Disclaimer: Currently, the plot and Nicholas Pennyworth are mine. Everything else belongs to DC Comics and Warner Bros.
For those who remember my Teen Titans series, which I recently took down, this story is what everything was leading up to. There will be some mention of those stories and this prologue will sort of bridge the gap and give you the endings to the stories that were still in progress at the time and the next few chapters will go more in depth with the main characters for the first half of this story.
Once again, this story is extremely AU.
Prologue
Teen Titans Case Files
File #21980
Deathstroke, The Terminator
His name is Slade Wilson. He's been everything. Soldier, mercenary, husband, father, victim, murderer, master combatant, strategist. The list can go on for miles without ever truly breaking into the depths of his psyche. Up until a few hours ago, no one knew what he really wanted. What his mission was. Now, it is all too clear.
He wants to rule the world and for years, he has been winning.
Ten years to be precise. Ten years of planning, waiting, training. Moving his pieces carefully into place. Using his skills as a hired gun to raise money to build his army, increase his knowledge of his own enemies – Earth's mightiest heroes, supply his weapons cache with the right equipment to take them all down…
But his mind is obviously his most formidable weapon. In the chess match that he has been playing he is thirty moves ahead. Using advanced automatons, he has breached every major government power in the world. Presidents, Congressmen, Kings, Queens, Dictators, Generals, Terrorists…all work for him. For years. Tattooed with his "blind eye" as the only means to truly show their allegiance, he had programmed them to tear down the world's economy, which finally dropped below Great Depression levels hours ago.
We know all this, because he allowed us to figure it out. Allowed us, because we were all much too late to stop it. As he will explain himself in the following recorded conversation, he has been watching from the beginning. Watching and waiting as a shadow in the night.
"Would you like me to go year-by-year? We have plenty of time. As you've probably already discovered, my name is Slade Wilson, former Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. During my time there, I volunteered for experiments to increase soldiers ability to resist truth serum. The result of one of those experiments allowed me to use ninety percent of my brain capacity, far above the average human's ability of ten. I was forced to resign and became depressed. I was a soldier, with no war. I took on mercenary jobs so far below my standards that they were barely games. My wife divorced me after what happened with Joey, and I grew tired of the games. So I decided to create one of my own. The ultimate war. Can one man, enhanced yes, but still a man, take down not only the world powers, but the planet's mightiest protectors? Can they win a war, where the entire planet is the battleground and all its people – American, Russians, Germans, Japanese, Koreans – are forced to choose one side? Good or evil? Which, as I'm sure you are aware, Nightwing, is in the eye of the beholder. Protect the people, provide for them, and they will see you as heroes, gods, world leaders. These are the things you and your kind will need to become to win this, by the way.
"…I started off slowly. Creating automatons – advanced robots – of my own design, to infiltrate the government's highest levels. Created false identities for them all, made them the perfect politicians – promising they will do one thing, and then when they are put in office, they do exactly what I want. Make the choices I want them to make. Of course, I had to test them. Disneyland was the perfect place for that, especially since I was living in Seattle at the time. I hid a few there, with them working at different levels of the company. I kept one there and used him to scare your friends in Jump City years later.
"The robots clearly had what it took to pass off as human, so that left my biggest challenge to be the League, and Society, and all the other so-called do-gooders of the world. That wasn't very hard either. They had all been around for years, had all gained enemies who studied and knew them so well. Grease a few wheels, kill a few hundred people, help out on a few jobs, read a few conceited articles, and my plans were easily set in motion.
"Then six years ago, you Teen Titans showed up. August 27, 2004 to be exact. In Crime Alley. Robin and Batgirl were to be expected, but the rest of you were all newcomers. Or at least I first assumed you were, Nightwing. You, Starfire, Stone, Beast Boy, Raven, and Bumble Bee were all new to the game. A new challenge in your own right. Children that Batman brought along to help protect his precious city. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from you. It was only a small drug ring that you stopped, but still, you were all a mystery. The beginning of a new game.
"Your first year, I just watched you all work. Watched you become a team, though I did send out a few of my own surprises to test the waters a bit. Like that robot at the carnival that you all stopped. But I just wanted to study you a bit. The next year, I wanted to push you. See how much you were all truly capable of and get a more in-depth look at all of your powers. See how smart you really were, how strong, what your limits currently were and if they could become more. So I sent two of my best fighters after you, Hush and the Red Hood and had them start off by uniting the gangs of Gotham for an all out war with the city. Can't trust robots for such things. They break much too easily. That's where the human spirit comes into play. Whose was stronger? Your team or mine?
"Eight against two usually aren't very good odds, especially if you add Batman and Catwoman to the mix, but Hush and Hood did their job and kept you on your toes for the year. Then, at the end, they did exactly what I wanted them to. They told you about me. Brought you to the next level of the game. Where is your focus? Where's your teams'? Could you be splintered so easily, or could you all persevere? Of course, I was also following the age old saying, 'if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself.' Relying on Hush and Red Hood for Intel wasn't enough anymore. Especially since you all kept improving your equipment. So I staged our little fight, let you think you were in control of the situation; that you finally figured me out, but at this stage of the game, there was no possibility for error on my part. That year, I made none.
"Your fourth year, I admit that yes, I did make an error toward the end. While I had gone back to my shadows as I began to add the finishing touches to my plans for most of the year, I still needed to be sure of my findings. So I moved to grab the weakest of you. That was my mistake. Once again, the element of the human spirit threw its cards on the table and I assumed too little of Starfire, but if you think I wasn't aware that she was recording our entire conversation as we fought, you are sorely mistaken. And while she certainly surprised me, her capture proved my most important theory correct. Yes, while her, Beast Boy, Stone, Raven, and Bumble Bee seemed like Metahumans on the outside, they were just as human as you and I. Very smart of you and Batman, to use the suits to change skin tone a bit, create solid constructs around their bodies and shoot energy from their hands. But the suits did it. Remove a single major component, and they have no more enhanced strength. No more energy beams, or rock-like skin, or shape-shifting ability. They can't fly or run as fast as a cheetah. They're just people dressed in Kevlar with utility belts. They can be beaten just as easily as you or Batman or Catwoman can.
"After that day, I had collected all the research I needed on your team of Titans. The ones in Miami – Wonder Girl, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Herald, Jinx, Jericho – all the metas on that team, I already knew about. Their weaknesses were simple to unlock. After all of that, it was finally time to start my war on the world, but it just wouldn't be all that fun if I didn't get you super heroes to at least try and figure it out. So I decided to make it look like I was slipping. As I told you before, it was no coincidence that my robot out in Disneyland went after your friends, though I'm sure you all assumed he had malfunctioned. I ordered him to act like that. First to steal a car and take it to Jump City to draw Robin, Beast Boy, Stone, Raven, and Bumble Bee out to the theme park, then to attack one of the park patrons it bumped into the day I assumed your friends would arrive by. After that, Robin's detective work just followed the path I wanted it to and – as a first generation Deathbot – it made it so much easier for your friends to just tear it apart.
"Back in Blüdhaven, I created an alliance with Blockbuster and repeated my performance in with the gangs of that city while he was in control. While you and Starfire worked to take him down, I started to build up both my Society of Super Villains and my Generals, some of whom you've just met. I knew you were Renegade the entire time you were in The Society. I left my clues in relatively plain sight for a detective of your caliber to find. Blüdhaven was always going to be one of the first cities to go, but I decided why not let you and Starfire try and save it. It would at least knock two big players out of the game for some time. I never believed either of you dead, though. Having obviously fought you both before, I've seen how headstrong and stubborn you can be. Though I did assume that Starfire was going to out a lot longer with all of the radiation practically dripping off of my Chemo bomb that she had held up in the air for so long…very easy to assume she'd be suffering from it for years to come. Congratulations on saving the people from that literal hellhole, by the way. You even carried Roland Desmond out of the blast. Blockbuster is a very big man to carry.
"And now here we are, three and a half months later, in one of my lairs as the world's economy falls and the world powers are 'looking for an answer'. In a few hours, that answer will be revealed to the world as myself and there is absolutely nothing you or your friends can do about it. In this country alone, there will be simultaneous attacks on some of the States greatest landmarks and most powerful people, including Bruce Wayne's home in Gotham City, the Daily Planet in Metropolis, the White House in DC, and both Titans Towers in Jump City and Miami. Can you alert them all in time to save them? Especially since this building has been set to self destruct within the next sixty seconds. It's stopping me right now or saving your own life and all of your friends and the people you have sworn to protect. And I promise you, if you choose the latter – which I know you will – even this recording cannot stop this war from happening. I have all my corners covered, had enough time to, while this is just news to all of you. Let the game begin!"
"Nightwing, we've gotta move now! Batgirl's clearing the—" BOOM!
Crack! "See you all on the news!"
"Forget him, Wing! This place is collapsing!"
Ten years in the making, six years spent just studying the Titans, have all culminated into this. A war unlike any other. While the heroes of Earth have been gathering together on the Justice League Moon Base, the United Nations have voted Slade Wilson as the man who will lead the world out of this new depression. He has full military power at the moment, a move most likely calculated on his part so it won't seem like he has the UN set up on a remote control in his pocket, and his first act has already started to add to the job market. Current weapons development buildings around the world were given new contracts to build his robot army – called Sladebots – in large numbers, while construction companies have been contacted to build new weapons facilities around the world. Most likely to be used as either bases or Sladebot manufacturers. And the Generals of his robot army have also been revealed to the public as Kameron Anders, Jason Todd, Grant Wilson, Catalina Flores, Deborah Morgna, Cody Driscoll, Terrence Bolatinsky, and Elise Kimble.
Lives have already been lost, small battles already raged from countries believing the attacks were from enemy nations. It won't take much for him to turn this onto the super hero community. We played right into his hands and now the world is paying for it.
This is too big for any one hero to try and stop and too well thought out to not do what the world has feared for years would happen. Soon there will be no more laws or courts. Words can't save anyone now, but it won't stop people from trying to say them.
A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this Prologue. The first chapter will be up soon. Until then, please review and let me know what you think so far.