Long Live the King – Deathstroke The Terminator's Forced Descent Into Villainy
Chapter One: The Loss of a Kingdom
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1991 March 5th
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It's nearly taken my entire team to push back towards their headquarters. Through jungles so thick that
you'd lose your sight, past gorges that swallow you up whole.
I've seen what monsters lurk in dark corners, enough to stoop to their level. I'm missing the boys and you
like a walking dead over in this heap of green, and the unknown is still what keeps me wishing you'd not
have to read this letter.
This is war, and I'm the only soldier that will live to bury my own dead. I chose to stay and fight in the
army; I'm the reason we can't be together, and I'm sorry for all of the heartbreak you've had to face
since that day in the clinic.
This isn't the time to dawdle, though. Will patched me through to command center's last standing radio
tower; I have to get a move on or perish here like the rest of those I've gunned down to remain,
anonymous to my enemies.
What am I, anymore? Who so could tell you that, would already have been made a dead man by my
Gun... They all say I'm too swift, too sure – footed to fail. Well, any man who's herculean in might still
has his one Achilles.
It's better you just try not to think about me, and focus on enduring what YOU can do for yourself. I want
you to be happy, but know I will come back as a better man and person who can care for our kids
through all the trials we'll be tasked with in their future.
Your loving husband; Slade Joseph Wilson.
/
That was the last Adeline Kane had heard of him. He'd gone off and away from her life after costing the family she'd strewn together so much more than dollars and cents. Slade Wilson, her former husband, was nothing but a stain on her imperfect memory of what their family could have been.
Her family, was sorely divided between who loved whom, more. It was a wallowing cloud; the aftershock after a cruel war in her home. Her eldest son Grant was a defiant yet hot headed army brat like his father. She was afraid the real Mr. Wilson would pick up on that too soon. Her youngest and second boy was now mute. Why and how? The question was why hadn't she kicked Slade out of their lives sooner.
Addie walked to the stairs and ascended up to where her youngest was busy with his homework. He had to finish a school project…but not here.
No. He wasn't in this house anymore. She fitted on her headphones and sat in front of her desktop, and patiently awaited the time when he'd smile back at her.
So far…. the house was nothing more than a mixed jar of memories and broken feelings from room to empty room. The boy; a green eyed and blonde child with a demeanor as sweet as pie was in Switzerland at a special school to hone his…. abilities. He was already fourteen, and this…well, this was why she wanted to keep him out of danger.
Let's say Slade had been the rotten fruit that had tainted the entire platter. As such of this analogy, Addie had no clue hoe to swat the fly from he plate. At a younger age her youngest son Joey, had been caught up in a fatal accident that had mad him completely mute. An abduction by a terrorism group run by a man called The Jackal. Soon after that, something else was found of the boy's health during a routine check up.
ESP. And for all it was worth, this is really and truly where the memories resurfaced….
/
"You're not going to go through with it, Lt!"
The face of one; a brunette with eyes as hot as blazing coals, but firm as a candle's flicker, she was too busy shouting at her underling to give a damn about what she had to say.
A blonde, tall male with a cocky grin was staring her down, loud as she was if not quietly contemplating her reason for barging in on him the day before the army's procedure.
"I'm doing this for us – for our country!" He professed to his superior. She snorted up at him unkindly, her muscles aching for a brawl to knock same sense into that thick skull of Wilson's.
"I don't care if they let you off early for retirement -you are insane if you think that you'll come out of this the same man you were in my platoon! This mission could lead you to become, a wounded man…You'll lose your rank, you won't ever get to fight again, or live if they don't keep you…"
"I'm not going to argue. If I make it, fine. I'll even propose to you down on one knee."
She was sure he'd been nearly as prepared to commit as he was to be strung up with wires and tubes in some top – secret military base. He'd only told her about the two-month long ops mission, nothing more. He pleadingly looked into her eyes as he'd done so many other times.
"Prove it. Live, and if you aren't as wild as a Joker, then I…might consider taking you up on that promise. IF you keep your big mouth shut –
"I won't let you down, Addie."
How she blushed madly, ruined by that cocky smile of his, of Slade's. He was nothing but a puppy, running to her like…like….
Like he knew she'd be there when he woke up.
/
As she'd expected, he'd not been the same in the end. While in the beginning, he'd taken to a new business opportunity - and he traveled, far away… leaving the three; Grant, Joey in diapers, and Adeline Kane to fend for themselves in their home. Her family was in indirect relation to the Wayne family of Gotham city, so she had an estate to keep her head from popping off. But her depression back then had lingered while waiting for that louse to step through those doors, unannounced. He'd come back, but was strangely detached from his family. Even with days off from his "job" he still made her worry. She was out, no longer in the military. Her service paid up, how she'd not known that Slade Wilson was always a soldier. Even after the wars they'd stopped and stalled, he couldn't let it go. He had to push, but never for them. No.
He wanted that stupid thrill to last a goddamned lifetime.
/
Joey's injuries ran deep as well, seeing as how Slade had been the cause of it all. But, wait?
Was he still trying to stop the blow? Was he still beating himself up for the near loss of his precious little boy's laughter?
Why don't we just wait and see as the curtain draws up…
/
Gunfire, and a lot of hissing, whistling explosives buzzed and blared throughout the encampment.
For some of the men, they ran for cover.
And called in the only one tough enough to stop this wild ride in its tracks. The men all lined up to die – what a rush this was to his bloated ego…
The tallest soldier in their ranks spoke out loud while a secret weapon was ready to rock the foundation.
"Go! GO!" The soldiers were wired and ready to jump the gun? Wilson only mentally checked their position. Could work. But he'd wing it, just to be safe.
They let the blockade be pressed as a man zipped by with the force of a speedster to the common mortal man.
Ah, or a woman he'd carelessly left behind to mope.
Slade's swords swung out to slice the competition down, earning a glare from the rebel's leader in charge at that time.
"It's him! Open fire!!"
The ricocheting bullets pummeled the man in his ten-ton armor. The only equipment besides his weapons that he'd ever need on the battlefield, was a suit to match and an orange face mask tied to him like a noose woven round his neck.
He was marked by the call to battle, but how this had come to be was no mystery.
/
Tubes and wires. As if he were already psychic, that was what the United States had done; drugged him, pushed him to his limits and spat him back out to rot in his own head. In a body that was useless, weak.
Until one night he'd awoken to pain like no other.
Purging, boils, and veins below his flesh, it was a delayed response to the procedure he'd lied to Addie about. Rioting in his skin, he ripped the hairs out of his head with a yowl so loud that the motel manager might have left him out on the porch to hitch hike it back to his crude wife and her distressed little boys. He'd been ok, he'd gotten better because…
She'd stayed, and now he had to do even better to prove it.
The time he'd learned what that serum they'd injected into his bloodstream was capable of, it was too late to look back on his promises. So, he chose both.
He stayed and helped out when he'd gotten on his feet, and then he left to find hope.
He couldn't be gunned down, and every gash disappeared like black magic.
Super, as in Super soldier.
/
Addie was kept at a distance, for the work he'd later be asked to commit to was very dangerous and heavily soaked in blood and controversy.
What else could he do with his newly mastered superior abilities of a cut throat warrior?
He'd learn to fight stronger, and more recklessly than he'd ever had to picture in his mind's eye.
Two eyes, up until the jig was up.
/
"You lied to me, Slade!!" Addie had just finished having Joey's hospital arrangements set up. He was in a dark place and Slade was about to be beaten senseless for harming her boys.
"I did it like I said. The money was able to support –
"I don't care about what it paid you! You…. you had a new persona AND you were freaking hired by anyone who breathed for the right price…I can't even look at you after…..I hope that joey remembers what you did…." She seethed at him; eyes turned down below her mop of long brown hair.
"Addie –
"Don't come any closer!!" She rushed at the only thing she could hope to defend herself with. A gun, the one thing she'd rather not come into contact with – but she was a mother. Grant was still out and with a friend until the boy's mother was at a calm.
Not until he! –
"Addie!"
BANG!
/
One eye. What a laugh….as if hot -headed ran in their entire pompous bloodline.
Slade looked over the top of a building rooftop at the next target on his shit list.
"Cowards." Slade muttered before letting his snipe rifle's trigger hit back, and to remind Wilson of the life he could never own. For now, he was just a mercenary. Oh, but he wasn't done. No, no. He had time.
And for a nearly immortal king like him, he'd have o make it clear that he was never coming back. Not even to give her a peck on the cheek and apologize.
It was time for a change of pace. So? What came next…. that was the million-dollar question as a cry rung out.
"Target; terminated." He smiled and recovered his things before hopping off of the rooftop to grab a drink back at his safe house for the evening.