When he finished speaking, the sniper ripped his earphone out and flung it aside.
He meant to take one last glance at Axel through his scope and get the hell out of there — but froze cold when he saw something impossible.
There, on the top floor of Wayne Tower, Axel was flying through the stormy air like it was nothing. He wasn't really flying, just jumping insane distances. But with a vertical leap that could carry him seventeen or eighteen meters high while carrying Selina, and nearly nine stories high on his own, his raw physical ability dwarfed everything this sniper had ever seen.
Wayne Tower was one of the tallest buildings in Gotham, headquarters of Wayne Enterprises and a major part of the city skyline, recognizable to anyone who knew Gotham at all.
Panicking, the sniper dropped his rifle and turned to run.
But Axel didn't wait. In under ten seconds, he was already standing where the sniper's rifle had fallen.
Casually, Axel picked up the massive Barrett sniper rifle, hefting it with one hand before raising it and taking aim at the fleeing man.
Bang!
The sniper didn't even look back; the shot flew harmlessly past and he kept running.
Axel studied the impact point, then nodded with a shrug.
Operating a firearm was simple — aim, account for trajectory, manage recoil — and Axel could follow a bullet in flight with his eyes. After analyzing the first shot, he used his enormous strength to completely negate the massive recoil of the big rifle.
Bang!
The second shot hit true, slamming into the back of the assassin's head. The face of the fleeing man exploded outward in a gruesome spray of blood and bone.
After dealing with the sniper, Axel walked a short distance to one side and picked up the earphone he'd discarded earlier. Without a second thought, he shoved it into his ear.
He cleared his throat.
"Ahem, I'm Axel. You talking about me?" he said, voice light. "If so, let me tell you two things — that bounty on my head is way too low. Doesn't match my worth at all, Buddy!"
"Damn it!" came a brief shout through the earphone.
Then, Boom!
The cursed thing exploded in Axel's ear.
"Holy crap!" Axel yelled, blood spouting from his right ear as he swayed uncontrollably.
The tiny bomb built into the device blew out his eardrum and destroyed his balance nerves. He staggered toward the lightning rod beside him, trying to steady himself. But in that instant…
Crackle!
A bolt of lightning struck down out of the storm, scorching Axel from head to toe.
"Fuck!" Axel cursed loudly as he collapsed into the soaked pavement, dead serious middle finger pointed at the sky.
"This shitty weather wants to take me out? I'm not fucking finished yet! Get lost!"
He muttered through the pain, but then something unbelievable happened.
His body burned like flame and simply dissipated into the rain.
---
Near the Burnley District Cathedral, Selina's grappling hook slammed into the wall near her former home, catching solidly. She descended hard and fast.
Her window was gone — replaced by a massive jagged chasm. The air still shimmered with heat from the blast.
Inside her ruined house, smoke billowed as fire continued to burn in spite of the rain.
Selina snapped her Catwoman gear into place, the cat ears on her head flicking up into goggles that sealed around her face. She activated the infrared life‑detection feature.
And saw nothing.
"Betsy…" she whispered, dread tightening around her heart. Then she sprinted into the smoke and flame like a woman possessed.
Through the inferno, her left leg's leggings scorched but didn't stop her. She burst into what used to be Betsy's bedroom.
There were only bone fragments left, still glowing with heat in the wreckage.
"Damn it!" Selina snarled, grief and fury twisting her voice. She clutched the hottest fragments she could find in her glove, flames licking her hands.
"You were just a Gotham University student, nineteen years old. If you hadn't fallen in love with me, none of this would've happened. No matter who sent this damn gift, she's going to pay!"
The intense heat in her hands burned her, but Selina didn't care. She stormed out of the house like a shadow, disappearing into the night.
---
Shortly after...
Axel stood again on the rooftop of Wayne Tower.
Security guards were collecting bodies and hosing the mess down with rainwater. One guard let out a scream when he spotted Axel. His eyes flipped back in fear and he passed out on the spot.
The rest backed away cautiously.
Axel shrugged with his trademark dark grin.
"Buddies," he said with amusement, "tonight's my fucking kill night. Tens of thousands of assassins across Gotham want me dead. There's no better fucking stage than the rooftop of Wayne Tower. So take my advice, don't climb up here tonight."
He walked forward, aiming for an open space.
Just then, a female guard lunged with a hidden dagger.
"Die!"
She hissed, aiming for Axel's eye.
Before the blade could touch him, Axel grabbed a handful of her hair.
"How much do security guards get paid? Worth risking your life for? Or are you just another assassin pretending to be a guard?"
He dragged her to the ground, then with a brutal strike his fist punched straight through her skull, leaving a dent in the rooftop surface.
Axel withdrew his hand, stepped casually into a puddle of water, and rinsed it clean.
He looked at the others.
"You're an assassin, he's an assassin... are there any normal people left in this damn Gotham? Since there's one assassin here already, there's probably more. So who's next?"
In response, the dead woman's body suddenly exploded in a burst of flame and shrapnel.
Axel blinked, unbothered.
"Another fucking pair of pants ruined!" he said, before leaping out of the blast toward the next enemy.
A brutal symphony of screams, snapping bones, and explosion echoed across the rooftop, mixing with rain and lightning in a gruesome performance.
About a minute later, the chaos ended.
Axel stood in the quiet rain, lightly rubbing a pair of dress pants he'd stripped from one of the fallen. Rinsing them in a puddle, he flicked them to straighten them out and put them on.
Barefoot, he walked over broken limbs until he stepped on an untouched head, which he stomped into pulp without hesitation before finding another puddle to rinse off his feet.
Then he returned to the edge of the rooftop and sat down again, legs dangling as before. He wriggled his toes... and felt something weird.
A fragment of tooth was stuck between them.
---