SEL Chapter 40

Helena shoots Wilson in the face. The bullet zings harmlessly off his mask, but he still feels the impact and flinches, startled. Helena fires again and again, advancing on him. A shot tears through the neck of his suit, where it’s flexible and less protected. That makes him raise his armored arm to protect himself.

One moment of surprise is all Helena needs. She lunges in raggedly and leaps. There’s no finesse in it, and she doesn’t care that he blocks her drop kick: it still sends him stumbling back, only there’s nothing there. The wall is gone.

Wilson is bathed briefly in the lights of the Batplane. There’s a startled curse, and he falls out of sight as Helena hits the floor heavily, glass digging into her flesh. It’s a longer fall for Wilson. Blood smears as Helena picks herself up with a groan.

There’s a nasty, distant crunch from the street. Bruised and covered in blood, Helena grins.

SEL

The Batplane makes a tempting target, but even Floyd Lawton—known to some as Deadshot—isn’t sure where to place a bullet to bring it down. The engines are likely the weak points. It’s clear that Batman isn’t around; he would never leave such an expensive piece of equipment hovering as a stationary target.

A full kilometer away from the plane and the building with a hole in it, Lawton gets to his feet, zooming in with his mask in time to see a familiar figure topple out into thin air. That’s unexpected, but it’s none of Lawton’s business. He has his own targets.

He returns his attention to the feed on his wrist. It looks like the Gordon girl isn’t playing ball. It’s time to go to work. He’s given her a little extra time because shooting unarmed women seems like a waste of his skills, but a job is a job.

He walks to the edge of the roof and looks down at the concert hall. There are no skylights and very few windows. The windows are thick, reinforced glass. He pulls back the charging handle on his wrist-mounted gun to open the chamber. His penetrator rounds can get through that glass. He has laser sighting systems that can help him plan the shot, but it’s more fun to eyeball it based on the feed. He needs a bullet that’ll punch through the glass, bounce off a steel-reinforced column, and then fragment when it hits flesh.

Lawton inserts an appropriate cartridge and begins to calculate. He could even more easily just shoot them through the wall with a railgun, but that seems like overkill for these civilians.

His active ear protection picks up the instantly recognizable whirr of those steel cables that he has come to strongly dislike.

Lawton whirls and fires, blasting away the tiny grappling hook that just took hold on the far end of the rooftop. He fires a second shot, blowing apart a smoke grenade that spins through the air. Then another one.

More grenades hit the rooftop, billowing blue smoke.

Lawton puts the safety on his wrist gun and picks up his rifle, switching his optics to thermal as smoke overtakes the roof. He sweeps left and right only to be knocked off his feet by a flying kick from behind. A caped, hooded figure touches down and rolls away as he flips over. The figure shows up cold on thermal; that’s good prep work from his attacker, but it won’t save her. She takes cover without a sound. These are good moves; probably good enough to beat anyone else, but Lawton doesn’t need line of sight to put a bullet through her skull. He raises the rifle, and thundering shots boom out above, blowing pieces of the rooftop away.

Lawton drops the rifle and cartwheels clear as another shot pulverizes the roof where he was just standing. The Batplane screams overhead, coming around for another pass. Lawton can handle the Batplane, and he can handle this hooded girl, and he can handle his mission, but not all three at once. This is more costumed heat than he was led to expect for this job, but that’s an occupational hazard.

He rips out his grapple and dashes to the edge of the building, throwing an explosive charge and leaping off.

SEL

Slade Wilson swears loudly as he pulls himself free of the mangled wreckage of what was once a Mercedes. He steps onto the pavement with a groan and looks up.

Then he looks at the woman in front of him. She’s pale, her black hair is wild, and she wears all black. The silver ankh around her neck gleams under the streetlights.

She should be panicking or saying something, but she’s not. People are standing around, staring, but not at him. Wilson looks over his shoulder to see himself still lying in the wreckage.

The pale girl takes his hand and gives him a sympathetic look.

SEL

“I think what my opponent wants to say is,” Barbara stops for a second time. Murmurs in the audience, distant gunshots—it’s worse than she thought. She throws an uncertain look at Summer, who grimaces and raises a hand in concession. They have to call this off. There’s too much trouble too close. Barbara’s father’s apartment is only a few blocks from this spot.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Summer begins.

An explosion sends pieces of the ceiling raining on the audience, and a cloud of gray dust blasts through the concert hall. A figure in silver and red falls through on a wire.

Barbara knows Deadshot at once, and she knows that he won’t miss. Time slows down as beams of light from the Batplane shine through the new hole in the roof, and the confused crowd is enveloped by the dust.

The Penguin never threatened her. She remembers Lucius’s warnings about the device on her lower back, but she reaches back and powers it on without hesitation. She only has a few seconds.

Deadshot tumbles through the air, but even in free fall, his arm is out, his laser sight flashes, and he’s taking aim.

Barbara feels a heady rush as she lurches out of her chair and dashes forward.

Viti is frozen, coughing on dust. Summer kneels behind her podium in a similar state. Dust and a podium will not stop a bullet from Deadshot. Barbara can’t try to fight him, but she might be able to save someone.

Should she go for Summer Gleeson or Viti Saxena?