Slade Wilson leaned over the makeshift table in the dark corner of one of his Gotham apartments—a forgotten hole in the East End, a place that smelled of mold and old cigarettes, with cracked walls and a single lamp hanging from the ceiling, swaying slightly in the draft of air leaking through the broken window. The apartment was one of many he kept scattered around the city: simple, unpretentious hideouts, but equipped with the essentials for a man like him—a mattress on the floor, a noisy refrigerator full of protein powder and water, and a wall of weapons that gleamed in the dim light like a promise of violence. He was without his helmet, his gray hair tied in a tight ponytail that revealed old scars on his scalp, and the black eyepatch covering the void where once there had been a functional eye. He wore the orange and black uniform, the reinforced kevlar molding to his muscular body, marked by years of war, betrayal, and makeshift surgeries. His heavy boots crunched on the creaking floorboards as he moved slowly, his eyes—both the good and the cybernetic—fixed on the map spread out on the table.
It had been four days since he'd accepted the contract. Four days of patient observation, of data collection like a predator studying its prey before striking. The reason for accepting? Simple, at its core. The money was good—ten million per head, twenty in total if he caught both at once. Easy, he'd thought initially. Two rookie vigilantes, without the backing of a network like Batman's or the League's. But there was more. It was a personal request from Black Mask—Roman Sionis, the lunatic with the skull mask he'd worked with before. Sionis wasn't just a client; he was a gateway to more. Contacts were everything in this game. A favor for a crime lord like him could open doors to bigger contracts, with international cartels, corrupt governments, or even those heroes who paid to discreetly eliminate rivals. Sionis had already hired him three times in the past—dirty but lucrative missions. Refusing now would be like burning a bridge. And Slade Wilson didn't burn bridges; he reinforced them with bodies.
He leaned closer over the map—an old, laminated sheet of paper, marked with black pen and colored pins that he had pinned in with surgical precision. The red dots represented the locations where the targets had attacked in recent days: warehouses in the harbor, hideouts in the East End, alleyways in the Bowery. Black lines connected the dots, forming a pattern that untrained eyes would never see—a flow of movement, like the currents of an underground river. He had spent the last four nights analyzing these prey. It wasn't just any hunt; it was a dissection.
They were both good. Very good. Their fighting style was above average—levels few on the planet reached. The girl, with her bow and arrows, fought with lethal precision, blending archery with fluid martial arts as if it were a natural extension of her body. He didn't care; if a bow came at him, he'd plunge it into the shooter's eye without blinking. But the other—the gray hood with the shield—was intriguing. Extremely strong protective clothing that prevented any conventional damage. Bullets ricocheted, knives slid, impacts were absorbed as if the suit were made of something otherworldly. And the shield? His main weapon, used with mastery: calculated ricochets, defenses that turned into attacks. His martial skills were refined—a mix of styles that suggested intensive training, perhaps self-taught, but polished to professional levels. And the utility belt? Useful tools, grenades, grappling hooks—a versatile arsenal that complemented hand-to-hand combat.
Slade had gathered all this information from various sources. Cameras he himself had installed in the hideouts of mercenaries hired by Black Mask—tiny cameras, camouflaged in dark corners, transmitting encrypted feeds to his servers. Reports from survivors as well: mutilated henchmen whispering descriptions in filthy bars before disappearing forever. Their greatest proof of skill? Defeating Deadshot and KGBeast. Two names with a reputation on the black market. Deadshot, the perfect marksman, brought down by an ice arrow in the thigh and an elbow to the temple. KGBeast, the cybernetic Russian, taken down in a warehouse with foam arrows and a shield that reflected entire bursts of gunfire. That wasn't luck. It was competence. And that... that intrigued him. Excited him, even. He had accepted the contract thinking it would be routine—two more rookie vigilantes to add to the list. But they proved valuable. A worthy hunt.
He traced the points on the map with his gloved finger, feeling the rough paper beneath the tip. The pattern emerged like a spiderweb: attacks concentrated in peripheral areas, moving toward the city center, as if clearing the outskirts before attacking the core. Ordinary eyes would see randomness—one night in the East End, another in the Docks. But Slade saw the logic: systematic elimination of small fish, forcing the big ones to move. He smiled beneath his eyepatch—a cold, humorless smile. "I found you," he murmured to himself, sticking a red pin into the map, marking a specific point in the center: an abandoned warehouse near the Trigate Bridge, an isolated location, perfect for a trap. He stepped back, admiring the whole thing: several pins, black lines linking them like veins in a living body. The complete pattern. "This night is going to be an interesting one."
Slade turned, his heavy footsteps echoing on the rotting wooden floor. The wall opposite the map was an arsenal of death: rusted metal shelves supporting a brutal stockpile. Anti-tank bazookas, with explosive warheads that could vaporize an armored car; boxes of moldable C4, with remote detonators and digital timers; fragmentation grenades, smoke grenades, flashbang grenades, and the chemical ones—nerve gas, incapacitating agents; assault rifles with extended magazines, silenced pistols with armor-piercing ammunition; knives of all calibers—curved blades for slitting throats, straight blades for piercing, serrated blades for tearing flesh; and the exotics: a crossbow with explosive arrows, an electrified whip that discharged 50,000 volts on contact, even a shotgun modified to fire flechettes that tore through armor like paper.
He reached out, taking one of the blades—a curved katana, forged from Damascus steel with an edge that could cut hair in mid-air. The metal gleamed in the dim light, and Slade felt the perfect balance in his palm. "Tonight I'll finish with another 30 million," he murmured, tracing the edge with his thumb, feeling the coldness of the steel against his skin. "And with my thirst quenched."
The apartment fell silent, broken only by the ticking of an old clock on the wall. Slade sheathed his blade on his back, adjusting his uniform one last time. The hunt had begun routinely, but now it was personal. Those two vigilantes were no ordinary prey; they were worthy. And that made victory all the sweeter. He climbed out the window, disappearing into the shadows of Gotham like a ghost armed to the teeth, ready for a night that promised to be unforgettable.
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