Read the full series here: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic/8/dc-mayhem-deathstroke-ravager/739712/
Disclaimer: I do not own any DC Characters or locations. All rights belong to DC Comics. I do, however, retain all rights to original characters, organizations, and locations.
Rating: T+/M for strong language. I'm not censoring here, because it didn't feel right to censor a journal, something someone would have written. Regardless of it being a fictional writing, it just seemed awkward. Plus, if you read on past here, having seen this rating, you accept the fact that you are old and mature enough to handle a few harsh swears without moaning or complaining about it. That is all.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #1
December 25, 2002
Failure. A word that defines my life, ever since my early years. I grew up a failure in my father's eyes, unable to make him proud in any way. So, I joined the Army to better myself. To prove that I wasn't a failure. That's where I really shined, where I pushed myself beyond what I thought possible. I was the best... until the accident. Lost my eye, lost the feeling in my legs, very nearly lost everything.
Again, failure.
When they said they had an experimental treatment to restore my body, I jumped at it. Anything to get back into top form. But it failed... for a time. For years, I was crippled, broken. The Army discharged me, said I wasn't fit to serve anymore. Once more, I was a failure.
Then, something remarkable happened. My toes twitched. The treatment they gave me had a delayed reaction in my body, and overnight I transformed. Not only did I regain mobility in my legs, I gained so much more. I was faster, stronger, smarter than ever before, and it felt good. Great. The Army still wouldn't take me back, though, said they didn't need me anymore. I suspect there was a deeper reason, but I didn't look into it.
Because I met her.
The woman who made me into a better man, the love of my life... Adeline. Addie. In an instant, any thoughts of my past failures were gone, and I was a new man, a good man. We dated, we married, we had kids. Grant and Joseph, wonderful boys they were.
But I couldn't leave well enough alone.
With what that treatment did to me, with how it changed my body... I had to do something to challenge myself, to give me the thrill I felt I needed. If I couldn't fight for my country, I thought I'd fight for myself. I took on... odd jobs. Shady jobs. The kind of jobs people go to jail for. But I knew I never would, because of who I am. What I had become. I was paid to eliminate certain... targets, you see.
Yes, I killed for money.
But I had morals, ethics. I never took a job that would compromise or harm the image of my country in any way, and I never killed innocents. Most of the people I killed were criminals, on a hit put out from other criminals, or foreign despots, terrorists and the like. The underworld grew to know me as The Terminator, but I called myself Deathstroke.
Deathstroke the Terminator. Has a nice ring, now that I think of it.
Six years, that's how long I continued this second life of mine in secret. It worked well enough. My family believed I was an international consultant for some vaguely defined company. I never elaborated much on it. Things were good... But then it happened again. Failure. It always comes back to that for me, doesn't it? Turns out, I was sloppy on one of my assignments. I was followed, watched. And then, a rival in the business came knocking. Jackal, I think he called himself, hired by my most recent victim's family. He didn't just come after me, though, no. He came after my family.
My wife, my sons...
By the time I got there, Joseph was already gone. All that boy ever wanted was to be a famous musician. He was young, but he dreamed big... and that's all those dreams will be now. Just dreams. So Jackal threatened my elder son next, Grant. I don't think I'd ever told him how proud I was of him, especially in that moment. The defiance he had in him, the fight... and the care for his mother. Selfless, is what he was. Strong, too.
But none of those qualities was going to stop the situation. Jackal made me choose... give up the name of the man who hired me on my last assignment, or watch my son die. One thing to know about me, I never give up a client. Ever. But did that mean I was going to give up my son's life in exchange? No, of course not. I foolishly thought I could have both. I saw an opening and I took it. I had my gun up, I had the shot, and I took it...
But I missed.
I never miss, not when it counts. But that moment... I can't explain it. I made a mistake. It was bound to happen eventually, I suppose. Just had to be when I had the most to lose. I did injure the bastard, at least, but it wasn't enough. He killed Grant and then fled. I would have chased after him, but I couldn't... I couldn't leave Addie. I couldn't leave my dead sons. I didn't have the will. It should come as no surprise that Addie left me after that. After all the lies, after I got our sons murdered... I was dead to her. She didn't even flinch when she cut me out of her life, but how can I blame her?
My failures, my mistakes, my fault.
It's been a year since those events, since I lost everything. Again. I can't tell you exactly what drove me to start this journal. Guess I just needed to get my thoughts out on paper, or else go insane. Or maybe it's just the date bringing back happier memories – memories tainted by the painful sting of everything I've lost. I don't expect to write in here a lot, but... at least I have it, just in case I need it.
I have... almost nothing left, you see. Just my assignments. Just my thoughts. My doubts. Failures. That's it. I'm a man without a purpose, a gun for hire, for others to use. A tool, nothing more.
Slade Wilson is gone.
Now, there is only Deathstroke.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #2
March 3, 2003
I don't know what to write here. What I've just learned... I could never have expected it. I thought I had nothing left. I thought my life was over. I thought I'd continue the rest of my days as nothing more than Deathstroke the Terminator, a criminal's tool, a killer. Slade Wilson was gone from this Earth, gone from existence. Everyone I'd ever cared about, everyone who knew me by that name, they were gone, in one form or another. At least... I thought. There was one other who knew me as Slade Wilson, one other person who fulfilled some missing piece of my life...
I have to be honest here. I wasn't always true to my wife. I wanted to be... by God, I wanted to be. But when under the mask of Deathstroke, when out on those assignments, halfway across the world, there were times when I... I was weak. Times when I'd hate myself afterward for giving in. This had been just another one of those times, at first. Her name was Lillian. The locals called her Sweet Lili. Sweet, sweet Lili. A real Cambodian princess, in the eyes of many. One of my assignments had been to protect this woman during a time of war, to bring her to safety... I succeeded. It hadn't been easy, but I was Deathstroke. I never failed.
Not at the time, anyway.
In the aftermath, Lili and I, we... talked. Just talked. For hours. She grew to know me beyond the mask, and I grew to know her like I'd known very few people. I felt... close to her. It was just talking, after all. What could it hurt? And so after that, I left, returned to my family, returned to my work... but I had to come back. I told myself it was just because another assignment came my way that brought me there, but in truth, I went out of my way to find one that would. I found Lili again, and we... well, we didn't just talk this time.
We met again several more times that year. Addie never knew, and I felt like the lowest scum on the planet every time I looked her in the eyes, every time we kissed, every time we made love.... So I broke it off with Lili. I couldn't keep seeing her, I wouldn't. She said she understood, but I knew there was a part of her that was hurt. I just didn't think I'd ever learn why.
I was wrong.
She came to the States a few years ago, as it turns out. Been living in New York, from what I understand. It was only chance that we met up again. I was visiting, meeting a client to hammer out the details of a contract... and that's when I saw her. In a bagel shop, of all places, just buying coffee. But she wasn't alone. She had a young girl with her... her daughter.
Her five year old daughter.
Her five year and seven month old daughter.
The last time I'd been with her? Six years, two months ago.
When I broke things off with her, she'd been two months pregnant.
Yeah, I have a daughter.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #3
March 6, 2003
Rose.
That's her name. Beautiful name. She's the sweetest, most adorable damn child I've ever seen, I swear. So much of her mother is in her, but I can see a little of me in there, too. She's got a sharp mind, especially for one her age. Never met her father, but it's almost like she knows me... Lili's been telling her stories, it seems.
Stories about her father.
Stories about me.
She wants to get to know me. And I... I want to get to know her. I really do. After all my mistakes, all my failures, this is my chance to make it all right again, my chance to finally succeed in something, for once in my life.
I can be a father to this girl.
A real father.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #4
September 23, 2005
It's been more than two years, hasn't it? Time... it goes by so fast now. It used to drag, like a lead weight on a chain. But now... I haven't felt this good in a long time. I haven't touched my mask in ages, and to be honest, it's been liberating. True to my word, I've been as good a father to Rose as I can possibly be. That means leaving my mercenary life behind and being there for her. I have more than enough money to last three lifetimes, so work isn't required. Lillian runs a... personal escort service, I'll call it, but she doesn't do it for the money either. A lot of immigrant women come to this country with nothing, no way to make a living. She gives them that opportunity, if they're willing.
But she isn't some two bit pimp working girls on the streets, mind you. The business is very high end, and the girls who work for her are treated very well. Health insurance is included, and I believe they're given a 401k plan in there somewhere, too. They get to pick and choose their clients, and they make a very nice living. It isn't an ideal business, of course, but it works, and from what I've seen, the women working for Lillian are very happy with their current lives. That's what matters, isn't it?
Anyway, enough of that.
Rose is... better than I ever could have hoped for. I really don't know what I've done to deserve her, after all the mistakes I've made in my life, but I thank God for her everyday. She's given my life a new meaning, a new purpose... and this time, I don't plan on screwing it up. She's such a smart girl, too... I'd give her an IQ test, if Lillian allowed it. Doesn't want to turn it into a contest, or something, is how she put it. We home school her, though. Lili teaches her most of the time, but I do my share.
I've been teaching some different things, though. Mostly self defense. She's a natural at it, I swear. Karate, Judo, Krav Maga, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Sambo... she absorbs it all, like a sponge. And she's only seven! Lili doesn't like it, says I'm trying to turn her into a soldier, like I was. But that's not it at all.
I just don't want her turning into a victim.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #5
January 5, 2006
I can barely grip the pen as I write this. My whole hand is trembling... I think the ink is smudging. Are those tears? No... when's the last time I shed a tear for anything? I can't recall, but... this is a good place to start, I guess. I'm writing this from my daughter's bedside. Her hospital bed, to be more precise. The doctors, they... they don't know if she's going to wake up. How did things turn to shit so fast? How did I lose it all again?
And why?
I'd been good this time around. I'd been straight. But now... It's my past all over again. Lili is gone, Rose is in a coma, and I'm pretty sure I have internal bleeding (that I'm not letting the doctors treat me for. I'll heal just fine)...
I can't write anymore. My fingers are starting to go numb. I... I'll write more later.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #6
January 6, 2006
My hand is finally steady enough for me to write more, to explain things. I wrote before that Lillian is gone... she is. Killed, murdered right in front of my eyes. The worst of it? It was by the same man who killed my sons: Jackal. I don't know why... he didn't say. He didn't want anything from me, didn't demand anything... he just attacked us. In our own home. I fought back tooth and nail, just like I always do.
But I was rusty. Been out of the game too long, and he had the advantage of surprise. It was over when he drugged me. I couldn't move after that... couldn't do anything.
But why?
Why did he do it? Revenge? Maybe... But I'm the one who should have been taking revenge, not him. He came after me all those years ago. He destroyed my life. And now he's done it again. Taken everything... well, almost everything. Rose is still stable, but she hasn't woken up yet. I'm still... still holding out hope.
My mind is still all over the place right now... scattered. Every time I close my eyes, I see Lillian's final moments. I see the knife cutting her throat, I see the blood, I see the life draining from her eyes. I... It'll drive me insane, I swear it will.
But what he did to Rose... that breaks me most of all. The way I found her... the things he did to her... right in front of me. She's only nine years old for fuck's sake, and he...
I can't write it. I won't write it. I won't relive that nightmare.
The only saving grace of that entire night... He didn't take into account my increased metabolism. That drug he stuck me with, I burned through it a lot faster than he anticipated it. When I recovered, I tore him off my daughter and I unloaded in a way I've never done before. I don't think I've ever hit anyone or anything harder than I hit him. Bone shattered under my fists, flesh split open, turned to pulp, sprayed blood. Couldn't tell his face from an elephant's fucking birth canal when I was done.
But it all comes back to failure, doesn't it?
I never got a chance to finish the job. I never got a chance to kill that bastard. He wasn't alone... Turns out, he had backup ready, waiting. They jumped me, pulled me off him... but damn if I didn't take some of them with me. None of that mattered, of course, once the explosives went off. Those bastards came prepared, I'll give them that. Leveled my home right to the foundation. Rose and I survived, miracle that it was, but the blast is also what put her in the coma.
And we weren't the only ones who survived...
Jackal got away. As bad as I beat him, as much as I hurt him, he's still alive. Joseph’s killer. Grant's killer. Lillian's killer. Rose's tormentor. The bane of my fucking existence... is still out there.
I'm going to find him. One way or another, I'm going to track him down.
And I am going to end him.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #7
January 13, 2006
Rose finally woke up. Yesterday, actually. She's a fighter, just like her dad. The explosion took one of her eyes, though, and her hair... she used to have the most beautiful, strawberry blonde hair. The doctor said it's a myth that intense psychological trauma and shock can cause a person's hair to bleach pure white, that it's likely some autoimmune disease... but after what happened, I have reason to doubt his opinion.
She doesn't remember most of that night, thankfully... she shouldn't have to remember it. But she isn't taking the news of her mother’s death very well. Can't blame her... what nine year old girl takes the death of a parent well? She does remember bits and pieces, though... like the face of the man who did this. She remembers Jackal, knows that he's the one who killed her mother, that put her in the hospital, remembers that she hates him... even if she can't remember exactly how or why.
She wants revenge.
I do, too, and if it were just me, I'd be out there right now taking that revenge. But it's not just me. That revenge belongs every bit to her as it does to me, and I'm going to make sure that she gets it. I'm going to train her, harder than I ever have before. I used to teach her martial arts as self defense, as something on the side. A sort of father-daughter bonding activity. Now, she's going to live it. She's going to breathe it. And she's going to use it to help me end the man who took everything from me.
Who took everything from her.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #8
August 28, 2006
Rose's lack of depth perception is proving to be a real hindrance. I think it frustrates her a lot more than it does me, though. With only one eye, she'll never come close to achieving her full potential... unless she has a way to compensate. If her other attributes and her other senses, if they were enhanced somehow, it would give her an edge that would more than make up for her missing eye. If she were enhanced... like I am.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #9
September 5, 2006
Rose is resting right now. The treatment... took a toll on her body. Let me backtrack a little, though.
Two days ago I infiltrated the old Army base I used to be stationed at. The same one that treated me when I loss the use of my legs, the treatment that enhanced me... I knew there would be back-up samples of that serum. I took all three doses in stock. To compare, I was given a single dose. It took two years for the treatment to kick in with that single dose... I'm no doctor, but I'm willing to bet that using all three doses on her... well, we'll have to wait and see.
She should wake up soon.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #10
February 6, 2007
Rose is coming along remarkably, better than I could have imagined. Only ten years old and she already reminds me of myself in my prime. She excels most in hand-to-hand (and in just about every style I can teach her, too), but she's really taken to the bo staff and swords, in particular. She learns so quickly... it really is astounding.
Our daily schedule is intense. Wake at dawn, get a workout in before breakfast, train for six hours straight, break for lunch, train for six more hours, break for dinner, and then train until she can't go anymore. She won't let me take it easy on her, won't let me stop early... There is one thing that I can say for certain at this point.
She is going to be better than I ever was.
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Slade Wilson Journal Entry #11
May 11, 2009
Two years since I've written in this thing? Not a surprise. Barely have time to think, let alone write in a journal. It's been non stop training for the past three years. Rose has... come such a long way. Just looking at her, you can tell she's strong. Fierce. Powerful. She's turned her body into a weapon of unsurpassed talent and lethality. Now, she just needs the experience.
I've been doing some digging these past few years, too. Jackal? Turns out that he's a part of something bigger. Much bigger. They call themselves The Syndicate. An international organization of criminals and assassins. It's almost scary how much they control behind the scenes... but it doesn't matter. I don't care about The Syndicate. I just want Jackal, and nothing is going to protect him from me.
From us.
Because Deathstroke is back, and he's not alone this time.
This time, he has help.
This time... he has The Ravager.
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