Raven cries herself back to sleep. Switch back to Deathstroke: Meet Lex, then plan for tomorrow.

I quickly retreated to my room to change, donning a new identical set of armor and cramming in a quick shower before taking my place in my antechamber. I won’t bore you with the direct account of my meeting with Lex Luthor. A quick summary will suffice. *

I handed over the widget he’d asked me to steal from STAR labs… its function is too technical to go into but don’t expect to be seeing them in Wal-Mart any time soon. He thanked me with a large attaché case full of large, non sequential, unmarked bills. One must appreciate the beauty of a good working relationship.

Then I thanked him for referring me to Ssakcik, and explained my singular good fortune at acquiring Raven. Lex is the closest thing people like me get to good friends (in our ten odd years of acquaintanceship he’d only double crossed me twice). I boasted that I intend to take on his so-called “Big Contract” later this year, once the Titans are dealt with. Robin’s access to Green K** and Raven’s magic, combined with my tactical planning should make it fairly simple.

Finally we discussed the finer points of keeping human pets, and he shared some incites from training his attendant Mercy. As I suspected, she had also been appropriated and resold by Ssakcik. Then Lex departed, promising to return when Raven was ready to “receive visitors”. I smiled at the prospect.

What can I say? I like to watch.

As Lex took his leave, I retired to my room to meditate on events and plan Raven’s training regimen. Her spirit had broken easier than I had expected, so now it came time to reshape her as I saw fit. She had reacted almost alarmingly well to sex. Clearly that would be the carrot by which I would reward her for the behaviors I wished to cultivate. This time all she’d had to do was beg but in future, she’ll have to obey… to steal… to kill for them.

But all that could come tomorrow. For now I’ll let her stew in her own… and my… juices. I retired to bed, still scheming in my sleep. The real work starts tomorrow.

*(Translation: I originally wrote a whole scene for this but it turned out deathly boring. I’ll boil it down a bit and move on. –Teh Ome)

**(Note: Green K is short for Green Kryptonite. Very little remains on earth, most of which Batman has locked away in the bat cave for safe keeping “just in case”.—Teh Ome)