Deathstroke's Ambush

"Wind speed fifteen, humidity eighty percent, distance two thousand one hundred meters," he murmured, reading off the figures.

No one answered over the comms. He didn't need an answer.

Slade worked the bolt, chambering a Depleted Uranium Armor-Piercing Round coated in special matte paint.

"Unknown Force Field around the target's body. Conventional kinetic weapons ineffective. Batman's freezing and sonic attacks failed." Slade recalled the mission briefing.

The first rule of being a mercenary: never believe a client's exaggerations, but always prepare for the worst.

A highly concentrated neurotoxin was sealed inside the bullet.

A scratch was enough to stop an elephant's heart in three seconds.

The bullet would pierce the armor; the toxin would finish the job. It was the trump card that had never failed him in the underworld.

Slade steadied his breathing and slowed his heart rate to forty beats a minute. His crosshairs settled over the pale face in the night.

"Penguin says bullets don't scare you." Slade rested his finger on the trigger. "Let's see if depleted uranium and poison can make you close your eyes."

On the yacht, the blonde woman's arm was growing sore from holding out the green grape. She gave an ingratiating smile and was about to draw her hand back.

Chu Men raised his hand and plucked the grape from her fingers.

Atop the crane, Slade squeezed the trigger.

The custom suppressor reduced the gunshot to a low cough.

Recoil shook pooled rainwater from the steel frame. The bullet tore through the rain, leaving a vacuum trail across the night sky too faint to see.

It needed less than two seconds to cross two thousand meters.

On the yacht's deck, a dull metallic impact rang out without warning.

Bang!

The jazz kept playing, but every conversation on deck stopped dead.

Glasses tilted in the mob bosses' hands, spilling liquor onto the carpet.

"What was that?" someone asked, voice trembling.

Every head turned toward the leather sofa at the center of the deck.

Chu Men still held the grape. His head hadn't shifted a millimeter.

The depleted uranium bullet, powerful enough to pierce light armor, had stopped half an inch from his left temple.

An invisible barrier hung in the air. As the bullet struck it, the brass jacket peeled backward, exposing the gray-white depleted uranium core.

The core was exceptionally hard and dense, but against that Force Field, it was tofu hitting an iron plate.

The bullet's immense kinetic energy battered the barrier. Its metal casing peeled away layer by layer, flattening and twisting.

In less than half a second, the entire bullet crumbled into scrap-metal powder.

Before the green toxin could vaporize, it fell with the metal debris onto the wool carpet, burning several blackened holes and giving off acrid white smoke.

The deck fell deathly silent.

Lark's hand shook violently as she held the red wine. The bottle struck her tray with a sharp clink.

"An assassin!" A bodyguard at the perimeter finally reacted, drawing his gun and shouting.

"Shut up." Chu Men popped the grape into his mouth.

The bodyguard snapped his mouth shut, backed up three steps, and shoved his gun into its holster.

Chu Men slowly turned his head. His gaze crossed the vast stretch of sea and locked onto the darkness two thousand meters away.

The blonde woman beside his legs shook like a leaf in the wind, her teeth chattering.

Chu Men reached out and pushed her away.

She fell to the floor, covering her mouth to keep from making a sound.

"That tickled a little," Chu Men said softly.

Several neighborhood bosses went weak at the knees and dropped straight to the floor.

"My king, we'll drag him out!" Jay stepped forward, her voice dry.

"No need." Chu Men rose, his black suit snapping in the sea breeze. "This bug's hiding a little far away."

Through his high-powered scope, Slade saw it clearly from the crane.

A piercing red glow began to fill those black eyes.

It was like a searchlight from hell shining straight into Slade's retina. Pain stabbed through his one eye.

Instincts honed by years on the edge of death surged to life. The hair on Slade's back stood up, and his brain screamed at him to retreat.

Without a moment's hesitation, he abandoned his custom sniper rifle and equipment pack, released the clasps on his glider, and turned to leap from the crane.

On the yacht, Chu Men's mouth spread into an exaggerated grin.

The air around him let out a shrill howl. His Bio-electric Field expanded at breakneck speed, forcing aside the rain and air.

Before the women's screams could leave their throats, Chu Men had vanished from the sofa.

A thunderous boom was all he left behind, along with a violent gust.

Raindrops falling through the air were forced aside by his immense momentum, forming a visible corridor of empty space.

The socialites and mob bosses were knocked to the deck by the blast of air.

"Frank never stood a chance." One neighborhood boss stared at the bar, its top sheared off by the blast, his voice shaking.

"He's not human. He's a god. Gotham belongs to him now. Even that old man Falcone will have to kneel." Another boss buried his head in his arms, his whole body trembling.

High above the ground, two thousand meters away.

Slade had already leaped off the crane.

He pulled the release on his tactical pack, and black glider wings spread in the night wind.

Wind filled the wings, carrying him down and away from his sniping position.

A speedboat waited below to pick him up. Once he reached the water, he could be clear of the area in three seconds.

Rain drummed against the glider wings.

Slade steadied his breathing, his one eye fixed on the darkness ahead.

The curtain of rain ahead suddenly parted.

A blinding mass of red-hot light appeared out of nowhere and hovered directly in front of his glider.

Raindrops vaporized into white steam before they could get near its heat of several thousand degrees.

The airflow shifted violently. The glider lost lift and began to fall.

Slade looked up.

Chu Men stood in midair, his glowing red eyes fixed on him.

Slade's breath caught.

Chu Men had crossed two thousand meters in less time than it had taken Slade to jump and deploy his glider.

There was no time to think. Slade's heart, enhanced by super-soldier plasma, pumped hard. His blood flow doubled, and every muscle fiber beneath his tactical suit pulled taut.

He tore through the glider's straps.

With nothing holding him up, he dropped into free fall.

Slade reached behind his waist with his right hand and gripped his sword hilt.

The Prometheus Broadsword had severed the bones of superhumans and cut through the steel plating of military armored vehicles.

He drew it. The blade scraped against the scabbard with a shrill metallic screech.

Twisting at the waist in midair, Slade used the momentum of his fall to drive all his strength into his right arm.

Decades of killing experience and muscle memory forged through countless brushes with death came together perfectly in that instant.

He slashed at the artery on the left side of Chu Men's neck.

The blade parted the air, dragging a visible white shock wave behind it.

Clang!

The impact surged back through the hilt. A strained crack sounded from the bone in Slade's right arm, and the webbing between his thumb and forefinger split open, blood pouring out and staining his glove red.

Sparks flew from Chu Men's neck. Then came a sharp crack.

A fine fracture appeared in the costly specialized broadsword and raced across the entire blade.

Crack.

The blade snapped in half.

The upper half spun away and severed one of the distant crane's load-bearing cables.

Slade remained frozen in the follow-through, his one eye full of disbelief.

He could punch through a concrete wall. Even with a high-frequency weapon's edge, he hadn't managed to break Chu Men's skin.

Chu Men tilted his head and glanced at the metal fragments on his shoulder.

He raised a hand and casually rubbed his neck.

"That's all the strength you've got?"