Crack!
The guard went down hard. Batman was already moving to the next target. A low sweep took the second guard's legs out. An elbow strike to the back of the head finished him.
Gunshots rang out. Wild shots into the smoke from panicked criminals who couldn't see what they were shooting at.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bullets ricocheted off metal beams and concrete. None came close to Batman, who moved through the smoke with perfect precision, his cowl's sensors showing him exactly where everyone was.
A third guard appeared. Batman grabbed his gun hand and twisted. Bones cracked. The gun clattered to the floor. A knee to the stomach and a follow-up strike to the temple put him down.
The smoke was starting to clear. Batman needed to finish this fast.
The fourth and fifth guards had moved together, back to back, guns sweeping the area. Smart. Harder to attack.
Batman pulled his grappling gun and fired it at the ceiling support beam above them. The line pulled taut and he swung across the space, cape spreading wide.
Whoosh!
He crashed into both guards simultaneously, his boots catching one in the chest and his elbow striking the other in the face. They went down in a tangle of limbs.
Batman landed in a crouch and spun to face the sixth guard, who'd finally gotten a clear shot.
The gun barked. Batman dove left. The bullet passed through the space where he'd been a split second earlier.
He threw a batarang. The metal projectile spun through the air and struck the guard's gun hand with perfect accuracy.
Clang!
The gun went flying. The guard clutched his broken fingers and screamed. Batman closed the distance and put him down with a precise strike.
Six down in the break area. Four guards near the hostages remained.
Batman turned toward the hostage area just as Vincent Moretti himself emerged from a back office, gun in hand.
"You!" Moretti's face was twisted with rage and fear. "I don't know who you are, but you just made the biggest mistake of your life!"
He pointed his gun at one of the hostages, a girl who couldn't be older than nineteen. She was tied to a chair, tears streaming down her face.
"One more step and I blow her brains out!"
Batman froze. This was the calculation he'd been dreading. Moretti was fifteen feet away. The hostage was between them. Four more guards were emerging from cover, guns drawn, all pointed at Batman or the other hostages.
"Drop whatever weapons you've got," Moretti ordered. "Nice and slow. Or these girls die. All of them."
Batman's mind raced through options. At this range, with that many guns, he couldn't save all the hostages if they started shooting. Even with peak human speed and reflexes, the math didn't work.
'Unless I give them a better target,' he thought.
Batman raised his hands slowly. "Don't hurt them. They're not part of this."
"Oh, now he talks." Moretti's gun stayed pointed at the girl's head. "Been watching you work, Batman. Yeah, we know what they're calling you. The demon of Gotham. The shadow that can't be killed. Well, let's test that."
He shifted his gun from the hostage to Batman and fired.
Bang!
The bullet hit Batman square in the chest. The Kevlar weave and ceramic trauma plate absorbed most of the impact, but the force still knocked him backward.
Batman let himself fall, using the momentum to roll behind a support beam. His chest ached where the bullet had struck, but nothing was broken. The suit had done its job.
"He's down!" one of the guards shouted. "I saw him go down!"
"Then go finish him," Moretti ordered. "I want proof he's dead."
Three guards moved toward Batman's position, guns ready. The fourth stayed with Moretti and the hostages.
'Good,' Batman thought. 'Separated them. Now I have room to work.'
He waited until the three guards were close, then exploded into motion. A sweep kick took the first one's legs out. A rising elbow caught the second in the jaw. The third got his gun up and fired.
Bang!
Batman twisted. The bullet grazed his shoulder, tearing through the cape but missing flesh. He grabbed the guard's wrist and twisted hard. Bones snapped. The gun fell. A head butt to the nose and the guard went down.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Three more down. Moretti and the last guard remained.
Batman stepped out from behind the beam, cape billowing, a dark silhouette backlit by the warehouse's dim lighting.
"Impossible," Moretti breathed. "I shot you. Center mass. You should be dead."
"I'm not easy to kill." Batman's voice was a growl, distorted by the cowl's modulation. "Let the girls go and I'll let you live. That's the only deal on the table."
"Screw you!" Moretti grabbed the nearest hostage and pressed his gun to her temple. "I'm walking out of here with my insurance. You try to stop me and she dies."
Batman calculated angles and distances. Moretti was using the hostage as a perfect human shield. The last guard had his gun trained on Batman, finger on the trigger, ready to fire if Batman moved.
Standoff.
But Batman had one advantage they didn't know about. NEXUS had been analyzing their patterns, stress levels, and micro-expressions through the cowl's sensors.
"Guard on the right shows elevated heart rate and stress markers consistent with panic," NEXUS reported quietly through the earpiece. "Probability of irrational action: 68%. Moretti shows signs of desperation but is maintaining control. Recommend targeting the guard first."
Batman shifted his weight slightly, drawing both men's attention.
"Don't move!" the guard shouted.
"I'm not going to let you leave with her," Batman said calmly. "You know that. So the question is whether you want to end this the hard way or the easy way."
"Hard way sounds good to me," Moretti snarled.
The guard's finger tightened on the trigger. Batman saw it in the micro-movement of his hand.
He threw himself left as the gun barked. The bullet passed through empty space. Batman's hand shot to his utility belt and came up with a batarang.
Whoosh!
The batarang flew true and struck the guard's gun hand. The weapon clattered to the floor. Batman closed the distance in three strides and put the guard down with a brutal efficiency strike.
Moretti panicked. He shoved the hostage away and ran for the back exit.
Batman pursued. His peak human speed meant he covered ground faster than any normal person. Moretti made it ten feet before Batman caught him.
He grabbed Moretti by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
Crash!
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