Gotham.
Dizzy Earl walked through the streets of Little Saint Pliss District in an English-style trench coat, impeccably dressed and carrying a gentleman's cane.
Though it wasn't Gotham's worst or poorest district, it was still far from developed or orderly. Under normal circumstances, Dizzy Earl would never come to this depressed neighborhood filled with rudeness and vulgarity, but the employer for this mission had demanded...
Beep—beep beep—
Dizzy Earl stopped and looked at the driver cursing beside him.
"Fuck you! Are you deaf?"
The irate driver honked again, producing an earsplitting blast. When Dizzy Earl didn't react in the slightest, he actually pulled a gun from inside his coat and pointed it at him.
"Move it! Do you want dozens of clear holes shot through you?"
This was a classic case of mania. Dizzy Earl frowned. He hadn't expected that in this city, even manic patients could openly roam the streets—and even get driver's licenses.
"You son of a bitch, if you don't move, I'll—"
Vrrrrr—
In an instant, an intangible, invisible wave swept through the other man's brain. The driver's head dipped, and with a wet pop, one of his eyeballs leaped straight out of its socket and landed on the ground.
Amid the shriek of agony and the long blare of the horn as his head struck it, Dizzy Earl inclined himself slightly in a standard English gesture of courtesy. Then he turned leisurely and walked toward a dilapidated apartment building by the roadside.
"Let's see... Number 52. Yes, that's right."
He passed the bare concrete steps and peeling red handrail, reached the door of Room 401, and raised his hand.
Knock knock knock—
"Come in."
"Oh!"
Dizzy Earl let out a slightly surprised exclamation the moment he entered the room.
From the outside, it looked no different from the ordinary residential apartments near the slums. Even the front door appeared to be wooden. But the moment he stepped inside, he found an entirely different world.
Behind the wooden disguise was a solid alloy airtight door capable of effectively controlling air pressure.
The walls, ceiling, and floor were all made of metal plates, coated with blast-resistant paint on the outside and anticorrosive paint on the inside.
This was a completely professional-grade blast shelter. Even if the building collapsed, this room would remain undamaged.
All kinds of weapons were piled in the corner: grenades, rocket launchers, and even bundles of explosives.
On the other side of the room stood a table, with four people sitting beside it.
Dizzy Earl knew two of them. One was the famed Deathshot, whose shooting ability was as renowned as his vile personality. The other was the British mercenary Ms. Vick, whose killing ability was just as deadly as her seductive appearance.
The two he didn't recognize were masked men. The younger-looking woman seemed relatively normal. She wore a smiling cat mask and had a long blade hanging at her waist. Dizzy Earl guessed she was another assassin-type mercenary. The other one, however, was rather bizarre.
That person sat in the corner wearing a welding mask—the transparent, eye-protective kind used by welders.
A pair of gas cylinders was strapped to his back. He held a welding torch and wore a light-gray bodysuit with suspenders, along with a pair of knee-high rubber boots.
Judging by that alone, he looked exactly like an ordinary welder.
But what drew attention was the corpse of a dog clenched tightly in his left hand.
It was just an ordinary dog, apparently a golden retriever, except that only its upper half remained. Someone had chopped the dog in half at the waist and taken away the lower half.
The dog seemed to have died only recently and was still quite fresh. Its half-exposed organs swayed about, and just looking at them made Dizzy Earl feel something churning in his stomach.
Yet the man's left hand had actually been shoved straight into the dog through its lower back, completely ignoring the blood dripping down his arm.
"You..."
"Hello, my name is Welding Dog. It's a pleasure to meet you, new friend! I just arrived too."
Welding Dog spoke... Wait, no. It wasn't the man speaking. It was the dog.
???
It really was the dog speaking. The dead dog in Welding Dog's left hand suddenly raised its head, and its dog face, dead eyes still wide open, actually wore an excited smile.
"Were you hired to take part in the mission too?"
The bizarre and horrifying sight left Dizzy Earl stunned for a moment. But he wasn't exactly a normal human either, so he quickly recovered his aristocratic composure.
"That's right, sir. It's an honor to work with you."
He forced himself not to stare at the dead dog in the other man's hand, walked over to Ms. Vick, and performed a hand-kissing gesture. "Beautiful lady, your appearance shines like the stars in the heavens."
"Earl, old friend." Ms. Vick was a slender, blue-eyed blonde. She wore an eyepatch and a red-and-gold bodysuit that left her shoulders and half her breasts exposed.
"You..."
"Enough. When are you two going to stop playing your refined aristocratic game for a moment?"
Deathshot, who had been treated like air the entire time, rapped the table irritably. "Now that everyone's here, let's hear what bizarre task our benefactor has for us this time."
He nodded toward Cheshire Cat. The taciturn masked cat pulled a recorder out from the pile of grenades beside her.
"Ha, darling, I'm not seeing things, am I? Is that a recorder?" Ms. Vick asked.
Deathshot ignored her. He pressed a button on the recorder, extended the antenna, and adjusted it for a while. Then he said, "The employer wants us to turn on the radio once everyone arrives. Keep quiet and wait. I assume you're all here for the money. Good. So am I."
The four of them waited in silence. Soon, amid a burst of static, a voice finally came through:
"Fzzzt... can you hear me?"
"We can, employer."
Deathshot answered, "What do you want us to do this time? Capture Firefly for arson, or deal with some other Criminal who crawled out of some obscure hole, our righteous employer?"
"Neither."
Deathshot heard the employer's voice grow somewhat hoarse under the radio's distortion. He had already inspected it. The recorder was actually a huge wireless transceiver. Did that mean the employer was nearby?
"I've assigned you a leader. You must obey his orders completely. Especially you, Dizzy Earl."
Dizzy Earl was somewhat dismissive.
Although he knew this mission involved more than just himself, he had never considered cooperating properly with anyone else.
He was a lone wolf, a solitary wanderer. The fact that he was carrying out a mission with others this time was already because of the money. And they expected him to obey someone else's orders?
What did they think this leader was, Batman?
Before you continue