No Tears Left to Cry

by Concolor44

Gar Logan has lost everything that had any meaning for him. To most, his reactions might seem ... extreme. To those who have been through something similar, though, what he does might almost make sense. Rated for violence and character death.

No Tears Left to Cry

by Concolor44

. . .

. . .

NOTE: I have no connection, financial or otherwise, with the Teen Titans. They are owned, in part or in whole, by DC Comics, Time/Warner, Warner Bros., the Cartoon Network, and possibly some other entities I am not aware of. But not by me. No way, no how. I'm just borrowing the concept for a little flight of fancy, capiche?

ALSO NOTE: I have performed a slight re-write on this story. A reviewer (TacoKing23) made some valid criticisms which I took to heart. Certain elements have been expanded, clarified, or switched. I'll leave it up to you to figure out which ones.

(See? It truly does make a difference when you share your comments with the author!)

. . .

. . .

Wednesday 28 November, 10:35pm

A pair of heavily-tattooed hands entered my field of vision, interrupting my contemplation of the red gingham pattern of the tablecloth, and removing the plates and utensils and used napkins. "You want a refill?"

I looked up at the waitress. She only had one front tooth, and that one had a red rhinestone stuck to it. It kinda made a weird sort of contrast to the light green buzz-cut and the tattooed spiderweb-leaking-teardrops beside her left eye. I guess Waffle Hut has a fairly relaxed dress code for the employees. Not that I cared … she was polite and competent, and that's all I ever ask. I cleared my throat and said, "Please."

"Cool." She topped me off. "Cream?"

"No, thanks."

"Cool. You want any dessert? We got pie." She jerked a thumb at a glass-front fridge.

Pretending to consider the question, I finally nodded. "Let me have a piece of that apple." Their pie was the main reason I was here and not at the Crimson Crustacean down the street.

"Want it hot?"

I shrugged. "Why not."

"Cool."

A minute and forty-five seconds later a steaming-hot wedge of crusty cinnamon-apple-sugar goodness plunked down in front of me. I took an appreciative sniff. "Got any ice cream?"

"Vanilla an' chocolate. Out o' strawberry."

"Can I get a scoop of vanilla?"

"Cool."

I grinned a little. She must like that word a lot. "Thanks."

"No prob, Sweets."

The pie didn't last long. I was looking at this late dinner as a sort of Last Meal thing. The kicker there was that I didn't know completely for sure exactly whose last meal it was.

But it was sure as shit gonna be somebody's.

The coffee was above par, even for Waffle Hut. Their brew ain't bad under normal circumstances, but I'd gotten the first cup from a fresh pot, and it was rich and black and smooth, a perfect companion to pie a la mode.

Five minutes later I was in the wash room getting the sticky off my hands. The face that stared back at me from the cracked mirror was one I was used to now. It wasn't my base form, but it was one that I had gotten to stick even in my sleep (or clubbed unconscious): late thirties (or maybe mid-twenties and a hard life), longish, mouse-brown hair in a greasy bandana, watery brown eyes a bit too close together, a high nose a little bit too big, and tight lips just a bit too thin. The rough skin and scruffy goatee completed the look. It was an extremely forgettable face, and one I'd worked on perfecting for some time.

For blending into the background, you better believe it beat the livin' hell outta green.

It wasn't even a four-minute drive back to the old motel I was using as a temporary base, even in the two-decades-old-and-three-wrecks-dinged compact I'd bought. I could have walked, and a couple months ago I would have, but tonight was cold and wet and I wasn't feelin' the love from the weather gods.

Back in my room, I pulled out the slim, sophisticated com unit I'd been issued. They swapped 'em out every few months, on the off chance that the authorities had managed to hack one. I don't see that as a possibility, but then I'm not quite as paranoid as, say, our Illustrious Leader. Of course I suppose that if I were in charge of practically every significant criminal enterprise on the West Coast, I'd have developed a healthy case of paranoia myself. And Slade had a lot of enemies before he maneuvered himself into that position. From what I've been able to find out, he averages foiling about two assassination attempts per month.

My goal within the following few hours is to make the next one more than an attempt.

At precisely one minute before eleven, I punched in a fourteen-digit number and set it on the side table. Presently, a small holographic image flickered to life above it. The face was a carefully generic computer rendering of a brown-haired woman of about thirty, ethnicity left intentionally vague.

In a cool, controlled voice, it said, "Status."

I knew the drill. "Adz. Breaker. Telluride. Moriarty."

The face remained impassive. About ten seconds passed before, "Location: 211 East Corrugated Avenue. Time: 0115. Object: Heather-gray briefcase with a maroon handle. Details: Cove between second and third windows to the right of the door." And the image winked out.

I jotted down the address and looked it up on my com's Jump City map. It was maybe four klicks from here. The subroutine gave me travel times at various points during the day. I'd leave the motel on foot at oh-dark-thirty with a dirty, threadbare blanket around my shoulders, walk past the drop twice, and make the pickup. All predictably standard. I tucked my com unit under the pillow and made sure its visual pickups were completely blocked. It didn't pay to take chances with someone on the other end watching without my permission, because someone almost certainly would be.

The night's routine didn't take me long. It never does. My needs are pretty simple these days. So I was back on the bed by eleven-twenty, staring at the ceiling.

I don't sleep much. It sounds weird to think about it that way, considering I was the one who always slept in if I had the chance. That's not a terribly uncommon state of affairs for teenagers, but you could say I abused the privilege … at least until after that whole 'Brotherhood of Evil' thing. Having leadership dumped on you like that? Yeah, it makes some changes.

But, like I said, these days I don't sleep much. Two or three hours a night and maybe a little cat-nap during the afternoon if I've got the time. It leaves me a lot of freedom for the investigating I needed to do to go after my real target. I like to think sometimes that Robin would be proud of how I've matured, how I've taken a lot of his lessons to heart. Guess I'll never know for sure.

I travel light. That's a necessity for a courier, especially considering who I worked for. So everything I owned (apart from what occupied a few anonymous storage facilities in small towns around the western U.S.) fit in a battered travel case and an army-surplus duffle. The contents of the duffle currently occupied the room's small closet and one of the dresser drawers. The case stayed under the bed unless I needed something from it. And I tried NOT to need things from it when possible. Tonight, though? Maybe not so much. Sighing in resignation, I swung my legs around, leaned over and pulled out the case.

The thing was old. Looked like it'd been to the war and back, probably because it had. But it was actual leather, and the polish I'd rubbed into it over and over had a pretty decent damping effect on snoop rays. Terahertz waves especially, the most common kind used anymore, and the system Slade favored. I dropped it on the bed and flipped it open. It only took a few seconds to access the hidden pouch, and a few more to extract a slightly-charred photograph. This photo was the only thing I had left after that final attack on the Tower. Slade's robots had been thorough.

We were all smiling, even Raven … as much as she ever did. She was sort of leaning in my direction, but she'd maintained (when pressed) that it was only because we had to crowd together to get into the picture. Over the last few months we lasted as a team, I'd wished she had other, more personal, reasons. Moot point now. I traced the outline of her face with a careful finger.

A somewhat louder sigh escaped, and I silently cursed myself, glancing over at the pillow covering the com. The illusion had to be held at all times. I couldn't let my guard down, especially not now. Too much was at stake.

I set the case on the floor and leaned back on the bed, focused on the photo again. I had bunny ears up behind Cy's head.

He was the first to die.

He'd been talking about putting some kind of shield generator in his system, but was having some trouble debugging it. Said it kept interfering with other programs, and it would shut off feedback to his fingers. So he kept tinkering. I wish he'd tried harder. Wish he'd put more effort into getting it fully incorporated.

Ha. Rae would be proud of me for using a big word correctly.

Scooting up and letting my skull knock back against the headboard, I closed my eyes. The memories came easily. They always did . . . .

. . . . Me an' Vic were on patrol. Got a call from the Fourth Precinct about some gang action goin' down not far from the Pier. We were s'posed to check it out. Vic told me to stay up top, let him know if I spotted any kind of ambush.

There was no ambush, not the way he was thinking about it. Only a plain, old garden-variety trap. Hell of a big trap. And it wasn't foolin'.

Vic can't fly. And he was still a couple weeks away from perfecting the force field tech that would have saved his life. Probably. But when he tripped the sensor, he was at Napalm Ground Zero. Fifteen guns. Nearly two hundred liters of extremely flammable gunk all but buried him. Robin told me, much later, that the stuff burned at over two thousand Kelvins. Vic was gone in a couple of seconds. He probably didn't even have time to realize he was dying . . . .

. . . . I stared at his face. There wasn't much left to bury. The heat slagged the robotic parts so bad you couldn't tell what they'd been if you didn't already know.

Robin went to some pains to convince me that I had no fault in it. If I'd been with him, I'd have died, too. Of course he's right. He's always right.

I know that. I understand it. Hell, I understood it then. But you know what? It doesn't help.

Really, it doesn't.

My attention shifted to Robin's smiling face. His smiles were carefully metered out, like he had a limited supply and didn't want to waste them. That quirk of his got under Star's skin in a big way (and explaining that idiom to her got under mine just as bad). I guess he had a lot on his mind most of the time. Being the team leader kinda sucks, I know from personal experience. Everybody expects you to DO SOMETHING ALREADY. You know: fix it, whatever 'it' is.

He couldn't 'fix' Vic's death. He couldn't fix that hole in the team.

Yeah, KF and Jinx came around to help us patrol for a while, but he was nearly as broke up about Vic as I was (and that's goin' some) and Jinx spent all her energy trying to keep Wally out of a sub-basement-level funk. Robin finally told 'em to go on back to Steel City. That was probably a mistake, since the attack came two days later. I'm pretty sure Slade was waiting around for them to leave. Jinx made him … leery. Being so random, she was never one to fit into anybody's calculations, and if Slade didn't have every move figured out in advance, he refused to play the game.

I turned the photo sideways. That put Robin sort of in the position where I last saw him: diving for a spot behind the wheelhouse while three dozen Slade-bots shredded everything on the Tower's roof with 10mm mini-guns. He never made it to cover. Not that it would have made much difference. The memories slammed home again . . . .

. . . . I screamed, and then I did something I'd never done before, and haven't been able to do since: I morphed into a salamander. No, not one of those cute little newt-looking amphibian things … a real, Medieval, mythical salamander, kinda like a fun-size, low-slung dragon. The kind that breathes fire and can immolate anything. And I sprinted toward the invaders, destruction the only thing on my mind. But Star was faster. She blasted up through them, gone berserk at Robin's death. She wiped out most of the Slade-bots in about three seconds, but then one of them detonated. I don't know what kind of bomb it was, but the shrapnel blew her right out of the sky. She crashed into the roof not ten paces from me, and lay still. Then her skin started smoking, and peeling off in big flakes that curled up and shriveled, and her muscle tissue melted off her bones.

My brain was overloading. They couldn't both be dead. They couldn't.

Something rammed into me and batted me halfway across the roof where I splatted into the side of the control kiosk superstructure. It rang my bell and knocked the wind out of me, but good, and all I could do was lay there, morphing back to approximately human. When my sight cleared, I saw Raven scooping up the rest of the Slade-bots into one of her patented portals. But another portal opened behind her.

It all jumbled together, everything happening at once. I tried to yell, but I was so intensely dizzy. I pulled in a huge gasp of air, tried to scream, tried to get her attention as Slade himself stepped out of the hole in the air. I was seeing three of him. Part of me wondered how he was doing that; another, bigger part was starting to realize how much of a threat he posed to Raven, and my heart clawed its way into my throat … but all I could manage was a wet cough. Then Raven turned toward him, lashed out with those long tendrils of soul-self …

I still don't know what he did. He was holding something, something small that glowed red. Her soul-self was sucked inside it, and it pulled her body in, too, so fast I don't think she knew what happened. I still remember the surprised look on her beautiful face as she vanished.

That was my cue to go berserk.

I don't remember much of that fight. I think I used my giant gorilla form at least once … and … maybe a deinonychus? And a monstrous snake at one point.

None of it helped. I couldn't touch him. And every time I tried, I picked up a new cut. I'd known he carried a sword. Swords? Yeah, there were two. He was faster. He was every bit as strong. And he was one of the elite assassins on the planet. There was never any serious question of how it would end.

I was tired, off-balance, hazy from blood loss. And he was Slade Wilson: Deathstroke the Terminator. Nobody watching would have considered it much of a contest. I didn't know then what I know now, and once he got tired of playing with me I never even saw the sword coming. Then pain overwhelmed my senses. I don't know how many organs he damaged or destroyed, but I'm pretty sure he stuck it through me four times. Might have been five. He missed my heart, though. He didn't want me dying instantly. What, and miss all the fun?

That was a mistake on his part, though neither of us knew it at the time.

He wrenched it free of my chest, dodging the gout of blood that spewed out of my mouth, and took a couple of steps back. I crumpled to my knees and fell on my face, right at the edge. He ambled over and looked at me for a few seconds, then gave me a nudge with his boot. I fell off the top of the Tower and into the ocean far below, sinking out of sight. And with my final conscious thought, I made one last transformation. I became a flatworm.

Yeah, that's right, folks. I turned into a planarian. Those icky buggy things you studied in high school biology. I know it sounds kinda stupid, but it worked. And like the Marines say, if it's stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid.

See, the thing about planarians is that they regenerate. They're practically impossible to kill. I'd had this idea for a while, 'cause in our line of work you never know when you're gonna get hurt bad, and it came down to starfish or planarian. As close to death as I was, I had to stay in planarian form for several days. That was tricky.

See, sure, I can change into any animal, but STAYING in one animal form for more than a few hours is a strain on my brain. I start … well … thinking like the animal. One time when we were tracking this serial killer I did a wolf morph so I could follow his scent. Turns out he had a hell of a lot bigger jump on us than we'd thought, and his scent was faint, and it took me most of the day to run him to ground. By the time we found him, I was ready to eat him. Seriously. The way my instincts were hopped up, he was nothing but prey. It was all I could do not to latch onto his throat and rip it out. And I think he knew it. He didn't give us any trouble.

Anyway, back to planarians. They don't so much think, not having a brain to speak of, and their instincts are pretty basic: identify food, consume food, repeat. It wasn't a strain to fight that, but it WAS hard maintaining my grip on my sanity in the meantime. Truthfully, I'm not a hundred percent sure I did. I sort of lost my context in the process.

So, close to a week later, when all my regeneration was completely done, I slithered up one of the support posts for what was left of our dock and morphed to base state … or what I had thought was base state. Of course Slade was long gone, and I wasn't exactly itching for a rematch. I'd had it spelled out for me in terms I could understand how that would go down. I pulled myself up onto the planking, morphed into a dog, and shook off the water … and then stopped.

Slithered.

Pulled.

Shook.

I looked down at my paws. Even with a dog's limited color sensing ability, I could tell I wasn't green.

And when I'd pulled myself onto the dark, rotting planking, my arms had seemed awfully flexible.

What. The. Hell.

I took on my human form again and sat there for a minute.

I was naked.

My uniform hadn't come with me.

Again: What. The. Hell.

Also, my skin was a sort of light brownish pink. And freckled.

I looked around: not a soul in sight. Unsurprising, considering how big a mess the place was. My fight with Slade had only been the beginning. The Tower was a charred scrap heap. But at least I wouldn't get arrested for public indecency.

I looked at my hand again, flexed the fingers … thought about what my arms had felt like as I came up the side. Frowning, I concentrated on that feeling.

And just like that, the bones and muscles and tendons morphed. My arm was a medium-length, prehensile … something. Trunk? Snake, maybe? But my hand was still at the end. I willed it longer. It obliged, growing until the weight of it pulled at my shoulder. I flipped another switch in my head, and there was my arm again, all human and stuff. Thinking about it for another few seconds, I held up a finger and brought an image into my mind. And there, where my finger had been, was a squid tentacle.

I sat there, turning parts of me into other things, for the rest of that day.

. . .

. . .

So I went to East Corrugated and made the pickup and walked three blocks to catch one of the all-night buses. Half an hour later, I got off at the north edge of the Financial District and hoofed it four blocks farther to the nameless, glass-and-steel high-rise that housed Slade's Jump City headquarters. I say 'Jump City' headquarters because this is merely one of many. He's got super-secret, super-safe hidey-holes in two dozen locations from Baja to Nome, and he moves between 'em in no set pattern. Usually there's no warning before he shows up. This time, though, he was hosting some big powwow and all the flunkies knew about it yesterday. That means I knew about it shortly thereafter.

I also knew, because I'd witnessed it often enough, what his most probable schedule would be: his guests would begin to arrive maybe half an hour before the three-a.m. kickoff, and be escorted to individual rooms. They weren't allowed to mingle – before, during or after the meeting – and he always plied them with top-notch liquor. Yet another advantage for him. I don't believe he ever touched alcohol. He'd hold the meeting, which would consist of redefining who was to run what and what sort of cut Slade would get (the guests weren't given any input or choice) then he'd pass out information packets, then everyone would leave.

Then … ah, then! Slade would go for a swim.

There was a dandy pool on the second mezzanine. Oh, he had a little powered exercise pool in the penthouse, but the big pool was a BIG pool: nearly Olympic sized, and it had an oxygen system instead of chlorine, and a diving board and high diving platform and a heated jet system in one corner. Only the best for the biggest asshole on the planet.

I knocked on the correct door and gave the correct signs and repeated the performance three more times before finally getting rid of the briefcase. I was escorted out a different way, via the payroll guy who handed me a short stack of twenties. I ruffled it twice: eight hundred, give or take. Not a bad night's work. Slade paid well. It bought a decent chunk of loyalty … as much loyalty as most in this line of work ever gave. Nobody would take a bullet for him, but then none of his people was likely to want to put a bullet IN him, either. Present company excepted.

This time, though, when I left the bursar and went down the next hall, I didn't go all the way to the end and turn right to be let out. I stopped slightly out of security camera range, took the battery out of my com unit, stuck the thing into the dirt by a potted plant, and morphed into a black fly.

Twenty-six minutes later I was safely behind a heat register in mouse form, my beady black eyes noting the position of every item in the meeting room. Once I had it down, I relaxed. Marginally.

Tonight it would all come together. Eight years of a wasted life would mean something after tonight, even if I died, too. And I probably would. This IS Slade we're talking about. But he'd be dead, and that's all that mattered to me. Raven was gone. That made the rest of existence kinda pointless, once my revenge was complete. I curled up in a ball and let my mind wander.

. . .

. . .

The first month after I dragged myself out of the ocean was as close to Hell as I'd ever been, Trigon's invasion included. I went through the stages of grief for each of them, one after the other. I lost a good bit of weight.

Soon I discovered that I liked bourbon, and then I spent about eight months in a constant alcohol-induced haze. Twice I ended up in the hospital with stab wounds that I didn't recall getting. I got arrested for vagrancy more times than I care to count. I DIDN'T get arrested for burglary when I should have. Hunger and grief will change a man.

I've changed more than most.

If I could point to one, single thing that did the most to pull me out of that psychic cesspool, I'd say it was the Big Flood. Several years back a major Pacific typhoon hit the west coast. All the weather wonks said it couldn't happen the way it did, and a lot of them were insisting it was an enemy attack or a government experiment gone wrong or even some sort of major HooDoo. Whatever. It dumped almost a METER of rain on Jump City and the surrounding two hundred klicks of landscape in less than a day. The whole town was under water, and even the high spots were wet to the knees. That long hill that leads from Battery Street down to Cobb Park? That place was a Class Four rapid, submerged cars standing in for boulders.

Anyway, I woke up soaked, with a small river where my alley was supposed to be. That helped to clear my head right off the bat. Also, my bottle of rot-gut had washed away, and that pissed me off. I stomped out looking for it, right into the biggest civil emergency to hit the west coast since Mount Saint Helens blew up.

Old habits die hard, I guess. I saw people that needed saving, and I started saving them. I managed to keep my public transformations to a minimum, and I don't think anyone suspected who I was. If anyone did, I never heard about it. After all, Slade thought I was dead, and I sure as hell didn't want to publish a revision to THAT story.

Life was chaotic for weeks. I volunteered at a shelter, joined a Search & Rescue team, helped put out a couple of fires … and it felt good. Really. Not that the pain had lessened much, but I had something to do that MEANT something to somebody, and that helped it mean something to me.

Once things got settled again, I did a lot of soul-searching. I went back to what was left of the Tower and picked through it. That's how I found this photo. It was sandwiched between a couple of ceramic tiles, which is the only reason it didn't burn, 'cause they were scorched. I think the Slade-bots must have used some kind of accelerant.

When I got my head screwed back on and decided to live again, I took stock of my options. I could rejoin the Doom Patrol (yeah, that made me laugh, too). I could see if the JL was interested in a new member. But given their power levels and the shit they usually have to handle, I'd be out of my depth. I could do the solo thing … but I'm no Batman and I don't want to be.

Or I could do what I truly wanted to do, and go after Slade. Once I latched onto the idea, it latched back.

He'd wasted no time in consolidating his position, once the Titans were gone, and every criminal in Jump City owed him in some fashion. He was expanding his empire practically by the day. I started studying him, studying his movements, his organization, his targets; learning who he considered a threat (mostly other supervillains) who he considered an ally (an extremely short list) and who he considered beneath his notice (the Jump City PD topped that one).

I had to do all that by proxy. For a man who was nearly indestructible, he sure was a recluse. The first year I spent scoping out his doings, I saw him exactly once, and that was pure chance. After a while I thought I might have better luck getting to him at one of his remote bases, but finding them and getting to them proved to be a hell of a lot of work. I did locate two. I spent a month haunting the first one, and three months at the second, all without getting even a whiff of Slade himself. He seemed to enjoy using his Slade-bots as proxies. It kept his underlings on their toes.

So I came back to Jump and studied him some more, and all the while I was studying myself. I'm not real sure about everything that happened that week I spent as a planarian, but it made some major changes in the way I interacted with all those animals locked away in that special room in my mind. I don't know if it's an actual, physical place, the way Nevermore was for Rae, but once I get into the right frame of mind, I can communicate with all of 'em, after a fashion. I couldn't do that before, and I could tell it was a frustration for them. After the Change, it was like they all had something they were simply dying to tell me. And I listened. I couldn't afford not to.

So I was a spook in Jump. I stole food to live. I'm not proud of it, but looking at things from the long view, I figured the people of the city would have been glad to give me the food if they knew what I had in mind for Slade. Rationalization? Yeah, I guess. Didn't have a lot of choice. I never hit the same place twice, and I never took more than I had to. I almost got caught a few times, and that made me jittery. I mean, it's not like anybody would recognize me – hell, I didn't recognize me – but sneaking out would raise too many questions and if I got stuck in jail, I wouldn't be getting any closer to my goal.

Toward the middle of the fourth year I was getting burned out. I was no nearer to finding Slade, and barely even knew what city he was in at any given time. There was an election, and the guy who got the Police Commissioner slot was on Slade's payroll. It was more or less common knowledge, and the man on the street basically didn't care. They didn't care that Slade was funneling coke by the shipload to the Northwest through Jump. They didn't care that he controlled all the gambling and prostitution and protection rackets in the state, or that he'd established a training ground for assassins in the building that used to house the Jump City YMCA. The few people who did speak up? Yeah, THAT worked well. For instance, there was an independent newspaper that liked to report on his criminal activities. It burned down. Three bloggers disappeared. A radio talk show host 'took early retirement' for 'health reasons' and didn't make a peep after that. And the average citizen only wanted his job and his car and his wide-screen and his beer, and as long as he had that, he didn't give a crap what Slade did.

It infuriated me and depressed me at the same time. So what was I working for? Nothing more than revenge? Was that what I'd been reduced to?

Not that revenge hadn't been uppermost in my mind all along, but heroes got standards, you know? Or we're supposed to.

I took some time off. Moved north and east to the big woods. Hunted my own food. Developed a taste for raw meat. Tofu ain't that easy to come by in the wilderness, and a puma is a successful predator. I could do the math.

I stayed out there for five months. That's another point where it kinda feels like I lost some of myself.

One day I met up with this group of former Jump City citizens who were hiding from Slade's men. It was news to me that Mr. Big Bad had agents out here in the boonies, so I stuck around to see how the land lay.

There were seventeen people all told, including four children. Five married couples and three single women. The single women were two doctors and a nurse, worked at a clinic in a bad part of town, and had helped some people escape from Slade. So naturally he put a price on their heads. Two of the couples were scientists Slade had tried to coerce into working for him. The other three … eh, this an' that. A teacher (and her husband) who told the class the truth about him, an Episcopal priest (and HER husband) who'd read some homilies critical of city government, and a plumber and his wife. I wasn't sure what they'd done. Probably flipped off a meter reader.

I sorta took 'em under my wing. Not a one of the bunch knew anything about woodcraft, and they were not-so-slowly starving. That first day I went hunting and brought back half a dozen rabbits. I also showed them how to identify edible mushrooms and plants, how to build a pretty-much-smokeless fire in a rocket stove (and how to build a rocket stove with rocks and mud). That sort of thing. I knew where a small cave was, and led them to it, and we camped out there without too much trouble for almost two weeks.

Slade's guys are good at what they do. I'll give 'em that.

I'd bagged a small pig and was lugging it back to camp when I heard the first gunshot. Dropping the pig, I morphed into a falcon and took off. In the twenty seconds it took me to get back, there were two more shots. I circled once to see who was where, then I dropped in.

The priest was dead. I learned later they killed her first. Then her husband attacked them, and they killed him. Then they shot the plumber, but he wasn't dead. One of the killers was walking over to finish the job when I landed on him.

Imagine this: a grizzly bear, a giant one, except covered with plates like the ones an alligator snapping turtle has, and armed with a pair of huge scorpion tales. It sure as shit wasn't anything anyone in that camp had ever seen before, and the general reaction was, "Run like hell!"

I let 'em run. That way they could die tired. And they did.

Half an hour later I came back to camp (yes, as myself, do I look stupid? … wait, don't answer that) with the pig. The others had questions for me. Lots and lots of questions. But I couldn't answer them truthfully without putting everyone in even more danger, so I told a big pack of lies and then that night I left. That whole incident sort of soured me on 'roughing it'. If I wasn't safe from Slade all the way out in Nowhereland, what was the point?

Back to Jump City. Back to stalking Slade.

I spent the first half of year five easing my way into the local criminal scene. (You know: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em … then beat 'em.) I'd already gotten a pretty good handle on how Slade ran things, who did what for whom (See, Rae? I did pay attention. And you thought I was asleep.) and where and usually when. So it became a matter of making myself useful to the right people. And everybody needs a bagman once in a while, right?

Turned out I had quite a knack for that courier gig. I started getting as much work as I could handle. I kept my head down and my opinions to myself and concentrated on staying as anonymous as possible. Sure enough, after a few weeks I had a visit from two of Slade's main enforcers. Metahumans. Couple o' freakin' tanks. Each one of 'em massed three times my paltry seventy-five kilos, easy, and they looked like it wouldn't have bothered 'em one bit to pull my arms off and beat me to death with them.

They wanted to know about me. The name I used, no surprise, didn't turn up anything on their background search. But I'd had a long time to come up with a story, and it was pretty tight . . . .

. . . . My folks were migrant workers.

I got no birth certificate because I was born in the tar-paper shack the eight of us lived in at the time.

I was born in the fall. With the cabbages.

No, I don't know my birthday. We never had any way to celebrate one, so Maw and Paw didn't bother with 'em. Born anyway. Like I said, with the cabbages.

Didn't go to school. It never came up. We worked.

Paw taught me to read. I learned to cipher from a book I found.

'cause we moved a lot. All the time. Followed the crops.

Maw came down with Valley Fever, and Paw ran off with a waitress. I was fourteen and didn't fancy gettin' involved with Child Protective Services. Me and my two older sisters went to L.A., and they got work as strippers.

I dunno. It was decent money. Kept us all fed an' dry.

Yeah, I did odd jobs.

'cause they wanted to move to Vegas after a couple years an' I wanted to stay in L.A. So I moved out.

I dunno. Still in Vegas, prob'ly … maybe? That was … kind of a long time ago.

Hazel's stage name was Desiree and Vennie's was Foxxy.

Lowrance. We had Maw's last name on account o' her an' Paw never got hitched. Course they might'a used somethin' else once they got there.

Moved to Jump 'cause it's easier than L.A.

Me? Deliveries, mostly. Kinda like what I do now.

Met a guy who taught me how to pick pockets.

He went by 'Fader'.

Eh … I'm not what you'd call an expert, but I didn't starve. Here's your wallet back.

I'm not tryin' to be funny. You asked, so I showed ya, okay?

Yeah, that part's right. I like the bottle. Did, anyway. Used to think I could take it or leave it, but I ended up takin' it pretty regular. Got mugged a few times, arrested a few times. Decided I didn't want to die, so I quit cold. Ain't touched it in … it'll be three years next month.

Yeah, got knifed. Woke up in the ER.

Sure, yeah, lemme get my shirt off … okay, right there … and there.

Didn't kill me. That's all I care about, y'know?

I dunno. Twenty-six? Maybe twenty-eight? I kinda lost some time when I was soakin' up all that booze.

Sure. I guess my arrest records are still on file. Never gave the cops a name, though.

Dunno why they didn't deport me. Guess they couldn't find a country that would take me. Besides, it was pretty obvious I was born in the States.

'cause I like courier work. People don't notice me anyhow, an' it's kinda nice gettin' paid to be unnoticeable when I don't have to work at it . . . .

. . . . We talked a long time, and they asked the same questions in slightly different words over and over. I guess my answers must have satisfied them, because they didn't try to kill me. They finally left.

I kept getting steady work. I got to know all the Jump City regulars. Which ones to avoid on general principles, which ones I didn't have to worry about, and which ones would shank me just for shits and giggles. I even developed a few relationships with some of them that might be called 'friendly', if you cocked your head over and squinted real hard. I'd call them by their first names, and they'd call me Jim. I found out after a while which ones were closer to Slade, which ones he didn't actively distrust. From there I started learning a little more about what could be laughingly referred to as his schedule. And after seven months, I finally found out where he held his meetings, when he held them in Jump.

I was looking at the long game. Seven months was nothin'.

The first time I attended one of those meetings, I was a huge, roiling knot of nerves. I had a decent idea how paranoid he was, and I was nearly sure there would be booby traps on every last tiny access to the room. It turned out I was right, but not in the way I'd feared. He was afraid of miniature robots. That's the only explanation for directional EMP generators in an air supply duct so narrow I could barely fit my arm in it while human. Oh, sure, he also had a few traps that would stop vermin of one sort or another, but by shifting around among a few different forms, I defeated them easily.

Still. I mean, come on, he's SLADE! He ALWAYS has a contingency plan.

But he also thought I was dead, which was a huge boon for me. I guess the Martian Manhunter could've done the same things I did (and more … hoo-boy, a hell of a lot more), but Slade was always excruciatingly careful not to attract the Justice League's attention, not to look like one of those bigger fish they'd feel the need to fry. He kept his activities spread out thin enough, and his part in them anonymous enough, to stay under the radar.

Off topic. Back to the meeting. I listened. I watched. I took careful note of who was there, what responsibilities everyone had, and anything else I could think of that would help me get close to Slade when he might be somewhat less invulnerable than usual. It was quite … productive.

And I noticed that he had this pendant thing around his neck with a little red jewel on it … and that sometimes it glowed.

I'd seen that glow before.

Looked like I had a new goal.

I also had a lot more research ahead of me.

. . .

. . .

It was getting close to three o'clock. I'd heard the muffled rumbles and clanks of people moving around and talking. Then the door opened and the 'guests' were escorted in, each followed closely by one of Slade's lackeys. They took their assigned seats. At exactly 0300, Slade walked in.

He projects this air of mystery without even trying. It's weird. Everyone knows what he is, but almost nobody knows who he is. And he never goes public without the mask. There probably aren't six people, besides me, who know what his face looks like, and most everyone else assumes that he's horribly disfigured. Not so. He actually looks rather distinguished, like he could be a tenured professor of French poetry or maybe an ambassador to some small country: neat beard and medium-length hair, both white, a strong jaw and even, pearly teeth. He'd lost an eye at some point, and wears a patch, but his face isn't scarred.

Yet.

The meeting doesn't last long. Slade tells 'em how it's gonna be, and nobody says a cross word. He leaves first, and then everybody gets escorted back out. I headed down to the pool area.

I'd been working on this plan for a long time, studying Slade, his habits, his special little phobias, his quirks, likes, and dislikes. I've been through his private stuff, things he keeps locked away from everyone, and I've learned a lot. For instance, he has three children, two of which still live. And they hate him. Their reasons are varied and valid, and a lot of the impetus behind the hate was Slade's doing. He didn't want 'em following in his footsteps, so to speak. I've even met one of them. He's an honorary Titan, goes by Jericho. He's mute because one of Slade's enemies slashed his throat for him. It didn't kill him, but it did destroy his voice box. He's got the ability to possess anyone who meets his gaze. Nice fella, though. Plays a mean guitar.

I'll be doing both of those kids a favor by ridding the world of their old man. That'll do the world a favor, too.

I took on my human form, got myself into position and waited. It wasn't even ten minutes later that Slade showed up, a towel around his neck, in his swim shorts. He had two of his bully boys with him (not the two that came and interviewed me, but they were of a type, know what I'm sayin?) and they took up positions at opposite corners of the room. I'd placed myself at one of the other corners, behind a towel rack.

Slade moved to the center of the near side, maybe fifteen meters from me, but then he stiffened. Slowly he turned in my direction, then he said, "Why don't you step out and join us?"

I stood and shuffled forward, hands knotted in front of me, not meeting his gaze, but glancing up at him every couple of seconds. The bodyguards trotted over to flank him, guns drawn. I noticed that he was wearing the red gem pendant, and that it was, indeed, glowing. I stopped about two meters in front of him.

My appearance seemed to amuse Slade. "Let's start with your name."

"Jim Lowrance."

His eyes slitted momentarily. "Lowrance. You're a courier."

"Yes, sir."

"What the hell are you doing in my pool house?"

"I wanted to meet you, sir."

"I don't typically allow that."

"I know, sir."

"Ordinarily I would simply kill you."

"Um … really? Um … I mean I – I realize that, sir."

"Do you have a deathwish? You tired of living?"

I swallowed hard and squeaked, "I've … I've got a – a – a autograph book, sir."

Confusion joined amusement on his face. "Come again?"

"I collect autographs. I – I was hoping – see, 'cause nobody would give me an appointment – I thought if I snuck in, you'd see – you'd know how much it meant – meant to me to have –"

He held up a hand. "Hold on. Are you telling me you risked almost certain death … to get my autograph?"

I chewed on my lip, scuffled my feet self-consciously. "Um … well … when you say it like that, it sounds kinda … dumb."

He chuckled quietly while shaking his head.

In a perfect world, he'd decide to humor me and sign my book. Then I'd be close enough to hit him first. I was judging the distances, from me to the guards, me to Slade, trying to calculate my strikes. It might have been something in the set of my jaw, or something in my eyes that gave me away … or maybe it was that glowing pendant. Whatever tipped him off, Slade's jaw suddenly hardened.

He took a step back, glanced at the bodyguards, and said, "Kill him."

So. Plan B. They'd already been holding their sidearms. But my weapons are a part of me, and my reflexes are utterly inhuman. My arms shot out, my hands transforming on the fly, and a pair of stingray barbs exploded into their hearts while they were still processing the thought of raising their guns to fire.

Slade flipped back and ran to the wall while I was yanking my arms free from the crumpling corpses. I sprang at him, covering the distance in next to no time, but he'd already retrieved a sword from somewhere.

OF COURSE he had a weapon hidden in the pool house. He's Slade. Cursing my lack of foresight, I engaged.

The man had already been dead once. He'd spent some time in Hell, then made a deal with Trigon to get his mortal form back. That wasn't all he kept, either. He'd been fast before. Now? He was nearly as fast as I am. And that, as they say, is nothing to sneeze at.

I increased my density, doubling my strength and mass, added hard plates to my skin, especially thick on my arms, and parried his first few blows without too much damage. I ran a few attacks of my own, grazed him twice with the stingers, and got him to concentrate on that. We went at it, hard and silent, for about ten seconds before he cut off one of the stingers. I stumbled back, holding the arm against my chest, the other out on point, and bit back a curse.

Slade smiled. "You want to tell me who hired you?"

"Fuck you."

"Not without dinner first." And he lunged at me.

My speed didn't fail me then. I parried his thrust and nailed him right below the ribs. Then it was his turn to stumble back.

I copied his smile. "Stings, don't it?"

He held a hand over the wound, breathing hard. Yes, it stung. I knew how horribly. And I didn't give him time to recover.

We traded another two dozen blows in about half a dozen seconds. I grazed him thrice more and got in a decent stab, but then his riposte relieved me of my remaining stinger. I cursed hard, sinking to my knees.

He wasn't much better off. His healing factor was pretty impressive, but stingray venom can't be ignored. He leaned on his sword and panted. I scooted backward, but he instantly followed, closing the distance. Putting his sword against my throat, he said, "I'll give you … a clean death … if you tell me who hired you."

I batted the sword to the side, then cradled my mutilated arms to me.

Smirking, he leaned over and grabbed me by the throat, hoisting me up close.

Perfect.

Twelve huge barbs shot out from my torso into his. Two of them injected stonefish venom, two of them that of the Inland Taipan, two carried King Cobra toxins, two were laced with the excretions of the Golden Dart Frog, two held saliva from the Blue Ringed Octopus, and two mimicked the poison of the Marbled Cone Snail.

Yeah, I'd worked on this a while. A few milligrams of any one of those substances would be lethal, and I pumped at least a gram of each toxin into his sorry carcass. Not even his supercharged system would be up to the task.

He dropped me and doubled over in agony, his sword clattering to the floor.

I stood and shook out my arms, my supposedly-lopped-off hands reforming. Then I picked up Slade's sword and, with two quick slashes, wrecked both his knees. I didn't want even the slightest possibility of his getting away.

He tried to scream. I could tell. But the toxins currently overwhelming his system were doing their jobs all too well. His breathing was slowing, his lone eye quickly turning red as the capillaries burst. A violent shudder shook his frame, and pink-tinged froth flecked the corners of his mouth: the alveoli in his lungs were corroding.

I tossed his sword into the pool. Then I knelt beside him and morphed back into my green form. His bugged eye stared at me as he whispered, "… you …"

"Yeah. Me. How about that, asshole. Maybe you ain't quite the assassin you thought you were." I pushed him over onto his back. His muscles were beginning to lock up, and it took some pulling to get his arms out of the way. "And unless I miss my guess by six klicks, you still have something I want." I ripped the pendant from his neck.

His abdominal muscles cramped then, pulling him into a knot so tight I heard the bones in his spine cracking. He gurgled once more as his cornea ruptured, and finally lay still. I watched him for half a minute, then checked for a pulse, knowing what I'd find. He was already beginning to smell.

Standing, I walked over to the exit. My cuts had regenerated by then, so I could sneak out without leaving a blood trail. And I needed to get to a safe place before following through with the last stage of my plan. I looked down at the stone glowing in my hand, hope battling the pessimism that had ruled my life for so long. If all my research paid off …

Time to get to it.

. . .

. . .

Thursday 29 November, 4:20am

I stopped by the motel and got my stuff, and was on the other side of Jump before a quarter-hour passed. I didn't care whether they knew what I'd done or not. I was finished with Jim Lowrance. No one would ever see him again, anywhere.

The economic situation in Jump City is fluid, as Robin liked to put it. There was a tremendous amount of wealth, but it constantly changed hands, and in a lot of cases there were clear winners and losers. That meant there were a lot of properties that were either abandoned or 'temporarily indisposed'. I'd checked city records for the place I was using tonight, a 600-square-meter building that was mostly open inside. I think it used to be a machine shop. The building was owned by an out-of-state corporation that hadn't paid taxes on it in five years. It reverted to the county, who tried to auction it off, but the roof leaked and the foundation was cracked and nobody would meet the minimum bid. That meant it was simply going to sit here, unused and boarded up, until the next auction in about six months.

In other words, it was perfect.

I had all the spell ingredients prepared ahead of time, in case I won, so setting up the rest of it didn't take long. I lit the fire, hung the brazier, and suspended Klarion's Tear over the array of powders. I'd had this scenario memorized for weeks, so I didn't need to check the books at all. I drew in a few deep breaths (the initial incantation was quite long, and couldn't be interrupted) and started chanting.

Ez mah klee ah'kah tor ahnbandabree slah
Teorna koh tahlah dreh'andrah ez gree …

One by one, the powders in the brazier began giving off streams of smoke. They wavered, then bent toward the red gem. It sucked them in.

Dloo tehh men kah uu nomeh tcherr ahn'ka dlah
Freh'tonahmeh ahshkahzh dahz lenn treet ez lee …

The Tear began glowing again. Good. It was supposed to.

I kept up the chant as each of the powdered gemstones gave up its energy.

Green Amazonite for balance.

Pink Rhodonite to bring order.

Red Jasper to set right that which was wrongly inflicted.

White Jadeite for magical protection.

Purple Amethyst to guide and enhance transformation.

Orange Carnelian to stimulate love.

Blue Sodalite to suppress confusion and magnify wisdom.

Yellow Citrine to dissipate negative energy.

Gray Howlite for tranquility.

It didn't escape my notice that the colored stones used in the spell reflected the colors represented by Raven's Emotions. I figured that couldn't possibly be a coincidence.

As I reached the midpoint of the incantation, I took the small bowl filled with powdered Labradorite and sprinkled it carefully around the edges. The rainbow-colored gemstone would serve to connect the ethereal and physical planes. The smoke it gave off, though, was all but colorless, and vanished like steam into the Tear.

Three quarters of the way through, I added the Peridot, the Stone of Rebirth. When the light-green smoke touched Klarion's Tear, the glow began pulsing brightly.

On the next-to-last line of the spell, I picked up the bowl holding the powdered combination of Turquoise and Topaz. A pinch dropped directly on the Tear flashed to vapor instantly. The air around the brazier took on a hazy, blue quality.

The last component was Hematite, and I threw it in on the last word.

The flash left me blinking spots out of my eyes.

Something gripped me around the neck and yanked me off the floor. I found myself staring into three pairs of glowing, yellow eyes. The face was dark gray, the head hairless, and the body below was … definitely not humanoid.

Okay, this was for SURE not part of the plan.

It spoke. "You are no sorcerer." The sound was like sandpaper across my eyes.

"Kandala, please, put him down."

That VOICE!

Raven floated into my field of vision and laid a slim hand on the … Being's arm. "He's my friend. He may not be a sorcerer, but he did free us."

The Being (Kandala? Is that what she said?) opened its hand and I caught myself in a three-point landing before regaining my feet and looking up at him. I was suddenly glad the building had six-meter ceilings.

Raven floated down and stood in front of me. I saw tears glistening along her lower lids. Then she threw her arms around me and held me as if she'd never let me go. I returned her hug with some enthusiasm.

Kandala made a rumbling noise. "Humans." There was a crackling sound, a glittering in the air, and he was gone.

When Raven, after most of a minute, eased her grip enough to look at me, her genuine smile was at odds with the stream of tears on her face. I used a thumb to wipe them away. She said, "I thought you were dead."

"I thought YOU were dead. Until a year and a half ago. Even then, I wasn't positive."

"How did you figure out all this?" She waved a shaky arm at the spell setup. "It's hardly common knowledge."

"It was tough. I had to find out what that gemstone was first, but I'd seen it in action and that helped."

"I'd thought all of Klarion's Tears had been destroyed. It was a complete shock when Slade showed up with one."

"I tracked down some people. Got access to some libraries that weren't open to the general public. It took almost a year." I gathered her close again, buried my nose in her hair, breathed in her scent. "I was so afraid you wouldn't be in there. But I had to try."

"I'm so glad you did."

I put my hands on her shoulders and narrowed my gaze. "You need to know something."

"Oh?"

"I love you."

"… Wh-what?"

"I love you. For years. I never said anything … you know, before … and … and I've spent the time since regretting it. So much."

Her breathing sped up noticeably.

"You were gone. Dead, so I thought. I'd lost my chance, forever. I'd never told you ... never mentioned ... anything about it. The regret was … I couldn't handle it. And I ... a lot of the time, I wanted to die."

Her unblinking gaze was starting to make me sweat.

I locked my courage back into place and continued, "I don't want to ever be in a position of regretting it again, so you had to know, had to at least be aware of – of what I was feeling." I held my hands up, pleadingly. "Please don't think I'm expecting anything from you. This is kind of a shock, I'm sure, and I realize that puts you in a bad position, and you don't have to say anyth–"

I had to stop. Her lips were in the way. This embrace lasted considerably longer than the first one.

When we finally came up for air, we stared into each other's eyes for a second, then both started giggling. I gently caressed her cheek. "So … you don't mind, then?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Good."

She laid her head against my chest. "I didn't know that was you."

"Huh?"

"When you were fighting Slade."

"You could see that?"

"We could. We could see anything Slade could see. I had no idea that was you." She poked my chest. "You picked up some new tricks!"

"And how."

"So … he's dead?" Her face turned up to mine. "It felt like he was dead."

"Most sincerely dead."

"So it's over, then."

I shook my head. "Nope."

"What?" There was sudden alarm in those luminous eyes.

"It's only now beginning."

"What is?"

"WE are. We are beginning."

That brought a slow smile to her lips.

"If you've seen all Slade saw, you know what a mess he made."

"Do I ever."

"Hey." A thought knocked into me. "You know all his secrets!"

"Most of them, yes."

"That will make dismantling his organization all the easier."

"… Huh. You're right."

"So do you want to help me with that?"

"I do."

I grinned at her. "I like the sound of those words."

She blushed prettily and cleared her throat.

I kissed her forehead. "We can take care of that soon, too."

"I'd like that."

"Then we'll kick some major bad-guy butt."

"Sounds like you've got a plan."

"Several."

She nodded. "Let's get started."

THE END

. . .

. . .

Author's Note: I think the two of them will be all right now. I have great hopes.

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