Raid on the Armory: Chaos Force in Action!

Gotham's nights were always damp and cold.

In the Ice River dock district, the salty sea wind carried fumes from an unknown chemical plant, creating a stench strong enough to choke anyone.

Cargo Warehouse No. 3 crouched deep in the docks like a hulking steel beast. Far from the main road, it had only a few dim explosion-proof lamps casting long, twisted shadows across its rust-streaked walls.

Atop a stack of abandoned shipping containers across from the warehouse, two dark figures watched without moving.

"Eleven men," Harley whispered, peering through binoculars she had found in a trash heap. "Two at the door, three along the left wall, two on the right, and four playing cards in the guardroom. Just like the intel said. Barney, that drunk in charge, is here."

Link used no equipment. His eyes saw more clearly in the dark than the finest night-vision goggles.

He could "see" the emotional auras around the eleven guards: indolence, boredom, and a trace of irritation from losing at cards.

They were like a flock of unsuspecting sheep.

"Are you sure your plan will work?" Harley lowered the binoculars, doubt on her face. "They all have guns."

"A gun is only a weapon in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing," Link said, his voice perfectly calm. "In a madman's hands, it's a fire poker."

He slid off the container and landed as silently as a cat.

"Stay here and wait for my signal. When you hear gunfire, go in through the west-side vent. Find the MG34, then... fire away. Draw everyone's attention to the warehouse entrance."

Harley wanted to ask something else, but Link had already melted into the darkness ahead and vanished.

Keeping to the shadows, Link moved swiftly to a blind spot near the warehouse's main entrance.

The two guards at the door leaned against the wall, smoking and chatting to pass the time.

"Hear about it? The boss is looking for two lunatics who escaped from Arkham like his life depends on it."

"Hah, who hasn't? A man and a woman. Hundred-grand bounty. If I run into them..."

Before he could finish, an unseen chill shot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

Chaos Force activated.

Link created no elaborate illusion. He merely magnified the guards' deepest, most immediate fears a hundredfold.

The guard dreaming of the bounty saw his companion vanish. In his place stood a man in a clown suit, his face covered in garish makeup, grinning at him with a blood-red mouth.

Joker!

"Aah!"

He screamed and raised his shotgun almost by instinct.

What his companion saw was even worse.

He saw his friend's body rapidly decay. Skin sloughed away in chunks, black pus and blood streamed from his eye sockets, and he became a walking corpse reaching for him with a rotting hand.

"Monster! Get away!"

Bang!

Bang!

Two thunderous gunshots erupted at once across the silent docks.

Consumed by terror, both guards fired without hesitation at the men they thought were their closest friends.

Bullets tore through their bodies. Almost simultaneously, they collapsed into pools of blood, their faces frozen in horrified disbelief.

"Gunshots! At the entrance!"

The guardroom door flew open under a kick. Barney, the drunken leader, charged out with the remaining nine men, guns in hand.

When they saw the two mangled bodies at the entrance, they all froze.

"What happened? Who fired?"

"We're under attack! Another gang's come for us!"

Panic began to spread like a plague.

Hidden in the darkness, Link's lips moved slightly.

Chaos Force spread like an invisible net, throwing their emotions into utter disarray.

"It's Black Mask's men! I saw their mark!" one guard shouted in terror, pointing at a blurry piece of graffiti on a distant container.

"No! It's what's left of Maroni's crew! They've come back for revenge!" Another guard sprayed bullets wildly into the empty darkness.

Suspicion, fear, anger...

Under Link's mental interference, the rabble fell apart. They began accusing and even shoving one another.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

Just then, a burst of heavy machine-gun fire roared from inside the warehouse like a chainsaw.

That was Harley's signal.

Bullets poured from inside the warehouse toward the entrance like rain, sending sparks and shards flying from the iron door.

"They're inside! They came in from the water!"

Barney lost all reason. "Everyone! Charge in with me! Kill them!"

The nine guards, their heads clouded by fear and anger, rushed through the warehouse entrance in a disorderly mob, guns raised.

They never saw the dark figure that slipped in above them from the rafters, silent as a ghost.

Inside the warehouse, Harley held a German-made MG34 machine gun and laughed like a maniac.

The old gun's recoil was tremendous, but the thrill of tearing everything to pieces made her blood boil.

When she saw Barney and the others rush in, she started to swing the gun around to give them a "surprise."

What happened next made her forget to pull the trigger.

Link dropped from above and landed in the middle of the group.

Like ice dropped into boiling water, his arrival set the whole place off.

One guard raised his gun, but before he could aim, his vision blurred. He thought he saw his dead mother beckoning to him, and he froze.

The next instant, Link struck him squarely in the throat with the edge of his hand.

Another guard lunged from the side, only to feel the ground give way beneath him as though he had stepped into a swamp. He lost his balance. Without even looking at him, Link kicked him in the temple. The man flew backward without a sound.

Chaos was Link's greatest weapon.

He walked through the hail of bullets as though he occupied another dimension.

Bullets missed him by a hair. Every enemy attack grew feeble and full of openings under the interference of Chaos Force.

There was nothing showy about his movements.

Every strike was swift and precise.

He snapped necks, crushed throats, or simply used an enemy's own gun to kill one of his companions.

Harley stared.

She had seen Joker's madness, the frenzy of a man who treated killing as art.

She had also heard of Batman's strength, a justice that combined precision and power to their limits.

But Link was nothing like either of them.

He had Joker's eerie unpredictability and Batman's deadly efficiency.

He wasn't fighting. He was harvesting lives.

In less than thirty seconds, all nine guards who had charged in were down.

The warehouse went from a roaring battlefield to a silent graveyard in an instant.

Link stood amid the bodies without a speck of blood on him.

He walked over to Harley, took the still-smoking machine gun from her arms, and tossed it aside.

"Well done, partner."

He spoke calmly, then went to the back of the warehouse and pried open a huge shipping container.

With a clatter, brand-new assault rifles, pistols, crates of ammunition, and bundles of hundred-dollar bills wrapped in plastic, still smelling of ink, spilled out like a waterfall.

Link looked back at the stunned Harley, a cold smile curling his lips.

"Now we have money and weapons."