Deep in Jump city’s suburban neighborhood stood a man. He stood, cloaked in darkness, across from a modest suburban home. His stance was one that spoke of extreme skill and self-discipline. Coupled together with the array of weapons that he currently had on his person, and the state of the art body armor the man wore and one could easily assume that he was an assassin. That assumption would be correct, but at the same time it would be an understatement to call this man simply an assassin.

After all he as the best, a living legend, the man known to the underworld as the Terminator, or more professionally as Deathstroke, but he wasn’t here in jump city for a contract. Just the opposite in fact, sadly he was too late to be able to do anything. The house he stood across from was quiet; a deathly stillness that only arrived after a life shattering event. Unsurprising really, after all nowhere really is kept intact after a successful assault by one of the assassin guilds.

Still Deathstroke, or as he was known to the fledgling underworld of Jump city, Slade, stood examining the sight across from him a moment longer. He had come as soon as he head caught wind of what was happening. Yumiko, the wife of the couple that once lived in the house, had been a good associate of his, someone he would have willing called a friend even. A rare commodity in the blood drenched world he made a living in. Yet he could tell he was too late. After all it was too quiet.

Silently Slade slipped into the house, an easy feat made easier by the fact the front door was missing. As he walked through the house it he recreated the rampaging battle that tore through the house. Bullet holes and wood fragments showed that it was a shock and awe opening. The destroyed table stained with now cold dinner shows when it happened. Yet no blood was spilled in the opening volley, at least none from the defenders side.

The carnage continued though the house, as the family was herded away from the basement where there was likely a panic room and towards the upstairs. Slash marks, more bullet holes and large impact cracks show where the family made short lived stands and the blood splatters opposite these sites showed that despite being outnumbered Yumiko and her husband had the skill to overcome their opposition. Yet they were forced back none the less, not by the sole numbers but something of a higher priority.

The trip up the stairs showed the increase in viciousness by the defenders. Large chunks of the walls were missing and Slade could pick out pieces of the banisters impaled into the walls, but there were also the first signs of blood from those very same defenders. Slade kept a slight chuckle to himself, the cops, when they finally showed were going to be in for quite the confusing time trying to piece together all of this. After all for all the carnage there were no bodies to be found so far. All proof of this assault had been taken with them once they had succeeded; But Slade had known that would be the case before he even entered.

It was at the top floor where things had come to a head. It looked like a tornado had landed within the building as practically everything had been reduced to splinters. Most of the walls had been torn apart leaving very little cover for anyone who stepped up here. In fact there was only one room still standing. One that Slade cautiously moved over too. Peeking into the room he found what it was he had been looking for Yumiko and her husband. Dead. Blood loss, from what he could see.

With a sigh he stepped into the room. “Yeah, too late” He would say as he walked closer to the bodies of his friend and her husband. Having been across the world just twelve hours ago, it was impressive that he had been able to get back here before the blood had fully cooled, just not impressive enough to make it in time to lend his assistance.

The house was quiet. Dead quiet.

All around, the very air reeked of cordite and copper. All around, the house whined and groaned as the damage took it’s toll; some walls crumbling, falling to pieces at a breath.

In the last untouched room, a child sat in the closet with a knife. Her dark eyes peered through the closet slats, at the new stranger who had appeared in her home. The last strangers had been much louder, and much scarier. This one wasn’t doing much but looking around. He leaned over the bodies of her mother and father, murmuring something. Jinayah watched and waited, certain that the stranger would come for her next.

Nothing else bad could happen today, because the worst had already happened. The two people who were her whole life, her dearest parents, were dead. Just like her goldfish Mr. Peppermint, they had gone to heaven.

She remembered her mother’s instructions when the shooting and screaming and chaos started.

“Hold on to this, Jinayah.” Her mother handed her a large knife from the kitchen. Jinayah had never held anything like it before – she wasn’t allowed to touch knives. “If anyone comes for you besides your father or I, I want you to poke them with the knife. Do you understand?” The child had said nothing at first, simply staring at the knife. But her mother scooped her up into her arms and hugged her, tight. She stared into her daughter’s eyes, the rich brown an equal match to her own. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, okaa-san.” She couldn’t say anything else.

“Good. Keep moving.”

That was the last thing she heard from her mother before she was deposited to hide in the closet.

Jinayah was a good girl. Jinayah always did what her parents told her. There was a new stranger in the room, coming for her. Well, she knew just what to do.

The closet door opened soundlessly, and the child stepped out on pink-socked feet. She tiptoed up to the stranger, took a deep breath, and yelled.

“Leave them alone!” And then she did what she had been told to do. She poked the stranger in the leg with the knife.

His first assumption had been correct, Slade would realize as he looked down on the corpses at his feet. Blood loss had been what had been what it was that had done in the two of them. Neither of them had any major injuries on them that the trained assassin could see, but they both had plenty of cuts. Some of them likely ran deep, and in the middle of a fire fight it is very to lose track of new injuries if all they do is bleed.

A part of him wondered when it was that the assassins sent after them had switched to this tactic of simply bleeding them out. At least he knew that it was a gentle way to go, which wasn’t what he figured the assassins had in mind at first. A different part of him toyed with the idea of hunting down those that did this and repaying unto them the same care that they had showed Yumiko and her husband, but he knew at the end of the day it was simply business and that there would be nothing to gain from taking a personal stake in this.

That wouldn’t stop him from offering a discount to anyone who offered him a job that ran counter to the guild responsible for this however.

His musing were cut off quite soundly by the drawing of breath next to him and he turned to look in time to see a little girl trying to stab him with a kitchen knife. He could have easily countered the, quite literally, childish attempt to harm him but he stayed his hand. A number of things clicked into place at seeing the young girl, a good couple of years’ worth of offhand comments that Yumiko had said now made perfect sense, as did why the couple hadn’t simply abandoned the house when the battle turn unwinnable.

Then the knife hit his leg as was deflected off by promethium mesh in his leggings and he was brought back to the present. He just quirked an eyebrow at Jinyah as he stood there not caring that the gesture would go completely unseen due to his facemask, before speaking in a dry tone “You’re going to hurt yourself holding it like that”

A moment later Slade would crouch down to be able to more easily look the little girl in the eye, smiling slightly at the resemblance that the girl had to her mother. “What made you try that anyway?” He’d ask casually as he mulled over this latest surprise.

Jinny stared up in surprise at the strange, scary man in the mask who had no reaction to being poked. She held the knife in both of her small hands, trying not to show that she was afraid. But her hands were making the knife shake, so it was very obvious. When he asked her a question, she couldn’t help but respond, rather politely considering the situation.

“Okaa-san told me to! She said whoever comes in I poke them with the knife. It didn’t work.” She looked at the knife, then back to him. Her hands dropped, and she looked utterly defeated, the sort of look that a child shouldn’t wear.

“Are you going to send me to heaven too?” Her eyes were reddened from crying, but her face was dry. It had seemed she had cried everything out. “I don’t think I want to go.”

She just didn’t understand, and so she started to talk. Maybe this was a grown up thing that she wasn’t allowed to know about. “We were eating dinner, and then the door exploded. The ladies in white came in and they knew Okaa-san’s name, and then Okaa-san had a sword, a really pretty one. And Daddy had a gun, and then they fought, and then we ran, and Okaa-san hid me in the closet. I didn’t see the rest.” She pointed at the bodies of her parents. “And then they went to heaven. That’s it.”

A little sigh escaped the child, as she looked past the stranger to her parents. There was a struggle behind her brown eyes, a battle between the child she was before, and the child she was now. The current child won out, and she carefully approached the two bodies. She touched her mother’s face with one small hand, then her father’s. Her head dipped, her bangs drooping over her eyes.

“...you don’t come back from heaven, do you? They’re not going to come back.” She looked back at the stranger for confirmation, but her eyes held no hope.

“I’m all by myself now.”

“No they won’t” Slade confirmed quietly. Heaven was a paradise, few people alive had the sheer willpower to try and leave such a location, fewer still that would be able to succeed. Hell on the other hand? Well that was a different story.

“And I’m not here to send you there either, and one should never want to go either” He would go on lifting his mask as he spoke; he had no need for it here, not now at any rate. He was an older man; seemingly in his late thirty’s. His hair was cut short and was a crisp white. He had one deep blue eye visible, the other was covered by a simple leather eye patch and he had a small neatly trimmed beard. Were it not for the eye patch and armor he could easily look like a kindly grandfather.

“I was a friend of your mothers.” He would continue after a moment “And she used to work for those ladies that attacked. They were mad at Yumiko for leaving.” He would explain. There was more to it than that of course. The years of attempts to try and coerce Yumiko back into the fold and the slow escalation of threats, but those reasons would just muddy the end point they both stood at.

“I learned about it too late to be able to help” He would admit without shame. Slade knew he was good, really damn good, but he also knew that he wasn’t perfect. That it was impossible to be such, and he never allowed himself to fall into that kind of over confidence again. His lost eye still burned at the thought.

“Your mother was a wonderful woman.” He would stand and walk over to where Jin stood next to her parents’ bodies “The world is a lesser place with her loss and it wasn’t your fault you couldn’t fulfill her last order” He would once again crouch down to look young Jinyah in the eye. “You have two options in front of you right now. The police, the people your father worked with, will be here soon. They will take you to somewhere where you can try and move past this night, to a place where you can try and become part of a different family.” Jinyah would likely be taken to an Orphanage, required to see a therapist, and potentially be able to live a normal life, but this night had already left its mark on her and it always would. Had she been anyone else that would be the only option Slade would offer.

But she wasn’t anyone else “The other is that you can come with me, to my home. I can’t promise much, I’ve not been a father in... quite a long time. But you won’t be alone. Where we go from there is up to you, but you won’t be alone, that I can promise.” This would cause problems, he knew it would, but sometimes the best option is the one that causes the most problems. So few people understood that sometimes and absently he wondered what the Capes would think about this development.

Jinny looked at the strange man, feeling much more calm that he'd removed the scary mask and revealed that he was, in fact, human. Though, she did wonder what happened to his eye. She tried not to stare. Daddy said that was rude.

She listened to what he was saying, very carefully. There were two choices, far harder than anything she'd ever had to think about. Her father was a policeman. She knew that much. She knew how to call 911 and her own address, too. Unfortunately, there had not been time to get to the phone.

But to go with another family? What if the scary ladies wanted to come back for her? Would they... would they send that family to heaven as well? Would they always follow her, no matter what? She couldn't stand that thought. No one else should be in trouble because of her.

"Mister, I... I'm scared of the ladies. I think they are going to come back and find me. I don't want anyone else to get hurt." She looked down, very saddened for a moment.

"I think I would like to go with you. You look really strong, like Daddy and Okaa-san... Maybe you can send them away and I can be safe." The child looked up at him, the faintest glimmer of hope lighting in her dark eyes. "If you promise to protect me from the scary ladies, then I will go with you."

“I promise” Slade would say softly as he extended a hand to the little girl. “And if they do try and come for you, there will be nothing left of them when they fail” he would add as a cold smile ghosted across his face at the thought of getting revenge, before he set those thoughts aside.

“My name is Slade Willson” He would introduce himself with a much warmer smile “From now on you can consider me your Uncle”

Before the young Jin could respond Slade would look toward the door way, his eye narrowing slightly before relaxing. A moment later the sounds of sirens could be heard faintly in the distance, slowly growing louder. “Seems we are nearly out of time” He would say with a sigh. But that was just the way things happened some times. He was thankful that the Cops hadn’t called in anyone else just yet.

“Is there anything that you want to keep from here before we leave?” Slade reached back and picked up the kitchen knife as he asked, placing it in one of his many pockets. It was an interesting memento, after all Jinayah could say that she had landed a hit on him technically. Plus it would keep his involvement in this quiet, at least for a time.

Jinny nodded, and shook his hand very politely. Before she could introduce herself like she had been taught, she too, heard sirens in the distance.

When Mr. Wilson – Uncle Wilson? Uncle Slade maybe? - asked her if she wanted to keep anything, she nodded a bit. Going back into the closet, she tugged out a pink Hello Kitty suitcase. In that, she put her favorite clothes and shoes, her books, and her absolutely treasured stuffed Hello Kitty named Fluffy. She made sure the suitcase was as full as she could make it, since she knew they couldn’t come back.

“Um…” She looked around once more, nibbling on her thumbnail as she did. She poked her head into the hallway, and looked up. On the wall was a neatly framed picture of all three of them, when they went on vacation to Japan just last year. Her parents were smiling and holding her up, and they were surrounded by pretty pink cherry blossoms. Everyone was very happy in that picture.

The picture was well out of her reach. “Um. Can you take that down? I want them to come with me.” The sirens were growing louder now, and she felt a twist of fear in her belly. Something told her the police would try to take her away from her new uncle, and she didn’t want that. Slowly she turned, looking in every direction as if trying to memorize the house itself.

Then she turned to her parents, still on the floor, and kissed them both on the forehead. They were cold.

“Bye Okaa-san. Bye Daddy. I love you.”

Then she looked up at her new uncle with a surprisingly serious face for a child.

“I’m ready to go.”

Slade simply watched as Jin carefully pack away anything that she wanted to keep, and a small part of the man mourned for this child. She was far too young to be able to think so clearly about this, yet sometimes the world didn’t care for the truly innocent. Shifting his attention away from those dour thoughts, he kneeled down next to Yumiko’s body and gently closed both her and her husbands’ eyes.

While he was kneeling he placed their hands in each other’s, in life and death they had be together. Anyone who thought otherwise would get a visit from the Terminator. It was after, while he was paying his respects, that he caught sight of something else. Yumiko’s necklace, he would be the first to admit he wasn’t sure if it was a sentimental piece or not, but he had seen her wearing it for years at this point. So quietly he removed it.

Later, once the harshness of this night had dulled he would present it to Jinayah, so that she had something physical to remind her of her mother.

Just as he stood up, he hear his ward- his niece’s, he reminded himself, request. “Of course” And when he saw that the picture was still in one piece he was honestly surprised. It was more or less untouched, standing in stark contrast with the rest of the floor. Still he picked it off the wall and gently handed it to the little girl, before standing back at watching her have to deal with a situation that no one so young should have to deal with.

“Then let us go” He would say softly reaching his hand out for her to hold. Afterwards he would pick her up; cradling her with one arm as the other easily carried the full suitcase. His walk to the back door would be quick but still by the time they would reach it the sounds of cars pulling up to the front would be heard.

“Hold on tight” Slade would say to Jin as he pulled his mask back on and once he was sure she had a good grip, he moved. The world bleeding into a blur as he raced across the back yard and leapt over the fence, his landing hardly seem to register as he just kept flowing onward. In the span of about a minuet Slade and Jinny were several houses down and well outside the scope that the cops would be searching. And with each passing moment they were moving further and further away, unseen and unheard by the world around them.

A few streets later, they would arrive at Slade’s car; A simple looking four door sedan. It would beep once as they approached, due to Slade unlocking it. Once they reached it he would set Jinyah down and take off his mask once more. “And we are in the clear” he’d say opening the back door to set the suit case inside. "Next stop, home"

Jin made not a peep as she was carefully picked up. She simply clung to her new uncle like a baby koala. While he walked, she looked back at the house, the place she had been happy and growing, remembering things. There were still some of her crayoned pictures on the fridge. A pair of pink rain boots by the back door. Trinkets and things and just… stuff, from a happy life, that was now being left behind. She would never see this house again, and now was in the care of a stranger. A nice, but kind of scary one. What the future would hold, who knew?

Once they got out the door, she was surprised to find Uncle Slade moving faster than anything she had ever encountered before. She made a small noise of excitement, watching her neighborhood’s scenery fly by. Once they stopped, she stared up at him with sparkly eyes full of admiration.

“Whoa. That was awesome!” She hopped out of his arms, to clamber into the backseat and carefully put on her seatbelt. “Are you a hero? Like Superman?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued excitedly. “Do you wanna know a secret?” Jinny looked like she was about to smile, but then she seemed to lose a bit of her energy.

“I was going to tell… my parents… but I guess I can tell you.” She leaned forward, looking up at him. “I can make things fly.” Despite her somber look, there was a spark of glee in her eyes. “Watch this.”

She stuck out her hand, and the car keys that were once in Slade’s hand would find themselves hanging in the open air between them, surrounded by a faintly silver glow. It seemed young Jin had inherited more than just her mother’s eyes. “Ta-da! Isn’t it cool?”

“Not quite” Slade would reply an amused look “Though I have met him before” He would add as he checked to make sure that Jin was belted in securely. He had zero worry about his driving skills, but it was never a bad idea to recheck when safety was a concern.

That thought was put on hold when she displayed her capability of telekinesis, however and he let his surprise show “Well it seems you have more than just your mothers eyes” he would remark with a smile as he snagged the keys out of the air. “But it is rather impressive to have learned about it so young” he would praise her before closing the door so that he could move up to the driver’s seat.

It wouldn’t be long after that they would start on the journey to Slade’s home, the sound system in the car quietly playing classical music as they went. It was not the first time that he was glad to have purchased a house in Jump city; he doubted it would be the last.

He wasn’t surprised to see that Jinayah had fallen asleep when he checked on her in the rear view mirror, but was glad to see it none the less. He hopped that it was a sign that she felt at least somewhat safe with him rather than finally being overwhelmed by the events of the day. ‘Likely a bit of both’ he would muse.

If he had wanted Slade could have made it to his house in fifteen minutes, but that would have required him to break just about all of the road laws. So instead it took him closer to an hour, the reason for this was the fact that his house was ensconced in the richer districts. It wasn’t the most expensive house in Jump, but it was in the neighborhood.

Once he parked the car Slade would quietly and gently, lift Jinny out of her seat and carry her inside and into the guest room closest to his room and tuck her in, making sure that she had her stuffed... He took another look at it in minor confusion… Cat, before heading to his own room to put all of his equipment away.

Afterwards he would head down to the kitchen and pour himself a glass of rum and gaze out the window reminiscing about Yumiko. He wouldn’t stay up much later though. He had plans to wake up early and make breakfast for both himself and Jinayah, but for the moment he allowed himself one last moment of remorse to the fact that he wasn’t quick enough to help his friend.

‘Sayonara kyūyū’ he would think quietly before draining his glass. Before he would at last retire for the night.

Jinny woke up in a strange place. In the immediate moment, she was afraid. She clutched at Fluffy, and looked around at the room she was in. It was a very normal room, as things went. The walls were off white, the comforter she was covered in dark blue. There was a small desk in the corner, and it was all very… nice. It just wasn’t hers. Yesterday came flooding back in a wave of memory, banishing her fear but turning it into a solid wall of grief. She was never going to see her parents or her house again. The very thought just made her want to cry, but – strangely enough, no tears came. Maybe she was all tapped out from crying due to just how much she’d done so yesterday.

She got up and started to explore. Again, the house was very normal. She and Fluffy found a bathroom, a garage, several other bedrooms, and one room in the back that was very locked. Her nose led her to the kitchen, where her new uncle seemed to be making scrambled eggs.

“Hi.” She was beside him almost silently, all 3 foot 2 of tiny telepath barely making a noise as she crossed the kitchen. Her hair was a mess, she was in yesterday’s clothes, but she was making an effort to smile upward at him.

“I like your house. It’s really big.” There was a distinct lack of pink, but nothing was perfect. She lapsed into silence for a moment, then asked one of those questions that only a child could. As if it was the entire world.

“What do I do now?”

Slade was dressed in much more normal clothes today, a pair of jeans and a light gray button up. His skill when it came to cooking wasn’t back, but it had never progressed past what could be considered basic. He hadn’t had much need to really polish up this particular skill either, today was different however, as now he had little Jin to take care of.

And it seemed that simply thinking about the girl was capable of summoning her, and he had to give her credit she was exceptionally quiet and he wondered if she had simply picked t up from her mom, or if there was some amount of training there.

“Good morning Jinyah” He would say simply “And what you do from here is a bit dependent on you. There are a lot of legal things that need to be taken care of, on my end before you can be considered my ward.” He would explain as he plated breakfast and brought it over the dining table. “But I could sign you up for school, never a bad option.”

He would head back into the kitchen to grab a couple of glasses and the milk “I could teach you how to defend yourself, so that you’d never need to fear anyone coming after you again, which also isn’t a bad idea considering you have an ability. AS well as a few other options and ideas I’m sure I could come up with if needed.”

He would help Jinny into her seat if she needed it before he also sat down “The most important thing is what it is that you want.” Many would scoff at the prospect of asking a five year old what it was they wanted to do, but after what she had went through Slade doubted that much of a child was still within her. There still would be something’s, but the loss of her parents would have stripped away a lot of the innocence that she had. Thus he felt it was only right that she be given the chance to plot out her own life, at least to some degree at any rate.

Jinny sat on top of a pillow, because she was a bit too short to sit properly at the table. She listened without a word, to her new uncle talk about her choices. For a while, she just picked at her eggs, not at all hungry but knowing that for some reason, grown-ups always wanted her to finish her plate.

“Daddy said I was going to school this year.” She said softly, taking a sip of her milk. “He said it was very important that I go and learn things and make friends.” She had just left preschool that very summer. Slade would find that she was very well prepared for kindergarten, perhaps even one grade up. She could write, she could do math, she could read. Sort of, anyway.

“I don’t like reading. It makes my eyes hurt. But I like numbers. Numbers are fun!” She drank some of her milk and continued. “So if it’s very important, I would like to go to school.”

Now for option two. “I want to learn to be strong, too. I want to make sure no one can hurt me.” There was a blankness creeping into her eyes as she spoke. “Never, ever again. I don’t know if I can make big stuff fly, but I want to learn everything.” She stared at Slade across the table. “Everything.” Idly, she poked her fingertip with the tines of her fork. “I don’t want to hurt them.” Was it just yesterday that she had tried to stab him? “But if I have to, then I will hurt them.” Slade was right, there was a large part of Jinny’s childishness that had been erased.

“...maybe if I had been strong too, then...” But not all of it. Slow tears started to slip down the child’s face. “I could have helped, if I was strong.”

“Maybe things would have been different.” Or she would more likely have died right alongside her parents. Obviously though, she was convinced of the fact that her not being able to fight was the reason they were gone. Definitely a child’s reasoning.

Many people who have met Slade had labeled him a heartless monster, someone devoid of any empathy, who enjoyed inflicting pain onto others. The man himself had never gone out of his way to disabuse people of that notion either, after all he did enjoy his job, but the truth was that he was far from heartless.

Thus he had no qualms about moving to kneel next to Jinny’s seat and placing a hand on her shoulder for comfort. He would not embrace her unless she sought it out first; they had only just met each other after all.

“I will teach you everything that I can” he would promise the small girl “It will not always be easy, and at times it will be painful but I will teach you everything I can”

“It will never be enough to bring them back, but hopefully it will be enough that you will never fear losing anyone else.”

He would allow her space and silence until breakfast had been eaten, or at least as much as young Jinyah would be willing to eat. Afterwards he would silently take everything into the kitchen and place it in the sink to take care of later.

“Schooling we can take care of tomorrow” He would say once he came back “Along with other legal proceedings so that you are considered my ward. For today I’ll give you the option of shopping, as you will be needing some more things of your own or we can begin with some training” He would offer simply, for even though he wasn’t heartless there was a reason so many people were willing to assume such of him.

Jinny sat and cried silently, not hugging her new uncle, but grateful for his presence anyway. “Thank you. I promise to be a good student.” She managed to murmur after several moments. She scrubbed her hands across her eyes and nose, then went back to eating. She ate as much as she could manage, and while the plates were being taken away, she sat, swinging her feet and thinking.

He promised to teach her. That was very good – she wanted to be strong like her parents. But even they weren’t strong enough, when the time came. Was the enemy just stronger? Or maybe they had more people. It was like a math problem. 5 was always going to be bigger than 2, no matter what you did. Maybe that was why they lost. She refused to believe it was because they were weak in any way. Her parents were the best. She believed that with the whole of her little being. But maybe, maybe she just had to get stronger.

Staring at her uncle while he presented her more choices, she idly rubbed Fluffy’s cotton fur. “I do like shopping. ‘specially for toys. But right now, I want to learn. Can we shop later?” Her room was missing things. Pink things. He was a Boy and therefore would never understand, but maybe he would buy them for her anyway.

“I want to learn something new every day.”

“Then I shall do my best to teach something new each day” Slade would reply casually even as he hid a small amount of surprise at Jin’s choice. At the same time her choice did raise his respect for her; she had a goal, and already was willing to put it front and center. That was never a bad trait.

It took him only a moment to sift through the vast majority of his ideas of things he could chose to start her training. Discarding most of them simply because she did not yet have the right equipment to begin partaking in some of them, thus most basic conditioning would have to come later, once he had been able to get some workout clothes for her.

“Follow me” he would say standing up and walking towards the garage. Once there he would slide the button to open the garage to the side revealing a blank keypad, to which he would rapidly input a combination. Once he was done a cabinet off to the side would swing out revealing a stair case that went under the house following him down Jin would discover a large open room that seemed to run the length of the house, there was a variety of workout equipment down here, along with a handful of robotic looking dummies.

The side was caged off, and within it there were dozen or so lockers that all seemed to be keypad locked. There was also a suit much like the one he had been wearing but it too was locked behind a Plexiglas case. Slade didn’t move towards them however he simply kept walking. As beyond all of that there was a firing range, in fact it was the range that took up the majority of the space down here, and it was there that was his intended first lesson.

At the edge of the firing range was a different, albeit similar type of range. One Slade had set up for throwing weapons. “This is where we will begin” He would say as he walked up to a table that was stocked with a wide variety of throwing tools and grabbing a few darts from it.

“Many people assume that being strong equals the ability to crush or destroy anything that gets in their way and while that is one interpretation of strength, I am of the belief that to be truly strong requires perfection in all things.” As he spoke he would set up a simple target dummy. “At your age there isn’t much that can be built up, your body is still growing, but one thing that can be worked on is a fundamental aspect.” He would return to behind the line that detonated what was and wasn’t within the firing area and raise one of the darts so that Jinayah could get a decent look at it. “Precision” Without turning to look his hand blurred as he threw the dart at the target. It would hit the center of the dummy with a soft thunk.

“You can have the greatest power in the universe, but it means nothing if you cannot hit, and even the weakest strikes can topple titans if you land them in the right location.” Another dart blurred from his hand as he threw it at the target without looking, it landed next to his first dart. “Power and speed we shall get to in time, for now technique and procession shall be your goals.” A third dart thrown landing opposite the side his second one had.

“Ready to begin?” he would ask offering up one of the darts to Jin. If things went accordingly they would be down here until lunch.

Jinny hopped up from the table and followed, and what she saw next thrilled her to no end. First, a secret passage in the garage – super awesome! Then, what could only be a superhero suit! She had so many questions. She stalled at that for some time, simply staring at it, before she remembered she was supposed to be following. When they stopped, she was bouncing with excitement. This was going to be the best school!

When Slade started to speak, she listened with rapt attention. She didn’t fully understand everything, but she got the gist of it. Her eyes watched the darts land in the dummy, one right after the other in a neat little line. She was going to learn that? Very cool.

“Yes, I am ready.” She stopped bouncing and took the dart from him, rolling it between her little hands. “Okay. I can do this.” She studied the target and without warning, she threw the dart.

It bounced off of the dummy and hit the ground with a metallic tinkle. “Aw man...” Not one to give up quickly, she picked up the dart and threw it again. And again. And again! Each time it got a little closer to the target, but it wouldn’t stick. Jinny went from excitement, to irritation, to a little ball of girl fury. But she still wasn’t going to give up. If she failed at lesson one, then how was she going to get stronger at all?

She rolled the dart in her hands again, dark eyes staring down the target. Then, unblinking, she slowly tipped her head to the left, then to the right. “Oh. I get it.” Then, lips moving as if she were working something out, she took a step backward, exhaled, and launched the dart once more, with her whole body behind it.

This time, it stuck right beside Slade’s.

“That’s better.” And she looked up to him for approval.

Slade was content to simply watch the young Jinny in her first foray in to thrown weapons, and at first things seemed to be progressing much in the way that he has expected them too. That she kept getting closer and closer to matching his throws was unexpected but overall he didn’t put much stock in to anything coming from that.

And with her mounting frustration Slade was about to move in to show her the proper form and begin to actually teach her, but then he watched as it all began to click for her and with fascination saw her display a masterful throw. “You are simply full of surprises” He would say with a smile as the young girl looked back towards him.

It was much a kin to finding a diamond in the rough. He could easily tell that she had the potential, not surprising considering her parents, but to be able to display such while still so young. Slade knew she had the possibility of going very far in with these skills, for either side really.

“Again” he would say offering up another dart, but this time he would stop her at each step in her throw to correct her posture, or to shift her stance to one more stable. Explaining why he made each correction as he did them as well. Her next throw would flow easier, and faster.

“One of the most difficult parts of any training, or of learning any skill, is the constant need of repetition at the very beginning. “ He would explain as he kept them running through this very simple drill for a while still, correcting any mistake he witnessed careful making sure to explain why each time. His goal was simple, for now, it was to make sure that Jinayah could complete the throw ten times in a row without errors.

Once that was done, he would call for a halt and allow Jinnya a moment to rest as he walked off to the area with the weights and bring back a variety of them, everything from the simple one pound hand weight all the way up to a fifty pound weight.

“There is one other thing that we can work towards training up as well” he would say as he moved the target dummy off to the side and laid the numerous hand weights out “And that is your ability to make things fly” he would make sure the weight numbers were facing Jin before he would walk next to her. “Others out there also have the ability to do such, and for the world at large the ability to do that is called telekinesis. For now we are working to find out two things, how much you can hold up and how many things you can hold up.” He would go on to explain gesturing at all the hand weight he had set up. “Start with the lowest number and keep moving up until you find that you can’t make it fly”

Jinny was enjoying her training. The darts had not proved to be as hard as she thought they would be. Once he taught her more steps, changing her footing and her grip, her throws got more and more accurate. She liked this. Once she was able to relax, she looked with pride at the row of ten darts in a neat line. She had done that, mostly by herself. Pride filled her spirit, and she was ready for the next task.

She rocked back and forth on her heels as Slade explained the next task. He also gave her a new word to ponder.

“Tele- kin- esis.” She hadn’t known there was such an important word for what she could make herself do. She wanted to ask him more, but the new task ahead beckoned her instead.

“Okay. Let’s see which ones I can fly.” She reached out her hands, and the subtle silvery glow surrounded the 1 pound weight. It lifted easily and didn’t even wobble. Jinny smiled with triumph and went on to the next. 2 pounds, 3 pounds, on and on. The 10 pound weight was a clear struggle, but Jinny showed some stubbornness as she got it just barely off the ground. The next was 15 pounds, and she reached out for that. The glow surrounded it, but it didn’t move.

“Come on...” She frowned, and tried harder, straining her little body. The glow increased, and then her own eyes went from brown to the same ethereal silver. The weight did not lift, but rather dragged across the ground a few inches.

“Hmph.” Jin smirked triumphantly, and then the glow faded. She blinked several times as a wave of dizziness hit her body. “I feel funny.” And she plopped right down on the ground, holding her head with a little groan. A thin trickle of blood slipped from one of her nostrils.

“Oh. I’m bleeding, Uncle.” Her voice seemed rather detached from the situation, as if she weren’t quite all there.