Work Text:
So I woke up floating in a tube, smashed my way out (which should have been a red flag), and found myself wandering around what seemed to be an abandoned laboratory with Cadmus branding all over the place... You see that a lot in cartoons and video games. The secret terrorist cell or clandestine government program operating outside of the bounds of law and legitimacy, having its name and logo pasted everywhere it had power. Some people think it's stupid, but constant affirmation to the in-group induces a cult mentality in people. Hence, it's actually pretty smart if the goal is to brainwash and/or radicalize the recruits without being obvious about it.
I couldn't find anyone to explain what was going on; my initial impression that the place was abandoned seemed accurate, but the power was still on, and I found a computer terminal. Most of the files were corrupted, but I managed to find out that the purpose of this facility was to create homegrown government/military heroes powerful enough to 1: Defeat Superman-level threats if Superman can't or won't 2: replace Superman if he dies, or 3: Kill Superman when he goes rogue. It specifically used the words 'when' and 'kill.'
Yeah, that sounds like every version of Cadmus I was familiar with. I was taking being in a DC universe surprisingly well.
One other file, which luckily corresponded to the serial number on the tube I was in, told me that my new body was made by combining human DNA with genetic material harvested from the hair of an 'unidentified alien bounty hunter who has had multiple confrontations with Superman.'
It was then that I noticed my new body's chalk-white skin, and spent the next few minutes cussing up a storm at the idea of being genetically related to Lobo of all characters.
...Really hoping the human DNA weakened the regen just enough that I wouldn't have to worry about stray bits of flesh and blood turning into new mes. I do not need that existential nightmare.
No other information available, I went searching some more and stumbled across a locker room. There I found a spare guard's uniform, a working shower I could use to get the residual gestation fluid off, and a mirror that let me get a good look at my new body.
Humanoid female, sharp features, chalk white skin, solid red eyes, long black hair, spiky black markings around the eyes, unreasonably buff and athletic looking consiring it'd spent ti's entire existance up until half a hour ago floating in liquid, superheroic body fat distrubition and proportions, and estimating age was hard but the face looked late teens.
...Great.
That done, I made my way towards anything that could pass for an exit and found my way outside in the afternoon sun and... Felt dry, but I couldn't actually tell how warm or cold it was... I think Lobo was supposed to be immune to harm from temperature extremes, so... Normal earth environmental temperature probably wouldn't register, I guess.
Shortly after that, I found a road, the sort of old disused highway you see in the quiet drama scenes of action movies, chose a direction, and started walking.
And walking.
...And walking
I was bad at estimating time, but there were no signs of civilization until it was dark, so I had to have been walking for hours. But civilization there was, a city in the distance, and what looked like an abandoned factory on the side of the road.
I wasn't tired... Or hungry or thirsty or anything, but it was getting hard to see, so I figured I'd take shelter in the factory for the night and make my way to the city in the morning.
After hopping the fence and getting into the building via an already open door, I suddenly realized how suspicious it was that a door was already open... You'd think it either would have been closed and locked when this place was abandoned, or else if open, it would be because the door had rusted off, but... This door looked fine, which meant someone had already opened it.
Instincts forged by years of Bethesda RPGs kicked in, and I crouched down and began walking very slowly, keeping an eye out for anything that could be cover, as I moved around just in case someone else was already here.
And then, just as I found myself peeking in on what seemed to be the main floor, I heard the voices.
"I don't want to do this anymore," came a girl's voice... It was familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place it. The faint Slavic accent might be throwing me off, but... I was in another world entirely. Unless this was a show or movie I'd seen, there was no way it was actually someone I knew of.
"You don't have a choice in the matter, my dear apprentice," came a voice that I pegged instantly. Deep, silky smooth, but utterly cold even when trying to be affectionate, and a tone that gave the impression of a hungry tiger trying to decide if it should just eat you or keep playing for a bit.
I peeked my head out of the doorframe only slightly so as to get a look and...
Slade Wilson, or Deathstroke the Terminator in the comics. His voice was a dead ringer for the 2003 cartoon, but this Slade was bigger. Taller, and I'm not sure if that was just his armor or if he was also more muscular.
The girl, meanwhile... Roughly sixteen, shoulder-length blonde hair, thin as a rail, dressed in shorts, a midriff-revealing black t-shirt with a gold T on the front, and brown boots with matching gloves. Other than the accent, this was the spitting image of Terra from the show... But I had the feeling that things weren't going to play out quite the same.
It was just my luck that I'd ended up in the DC universe during the god-damned Judas Contract. I should get out of here, not my circus, not my monkeys. And yet...
"There has to be some other way, and—"
'You owe me, Terra," Slade said, "after everything I've done for you. You were starving in the streets, afraid of your own shadow, when I found you. I fed you, clothed you, trained you in how to manage your powers... I was more a parent to you than your own flesh and blood, and now I expect a little familial piety."
Terra didn't seem convinced. "But, the Titans—"
"Are our enemies. They have been a thorn in my side since they were founded, and now someone is paying us quite a pretty penny to take them out. Your job is to gain their trust, disable the security measures on their tower, and then call me. You don't even have to dirty your hands yourself, it's so simple and yet..."
"They aren't anything like you said they were," Terra insisted.
"Don't tell me that you think they're actually your friends." Slade gave a mirthless chuckle. "They might be treating you kindly now, but no one does anything without expecting something in return, and frankly," he said while putting a hand on the girl's shoulder—and I couldn't help but recoil when she gasped and flinched at his touch. "Their kind... They'd abandon you in a heartbeat if they got to know the real you. The ungrateful princess. The filthy runaway, the criminal accomplice, the evil, little, slut."
So anyway, that's when I jumped out and punched the son of a bitch. I hadn't wanted to get involved, but basic human decency disagreed.
Slade got up, and I recalled that in the comics, he was something of a supersoldier with a low-level brick package and a strong healing factor. Either he was stronger here, or being part human meant I wasn't as strong as Lobo.
"And just who are you?" He said, sounding bitterly amused.
"Just a simple gal," I said. "I see an ass, I kick it." I then tried to roundhouse him, but he managed to catch my foot and throw me to the floor.
"Cute. Terra, if you'd be a dear and help me deal with this pest."
Terra hesitated.
"Don't tell me that spending a few weeks with some sniveling little do-gooders made you forget everything I taught you," Slade said with a bit of anger.
"Or maybe she just got a broader perspective," I said as I pushed myself up. "You know, I overheard what you said about choices," I said as I put my dukes up. "And you're wrong. There's always a choice. For example, a child doesn't ask to be born and rarely picks who adopts them when that becomes relevant. They don't inherently owe their parents anything, the parents chose to have a child and foster those responsibilities... So familial piety is a choice. And frankly, I don't see why someone would choose to show piety to a father figure who demands she help him kill her friends."
"Ah, you're one of them," Slade said as he drew a pair of Japanese-style swords from his back. "Coddled and weak, told the world is yours for the taking without ever having to work for it. Pay close attention, Terra, you're about to get a reminder of what happens to people who don't learn to repay their debts."
He charged me and swung down with one sword. I blocked reflexively and took the blade right in the middle of my right forearm. Didn't hurt, and when the clash ended, I could see that I wasn't injured.
"Hmm, almost had me. How about you give me your A-game?" I asked. "Could have sworn you're supposed to be the best, but maybe I've got you mixed up with someone else."
His eye narrowed, and soon we were engaged in a dance wherein he'd strike me with his swords and I'd block with my arms... Don't think I need to, while Lobo is known to get torn up by bullet fire, he's also typically in Superman's weight class in terms of strength and toughness, so I should at least be as tough as Kon... If he's a thing in this verse.
Point is, I don't think Slade is prepped for Kryptonian tier opponents, but making a show of blocking was... I don't think I can get tired, but I'm pretty sure Slade can, so if I can keep up enough of a show, keep him invested... Well, I could just punch his head off, but there are two kinds of superheroes, and I don't want to become the bad kind on my first day in the verse.
So keep him interested in the fight. "Now granted, sometimes you only have a bad choice. Between two things you don't want to do, but even then, if you take the time to think about it, there might still be a right thing and a wrong thing to pick from, or at least one that's the least bad."
"You don't ever stop talking, do you?" Slade said between slashes.
"You know, in a movie I saw once, longer ago than I like to think," I started, "there's this bit about how people think that being a hero is an all the time thing," I wonder if raising my arms to block these strikes counted as a work out. "Wake up a hero, go to bed a hero, brush your teeth a hero, make breakfast a hero, etcetera, but actually being a hero comes down to maybe a handful of moments in your life, where you have to make a choice. To help a friend, to spare an enemy, to intervene when someone needs help. Choosing to do the right thing in those moments, that's what makes a—"
I was interrupted when he swept my legs, sending me back to the ground. Then the tip of the blade was at my throat.
"These swords might look like authentic Japanese steel, but they're actually bleeding-edge technology made from a composite of lonsdaleite-based nanoceramics and depleted prometheum alloy. Superman himself couldn't so much as scuff these blades, and my regenerative healing factor will negate any strain my body suffers from exerting pressures," he said as he pressed the blade into my neck. "I'm not a gambling man, but easy money is that your flesh gives first."
I could probably force my way back up. With even half of Lobo's healing factor, a blade through the neck would be nothing, but maybe letting him think he was in control right now would be advantageous.
...Still, wouldn't hurt to keep him ticked off, "Is that the best you've got?"
He sighed, sheathed the sword not in use, and then started applying pressure with both arms.
And then, from behind him, there came a click. "Nightwing, it's Terra, I'm at the abandoned automotive plant outside of town, and I need backup!"
"What are you doing out there alone?"
Slade pulled his sword from my neck and turned. "You ungrateful little—"
"Is that Deathstroke!?"
"Hurry!" Terra shouted and then clicked off her communicator.
"What have you done!?" Deathstroke demanded.
"I made a choice," Terra said, and then took a stance as if prepared to fight.
"I was clearly much too gentle with you," he replied and then charged for her...
Until I swept his legs. He faceplanted, and by clapping her now glowing hands, Terra caused the concrete of the factory floor to deform and pin him down.
"This won't end the way you think it will," Slade insisted. "The Titans will never accept you once they know the truth and—"
"Can you maybe please shut up?" I asked as I pulled myself up.
Ten minutes later, Deathstroke was being led out in heavy-duty cuffs, escorted by multible heavily armored JCPD officers.
"You don't understand, Terra was my accomplice," he insisted.
"Yeah, right," a cop said, "everyone in Jump City knows that girl's a hero."
"This isn't over!" Slade shouted as he was carted off, and I was left to introduce myself to the Titans.
"So what's a Cadmus?" Beast Boy asked, looking a little closely at my pilfered clothing. I filed away the confusion as an important tidbit for later.
"So it's kind of a long story, but—"
"Are you by any chance someone from a parallel dimension where stories that are similar to but distinct from the recent history of our world are published as fiction, somehow reincarnated into this world via the medium of a genetic chimera composed of earthling and non-earthling DNA produced by these Cadmus people?" Starfire asked suddenly.
"...Does that happen often?" I asked.
"As far as we know, just the one other time," Nightwing supplied, "but it did not end well."
"Their clone body was made with Guardian DNA," Cyborg added. "Turns out, unfiltered access to the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum, a normal human emotional range, and being convinced that nothing you do matters don't mix all that well."
"You don't want to know," Raven finished quietly.
How the hell did Cadmus get Maltusian DNA? "...So yeah, that's basically the gist of it," I said, "which means I have no home and... I'm realizing most of my knowledge of the stories is worthless."
Seriously worthless. The Titans, not sure if they're Teen or not, some of them are in the right age range, but... they aligned broadly with the lineup from the cartoon, but all had obvious differences. Terra was closest, but...
Nightwing was Nightwing, not Robin, and was at least 18. Starfire looked like the cartoon version, but older, taller, and more muscular with a... Let's say a comics-accurate costume. Cyborg was probably in his early 20s of all things, and he was bald and had a towering build and a lack of fleshy parts in between prosthetics, but was otherwise more or less comic accurate... except for tron-lines on his cybers that made me think of the New Gods.
Beast Boy was more muscular than in the cartoon, and seemed the same age though, though he wasn't constantly cracking bad jokes.. Admittedly, this was a serious moment.
Raven, meanwhile, was the most different... She looked young. Not like a little kid, young, but she couldn't be older than 14. Glimpses under her cloak, when she moved, showed that her tights went down to her ankles. She was also barefoot, but the most striking difference was her body language and tone. Less stoic and sarcastic, more... Timid. She was levitating but otherwise moved like someone living in a world of glass.
"...Anyway, in the stories I know, Cadmus is either an off-the-books government program or a private lab contracted to make superheroes from scratch in case Superman goes off the ranch. But the lab I woke up in is long abandoned. I can probably lead you back to it at some point, but it's getting late and—"
"And you need somewhere to stay," Nightwing. "There's plenty of room at Titans Tower."
"You're just going to invite someone you just met, who may or may not know more about you than you do them, into your base of operations, after how badly the last person in a situation like mine turned out?"
"Terra, do you think she's trustworthy?" Nightwing asked.
"...She helped me a lot," the Blonde girl said.
"Good enough for me," Nightwing shrugged with the other Titans all agreeing with various degrees of enthusiasm. "Although there is still the question of why this encounter happened. Terra, why...?"
"Can it wait till we get back to the Tower?" she said. "It's kind of a long story and... You're not gonna like me anymore once it's over."
The group hug that formed around her when she finished an hour later said otherwise.
"...None of you are mad?" she asked in bewilderment. "You don't hate me?"
"You did the right thing in the end," Cyborg said, "and that's what matters. And you're just a kid, you can't be blamed for an adult tricking and using you like that. Especially not in your situation."
"...So you're really a princess?" Beast Boy asked.
"For the third time, yes," Terra confirmed, a little annoyed. "I get it, the tomboy that likes sports and can eat Cyborg under the table isn't your idea of a proper—"
"Actually," the shapeshifter interrupted, "I was thinking about how this means I've been on a date with royalty."
This sparked sudden laughter from Terra, who managed to choke out "you're such a dork" between peals. That killed whatever tension was left in the room.