*Note: I'm going to treat the events of Overdrive as taken after The End just for continuity sakes.

He didn't necessarily enjoy taking life. It was just part of his profession and just as casual as breathing. Something that had to be done for a man like him to survive.

Slade leaned back as he waited for the computer to finish compiling.

He knew that he was considered the villain and the bad guy to anyone else and he didn't deny to himself that he acted more selfishly than most of the goody two-shoe heroes.

The bar barely edged along in the screen.

He also understood why the Teen Titans in particular felt so strongly to him. He could especially understand why Robin in particular took particular vile to his being.

He took a sip from the glass that was sitting on his desk. A glass of rather expensive whiskey, neat of course. The amber fluid slowly flowing into his mouth with the surge of aromatics and barrel spice with the punch of fire that followed soon after.

It was nearing the end, but it was still punishingly slow.

Even if Robin did not want to admit it, Slade was almost everything. He was cold, calculating and ruthless enemy that his mentor most likely trained to fight against. Every day he not only trained against such a foe but Batman himself had a reputation of being just as cold, calculating and ruthless as he.

95% it read.

To Robin, for a boy as young as he surrounded by other children it was as if he was everything. All the evil in the universe coalesced into one single entity for them to triumph over. The ultimate representation of good vs evil and if they could take him down then that would mean good has won, now and forever.

96%.

Even someone such as Trigon who would be what the true face of evil would be didn't seem to be as intimidating as someone like him would be to them. How could he, a simple man – a mortal ever be compared to a titan of death and misery that exists only to consume everything and destroy what he could not?

97%.

It was quite simple, almost laughably so. It was because Trigon was just evil. The demon never had the choice to be good or evil, he or rather it was just pure malice and greed and fear and loathing from the day it was spawned. It was simply a beast that reacted to outside stimuli and acted angrily to the universe. Almost to spite its own existence, Trigon lived just so others could die.

98%.

But Slade? He had a choice. The fact that he was merely a rather unremarkable man simply meant that he could, every single day, choose what to do and willingly chose to commit these deaths. Commit the treachery. Commit the casual disregard for life. He wasn't born evil and wasn't born into it but rather willingly chose it and that is why he felt Robin and his team shook slightly when facing off against him. They would not, could not, admit that someone could not be so evil – so vile, to do what he can do.

99%.

When Trigon came or some other alien and god-like being came around it was just *so* easy to internally accept that it was ok. A simple battle of spirit and strength. There was no morality involved in what Trigon was doing or them subsequently stomping him out. But it's relatively easy to watch a demon lay waste because it's a demon of course it's going to do that. But to watch a fellow human, a man like any other you see, do the same…

It could break you.

100%.

The compilation finally done the prompt on the display went away and at first there was no activity. Then suddenly there was a flurry of activity on his display, as files were opened and closed. Text files were opened and within a moment filled with indecipherable characters and symbols and then rewritten instantly. Sometimes a language he could somewhat understand and sometimes not.

Taking life was casual to Slade. It had to be, he was an assassin. But creating a life? That was an entirely new ballgame for him. It was scary, it was joyous, fear but also incredible. His daughter was the universe throwing him a curve ball. He was an expert of taking but had no clue on developing a life.

The chaos on the screen begin to coalesce. The files were opened and shut and manipulated less rapidly.

Was this creating a life, he wondered. He knew what he stole from S.T.A.R but he did not create it, he was just giving it the chance. What's more important for life, the resources or the opportunity?

No files were being open anymore.

He never cared about being philosophical dialogues. Usually they chose what the correct answer was circled around endlessly to reach that conclusion. He just didn't care. The Titans might think of him as a murderer, a psychopath or a monster but he didn't care.

He never cared about hurting the Titans at all, it was all professional and nothing personnel.

A simple text editor came onto the display as he finished his whiskey. For a moment nothing happened as he sat. The tightness in his chest reminded him to breathe out, not even realizing he was holding in his breath.

Slowly and deliberately the words started to form on the screen.

"Hello, World."

The glass in his hand shattered.