Disclaimer: this isn't the exact story I want to tell, but rather the foundation I'm setting up to tell the Slade-focused story I want to tell. Since my non-canon version of Slade's origin story is very Arrow-centred, I'm going to need to include a lot of Oliver into this foundation chapter than I'm comfortable with. This story is really supposed to focus on the Teen Titans 2003 version of Slade, but I find it difficult to write my first chapter without the foundation
I don't own the DC characters, the CW show "Arrow" or the classic WB "Teen Titans" show
Slade Wilson. The last remaining survivor of the ASIS black ops unit sent to rescue the Chinese political prisoner Yao Fei Gulong. Mentor and occasional partner of his fellow Lian Yu survivor, Oliver Queen and Australian mercenary-for-hire. Relentless, merciless, heartless and could hardly give 2 shits about anything that is labelled good or bad, but he initially didn't start out that way, the island changed him physically, mentally and emotionally
The fact that Slade was the youngest and the least experienced member of the ASIS suicide squad at the time, alongside the fact that Oliver up to that point was nothing more than some rich man's spoilt son lost at sea didn't exactly help them either. They both knew that if they were to live another day, for the sake of survival, morals had to be tossed aside, differences had to be ignored and whatever decisions they make must contribute to the long-term goal of escaping their shitty hellhole in China
Both men came from very different spectrums of society. Unlike Slade, Oliver was raised well in a mansion with both parents and a loving younger sister, he had rich friends, an adventurous sex life, fast cars, all sorts of alcohol and what basically felt like an entire city within his grasp. Unlike Oliver, Slade had a rough and agonising childhood. His father was a lower-class, abusive, chain smoking Vietnam vet who struggled with anger issues, alcoholism, depression and PTSD, his mother died at childbirth, ASIS abducted and initiated Slade into their secret academy program of child soldiers and was immediately abandoned on his very first mission to extract Yao Fei from Lian Yu
Over the course of 5 years, they had to commit a variety of questionable things ranging from technical terrorism, voluntary manslaughter of hundreds of men including his former best friend, fellow ASIS suicide squad survivor and ASIS renegade Billy Wintergreen, his objective Yao Fei Gulong and his daughter Shado, cannibalism of corpses as primary sources of food, and above all else, illegal drug consumption
To be precise, possibly illegal (and hesitant) consumption of ancient experimental drugs. Back in World War 2, Japan desperately needed a way to hold back the United States while trying to regain the upper hand in the war, and to do that, a select group of Japanese scientists decided to come up with a super soldier serum that would transform an average joe into a one man army, but unfortunately, their submarine happened to pass by Hiroshima on the exact same day the United States dropped nuclear bombs onto the city, therefore killing everyone inside the submarine, leaving the submarine to be lost at sea and contaminating most of the samples. Many were subjected to this revolutionary experimental drug, most have died while some have survived, the drug went by many names, the most common of which being "Mirakuru"
How did the submarine end up on Lian Yu is anyone's guess, but at the time, Slade was heavily injured. During Slade's fight with Shado, she gouged out his right eyeball with an arrow and burnt half of his face in a campfire. Due to the lack of medical attention, Oliver destroys the formula books and a majority of the remaining samples, injects the last Mirakuru samples into both Slade and himself, eventually kills their way to the airfield and steals a plane to fly back to Star City
After awhile, Slade becomes a mercenary, taking on varieties of odd jobs ranging from assassinations to extractions. And for a certain period of time, you could argue that Slade's life had become boring and predictable as an illegal immigrant until Slade agreed to a contract offered by H.I.V.E. which requires him to move to Jump City