The warehouse seemed to have shrunk around me. The air was thick, heavy with the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder, fresh blood, and hot metal. The dim light from the makeshift lanterns the mercenaries had left burning flickered on the rusty walls, casting long, distorted shadows that danced like specters. My shield was raised in front of me—not perfectly straight, but tilted so that the top edge was just below my eyes. I could see over it: the outline of the mezzanine, the stacked crates, and, in the center of that dim light, the unmistakable silhouette of Slade Wilson.
He stood there, motionless, the anti-materiel rifle slung over his shoulder as if it were a natural extension of his body. His good eye fixed on me, the cybernetic one gleaming with a cold, mechanical red. There was no hurry in his movements. He was studying me. I could feel it—the weight of that gaze calculating angles, speeds, weak points. He wasn't like the others. He wasn't a common mercenary who shot first and thought later. Slade Wilson was a predator who planned every step, every breath.
Artemis was behind me, her body still pressed against the cracked concrete wall where the bazooka blast had thrown us. I could hear her breathing fast, gasping, trying to catch the air the shockwave had stolen from her lungs. I felt her warmth on my back, the slight tremor of pain she was trying to hide—a cracked rib, perhaps, or just the brutal impact. It didn't matter. She was alive. And as long as I stood between her and that weapon, she would stay alive.
Slade slowly raised his rifle. The barrel pointed directly at my chest—or rather, at the shield I was holding in front of me. He said nothing. He didn't need to. The silence was the message: I'm going to test how much this defense can hold.
I trusted my equipment. It wasn't arrogance. It was mathematics. I myself had transmuted every layer of that suit: alchemically reinforced Kevlar with carbon nanotubes, titanium fused with resistance runes, flexible polymers that distributed kinetic force like water. The shield? It was the pinnacle of what I had managed to create so far—an E10 alloy with an angular repulsor field, capable of redirecting energy in calculated trajectories. I had tested it against .50 BMG projectiles in virtual simulations with Sensei. The shield held up. The suit held up. My body... well, the elemental healed what remained.
Slade pulled the trigger.
The sound was deafening—even with the helmet's filters, the impact of the .50 BMG projectiles against the shield made my arms vibrate as if I'd been hit by a jackhammer. Each bullet was a punch of brute force: the first ricocheted to the right, tearing a chunk of concrete from the wall; the second deflected upward, shattering a rusty steel beam in the ceiling; the third and fourth struck almost simultaneously, the repulsor field glowing in orange hues as it redirected the energy. I held my position, feet firmly on the cracked ground, shield tilted at exactly the angle I'd calculated based on previous tests. The bullets didn't penetrate. They ricocheted. Some returned toward Slade—he ducked with superhuman speed, the movement too fluid for a normal human. Others missed the walls, leaving smoking holes the size of a fist.
But not everything was perfect.
Some fragments—shards of concrete, pieces of deformed bullet—flecked the edges of the shield. One struck my left thigh, piercing the outer layer of the suit and tearing flesh. Another caught my right knee, a sharp impact that caused the joint to give way for a moment. Stabbing pain shot up my leg, but the elemental was already at work: concentrated heat, accelerated regeneration, tissues reconnecting as I maintained my stance. I didn't move. I couldn't. If I retreated an inch, Artemis would be exposed.
Slade emptied the entire magazine.
Twenty shots. Twenty impacts that made my body vibrate as if I were inside a bell being repeatedly struck. The shield held—the repulsor field absorbed most of the kinetic energy, redirecting it at angles I mentally controlled through the neural link. But the accumulated recoil was brutal. My arms ached. My shoulders felt like they were about to dislocate. My right knee throbbed, even with the elemental working to repair the damage. I felt the warm blood running down my leg, soaking the inner sock of my suit.
Then the comb ran out.
The dry click of the empty charger echoed in the silence that followed.
It was now.
I touched the seatbelt with my left thumb—a quick gesture, practiced thousands of times virtually with Sensei. A smoke bomb rolled from my hand and exploded on the floor between us. A dense, dark gray cloud rose instantly, engulfing the mezzanine and main floor in seconds. Visibility dropped to zero. Perfect.
"Artemis, separate!" I transmitted through the neural communicator.
She didn't respond with words—only action. I felt her move behind me, quick and silent, disappearing into the smoke to the left. At the same time, I threw the grappling hook upward—the magnetic cable latch onto an exposed beam in the ceiling. I activated the maximum retraction mechanism. My body was pulled upward with brutal force, the suit absorbing the stress on my shoulders and spine. In less than two seconds I was upside down, hanging from the beam like a bat, magnetic boots locked onto the metal.
Slade didn't see me. The smoke was too thick. But I could see him—the helmet's HUD cut through the fog with thermal vision and enhanced contours. He was reloading his rifle with frightening speed, precise movements, not wasting a millisecond.
I started running.
It wasn't a normal run—it was inverted parkour, something I had trained exhaustively with Sensei in altered gravity simulations and with Artemis on the rooftops of Gotham. Hands and feet glued to the beams thanks to the magnetic grips on my boots and gloves, body parallel to the ceiling, I moved like a giant spider. Each step was calculated: momentum, traction, next support. The speed was lower than on the ground, but the angle was unexpected. He wouldn't look up immediately.
Artemis seized the moment. From within the smoke, she fired—not an ordinary arrow, but one with a modified flash. The tip exploded near Slade, a blinding white flash that burned retinas and optical sensors. He instinctively turned his face away, shielding his good eye with his forearm.
I jumped.
I came down like an inverted meteor, boots first, straight for his head. The impact was perfect—my heel struck his right temple, the exact spot Sensei had marked as "maximum disorientation without killing." His skull resonated like a cracked bell. Slade staggered to the side, the rifle slipping from his hands.
But he didn't fall.
He spun at the last instant, his left arm rising in an instinctive block. My kick landed on his reinforced forearm—I felt the impact reverberate through my bones, like hitting a steel bar. He grabbed my leg in mid-air, fingers like metal claws closing around my ankle. With a grunt, he used me as a weapon: he spun my body and hurled me against a pile of old crates.
Wood exploded around me. I rolled on impact, my suit absorbing the bulk of the force, but I felt my ribs protest and the air escape my lungs. I stood up quickly—shield already in hand, body on guard.
Slade was standing again, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, but smiling. A cold, satisfied smile.
"Impressive," he said, his voice hoarse and low, echoing in the empty shed. "I like you all. Let's see if you can kill my prey tonight."
He raised his rifle — now with a new magazine — and aimed directly at me.
His finger squeezed the trigger.
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