The night was a silent predator, its breath cold against the jagged cliffs surrounding Deathstroke's hideout.
Talia al Ghul stood at the edge of the treeline, her emerald eyes narrowed, calculating. Behind her, a number of the League's deadliest assassins waited, their black garb blending into the shadows.
The intel had been precise—this was where Deathstroke had retreated after slaughtering her father.
Where he had hidden like a coward after dealing a surprise attack which led to her father's death and a loss in great numbers of their soldiers.
Dishonorable.
Unforgivable.
Talia's fingers curled around the hilt of her dagger, the metal biting into her palm. She would carve the truth from his flesh before she let him die.
A single gesture.
Her assassins moved like ghosts, scaling the compound walls with practiced ease. No alarms sounded. No guards patrolled. The silence should have been her first warning.
The second came when the floodlights exploded to life, blinding white, and the gunfire erupted.
They had walked into a trap.
Bullets tore through the first wave of her men before they could react, bodies jerking like broken marionettes before collapsing.
Talia rolled behind a concrete barrier, the heat of muzzle flashes searing the air. She could hear Deathstroke's mercenaries shouting, their boots pounding as they closed in.
Then he stepped into view.
Deathstroke stood atop a steel walkway, his mask a blank, emotionless slate, his single visible eye glinting with something like amusement. "Talia al Ghul," he called, his voice a deep, mocking rasp. "I was wondering when you'd come."
She didn't waste words.
With a snarl, she lunged, her blade flashing toward his throat. He blocked with his forearm, the reinforced plating screeching against steel.
She twisted, driving her knee into his ribs—only for him to grab her leg and hurl her into a shipping container. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, pain spiderwebbing up her spine.
Her assassins rushed him.
The slaughter was methodical.
Deathstroke moved like a machine, every motion precise, brutal. A sword severed a man's arm at the elbow before reversing into his gut.
A pistol barked twice—two headshots, two corpses hitting the ground before the echoes faded. Talia regained her footing just in time to see him drive a combat knife through the eye socket of her last remaining fighter.
Then he turned to her.
She attacked again, faster this time, her strikes a blur of lethal intent. He countered each one, his strength overwhelming.
A fist cracked against her jaw, sending her stumbling. A boot slammed into her ribs—she felt something snap. Blood filled her mouth, metallic and warm.
She barely registered the needle sliding into her neck before the world went black.
- - -
When consciousness returned, it came with agony.
Talia hung from chains bolted to the ceiling, her arms stretched taut, her toes barely scraping the concrete floor. The room stank of blood and antiseptic, the flickering fluorescent light casting jagged shadows across Deathstroke's armor as he paced before her.
"You're awake," he observed. "Good."
He backhanded her.
The force snapped her head to the side, her vision swimming. Blood dripped from her split lip, splattering the floor between them.
"Where is it?" he demanded.
She spat at him.
The knife came next, sliding between her ribs with clinical precision. She choked on a scream, her body convulsing as he twisted the blade.
"Ra's had something I need," Deathstroke continued, his voice disturbingly calm. "Coordinates. Hidden in an artifact. You will tell me how to decipher them."
Talia gritted her teeth. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Another strike—this time the pommel of his knife crushing her fingers. Bones shattered. She couldn't stop the cry that tore from her throat.
Days blurred together in a haze of pain.
Electricity seared her nerves.
Knives peeled skin from muscle.
Salt and acid followed, burning into open wounds.
Through it all, Deathstroke repeated the same question.
And through it all, Talia gave the same answer.
She didn't know.
But he didn't believe her.
On the fifth night, as she hung limp in her chains, barely conscious, Deathstroke finally paused.
"You're either remarkably stubborn," he mused, "or you truly are ignorant."
Talia lifted her head, her breathing ragged. Blood matted her hair, her once-pristine robes now shredded and stained. "Why?" she rasped. "You killed my father. You tore the League apart. Taking control… that wasn't your end goal. What do you want?"
Deathstroke studied her for a long moment. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he removed his mask.
The face beneath was scarred, weathered, his single eye cold as ice. "Normally," he said, "I wouldn't waste my breath. But since you won't be leaving this room alive…" He reached into his belt, withdrawing a small, weathered map. "Have you ever heard of a drug called Mirakuru?"
Talia frowned. The word was unfamiliar.
"It was a Japanese experiment," Deathstroke continued. "World War II. A serum designed to create super-soldiers. It worked too well." He unfolded the map, revealing an island circled in red. "The test subjects became monsters. Unstoppable. Unkillable. The project was buried, the remaining vials lost."
His finger tapped the coordinates.
"Until Ra's al Ghul found one."
Talia's blood ran cold.
Deathstroke's smile was a razor's edge. "Imagine an army of men like me. Unbreakable. Unyielding. That is what your father hid. And I will have it."
He leaned in, his breath hot against her ear.
"Even if I have to carve the answer from your bones."
Talia's body was a ruin of pain, every breath a struggle against broken ribs and seared flesh. Deathstroke's words echoed in her skull—Mirakuru. An army of monsters. The thought of it made her stomach twist. Her father had kept many secrets, but this… this was something else entirely.
Deathstroke stepped back, observing her reaction with detached interest. When she said nothing, his gloved hand closed around her throat, squeezing just enough to make her vision pulse black at the edges.
"Still playing the loyal daughter?" he mused. "Ra's is gone. His empire is ash. Whatever misplaced devotion you have left won't protect you from what's coming."
She spat blood at his feet. "You think you're the first man to try breaking me?"
His grip tightened. "No. But I'll be the last."
- - -
The next round of torture was worse.
The dim glow of flickering torches cast long, wavering shadows across the stone-walled chamber, their orange light dancing over the cold, damp surfaces.
The air was thick with the metallic scent of blood and the faint, acrid tang of smoke from recently extinguished fires. Talia knelt on the rough-hewn floor, her wrists bound behind her, her dark hair disheveled and clinging to her sweat-streaked face.
Despite her predicament, her emerald eyes burned with defiance, fixed on the man who loomed over her—Deathstroke, the mercenary whose reputation for ruthlessness was as legendary as his skill.
Deathstroke didn't just want pain—he wanted erosion. The slow, methodical dismantling of her will.
This time around, he started with precision strikes, targeting nerve clusters that left her screaming without leaving permanent damage. When that didn't work, he moved to more creative methods.
A scalpel traced the old scars on her back—the ones from her League training. "You were always his favorite weapon," he murmured as the blade bit deep. "Sharpened to perfection. Tell me, did he ever see you as anything more than a tool?"
Talia clenched her jaw. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
He pressed a live wire to the fresh wound.
Her body arched against the chains, a raw, animal scream tearing from her throat. The smell of burning flesh filled the room.
Deathstroke watched, unmoved. "The coordinates, Talia."
"I. Don't. Know."
He sighed, as if disappointed. Then he pulled a syringe from his belt. The liquid inside was thick, iridescent—unnatural.
Her breath hitched. "What is that?"
"A gift from an old friend," he said, tapping the needle. "Not Mirakuru, but close enough. It won't kill you. It'll just make you wish it did."
The injection burned like molten lead in her veins. Within seconds, her muscles locked, her nerves alight with white-hot agony. She couldn't scream. Couldn't move. Could only feel as if her body betrayed her.
Deathstroke leaned in, his voice a malicious whisper. "When it wears off, you'll talk. Everyone does."
His armored fingers tightened around her throat, not enough to crush, but enough to remind her of his control. The black and orange mask obscured half his face, leaving only one cold piercing blue eye visible.
He studied her reaction, searching for any flicker of fear, any sign that she might break. But Talia had been trained by the Demon's Head himself; she would not give him the satisfaction.
"Sir."
The sudden voice came from behind, abruptly cutting through the tension.
A masked soldier stood at attention in the doorway, his posture rigid, his gloved hand pressed to his brow in salute. The insignia on his shoulder marked him as one of Deathstroke's elite—loyal, lethal, and utterly disposable if necessary.
Deathstroke didn't turn. "Can't you see I'm busy?" His voice was a low growl, the irritation barely restrained. His grip on Talia's neck remained firm, his thumb pressing just beneath her jaw, where the pulse thrummed steadily.
The soldier hesitated, then stepped forward. "I apologize, sir, but it's urgent."
"And?" Deathstroke's tone was flat, daring the man to waste his time.
The mercenary's gaze flickered briefly to Talia before he continued, his voice dropping slightly, as if uncertain whether she should hear. "It's an urgent message from Vice Commander Jones."
A slow, knowing smirk curled beneath Deathstroke's mask. "Oh, do not mind her." He tilted his head slightly, his eye never leaving Talia's face. "She won't be alive long enough for it to matter."
The soldier swallowed hard but obeyed. "Vice Commander Jones says… it's been found."
For the briefest moment, the chamber seemed to freeze. The crackling of the torches, the distant drip of water from the ceiling, even Talia's steady breathing—all of it faded into silence. Deathstroke's eye widened, a spark of triumph flashing within its depths.
Then, in one swift motion, he released Talia, letting her slump forward as he turned fully toward the soldier. "I see." His voice was dangerously calm.
Without another word, he strode toward the exit, his armored boots echoing against the stone. But just before he crossed the threshold, he paused.
His head tilted slightly, his single visible eye locking onto Talia over his shoulder. The message in that gaze was unmistakable.
"Looks like you just outlived your usefulness."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Talia didn't need an explanation—she understood immediately.
Whatever Deathstroke had been trying to extract from her, he no longer needed. Someone else had given him the answers. And now, she was nothing more than loose ends to be severed.
As his footsteps faded down the corridor, the heavy iron door groaned shut behind him, sealing her fate. The chamber felt colder now, the shadows deeper. Talia exhaled slowly, her mind already racing through escape routes, contingency plans, last resorts.
But one thing was certain—Deathstroke had what he wanted. And she had just become expendable.
- - -
The Batcomputer's screen flickered with satellite imagery, its blue glow casting sharp shadows across Batman's cowl.
Coordinates blinked red over a derelict industrial complex on Gotham's northern outskirts—abandoned on paper, but recent thermal scans showed heat signatures where there should have been none.
This was the recent base Deathstroke currently held in Talia, after moving from the previous one she had engaged in her raid.
"Slade's hiding in plain sight," Batman growled, pulling up schematics of the facility. "Old Kord Industries storage site. Reinforced sublevels, limited entry points. He's using it as a staging ground."
Nightwing leaned against the console, arms crossed. "So, what's the play? Sneak in quietly, or give him the usual Bat-branded house call?"
Batman's gauntleted fingers tightened around a smoke pellet. "We go in hard. He's expecting stealth. We make noise."
The complex loomed like a graveyard of steel and concrete, its chain-link fences topped with rusted barbed wire. Batman and Nightwing dropped onto the rooftop of an adjacent warehouse, their boots silent on the rain-slicked surface.
"Guards at every stairwell," Nightwing observed through his binoculars.
"Two-man patrols. Military-grade gear. Definitely Slade's boys."
Batman's eyes narrowed. "Take the east entrance. I'll flank from the west. Meet at the central elevator shaft."
Nightwing smirked. "Try not to hog all the fun."
They moved like shadows splitting in the dark.
Batman descended through a shattered skylight, landing behind two mercenaries chatting near a stack of crates. A batarang to the first man's temple, a spinning heel kick to the second's jaw—both dropped before they could blink.
Alarms blared.
"So much for subtlety," Nightwing's voice crackled over the comms, punctuated by the crunch of a well-placed escrima strike.
More guards poured into the corridor. Batman grappled upward, kicking off a wall to somersault over their heads. He landed in a crouch, twin batarangs already whirling through the air. They struck rifle barrels, sending sparks flying as guns misfired.
Nightwing flipped into the fray, his staff a blur of motion. "You know, for a guy who hates guns, you sure love disarming people."
A mercenary lunged with a combat knife. Batman caught his wrist, twisted, and drove an elbow into his throat. "Focus."
They cleared the hallway in under a minute.
The central elevator was locked down, but Batman pried the doors open with a hydraulic tool from his belt. The descent into the sublevel was pitch-black, the only sound the whir of the grappling line.
At the bottom, a reinforced door stood ajar. Flickering light spilled from within.
Batman motioned for silence. Nightwing nodded, shifting his grip on his escrima sticks as Batman took a look.
Batman froze for a fraction of a second—just long enough for Nightwing to notice.
"Well," Nightwing muttered, "that's not what I expected to find."
Talia lifted her head slowly, her emerald eyes glinting with a mix of defiance and exhaustion. A bruise darkened her cheek, and her usually immaculate attire was torn and stained. Yet, even in this state, she carried herself with regal disdain.
"Bruce." Her voice was hoarse but steady. "I suppose I should be flattered you came looking for me."
Batman moved forward, slicing through her restraints with a batarang. "I wasn't." His tone was clipped, but there was an undercurrent of tension—anger, concern, something unspoken.
Nightwing folded his arms, watching the exchange with raised eyebrows. "Awkward family reunion? Should I step outside?"
Talia's lips curled into a faint, bitter smile. "Still keeping such delightful company, I see."
Batman ignored the barb, his hands briefly checking her injuries. "Deathstroke did this?"
"Obviously," Talia replied dryly. "He was... persuasive in his methods."
Nightwing whistled low. "Guess even the great Talia al Ghul isn't immune to bad dates."
Batman shot him a glare before turning back to Talia. "Where is he?"
"Gone." She straightened with effort, wincing slightly. "He found what he was looking for. And I was no longer of use."
A muscle twitches in Batman's jaw. "What was he after?"
Talia met his gaze, her own unreadable. "Something you won't like."
Nightwing sighed. "Oh good. Cryptic answers. My favorite."
Batman's cowl hid his expression, but his voice was steel. "We're leaving. Now."
As they moved toward the exit, Nightwing couldn't resist one last jab. "So, Talia, you need a lift, or do you have a League of Assasins Uber account?"
Talia's smile was razor-thin. "Charming as ever, Richard."
Batman didn't speak again, but the tension in his shoulders said enough. Deathstroke had slipped away. And whatever he had wanted—whatever he had found—was trouble.
Big trouble.
- - -
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