A Savage Fight

"What kind of trick is this? A diversion? Don't think I don't know what you're planning. The moment I turn around, you'll turn tail and run."

Deathstroke twisted his body theatrically, his silhouette wreathed in firelight.

Behind him, Talon, his body pieced back together, was closing in fast with a car hood heated red-hot by the flames.

A crushing swing sent Deathstroke flying into the middle of the street.

He braced both hands against the ground to get up, only for a blade to plunge into his back, pass between his ribs, and pierce his heart.

Talon pulled out his hidden blade, tore off Deathstroke's mask, and turned him over.

"It's you?!"

His voice was filled with the horrified disbelief of someone who had seen a ghost.

The man before him, eyes unfocused and blood trickling from his mouth, was clearly the one who had infiltrated Wayne Tower disguised as a body double.

"Weren't you already dead?"

"That's exactly what I wanted to ask!"

Deathstroke, whose head had been lolling to one side a second earlier, suddenly broke into a horrifying grin. At the same time, his finger found the submachine gun's trigger, and he fired a burst into Talon's chest.

"Looks like we have the same ability. Now, that's interesting. Tell me, what price did you pay to get it?"

Deathstroke watched Talon climb out of the pool of blood and drew the katana from behind his back.

Talon pulled aside his clothes, took a small silver vial from the small of his back, and gulped down two mouthfuls.

He grinned, the liquid lingering between his lips and teeth giving off a golden sheen.

"So you're just juicing yourself up temporarily?!"

Deathstroke made no attempt to hide the mockery in his voice.

Talon flung away the vial, pushed off with his toes, and charged.

Deathstroke drew his blade. Steel collided with Talon's hidden blade, sparks flaring through the curtain of rain and illuminating their two savage faces.

Their faces nearly touched, strands of rain dividing their view.

"Not bad strength!" Deathstroke offered advice like a seasoned veteran. That dismissive tone completely enraged Talon.

"You arrogant brat, I'm old enough-"

Before he could finish, Deathstroke seized the opening and kicked him away.

It was a vicious kick. The rush of air blasted raindrops in every direction, and Talon staggered back more than a dozen steps, clutching his crotch. Ragged breathing lingered over the street.

Deathstroke stayed on him, slashing diagonally from upper right to lower left. Talon raised his left arm to block, catching the blade with his hidden sword. The scrape of metal stabbed at their eardrums.

"Are we chatting in a café? Try keeping your guard up while you talk!"

Deathstroke unleashed another round of trash talk.

The humiliation of defeat, the hatred of being killed, and the newly unlocked power of rapid healing combined to send his fighting spirit through the roof. Talon, meanwhile, kept trying to work out how to shake this irritating bastard, his concentration constantly rattled by the taunts.

He was close to breaking!

"Aah!"

With a roar, Talon held his breath and shoved Deathstroke back, driving his sharp hidden blade into Deathstroke's left shoulder.

He twisted his wrist, churning the blade inside the shoulder.

Rrrip!

Deathstroke heard his own muscles tear, like sodden canvas being ripped apart. Blood sprayed from the wound, mingling with the rain as it ran down his arm.

That really hurt!

Deathstroke's mind went blank for an instant.

But only an instant. Beneath the mask, his expression grew even more excited and delighted.

A fight to the death with no regard for injury made his blood boil.

He suddenly let go of his weapon and grabbed Talon's head with both hands.

Hooking his fingers into the other man's eye sockets, he slammed his forehead hard into Talon's nose.

Talon's vision went black from the impact, but he still remembered to twist his hidden blade.

If they had the same superpower, his opponent had to feel pain too.

He refused to believe that Deathstroke, who had only just awakened his power, could shut out the interference of pain.

You'll have to let go eventually...

But Talon had miscalculated. Pain only stoked this mercenary's bloodlust.

Thud!

The second headbutt shattered Talon's freshly healed nasal bones again. Blood flooded his lungs, choking off his breath.

Thud!

At the third headbutt, Talon's hands dropped.

Deathstroke seized him by the neck and hurled him over his shoulder into the puddle at his feet.

But Talon healed too quickly. Before Deathstroke could pick up his sword, he had already vomited the blood out of his organs.

Deathstroke grabbed his submachine gun again and sprayed bullets. Talon rolled desperately out of the way as sparks and chips of paving stone flew up behind him.

Talon ducked into a nearby alley.

"You just won't die!"

Deathstroke pulled out the scorching-hot empty magazine and tossed it to the ground.

The movement tugged at the wound in his shoulder.

He tore open the wound just as it was healing.

He realized his healing ability was weaker than Talon's.

So what!

Slade shrugged and pursued him into the alley.

The alley was narrow, cluttered with garbage cans and broken furniture. The moment Deathstroke turned into it, a dark figure dropped from above.

Talon hadn't fled. He meant to deal with Deathstroke using a similar method.

If choking on blood could make him lose consciousness, it could surely do the same to his opponent.

Talon sat on Deathstroke's shoulders, clamping his legs around his neck and squeezing.

Deathstroke felt as though a steel pipe had wrapped around his neck. Dizziness overwhelmed his brain almost instantly.

He opened his mouth wide, cold rain striking his tongue, but his oxygen-starved lungs felt as though a fire were burning inside them.

His vision began to blur. The walls on either side of the alley swayed, and the streetlight's glow stretched and overlapped like oil paint washed apart by rain. He felt his knees weaken and his body sink.

Talon's breathing was right behind his ear, soft and steady, his coaxing voice almost demonic.

"Go to sleep. If you're dizzy, just go to sleep."

Deathstroke clawed at the wall-his fingertips touched something.

It was a rusty steel reinforcing bar, a length of it jutting from a crack in the wall.

A second before he lost consciousness, he seized the bar and ripped it free with what might have been the greatest effort of his life.

One end of the bar, still crusted with concrete, plunged into Talon's waist, prying and twisting.

"AAAH!!!!"

The pain of his organs being twisted nearly drove Talon insane. His body convulsed uncontrollably.

His tightly clamped legs sprang apart.

Deathstroke fell to his knees, gulping fresh air, the blood-soaked steel bar still clenched in his hand.

Now he knew how to deal with Talon.

"Go to sleep. If you're dizzy, just go to sleep."

Deathstroke gripped the steel bar. Blood ran down it to his fingertips, mingling with rain before dripping off.

The bar plunged in again-this time into Talon's back.

Deathstroke straddled Talon. The rusty bar met resistance as it passed between his ribs, but only for an instant. He could feel something inside being pierced.

"Did I puncture something? Your air sacs, or your heart?"

Talon thrashed and let out a hoarse howl. It was no human sound, more like a brown bear being burned by hot coals.

Deathstroke rolled him over and pinned him beneath him, straddling his chest. He drove the steel bar in hard, then pulled it free, trailing thick blood.

For the final blow, he aimed at Talon's right eye and plunged it down.

The steel bar passed through the eye socket and skull, driving into a gap between the bricks beneath him.

Talon's body arched like a fish nailed to a chopping board, then slowly went limp.

Deathstroke panted.

"Is it over?"

Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Perhaps only a second or two passed before the dead Talon snapped his eye open, arched his back, and threw Deathstroke off.

Though he had come back to life, Deathstroke had utterly crushed his will to fight.

Talon scrambled up, the steel bar still lodged in his eye socket, bobbing comically as he moved.

He didn't dare pull it out. Turning, he kicked off the wall and clambered onto the roof in a few quick movements.

"You really are hard to kill!"

Deathstroke cursed and climbed after him.

Talon had only just reached the rooftop when an electrical wire whipped out of the alley and looped precisely around his neck.

Holding both ends, Deathstroke leaped onto the roof, closing in on Talon as he tightened the wire.

"Don't you think we're fighting a little too savagely?!"

Deathstroke sneered and bit through the wire's rubber insulation.

The current instantly passed through his mouth and into Talon.

It hurt!

His bones burned, his muscles spasmed, and his heart seemed to scream inside his chest. Deathstroke could feel his teeth chattering. He had bitten through his tongue, and his mouth was full of the taste of blood. But Talon had it worse: besides the electric shock, he also had to endure the agony of suffocation.

The power to the entire block cut out at that moment, rows of streetlights going dark.

Nothing remained but darkness and the sound of rain.