CHAPTER 39: "The Real Training Begins..."

*James (Krios), Border crossing of Kahndaq and Egypt

"I hate sand..." James muttered as he leaned against a dirt hill close to the border crossing.

In front of him, a large line of people were making their way out of the nation traveling by foot, car, even donkeys and camels. Like when he had entered the country the lines were long and the beating sun and coarse desert sands made it a fairly miserable experience.

After taking care of the General, James made it a point to leave the city quickly that very night. Things hadn't gone perfectly as he had hoped with a few 'witnesses' escaping the attack. Waking a grumpy Amir from his home that night saw a late night drive across the desert where Amir left him a few miles away from the border. Walking the rest of the way was pleasant at night with the cool winds until the sun rose and the heat took away that pleasure.

He had arrived at the border with all intention of continuing his escape from the country but a backlog and broken truck had delayed any progress.

So with time to wait he had taken a seat on the dirt hill with several other travelers following his lead. While sitting he had taken off his boots and allowed a steady stream of sand to exit them. A few miles of walking with sandy boots would probably bring lovely blisters. And a few more of the upcoming miles to get to Cairo would guarantee it.

Grimacing, he began to rub his feet to bring some measure of comfort when a shadow came over him.

"You should have broken them in before the journey..."

The shadow passed over him with a tunic-clad, sleeveless-robed man sitting next to him. With a head cloth covering his face most would not be able to recognize him. But James was no fool, the voice and stance the man had would be recognized by any who had spent time with him.

"Considering I had a day to get appropriate clothing before walking across a f&*king desert, I think a little leeway wouldn't be too much to ask Deathstroke." He snarled.

The disguised Deathstroke made no comment at that but kept his gaze on the slowly moving traffic through the border.

James finished his attempts to clear his boots from the sand and was lacing them back up when Deathstroke spoke.

"You allowed a few to escape," he said pointedly.

"Just the General's contacts, all his men were eliminated."

"Thank goodness you did that right otherwise they would have closed the border and Black Adam would have caught you and placed you in a prison cell hanged upside naked for the next 40 years."

James fidgeted a little at the mention of Black Adam. No one wanted to go against the mystical superhuman that could take on Superman.

Deciding to change the subject for a moment, James asked, "How did you find me?"

He could feel the smirk from the legendary mercenary, "You are still a young buck in this world we live in. I compliment you on eliminating so many of the soldiers quickly and silently. Ball bearings from cars as a weapon? That was rather clever of you. Kazan's death was a little too dramatic but we can work on that..."

James snorted, "You weren't there..."

Pausing, his eyes narrowed at the mercenary who gave him an amused look.

"You were there!" James scowled in realization.

When he had accepted the job originally it was implied Deathstroke would be working side by side with him. What actually happened was the mercenary taking his cut and acting like a middleman with James handling the whole job. It had not made him particularly happy in the moment but he needed the money and felt confident he could deal with the average soldier.

"Of course," Deathstroke said matter a fact, "You didn't think I was going to just hand off a big job like this to a rookie like you without making sure you followed through?"

Ignoring James spluttering he said, "Luckily for you, gunfire is not uncommon at the capital and the authorities have yet to stumble on the bodies you left behind. I would guess you have an hour or so before they close the border so you best get in line and out of here. Still, despite your mistakes, you did a decent job and passed the test."

The mercenary stood and swiped sand off of his clothes. James was still feeling annoyed at being monitored but deep down understood where the mercenary was coming from. What was surprising was hearing a sort of compliment from the mercenary about what he had just said.

"A test," James muttered, "What do you mean Deathstroke?"

He also stood up and walked up to the side of Deathstroke waiting for an answer.

The Terminator stood watching the crowds as they pushed to hurry past the borders into Egypt. Many of them were either visiting their relatives, trading their Kahndaq wares, or returning Egyptians after doing something similar in Kahndaq.

"Slade..." The mercenary muttered.

"Excuse me?" James asked glancing to the merc.

Straightening his tunic and headcloth he said, "If we are going to be working together you can refer to me by my name."

"Wait, what?" James was feeling very confused with the implication.

"Of course, I will need to train you up a bit which will cost at least 60% of whatever commission we do together but I think that is fair enough don't you?"

"Hold on! Don't I get a say..."

"Great!" He gave a firm slap on James' back, "I will reach out to you with training and our next job."

"But..."

"Oh and don't worry about me finding you... I will."

And with that Deathstroke, no, Slade walked into the crowds and disappeared from sight.

James stood there trying to see where the mercenary had disappeared to in the crowds but failed to locate him.

"How does he do that," he muttered before going back to sit on the hill.

Things in his life were moving fast and changing even faster. When had it changed to from beating up punk gangsters to undertaking foreign assassinations?

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*Agent 'Green', Undisclosed Black Site

"...we lost one of the ops team. We were unable to retrieve the body but it bore no credentials, markings, or gear that would implicate us. Most likely they will just blame our friends at Langley."

Agent White was finishing up his report following what happened in Kahndaq. After escaping the assassin their team fled to the black site outside of Kahndaq to regroup and evaluate what had happened.

The room they were sitting in was simply laid out with a few foldable chairs a table holding a series of laptops and a computer whose screen was showing a video call with their director.

Agent Green listened quietly letting the senior agent take the lead on the report. So far the director had not said much but had looked annoyed when hearing about the lost ops team member. Knowing her though, Green could be assured it was mostly because the body was left behind and the director hated leaving behind any sort of evidence that could be traced back to them. 

Speaking of the director, the woman asked in her typical monotone voice, "Do we have any indications of who this meta was? How did he find out about the meeting?"

"No," Agent White shook his head, "I double-checked our contacts and no one leaked anything. Kazan certainly was paranoid enough that I doubt any of his men ratted him out, and he had few to no rivals who would take the risk."

Pausing a moment, Agent White said, "I have forwarded what footage we had from the chopper of the meta, maybe tech will be able to get us a better ID."

"Hmm," the director hummed looking away for a moment.

"Agent Green, do you have anything to add to the report?"

Sitting straighter, Green said, "No ma'am, only that it looked like the assassin took their time to cause Kasan pain before killing him. Either they were instructed to do so by whoever hired them or they enjoyed it. Either way, it makes for a concerning new player in the field."

"You think we should consider this a new player?" The director raised her eyebrow.

"Yes ma'am, he took out several squads of troops with ease, nearly downed the helicopter, and took 2 grenade blasts to the chest. I think we need to spend the resources to acquire or eliminate this assassin."

"You are right," the director agreed, "I will have tech work that out. This whole situation is messy but we still got the data pad and kept our money. Since you two now are freed up I want you to take the lead on this new meta. Find them and bring them in or take them out."

"Of course, thank you ma'am..." White started to say when the director cut the feed.

In the back, some of the black ops team snickered, one of them muttered loudly.

"What a b*tch."

The captain of the ops team leaned over and swatted the back of the man's head.

"Quiet! If I hear you call the director that again I will have you running laps until dawn!" The captain scolded his man.

Agent Green and Agent White took their leave of the team and walked outside for some air. The night sky stars in the Middle East shined brightly.

Standing there together they both had similar thoughts and concerns about the new assignment. Going after a new meta was always a dangerous affair for the division, it tended to cause casualties. It also was more difficult since the compromised facility in D.C. fiasco which had the bureaucrats in Washington breathing fire. They were not against the experiments or operations done there, only that the American people were made aware of it.

"I just want to say..." White said while taking a cigarette out.

"Waller really is a b*tch."

Green snorted at that, "You would never dare say that to her face."

"No," he puffed his cigarette, "No I would not. I don't want to end up disappearing or found at the bottom of a lake."

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*Batman, Gotham City, Batcave

He had been going over various reports of the Team's discoveries concerning the Light when the bat computer began beeping with an alert.

He minimized the reports he was reading and frowned at what was being shown to him.

"Kahndaq?" He murmured as he read through the report.

The report that the bat computer compiled was broken into different segments. One was the general information, typically news or official government communique. Then there were the intelligence agencies' reports which cost Bruce quite a penny to have. Finally, there was a report from the League which with its international connections and meta teams often had the most accurate information, with few boasting better intelligence.

From the general news, it was fairly straightforward. Several Kahndaq soldiers were killed along with a General. Kahndaq authorities had reported it as nothing more than an act of terror and left it at that.

The CIA and NSA reports painted a much different picture. Close to 3 dozen soldiers were killed along with the General. Some of their agents had even gotten autopsy reports with pictures of the wounds inflicted. Large holes with trace amounts of steel and rust came from the head wounds with the impact wounds being equivalent to a 50-caliber rifle. The General's autopsy was where it got strange. Rather than a head wound like the rest the General's sternum had been broken with the ribs twisted and muscles torn. The heart itself was hanging loosely, torn from its holdings as if it was being ripped out of the man. 

The curious thing about their report was the fact that they were certain it was not an act of terror. Their intel and evidence showed it much more likely to be an assassination against the older General. But if that was true, then why did Kahndaq authorities report it as a terror attack? A small detail noted by an NSA analysis was the lack of gunpowder residue further eliminating the idea of conventional weapons.

Another mystery that was not answered by the Justice League report. They had the same information as the Intelligence agencies save for one piece that was not found anywhere else. One other body had been found different from the rest. The gear the man had was more akin to a black ops team though no clear indicators of country of origin. The League analysts did make a note that the man was of Western origin, with a high probability of the U.S.A. as his place of birth. The benefits of the human genome being experimented on and researched as much as it is in this day and age. Blood could provide a big window into a suspect.

'Perhaps part of the assassination team? No, that wouldn't make sense. They eliminated the General and all his men, why would they leave such a large piece of evidence?'

Batman sat back bringing his hands together in contemplation. There were a lot of details missing from the picture that was being presented. 

Why did Kahndaq not use the incident to bash Western nations? An assassination on a General and the body of a Western man would make great headlines for their people and embarrass the U.N. Black Adam certainly would not miss the chance to do so.

Why was General Kazan even out in a poor section of the outer capital?

The more he pondered it the more Batman felt frustrated, it would take more time and investigation to dig up what exactly happened. But alas, for now, he could do nothing.

Recently the Team discovered further indications of the Light being much bigger than anyone could have imagined. His attention was needed there, not on what looked like a covert operation gone wrong.

Sighing he placed the reports in his folder of 'Review At A Later Date' and went back to studying what little they had on the Light.

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*Slade Wilson (Deathstroke), Border crossing of Kahndaq and Egypt

Since leaving James he had made his way through the crowds to the top of a hill to watch the young man.

Standing there watching the crowds go by, he could only smile a little as he watched James search through the crowds for him before giving up and making his way to the border crossing.

The kid was inexperienced but already packed a lot of power, and the conviction to see it through.

'Just like John...' Slade thought sadly.

A soft swoosh of air sounded as the sound of feet landing on the ground next to him caused the sand to crunch.

A deep imposing voice sighed next to him,

"So he is truly their child?"

Slade gave an annoyed glance to the towering figure that was the Champion of Kahndaq.

"Did you really think I would bring him here for you to see if he wasn't," Slade growled.

"Hmm," Black Adam hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

The two watched as James made his way to the front of the crowds, handing his forged documents to the guards who were more thorough in the examination.

"He has shown a greater blood lust than his parents ever did," Black Adam remarked.

Slade nodded, "Growing up without them, Oswald Cobblepot as a parental figure, and the pressures of this last year have changed him. He was only an angry boy before, now he is growing to be a wrathful man."

"Should we not be worried?" Black Adam asked with a hint of concern.

Slade didn't answer at first. He only learned that the child had survived a few years ago after being contacted by the Sensei. All Sensei had said was that he was helping the progeny of John curtail his negative attributes, but one day he would need someone like him to help guide his path. A task a man like Deathstroke would always refuse since he was no babysitter.

'But since it was John's kid...'

Feeling the death stare of the near deity next to him, Slade chuckled.

"Despite thousands of years of life, you still are one of the most impatient men I have ever met."

Black Adam huffed, "If you are not willing to see the risk the boy is then maybe I should just..."

"Just what Teth Adam!" Slade turned to face the towering being in front of him.

They both stared, each measuring the other. Black Adam could easily destroy Slade, they both knew it. But one did not challenge the Terminator lightly, Slade would lose, but he would make sure to get his pound of flesh in.

Finally, Black Adam turned away, and a small smile threatened to break out on Slade's face.

"You will train him?" He irritably asked the mercenary.

Looking back down on James as he crossed the border into Egypt, Slade said, 

"Yes, I will get him to where he needs to be. From there we can only hope he has the strength to do that which we can't."

Black Adam began to hover, preparing to fly back to his capital. As he hovered he parted from Slade with one last word.

"You best hope so Slade. This world cannot survive another one of these monsters..."

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*Unknown Location

A man sat leaning back in his lounge chair sipping his steaming cup of tea as he watched footage of a most peculiar sight in Kahndaq.

The footage came courtesy of one of their moles who smuggled it out of the division he worked at with great risk. A feat that would be applauded and rewarded if what he was seeing was real.

The man sitting had short messy blond hair, with burn-like facial scars that would almost distract someone from the left jaw being bent inward due to the bone being removed many years ago. Besides the occasional discomfort, he was proud of his scars. It taught him a very valuable lesson when chasing quarry.

Never let your guard down.

He continued to watch from what appeared to be captured from a few body cams as who he was certain was Krios rip through the soldiers. Using... was that a steel ball? Using steel balls, he flung them telekinetically at everyone eliminating all the troops with ease. As for the General, the blond man's blue eyes watched amused as Krios made some sort of twisting motion to the man's chest. He was not sure exactly what it was, but boy did it look like it hurt.

'Ha ha ha, just like your parents.' He thought amused at was he was watching.

Sitting up, he straightened out and brought his phone out where he typed in a number he knew from memory but never kept recorded.

Clearing his throat he checked himself over that he looked presentable in his expensive suit. For some, it would be silly to check to make sure they looked good before a phone call. But he always made sure he was less he insulted the Commandant.

The phone rang for a few moments before it clicked, only silence came from the other side.

"Ah Commandant, forgive me for disturbing you but I have news about the figure we have been trying to track... Krios." The blond said with respect but a hint of excitement.

Silence

"We are certain we have spotted him doing a job in Kahndaq. Assassination if you can believe, and are now making efforts to track him from there."

Silence

"I expect to have him in our custody in a few weeks and wanted to give you this update."

Silence

The blond waited patiently for any response. It was rare that the Commandant did respond, but he did tend to ensure at the end of the conversation you knew it was him you were speaking to. 

To the blond's surprise, however, he heard the old, gruff, and accented voice speak to him quietly with no inflection.

"Do not expect your prey to come so easily. He has shown that even at his young age he is taking steps that even his parents did not till they were much older."

Despite the admiration and dare he say devotion he never could get over the chill that went down his spine hearing the Commandant. His voice was an echo of a lost era, one of glory and promise for the goals he and The Order strived for. But also one of absolute authority and power that all should obey.

"Felix..." the voice paused.

"Yes sir?" 

On the other end, the voice grunted as if confirming something with himself before saying, 

"Try not to hurt the boy as much as some of your quarries."

"We will try sir, but sometimes it is necessary to...."

"I know," the voice interrupted firmly, "What I mean is, try to bring him in uninjured. But if not then just bring him in... no matter the cost."