Grifter spoke first, his voice was low enough to barely pass as a whisper.

“If we’re going to keep having fun trying to kill each other without interruptions… those fuckers have to go.”

Red Hood held his gaze for a moment.

Then he gave a short nod as both men slowly lowered their weapons.

“Any idea who they might be?” Grifter asked quietly as the armed men continued closing in from the north and north-east of their position.

“Could be anyone,” Red Hood replied, keeping his voice low since he wasn’t using the modulator. “But if I had to guess, I’d say your boss probably has something to do with it.”

And he wasn’t wrong.

If it weren’t for the bounty Black Mask had placed on Red Hood’s head, Morgan likely wouldn’t have risked showing up here with his crew. The mechanic who worked the scrapyard probably wouldn’t have bothered reporting what he saw either—he might’ve just hidden somewhere until the heat died down.

Grifter glanced at him, slightly taken aback.

“So far,” he said, “your voice is the only thing about you that seems normal.”

He shifted his grip on his weapons as he watched the Hunters move closer.

“Take the left. I’ll handle this side,” Grifter said, laying out the plan for his temporary partner in what could only be described as a pending frien-nemy arrangement.

Red Hood rested a hand over his shoulder, fingers tightening around the crowbar hooked across his back.

“Do I look like someone who takes orders?” he asked flatly.

“Clearly you don’t,” Grifter replied, already preparing to move as the enemies crept within range. “Though it’d make my job tonight a lot easier if these guys managed to injure you.”

That earned him nothing more than a scoff.

Red Hood spun the crowbar once in his hand, then hopped up onto the hood of the wrecked car. In the same motion, he launched himself upward, leaping high into the night sky as the next phase of the fight began.

The sudden clang of the car—used as a makeshift springboard—drew the Hunters’ attention. Flashlights swung toward the noise, scanning the wreckage, but nothing about the car seemed out of the ordinary.

Then came a soft whisper through the night air: the deadly twang of shurikens slicing through space. They curved and spun with lethal veracity, finding the throats of four men who instinctively clutched at their necks.

Screams and gurgles filled the air as the victims dropped to their knees, choking on their own blood.

One Hunter froze with eyes wide in terror, watching a colleague collapse while desperately clutching his own throat. The man’s gaze locked on him, silently pleading not to be left to die. And then his flashlight caught a shadow moving through the haze—before he could process it, something hurtled toward him.

The thought barely formed before a crowbar drove clean through his chest, with the curved end yanking him off his feet and back—pinning him to the ground a few feet away. Red Hood landed in front of where the man previously stood with deadly aura, and the remaining Hunters instinctively staggered back.

Even as shock paralyzed them for a fraction of a second, they opened fire. Bullets tore through the air, aimed at Red Hood—but he was already using the body of a man he had just felled as a makeshift shield.

A glance to his right confirmed what he suspected: Grifter was already deep in combat. The mercenary gave him a single unimpressed shrug to his action and launched a flurry of throwing knives, each one striking dead center between the eyes of three men advancing ahead.

Jason shook his head without a hint of amusement, clearly unimpressed, as he surged forward. Sword in hand, he pressed the attack, using the makeshift meatshield to block bullets as he carved through a few Hunters in his path.

Then, with great strength he stomped on the body he’d been holding, sending it hurtling into three more men at the front, who went down in stunned disarray.

“Show-off,” Grifter muttered, a smirk tugging at his lips behind his mask as they both moved fluidly into the fray, taking on the remaining Hunters with both scary and intimidating coordination.

“Holy shit, what have we gotten ourselves into?” Morgan muttered from the far rear, his voice tightening as he watched the massacre unfold.

Around him, the others—including himself—kept firing at Red Hood and Grifter, but not a single shot landed. Every bullet was either deflected or cleanly dodged.

At times, their own men were dragged into the line of fire—used as meat shields as both killers carved their way forward.

Red Hood moved with lethal veracity.

His sword came down in a diagonal slash, cutting one man down before he pivoted sharply on his back heel—his blade flashing again as he took another man’s head clean off. His gaze never left Grifter, their eyes locked beneath their masks.

Without breaking that stare, he reached out with his free hand, gripping the curved end of his crowbar and yanking it free from the corpse he’d left behind earlier.

Grifter, unimpressed, gave a slight shake of his head.

Gunfire rang out again.

He weaved through the bullets with fluid ease before dropping low and dashing straight into the two men responsible.

With a sharp twist of his hips, both hands snapping up—daggers angled perfectly at one-eighty—his blades sliced clean through their throats in a single motion.

As Grifter turned his attention back to Red Hood, a smugness lingered in his posture—so clear Jason could practically see the smirk through the mask.

Behind him, both men dropped to their knees, clutching at their throats, choking on their own blood as panic took over.

Gunfire resumed.

Even with the distraction, more shots were fired at them. Grifter dodged some, but deliberately took others—bullets striking non-lethal areas like his arms and thighs, as if he knew exactly which hits he could afford.

‘Just what do you have up your sleeve?’ Red Hood wondered, his gaze locked on Grifter as he searched for a loophole—something to explain his abilities, or at least hint at what else he could do.

Gunfire snapped toward him.

Without looking away, he raised his sword, angling the blade with accuracy. Each bullet struck and ricocheted off effortlessly—until the last one, which he sliced clean out of the air.

Fear set in as hands trembled, fingers stiff on triggers, but they kept firing anyway.

Too late.

Red Hood burst into motion—zig-zagging low with a speed that looked inhuman as he closed the distance. He tore through them one by one, cutting them down like a boogeyman pulled straight from nightmares—the kind told to keep children awake, terrified of the dark.

He moved like something unreal. A shadow even.

A flicker caught only in the strobing flashes of gunfire.

A man’s head came off clean.

In the same motion, Red Hood leapt—his boot slamming it into another man’s skull with brutal force, sending him crashing into someone wielding a semi-automatic.

A sickening crack echoed as the rapid gunfire stuttered—then stopped.

The men turned toward the sudden silence, just in time to see a headless body drop to its knees. As it collapsed, the semi-automatic jerked in its grip, briefly firing again—shooting down several nearby men in a wild spray.

Through it all, Red Hood kept moving, deflecting stray bullets without breaking stride.

His attention shifted back to Grifter.

The few men left standing in front of him were shaking now, fear etched into every movement.

‘Why isn’t he using his telekinesis, even now?’ Jason thought, studying him carefully. ‘From what I’ve seen, he hasn’t stopped a single bullet with it.’

His sword lowered slightly to the opposite side of his body, and with a subtle motion, he ran a thin line of liquid along the edge of the blade.

Grifter felt the pressure from the stare.

He turned, locking eyes with Red Hood.

Without breaking that connection, he extended his arm and flicked one of his daggers forward. It spun once before driving straight into a hunter’s eye socket, the thick blade burying deep into his skull.

The others recoiled, instinctively stepping back.

Jason rolled his eyes beneath his mask, shifting his attention to the men in front of him. They hesitated, frozen in place as a cold, creeping fear settled deep into their bones.

“What the hell are these guys?” Morgan muttered from the far back, his voice laced with terror as he tried to process the carnage unfolding before him.

He raised an arm to his face, slipping two fingers into his mouth as a sharp whistle pierced the blood-soaked night air—an unmistakable order to retreat.

The response was immediate.

No man hesitated, nor did they exhibit pride but obeyed without a second thought.

The hunters broke, scattering in every direction—running like reptiles fleeing a burning pit.

“Where y’all going?” Red Hood called out, his tone mocking as his gaze locked onto Morgan at the rear. “Thought you wanted to party. That barely counted as a warm-up.”

Even under the dim glow of moonlight, Jason could read him clearly. The fear on Morgan’s face was unmistakable.

Morgan, who had just ordered the retreat, stood frozen for a moment too long, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.

Was the figure in the red mask—Red Hood—even human?

His eyes drifted over the blood streaked across Red Hood’s forearm, the dark splashes staining his brown jacket.

Both men were terrifying—skilled and lethal—but the one Morgan couldn’t look away from…

The one that felt, wrong…

…was Red Hood.

As Morgan stared at him, trying to process everything he’d just witnessed—the way this figure had torn through his men as if they were nothing—his mind clung to a single word.

Death.

Not a man, but something else.

A killing machine. A demon given form, existing only to drag souls into the abyss—and disturbingly creative in how it carried out that purpose.

Grifter, on the other hand, was almost relieved the hunters were gone. No more distractions. Now he could focus on the real objective—killing Red Hood before the man slipped away in the chaos.

He spared him a glance while ejecting the cartridge from a pistol he’d picked off a corpse, checking it with ease.

Red Hood’s eyes remained locked on Morgan, whose entire being screamed at him to run—run far, run fast, and never look back if he wanted to live through the night.

“Just a bunch of unfortunate pests,” Jason said flatly, his modulated voice carrying through the air.

Morgan stumbled over one of the fallen bodies, barely catching himself. He shot one last look at Red Hood—fear, regret, and disbelief twisting together—before turning and running, cursing the greed that had led him here.

The bounty had fooled him.

Made him believe Red Hood was just a more violent version of Batman. Dangerous, sure—but manageable. Keep your distance, open fire, treat him like any other target caught in the open.

That had been the plan.

And it had failed spectacularly.

As Jason watched Morgan disappear into the distance, gunfire suddenly erupted at close range.

He reacted instantly, tilting his body just enough to let the first bullet slip past—but Grifter was already advancing, firing again as he closed in fast.

Too close.

Jason brought his blade up, deflecting instead of dodging. At this range, there was no guarantee he could avoid every shot—and he wasn’t about to rely on the armor beneath his jacket to take the hit.

That would be sloppy, and certainly unacceptable.

Every fight was a chance to improve. To sharpen his instincts. To push himself further.

He planted his feet, squaring his stance as steel met lead—

‘There it is,’ Grifter noted inwardly, watching him move as Red Hood fell into the rhythm of his carefully orchestrated assault.

‘At first glance, he looks rough around the edges…’ Grifter observed. ‘But a few of those attacks—and that defensive stance—give it away. He’s trained. Martial arts, no question.’

To deflect multiple shots at close range like that, it wasn’t just a reaction. A fighter grounding himself, centering his balance.

Grifter watched it happen in real time.

Red Hood’s blade carved through the cold, tension-filled air as he evaded the barrage. His footing shifted—subtle, controlled—into a more centered stance. Combined with the way he moved, it almost looked like he was seeing the bullets in slow motion.

Like he knew exactly where they’d be.

His blade became something else entirely—fast, fluid, weaving through the air like a defensive weapon with a will of its own. Sparks flared with every deflection, brief flashes confirming each successful interception in the relentless storm of gunfire.

Then—

Click.

Empty.

The gun failed to fire.

Grifter didn’t pause.

He dropped the pistol in his right hand while firing the last round from the one in his left. At the same time, his free hand reached to his waist, drawing a semi-automatic taken off a fallen body—all in one seamless motion.

Red Hood had already been preparing to charge, reading the opening—

—but the moment he saw the weapon come up, he abandoned that thought and shifted to defense.

Rapid fire erupted.

Jason reset instantly, slipping back into motion as their deadly game resumed—bullets snapping through the air, each one trying to tag him as it.

The shots came in fast—too fast.

Even for him.

He parried what he could, but the final bullet came in tight. His blade snapped upward to meet it, throwing him slightly off balance—open for just a split second.

A split second was enough.

Grifter was already in range.

Out of ammo didn’t matter anymore.

‘There it is,’ he confirmed inwardly.

He hurled the empty semi-automatic straight at Red Hood, the sudden projectile disrupting his recovery.

Then he surged forward.

“Come on now… you’re good,” he muttered as he advanced, firing low before dragging his aim upward. “But you’re not that good.”

As Red Hood shifted to adjust his stance—

Grifter dashed in.

Low.

A sweeping strike aimed at his legs—meant to take him off balance before he could fully plant his feet and react to the sudden close-range assault.

– – –

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