As if Batman knew the attack was coming, he turned at the perfect moment, deflecting Deathstroke's sword with the two spikes jutting backward from the outside of Batman's forearm. Spinning around, Batman twisted the sword out of Deathstroke's grip and flung it aside.
Deathstroke ignored the weapon and launched into a flurry of hand to hand attacks. A right handed punch to Batman's face was easily sidestepped, but Deathstroke followed it with a kick from his left leg. Batman used his forearm to deflect the strike before counterattacking. Because Deathstroke was balanced on one leg to perform his kick, he was instantly unbalanced when Batman smashed his boot into Deathstroke's ankle, dropping the assassin to his back.
Rolling to his feet, Deathstroke drew one of the pistols holstered at his hip. Batman was still in arm's reach and grabbed the weapon with both hands, fingers curling around the back of the gun to prevent the hammer from moving. A firm twist by Batman, forced Deathstroke to release the weapon or suffer a broken wrist, and the moment the gun was only in Batman's hands, the masked hero pulled the slide back and off, tossing the two pieces of the neutralized weapon in opposite directions.
Deathstroke was hardly ready to give up and continued the fight by lunging forward with a right hand punch to Batman's midsection. Batman brought both his hands down, crossing them at the wrists, to catch Deathstroke's forearm between them and redirect the attack down and away. Deathstroke spun, taking a knife from his belt as he turned. When his right hand came back toward Batman's face, the gleaming edge of a knife proceeded it.
As he had done with Deathstroke's sword earlier, Batman used his forearm spikes to snare the blade and hold it long enough for him to take hold of the knife with other set of forearm spikes as well. Pulling in opposite directions, Batman snapped the blade in two, leaving Deathstroke holding just the handle grip.
Deathstroke backflipped to put some distance between himself and Batman, drawing out a pair of pistols in mid-air. When he landed, Deathstroke fired where Batman had been, but Batman was no longer there. The assassin looked for his prey, but the smoke cloud, previously centered only on the entrance of the warehouse, was spreading out and making it more difficult to see.
Deadshot groaned as he got back to his feet, causing Deathstroke to aim his weapons in the direction of the noise before he noticed the intended target wasn't Batman.
"Where is he?" Deathstroke whispered.
"Here," Batman said as he stepped out of the smoke cloud behind Deathstroke.
Deathstroke tried to bring his guns to bear, but Batman grabbed Deathstroke's left wrist and smashed a fist down on the joint to loosen the grip and force Deathstroke to drop the weapon he held. Maintaining a hold on the assassin's wrist, Batman spun around his opponent in a swirl of his long cape to get behind him once more. While pulling back on the wrist, Batman delivered a forearm blow to Deathstroke's shoulder. The combination of forces flipped Deathstroke over to land on his back once more.
Batman took a batarang in each hand and turned away from Deathstroke long enough to hurl the metal projectiles at Deadshot. The razor edged pieces of metal sliced past Deadshot's raised arms, cutting through the leather straps holding his arm mounted guns to his person. When the assassin fired in an attempt to kill Batman, the recoil tore the weapons from his arms and flung them away into the darkness.
Batman had already rolled to the side to avoid the incoming bullets, so the wild shots were nowhere close to life threatening. Coming back to his feet, Batman threw another batarang, but this one was aimed at Deathstroke, hitting hard enough to deflect the aim of the handgun he still held. In the temporary moment Batman had before Deathstroke could adjust his aim, he attacked.
Lunging in, Batman drove his knee into Deathstroke's midsection, doubling him over. While Deathstroke tried to catch his breath, Batman kicked the gun from his foe's hand. The firearm clattered against the pavement as it tumbled away.
A click of a handgun slide being pulled back was Batman's only warning as Deadshot pulled out yet another gun and chambered a round. Leaving Deathstroke behind, Batman dived into the cloud of smoke for cover.
"Go on, keep hiding," Deadshot taunted. "Your smoke can't last forever. When it's gone, so are you!"
"Why waste time?" Deathstroke asked while standing up. He removed a grenade from one of his pockets, pulled the pin, and hurled the explosive into the smoke cloud.
The front of the warehouse was consumed in flames as the grenade went off. The windows outside of the blast radius were still shattered by the expanding air pressure caused by the explosion. The air pressure also pushed aside the smoke cloud, clearing the immediate area. Deadshot entered the warehouse first while Deathstroke took a rifle from behind a crate where he'd stashed it earlier in preparation for the battle with Batman. Looking through the scope with low light amplification, Deathstroke searched for his prey while Deadshot acted as bait.
"Come on out, Batman!" Deadshot yelled. "Aren't you man enough to face us? I thought you were supposed to be tough. You ain't nothing!"
Deadshot moved further into the warehouse, stepping around old boxes, rusty metal shelves, and dusty pallets. In order to keep Deadshot in sight and fire on Batman when he showed up, Deathstroke was forced to abandon his position by the door and follow Deadshot inside.
Harley couldn't see what was going on from the edge of the roof, so she moved over to one of the warehouse skylights, looking down on the happenings below. Too many shadows lingered in the darkened interior for her to see much of anything. The beam of Deadshot's eyepiece gave away his position, and the bright orange on half of Deathstroke's mask was clearly visible, but she couldn't find the Bat. When she finally did, it was too late to do anything about it.
Batman was crouched on one of the roof girders, his cape draped around him in a sheltering cocoon. When he spread his cape, Batman stepped off the metal roof support and swooped downward to kick Deathstroke sideways into the wall of the warehouse. No sooner had the attack been made, Batman wrapped his cape around himself and stepped backwards into the shadows, vanishing from sight.
Deadshot ran over to where he'd heard the commotion, but didn't find any sign of Batman except Deathstroke being on the ground. The assassin looked around, his glowing red eyepiece scanning the area. On the next aisle, Deadshot spotted a cargo gantry. The crane style device was loaded with wooden crates near the ceiling. Mounted on mechanized rollers, the gantry could move cargo from one end of the warehouse to the other with ease. Although it made a prime sniper position, Deadshot put it to another use.
Firing a single bullet toward the wall of the warehouse, Deadshot ricocheted it around the corner of the shelving to hit the chain holding the gantry's cargo. The chain broke, spilling the crates to the floor of the warehouse in a tremendous crash and plume of dust. Batman, who'd been hiding nearby dived out of the aisle to avoid being crushed by the falling debris. It was the perfect opportunity Deadshot needed.
Bullets chased after Batman, tearing into the warehouse and all its contents. The high velocity rounds smashed wooden crates and pallets to pieces in explosions of splinters. Batman jumped over crates and slid under metal shelves with the skills of ninja, bullets impacting all around him. Despite Batman's skill in evasion, Deadshot's aim was flawless, and every round fired came closer to being lethal. Batman managed to fling a pair of batarangs at the assassin. Not hidden by a cloud of smoke, Deadshot easily saw the projectiles coming and shot them out of the air, but it did give Batman the few seconds he needed to evade the deadly stream of bullets.
"Tired yet?" Deadshot yelled into the darkness. "Why don't you step out into the open? I can end this with one shot."
"Not likely," Batman replied from the warehouse. "You think you've got me cornered, but the darkness is my domain."
Deadshot hadn't been listening to the words, only to the direction of the voice. Walking quickly with his gun held ready, he closed in only to find Batman wasn't there. A small speaker sat on a shelf in front of him.
"What's the matter, Deadshot?" Batman's voice asked from the speaker. "Miss me?"
"I'll find you!" Deadshot screamed, frustration turning into boiling rage. "You're already dead!"
"Funny," Batman said calmly through the speaker. "I was thinking the same of you. Don't look down."
Deadshot instantly looked down to find a gray substance on the floor near his feet. He'd been so focused on finding Batman, he'd overlooked it before. The explosive detonated in front of him, launching him into the air and toward the wall behind Batman's speaker. A secondary point of explosive had been positioned on the wall, and it fired as Deadshot approached, blasting the assassin in a different direction. The third and final detonation went off near the base of a pile of crates, shattering the lowest box and bringing the entire stack down on top of where Deadshot had landed.
Batman dropped from the rafters again, landing silently in a crouch with his cape closing in around him. Shoving the boxes aside, he dug Deadshot out of the pile and checked his pulse to be sure the man was still alive. Batman suddenly moved to his left as he sensed the attack coming.
The sword passed through the air an inch above his head as Batman ducked. Deathstroke wielded the blade with flawless skill, spinning, slicing, and chopping with such speed Batman didn't have any time to counterattack. Every movement of the sword led perfectly into the next in an endless chain. Batman deflected some of the strikes against his metal forearm guards, causing small bursts of sparks upon contact, but Deathstroke intentionally varied his attacks to prevent Batman from gaining the opportunity to catch his weapon in the forearm spikes he'd used before. Deathstroke continued his flurry of sword strikes with no sign of slowing down or becoming tired.
Batman dodged to his left, drawing a cylindrical item from his belt and pressing the button on the top. A blinding flare ignited. The intensity was so great, Harley had to shield her eyes from the brightness, even while watching everything from the roof. When the spots on her vision cleared, she looked down into the warehouse again only to find Deathstroke was alone. Batman had vanished once again.
Deathstroke silently stalked his prey, his steps slow and methodical so as to not make any noise. The marginal amount of light available came from the fires ignited by Deathstroke's grenade, and the light sparkled along the edge of his sword as he moved.
Harley knew Deathstroke had one major weakness. One side of the assassin's mask was faceless and colored black because he'd lost an eye on that side many years ago. Being limited to only one eye left him considerably vulnerable to a strike on that side, and Batman took full advantage of it, emerging from the shadows to deliver a solid punch before Deathstroke even knew Batman was there.
Deathstroke brought his sword across in an attempt to remove Batman's head, but it was a mistake as Batman raised his arm and hooked the blade. A simple turn of Batman's arm pinned the weapon against Batman's arm spikes, rendering it unusable for the few seconds Batman needed to punch Deathstroke repeatedly in his masked face.
Staggering backwards, Deathstroke tried to recover from the beating, but Batman was unrelenting, ripping the sword from his hands before delivering a host of punches and kicks to the reeling assassin, breaking the last of his defenses and dropping him hard to the warehouse floor for the last time.
Taking a hold of Deathstroke by the collar, Batman dragged his unconscious foe over to where he'd disabled Deadshot. Cuffs clicked tight around the wrists of the two criminals as Batman restrained them. Taking each man by an arm, Batman hauled the assassins outside. He piled them with the gun dealer he'd captured before the fight, tying them together with a sturdy cord. He also checked them all for additional weapons and anything they might use to escape before the police arrived.
Harley had waited long enough. She'd been fairly certain the hired guns wouldn't be able to take down Batman, even working together, but it had never been her intention for them to do so. If they'd succeeded, it would've been a pleasant surprise, but she had another plan she'd intentionally neglected to tell to either Deathstroke or Deadshot.
Flipping back the lid on a military crate, Harley examined the long tube of drab green housed within the padded interior of the weapon case. Lifting the rocket launcher out, she rested the heavy weapon on her shoulder and looked through the scope as she aimed over the side of the warehouse. She placed the crosshairs of her targeting reticle on Batman. She knew if she hit her target, it would most likely kill Deathstroke and Deadshot as well, but that was a price she was willing to pay.
"Time to die, you mean ol' bat!" Harley said before squeezing the trigger to fire the rocket launcher.