BOOM!
The primary fuel cell of the first armored van detonated in a towering geyser of orange flame. Shredded legal documents, charred hard drives, and glowing embers rained down across Pier 42 like a twisted victory parade.
Jack stood five paces from the inferno, his tattered coat singed at the hems, his face painted in ash and fresh crimson. The shockwave had knocked him off his feet, ripping open the crude stitches across his collarbone.
His body was screaming, but his brain—bathed in the chemical flood of Joker's synchronization—felt practically untouchable.
[10.5%... CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED... SYNCHRONIZATION OVERFLOW]
"HA! HAHAHA! LOOK AT 'EM FLY!" Jack howled, leaning heavily on his crowbar as he watched a stack of bonds burn in mid-air. "Fisk’s slush fund... gone in sixty seconds! Who says inflation isn't fun?!"
"DEAD MAN WALKING!"
A heavy mercenary in full tactical armor rounded the corner of a green shipping container, a silenced submachine gun leveled straight at Jack’s chest. Three more mercenaries lined up beside him on the gantry above, locking their laser sights onto Jack's blood-soaked forehead.
Jack’s knees gave out slightly. He couldn't dodge. His vision twirled with dark spots of blood loss and infection fever.
He raised his empty shotgun, pointing it at the lead guard with a crooked grin. "Bang?"
THWIP-CRACK!
A high-tension steel cable shot out from the dark crane tower sixty feet above, whipping around the lead mercenary’s neck with terrifying speed. Before the man could pull his trigger, he was yanked upward into the shadows, his gun clattering uselessly against the wet pavement.
THWIP-THWIP!
Two suppressed armor-piercing rounds cracked through the foggy air from high above. The two snipers on the upper gantry collapsed instantly, their bodies tumbling over the railing and splashing into the icy channel below.
Jack blinked, wiping a smear of soot and blood from his eye. "Well, well... looks like my angel of death wears black leather."
High up on the container edge, Felicia Hardy dropped down in a silent, fluid crouch, her sniper rifle slung across her back, a silver grappling line in her gloved palm. She looked down at Jack, shaking her head with a mixture of disgust and dark amusement.
"You really are a hopeless romantic, aren't you, Jack?" Felicia purred, her voice coming through the harbor speakers she'd hotwired ten seconds prior. "Blowing up a fifty-million-dollar ledger just to get my attention?"
"Hey, I offered you a soda-can ring first!" Jack cackled, coughing up a mouthful of red as he dragged his right leg forward. "You're the one playing hard to get!"
"Shut up and hold on," Felicia snapped softly.
She leaped off the container stack, the grappling cable whistling through the fog. As she swung past, her arm wrapped firmly around Jack’s waist, pulling his staggering weight off the blood-stained asphalt just as a hail of heavy machine gun fire tore up the ground where he’d been standing.
They soared through the smoke and fog, landing with a heavy thud onto the deck of a stolen tugboat idling silently at the edge of the pier.
Felicia slammed the throttle forward, turning the wheel hard. The tugboat lurched into the dark Hudson River, leaving behind the roaring inferno of Pier 42 and the frantic sirens of the NYPD.
Jack collapsed onto the wooden deck, his head resting against a coil of thick hawser rope. The sky above was dark, cold, and wet, but his chest felt like a molten furnace.
Felicia stepped away from the wheel, kneeling beside him. She looked at his torn bandages, the deep purple infection creeping up his neck, and the terrifying, unblinking smile still plastered across his face.
"You destroyed Fisk's entire East Coast laundering network in one night," Felicia said, her emerald eyes searching his pale face. "He's going to put every contract killer in North America on your head by sunrise."
Jack let out a low, dry chuckle—a raspy, bubbling hehehe that settled into a peaceful, crazy sigh.
"...then tell 'em..." Jack whispered, his eyes closing as the fever finally dragged him toward unconsciousness, "...to bring... better ammunition... HAHAHA..."
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