"Slade, why did you conclude that Horde Prime would fall for a trap like this?"
The boy, who had once again stuffed the Fifth-Dimensional Being into a bottle in the distance, looked up and asked his father with some confusion. As an American boy, it was perfectly normal for him to call his parents by their names.
Meanwhile, the man he was questioning had turned his Cloak into a tiny invisible boat and was taking him drifting across a sea thick with white bones.
"It was a form of psychological warfare. Horde Prime is incredibly arrogant. He thinks everyone except himself is trash."
Deathstroke gave a soft chuckle and slowly pushed the little boat along with a black oar.
"Forget Horde Prime, who isn't even dark enough. Ask Luthor a difficult question like lipstick shades, and he won't know the answer either. But if you tell him that Batwoman can distinguish every shade of red, Luthor will absolutely argue with you over it."
"Is that obsession?" Damian understood. It was like telling Jason that he could never measure up to Tim. Jason would definitely spiral and never get out of it.
What people hated admitting most was that they had some flaw, or that they were inferior to someone else. That was especially true for those who had once stood high above others. They would never admit they were beneath someone they considered lowly.
Deathstroke had initially baited his target by exploiting a vacationer's curiosity for novelty and a fisherman's obsession with gains and losses.
People on vacation often bought boring souvenirs they would never normally purchase, or took part in activities they had never tried before.
And fishermen—no matter what fish they caught, even if they did not recognize the species—would look it up online until they understood it.