn't like them. She shunted them to the dark recesses of her mind because she had no choice.
All the choices she's made since that ill-fated day were always made in mind of preventing Trigon's descent.
So now that she stood in the destroyed ruins of a familiar looking house and front shop, even as her heart ached, she closed it to it.
"It doesn't matter, dear daughter 'o mine. It will happen one day. One day soon. Either by your hand or by his." And there it was, like the devil it was, the source of all her torment.
"The fact that all you can speak is lies sometimes, however rare, gives me comfort." Raven remarked as she sat cross-legged and slowly drifted away in a meditative trance.
The voice laughed hysterically in the background.
"If you are so sure all I say is lies, then why do you doubt the truth? Why do you fear and rebuke my lies so? Tell me, daughter, by my name I will destroy his life and grind his soul for eternity, do I lie?"
Raven's brows scrunched up in extreme focus as she fought to banish this sliver of Trigon's consciousness that had grown too big.
Even as he showered her with visions of his intended actions, she ignored being sprayed with blood and viscera to focus on what was most important: sealing this hateful thing to deepest depths of darkness. Only that he would call it comfortable.
Even as he was suppressed he still continued to laugh at her as her body trembled uncontrollably: because they both knew he had won again.
Others might see this as torment but neither of them did. All they saw was the stark truth. The truth that she would sacrifice everything she had and held dear if it meant pushing him back for a few measly years.
If she was that resolved against him then far be it from him as her father to not prepare a grand stage for her to proudly show it to all.
If they both knew she would unfailingly sacrifice it all against him then why was she entertaining this farce? Why did she continue to act as if she cared about any of these people?
Why bother to bond with them in the first place?... Oh Raven, you ashen hearted girl. They are the sacrificial lamb and you are fattening them up.
Oh how she hated dreaming. It was always a fight to separate her real thoughts from all her other thoughts.
Every person's thoughts consists of both good and evil. In her case, every part of her was alive in her dreams. Her thoughts, her emotions, the thoughts of her thoughts and the thoughts of her emotions. In this space, they all argue against each other for who would be 'Raven's' true thoughts.
As a living being, the person known as Raven is a very complex and layered entity. So complex that the two people that knew her the most, herself and her father, could not claim to fully understand her.
Seeing the consciousness of her thoughts arguing against each other again, Raven grew tired of it and shouted. "I don't care about any of it all! I don't care about any of you either! I just want to go to sleep and wake up without fighting a war in my mind, or against my mind. If none of you care enough to understand why, then I couldn't care less about you or your thoughts."
She banished all of them, good and bad – she didn't care. They'll crawl back up very soon, she knew, and she'll repeat the same song and dance.
It was suffocating.
Truly a pitiful child. She was alone even in her own mind.
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Taro was in the kitchen that morning like he routinely was at the start of every day when Raven came in and immediately he could tell that something was wrong with her.
She was focused, she was lighthearted, she neutrally enjoyed her breakfast, she even asked about the van (that pricked into his heart fiercely). She was every bit alright as she was the previous days but he could tell that something was swarming about the kid.
Raven could put on a mean poker face but it was easily read by him, though he remained silent and never spoke of it, so it wasn't something that she was hiding from him.
'She's losing something she had yesterday morning and I don't know what.' He wracked his brain but couldn't come up with any explanation for what felt out of place about her.
He was growing fonder of the kid with every passing day that he somehow started worrying about her from time to time.
He psyched himself up. He couldn't allow the first kid in his extensive care to fall into the slumps this early.
"What's got into you?" Raven asked as she sat beside him with one of her books on hand. "One moment you feel sad, which I guess is probably because of the van, then another you feel down, then lost. Now suddenly you're up and peppy."
Oh right, his resident empath.
"Adult stuff." He simply said and she accepted it.
"And now you find something funny." She commented offhandedly as she engrossed herself in her book. He also knew she loved his 'Mastering Stoicism: The Path to a Calm and Unshaken Mind' book. He wondered how she'd react if she ever found out who the author of that book really was.
"Sometimes I really want to jump inside your mind to see what you think of at random times." She made another absentminded remark, one he actually chuckled to.
He could understand why people would be on edge or even uncomfortable if they had to live in the same house as an empath and a telepath. He didn't have that problem.
To him it was kind of fun. One he could only play with a half demonic empathic telepathic child. Oh, and who also turned out to be the princess of uncountable hellish worlds and also functioned part-time as the key to apocalypse. It was fun either way.
"What about the van?" Raven asked.
His breath pursed, which he was sure did something strange to his mustache.
"The cops called. I called someone to tow it over." That was the only good news that came out of whatever yesterday was.
She put the book down while sporting an uncertain look. She scratched the side of her head with her hand that was fully covered by the sleeves of the oversized sweater she wore.
"Hmm, I don't know. Are you sure your stock will be safe? I know for a fact that Gotham's police are as corrupt as everyone says they are."
Ah, she was worried about that. What a goodhearted kid. Taro flashed her one of his best thumbs up.
"I know the cop and the truck driver. And it's easier to repair it here in the garage than in the middle of the woods."
Seeing that he already got it covered she shrugged and went back to her magic tome. He reached out and gave her a tender pat on the head, one she didn't react to, with a softer smile on his face.
"Since the shop won't open today, I'll be training you once again after the van arrives." He informed her and chuckled as she groaned in frustration when all he could read from her was silent anticipation.