Deathstroke; War Games –

/

Chapter 3: A Mirage in the Distance

/

She was not born with white hair as it kicked off a sheen while she drove. Slade, halfway out of the complex asked to swap and Richard then got to seat himself beside the beauty who had nearly come crashing into their lives. "Um, so…. you've got to be pretty bored to come to Vegas, huh?"

She looked out the side of the convertible and at the road of desert into desert. So bleak, but until she spoke, he couldn't read her eyes. "Why did you two come out here, to get rich quick?" Her Australian accent was replaced with something more romantic; Spanish nearly as Dick's mind did a back flip.

"Stay on topic." Slade grunted to his associate. "Keep this professional, Grayson."

Dick rolled his eyes and sighed. "Hi." He held out his hand as she stared at it questioningly. "I'm Richard, this is Slade….and you are?"

"Mirage."

"Slade?" The man turned to Dick with a mouth full of rocks. Was he stupid?"

"Sorry, my power conveys truth in it. Makes men weak. I won't tell a soul –

"Who are you then." Slade jerked the car to a stop with a grinding wheel in the dust as he parked them, turning back by how the mini – bat playboy couldn't very well keep his dick out of this discussion long enough to learn anything useful.

"Spyral." She took her chances and told them. "They called you a bit less, immature than your files read." She frowned at Grayson, then turning her silver blue eyes to Slade. "Macho dogs like him are harder to read. You'd better learn from that, Querido."

Dick gawked as Slade tried to hide his chuckle. "You're witty, my dear. I'll give you that. Doesn't take a lot to make this former officer blush. Believe me."

"Is he lacking in originality, or am I being too blunt, then?" She wondered. "Anyway, the reason for my mission is not to be discussed where drones might follow. I have a secret base in the desert."

"Right while we've been driving in circles for hours." Slade blinked, unresponsively. "Good job, Dick. Why don't you invite a spy to our humble hole in the ground. We can have a double date."

"Don't be rude." Dick snipped. "Sorry, Mirage. He's a logic – kind – of – guy, and this mission…. you said a hideout….in the –

"In the rock, cloaked. I'm on the run from my bosses. They, broke the law and their code." She turned to Slade as her eyes seemed to drag him overboard. "We can discuss what you want, drink better coffee than in the hotel. I need to be sure that we won't be followed."

/

The digs were definitely out of a seventies – super villain's hide out instead of a more cut throat line of work as the real world functioned under seeing villains as cutthroats. Slade eyed the barren chrome walls and wondered why when he'd come after Terra in the past, that his radar never caught this place.

(I decided to change her origin so be warned.)

"Nice, pad?" Dick scratched his cheek warily as she walked in with her tall boots tapping against the tiles. "This place is safe from mankind – I mean, from anyone else locating it."

Slade saw that she walked very tall, rigid, as if nervous and trying to hide it from her new guests. She was definitely not a villain, maybe a spy or assassin. "You said before that you were hiding from your employers." Slade eyed the great big set of windows that must have been cloaked from anyone taking note outside of the complex. "It's not new." Dick pointed to a plaque on an adjacent wall further up from the glass panes. "This did have a seventies flare to it. And it was owned by…. Wind – Blown? Serious, wow…. major game changer…. ok!" Dick threw up his hands as the former boy wonder was probably brimming with countless ideas for interrogating their host.

"Mirage. I really, really would like to trust you, but why did you set up camp in a fully functional villain's hide away – high rise?"

/

"Then, you do not see me as you thought." Mirage wondered to herself as she looked at both men. "It only looks like a lair, it is not."

"Damn well if it is a hologram." Snorted the older merc. "I'd better start up that round of twenty questions before Grayson decides to bring out the cuffs."

"I'm not doing that. I only want an answer." Dick snipped at Slade, a new time since the car ride. "Mirage, you have the power to make…. false images. Are you a meta – human??"

"I am, as you say and, this is like I said to you earlier." She tossed her eyes back as Slade continued to watch the out of practice bachelor, fumble. "Everything here, is not as you see it." She snapped her fingers and blinked, the walls coming down to reveal…

A cave.

"But…. I felt the sofa!"

"The sounds. Even the taste is all false, tasteless I noticed. Isn't it, my dear."

Slade waited as Mirage snapped again, her smile back in place. "I can manifest my illusions to fill your stomachs too, if you think my power is that interesting."

"Can she?"

"I can." Grinned Mirage to the doubtful officer Grayson. Slade waited, seeing her beauty and appeal was nothing less to that of an assassin waiting to cut their throats. It wouldn't kill him, but if they were captured. If someone like Slade's enemies came to call –

"I cannot, read minds however." Mirage frowned as Dick let out a released heave of a sigh. "Well! If we get to stay here and plan our next move, privately…. I think my partner and I can vouch. So? Who is your boss that you're obviously being hunted by?"

"My same thoughts, exactly." Slade crossed across the makeshift room of Mirage's believable illusion. "Who is after you and if so, why did you save us from them."

/

She was quiet enough to let the creatures; men with more in common than she had read, she allowed them to take a gander at what she was. In the barren desert. Why she had fallen like a star here, so she explained it. "I am from a city called, Brazil. What we saw there and who my employer turned into is, unfortunate." She sat with her hands in her lap as the puzzle was unwoven across the floor. Who was she and why did she of all of the con artists pull two wanted men out of a shady hotel?

"There was a man in a mask, a dog, I think. Embora…. he didn't look very interested in where I worked and so, my whole company lost –

"He – a dog masked man…." Dick blinked. Slade wasn't talking, Dick imagined it was bad. "Go on. You ran, then what."

"The men working for him had found me to my car. I wasn't fast enough so I went and did myself reason to attack them with all I could muster. That was when these powers appeared."

"Your abilities were new. That explains why you stayed a secret but not for the length of time." Slade wondered. "It doesn't add up. Who did you work for then, when you got those powers of illusion."

"A group, I was a secretary there for a while. I believe the company CEO was called…...Kobra."

"Being in the hotel?" Dick leaned in to question her. "Yes, I was on the run so…I needed the money. I was able to mask my hair and eyes. Even my voice with some practice."

"Took you a few months, weeks at least depending on skill." Slade thought about the fact she'd tried to reach out. "No other witnesses, no other connections."

"Scattered, gone." Mirage shook her head. "My real identity. I didn't have to tell you. To show that I will be less trouble; Miriam Delgado." She told the two men. "I only found out recently that the dog masked man had spies stationed inside that hotel."

"Have a minute to think about our plan, I need to speak to Richard. Just for a moment." Slade ushered Dick into the fake kitchen as the man made sure that Mirage was on her own island mentally.

"It's Jackal."

"Was going to say you had me at "dog" headed." Dick seethed out a breath. "What do we do then? She's as lost as we are."

"We know that he's trying to set us up to fail, to kick us off this path as long as he can find us."

"But…?" Dick pointed with his thumb to the white-haired woman on a fake sofa, enjoying her very real thoughts of a happier time. "She's perfect. We can all avoid Jackal together and rescue Rose."

"The only issue I have with that." Slade interjected. "Is that her story is full of too many variables. She could be working for Jackal."

"Then, we piggy back on her powers and leave if things get messy. Rose is counting on you, but will you get cold feet?" Dick pouted out his lips as Slade grumbled something under his breath. "That's how you want to play this kid, I won't go down. You would be on your own either way. Maybe, unless…"

Dick threw his eyes up, hands over his lips with a shadowed gasp. "Slade! You wouldn't hurt an innocent con artist like that!? I won't go as far as to put cuffs on you and fly to wherever –

"Shut up, kid. I'd be more a gentleman than you can put out." He smirked. "That's only one option, but no. You and your political correctness had me at " Slade!"

Steaming in his seat as the group was treated to their first meal made by a meta with her illusion gift, the deal was pasta and a lot of it.

"How much would you like?" She beamed as Dick almost felt the woman crawl all over him from every bite. He shoved down the food with a thumbs up. It tastes like air, but he was full on it regardless. "One thing that I cannot replicate is taste or smell yet, sadly."

"A mirage is an image of something false." Slade bit into a loaf of Italian bread as it just, satiated. "I feel it, but to feel is to have that feeling for the item to hold any meaning. You must be quite disturbed by whatever Kobra did to your work space to have made this mistake."

"I was, and I wonder if this power is somehow connected to the attack by the dog -masked man and his associates. " Querido Deus!" She brought a hand to her cheek and exclaimed. "I must go see about the barrier!"

/

While the men ate, the woman worked on keeping her home spy free. Not a ninja in sight, she returned and dusted her tanned hands of the ordeal. "Question, not to be rude." Miriam saw Slade doing for a way to rest in the living room. "Was your hair always that color? I don't know if you know, but meta powers can change the pigment. It's the same of myself. My hair was never full like this as you see it."

"Ah, I do…" She reached over as Dick rushed in and pummeled Slade to drag him off with whatever Slade would allow to happen.

"NO."

"She didn't change a thing, the whole thing –

"NO.NO.No! Dios mio, no ! I won't have you ruining this –

"Me?" Slade looked back, shaken at the sentiment. "My daughter and her fake daddy are out there doing God knows what and that woman could help us. We could get her trust, that is a good plan. But… help her if you want, but Rose is first and only." He snapped back.

"Well, then let me."

Slade raised a brow, scoffing as his eye flicked over the idiot Casanova. "You're washed up."

"I am not, I…. broke up." Dick rubbed his neck. "With Kori."

"About time you two got over your squabble."

"Say what now?"

"Idiot says what –

"Say that to me, and we lose Rose. We lose against Jackal."

"Hello?"

The two stiffened. "I am done fixing the base, were you not going to go to sleep soon?"

"In a bit." Slade huffed out quickly. "We had more to discuss about the trip."

"Trip?"

Dick face palmed himself as Slade bit his lip. "Nice."

"I had to think." Hissed the merc through clenched teeth. "You would have fumbled too, admit it."

"I would then like to assist you for you for your troubles." Mirage stood in her outfit. A silver racer striped black cat suit, no better for a spy. Of Kobra .

"Ah, we can handle it." Dick tried to be courteous with a chuckle and a wave…anywhere closer and Slade could pounce. Miriam was a victim, if that was her real alias. "I refuse though to see you both struggle."

"We are born to be battlers of any foe, my dear." Slade tipped his head and smiled; she smiled sweetly back. How that bothered Dick. He was enjoying frying the bird's brains like old times. "You both respected my boundaries, so no. I will go with you."

"Are you sure?" Dick tried to lean on his caution as her powers would be handy to escape by…. but –

The base started to yell. Red flashing lights meant one thing as Miriam nearly turned invisible. A shot at the glass, and the illusion had begun to break.

"Grab your trekking gear." Slade turned to the play boy and his admirer. "We have a one-way ticket out of the desert, after all."

/

On the road again!! Find out! The thing with Kobra and Jackal is important so stay tuned!