Night was especially silent over this ancient stretch of sea. The abandoned US military base was like another kind of ruin, not as brilliant as the temples standing on the earth, but it carried a solemnity born of another kind of decline.
Removing bullets was familiar work. Deathstroke barely even felt the pain. It sounded incredible, but he really did control every strand of muscle with the precision of a perfect violent machine, even able to make them clamp down on bullets that had entered his body and hold them in places where they were easier to extract.
Deathstroke no longer remembered when he had acquired such a skill. But he did not think every modified human could do it. He could absolutely take pride in it, but considering it was a skill usable only on the battlefield, one made entirely for violence and killing, it inevitably seemed a little pathetic. The more he possessed, the farther he was from a peaceful life.
Schiller's situation was the exact opposite. It was obvious that his violence was uncontrollable, seeming to surface only when he suffered trauma and felt pain, close to an instinct for self-defense. It was appropriate and useful, allowing him to disguise himself in daily life as an utterly ordinary mortal, instead of blending violent factors into his blood and making everyone who saw him wish they could stay far away.
That disguise was so successful that even Deathstroke had been fooled. He instinctively wanted to draw experience and lessons from it, so later, after they had treated their wounds and begun replenishing their strength with food, he spoke. What Deathstroke did not know was that almost everyone who fell into Schiller's hands died because they wanted to understand before they did.
"What is going on with you?" Deathstroke