The night air was cold on Tim's face as he pulled his mask down. As he looked off of the roof he stood on he began to prepare his mind for what was about to happen. His master had decided the time was right for his first solo mission. He was tasked with eliminating a gang leader in starling city that had been encroaching on one of the lights businesses. He was only told to eliminate him, how he did it was entirely up to him.
As Tim saw it he had a few strategies he could employ here. He knew the man was a chronic gambler and always frequented the same establishments, therefore finding a location to get rid of him would be simple. One problem however was that the man was extremely paranoid leading to him investing heavily in his bodyguards. If Tim chose to take the man up close he would have to prepare for an extremely tough fight. Another option would be to arm a series of explosives in his main hideouts. Tim didn't wish to go with this idea because of all the collateral damage and the wide publicity it would receive. The last and probably best option would be to find a good vantage point away from the mans favorite casino and wait for an opportune moment to snipe him. If Tim did go with this option he would have to have an excellent escape option for when the bodyguards would come after him. Thankfully Deathstroke had drilled into his mind to always be prepared for every foreseeable event and Tim had several escape vehicles hidden around the city. As Tim thought on it he decided that the vantage plan, as he chose to call it, had the best odds of succeeding. He quickly began to make his way to the targets' favored casino. Thankfully it appeared that starlings chosen hero, Green Arrow and his sidekick were out of town on league business so the odds of him being disturbed as he waited were very low.
It had been two nights and the target had yet to show and Tim's patience was wearing thin. If the target didn't show tonight Tim would be forced to resort to one of his other plans. As Tim watched the casino he began to review all the information he had on the man he was assigned to kill.
The mans name was Francis Klamath, he was born into crime and crime was all he knew. When he was twenty-two he was inducted into the yakuza in starling city, while he never rose very far in the ranks he did make several connections that would eventually allow him to form his own small time gang. Recently he had begun to expand his organization from low time crooks to high end drug dealers. Unfortunately for Klamath the latest get already controlled a large part of the drug trade in star city and they didn't take very kindly to a new drug cartel in town. Klamath had attracted the attention of the light and not in a good way.
Suddenly a car appeared in front of the casino, as it stopped a man got out. Tim's pulse began to quicken as he recognized the mans face. It was without a doubt Klamath. Quickly Tim began to ready the scope on his Remington sniper rifle. He calmly lined up his shot, he took one short breath before he fired. In less than a second Klamath was down and the first part of Tim's mission was complete.
Quickly he disassembled his rifle and made his way to his motorcycle, with any luck he would be back at the safe house before anyone even knew where the shot came from. Now that Klamath was dead he would need to eliminate all of his generals and lieutenants. To do this Tim would have to employ all the skills Deathstroke had taught him in gathering information.
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When Tim reached the safe house he hid his bike and quickly entered the building. The building was unimpressive, on the outside it appeared to be a regular apartment complex and to most people that was exactly what it was. The only strange thing was how one of the floors was always rented to the same person, a person who was barely if ever there. It was on this floor that the safe house was located.
He made his way to the armory so that he could store his gear. This was one of Slade's more heavily driven rules, always take care of your gear first so that it would take care of you. He stored his rifle on the armory shelves and placed the uniform he had worn into the correct shelves. Once his gear was properly stored away he began to relax and recuperate from the stress of the mission. As he relaxed the realization of what he had done finally sank in, he had started and completed part of his first solo mission. He had employed his own strategy and successfully taken out his target without any complications, so far at least, arising. Thankfully he had killed before so the mental problems of the first kill weren't an issue. As this thought crossed his mind the memory of his first kill came to the surface of his thoughts.
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The room was cold but not unpleasantly so. In the center of the room kneeled a man, his face was covered and his chest was bare. He was gasping as if he struggled to pull in each of his breaths. Suddenly a door opened and two people walked in, one was tall and heavily built and the other appeared to be child sized. The child like figure carried a short sword vaguely resembling a katana. As the child walked closer to the man on the floor the other closed the door and crossed his arms. For a moment all was silent, and then the man spoke.
"Today, you truly begin your journey into the new life you will live. It will start with this man who kneels before you, the ending of his life will be the beginning of yours. In your heart you may feel that he deserves life and that you have no right to take his life to further your own." At this the child flinched as if the man had read his thoughts. "It's alright, these thoughts are normal and I would be far more worried if you weren't bothered by it. This is why the man before you was carefully selected to ease you into the act. The man before you, if he can actually be called that, is one of the worst kinds of scum, he's a child molester. You are here to carry out his punishment, to make him atone for his sins. The truth is however that you will not always be killing those who deserve it, you will be given missions where you kill those whom you may feel deserve to live, so you must choose right now if this is the life you truly want, this is your last chance to back out and use your talents elsewhere." For a moment it looked as if the child would indeed back out, but then a look entered his eyes, it was a look of resolve. A look that said nothing would stop him from the path he had been placed on, true he may not have chosen this path once but now it was the best road he could take for himself.
All was silent and then the child quietly spoke. "I chose this path, nothing will stop me from traveling it." In less than a second the sword rose and fell, the mans head quickly dropped to the ground.
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In that moment he had lost all ties to the Tim who had stood on a building and watched a hero swing across the sky. This was not to say that he didn't still believe in good and evil, it was more like he now also believed in a world that had grey in it. He now firmly believed that was where he would reside, somewhere between the heroes he once worshipped and the villains they fought.
It was now time to begin to plan how to finish the rest of his mission. He needed to eliminate the generals and lieutenants of Klamaths gang. His plan was to kill them off quickly enough that they would be dead before anyone noticed they were being eliminated. It would require careful planning and even more careful execution. For tonight though, all that mattered was the bed calling his name.
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A man walked out of a building and approached the car waiting for him. He quickly got in and ordered his bodyguard to take him back to his house. It was unfortunate for him that he didn't have his driver check for any explosives, if he had he might've lived past the first block. As it was his death was very memorable...and very explosive.
Tim knew when he heard the explosion that another member of Klamaths quickly shrinking gang had been eliminated. This was the third of the gangs remaining leaders he had gotten rid of after killing Klamath and he knew they would be gathering soon. Unfortunately he had heard word on the streets that Green Arrows sidekick, speedy he thought it was, had returned to starling city. This could lead to complications, he had hoped to complete the mission before ether of the heroes had returned. This meant that he was now on a much shorter timetable and that he would have to make sure to eliminate the rest of the group quickly, thankfully there were only three or four of them left. Honestly at this point it was more about sending a message than anything else, by eliminating a gang that had encroached on the lights business it would make anyone else who had those same inclinations think twice.
Since speedy had returned Tim decided that he needed to finish the mission and get out of starling city that night. He quickly began to search out any and all informants who might know where the men he was searching for were at. He started with former members of Klamaths now destroyed gang, with any luck one of them would know one of the generals locations.
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After several hours and multiple interrogations Tim finally had gotten a location of one of the remaining generals. He quickly made his way to the mans location. With any luck the man would be able to tell Tim the final locations of the remaining targets before he died.
As he approached the mans house he began to scout out the perimeter to try and find the locations of all the guards. The house appeared to be a modern style mansion with around ten guards actively patrolling it. Tim decided to try and get around the guards as this would be a perfect test for his stealth skills. He stuck to the shadows and only moved when he was sure no one would see him move. He used every single bit of knowledge Deathstroke had imparted about how to move silently and stealthily. Soon enough he entered the house, now he just had to find his target, get the last locations and get out of this city by the morning.
He began to search through the rooms, uncertain as to where his target would be. As he searched through one of the bedrooms he heard voices shouting over each other. As he got closer he realized that the voices belonged to the last remaining leaders of Klamaths gang. If Tim was lucky he would be heading to the extraction zone in just a few minutes. He pulled out his silenced pistol and prepared to open the door.
3...2...1, he opened the door silently and scanned the room. All three of his targets were sitting around a table arguing over who might be hunting them down. Tim smiled to himself at the irony and lined up his shots. As all the guards were outside patrolling no one would notice the men were dead and Tim had a good window of escape. He left the room and began making his way to the airport where a plane was waiting for him.
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To ensure he got out of the city cleanly he made certain he obeyed all the rules of the road as he made his way to the airport. After a while he began to notice a figure on the rooftops keeping pace with him. If his suspicions were correct his departure just became more difficult and much more urgent. He began to increase his speed. He was only around one mile away when the figure disappeared. All of a sudden a the sound of a second motorcycle erupted as the figure began to quickly gain on Tim. Spurred on by the sudden appearance, tim pushed his cycle to the limits. He had less than one hundred yards when the figure shot an arrow at his bike. It must have had some sort of incendiary device on it because when it hit Tim's cycle it erupted in an explosion of light taking one of Tim's wheel with it. Tim was thrown off the bike and nearly blacked out when he hit the ground.
The second he was able to he began to try and find the figure. As soon as he saw him his suspicions were realized as he recognized the uniform of Green Arrows sidekick, Speedy. He began to make his way over to where Tim lay on the ground. Tim began to try and assess his injuries. From what he was able to tell he had a severely sprained ankle, possibly three cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder. With all of his injuries there would be no way for him to the pseudo-hero by fighting, he would have to find an opportunity to get to the plane, or make one he realized.
"Whew, I thought for a minute you were a hero, guess I got lucky with you only being a sidekick." Speedy stopped walking and from what Tim could see of him was trying to restrain his anger. "Huh, you don't look to lucky, laying there on the ground trying to get up" he snarled. Tim suddenly started laughing as hard as he could. "And what the hells so funny about that! It's just...you might've caught...me, but I bet...you don't even know...about the bombs! Tim responded. Suddenly there was a massive explosion far off in the city. "You bastard! How many more are there, he demanded while shaking Tim. Pretending to be frightened Tim stammered that there were three others gave their location and begged speedy not to hurt him. "You bastard I'll be back for you once I disarm those bombs. Speedy quickly got on his bike and drove back into the city desperately hoping to stop the other bombs from going off.
Once speedy was out of sight Tim started to laugh. There had been only one bomb, it had been placed in a building about to be destroyed far on the outskirts of starling city. It had been one of Tim's backup plans for if he had to escape from one of starlings heroes and thankfully it had worked. He struggled to his feet and began to make his way to the plane that was waiting for him. As he did so a thought arose in his head. "I did it, I completed a mission by myself! This was the first mission he has ever done by himself and it was successful.
As he boarded the train he set it to autopilot and began to relax. It would take a while to get back to base and he couldn't wait to see Slade's expression!
Hey, this is the waunderer. Sorry for the wait, I contracted a most despicable case of writers block and then when that ended I succumbed to that most foul disease...UNMOTIVATION! I hope to have a new chapter out soon but, you never know. Thanks to my anonymous friend for the aid by the way, yep you know who you are. Ciao!