The Spider Assassin #52.
The severed arm lowered slowly.
Jake's grip relaxed by increments, fingers uncurling from crystallized flesh that had cracked under the force of impact. The blackened limb that had served as weapon and reminder of everything Harley had cost him.
Bane remained kneeling. His breathing was labored, each inhalation scraping through a windpipe Jake's knee had compressed. The cracked mask leaked Kobra-Venom in thin rivulets that traced down his chest, and his eyes held something Jake couldn't quite categorize.
Respect, maybe. Or acknowledgment that the Spider's flames hadn't been extinguished despite everything working to smother them.
"We're not finished," Jake said, voice carrying the weight of certainty. "This is only a courtesy. One time."
He lowered his weapon.
"But if you try and stand in my way again," Jake continued, each word deliberate, "I'll kill you. Brutally. Consequences be damned."
Deathstroke's mask tilted fractionally. "I reckon he's smarter than that."
Bane's hand found the wall behind him. Pulled himself upright with effort that made the damaged tubes hiss. His stance was compromised, his breathing difficult, but his composure remained intact.
"Falcone's bounty," Bane said, voice rough with damage but steady, "is nothing compared to what you've given me."
He moved toward the windows, each step measured, controlled despite obvious pain. His hand gestured outward at Gotham's skyline, where smoke columns rose like funeral pyres.
"You made Gotham burn." His visible eye reflected the distant flames. "The fire won't go out soon. Three million can't compare to the opportunity you've created."
Jake's analytical mind processed the implication. Chaos was profitable for those who traded in substances that made people desperate. Kobra-Venom commanded premium prices when society's structures collapsed and everyone sought edges that might keep them alive.
Bane's business was about to become exponentially more lucrative.
"Your flames persist, Spider." Bane turned back, meeting Jake's eyes with that same unwavering intensity. "You refuse to break when lesser men would have shattered." His jaw tightened. "But be warned that there are those who would use that persistence as a weapon. Who would forge your refusal into something they control."
The warning landed with uncomfortable clarity. Jake's eyes tracked to Deathstroke, whose stance suggested patient observation rather than immediate threat. The mercenary had made his pitch. Had offered alliance wrapped in pragmatism. Had positioned the League as answer to problems Jake hadn't acknowledged needing solutions for.
Which meant they wanted something. Wanted him for some purpose that required his flames to burn in directions they chose.
Jake's hand tightened on the severed arm.
"Harley Quinn," he said, redirecting before Bane could elaborate further. "You took her."
Bane's expression shifted. "I knew you would come looking for her."
A pause stretched between them. Long enough for Jake's heart to beat three times. Four. The rhythm was strong, regular, his cardiovascular system functioning with efficiency that still felt foreign after days of compromised circulation.
"But Harley Quinn did what she knows best," Bane continued.
Jake's rage spiked. His spider-sense rippled with the emotion, painting Bane's words in colors that tasted like betrayal. If she'd escaped, if he'd climbed through four floors of professional killers and enhanced soldiers for nothing, if his conviction that she'd be here waiting was wrong--
"She survived," Bane finished.
The word landed like ice water. Jake's analytical mind traced backward through the statement, searching for the implication he'd missed. She survived. Past tense. Survived what? Their encounter in the tunnels? The chemicals? The injuries he'd inflicted when his hand had struck her chest with enough force to crack ribs? Capture by Bane?
"She could've run," Bane said, watching Jake's reaction with clinical interest. "Could've disappeared into Gotham's chaos while you fought your way here. Used the time to vanish completely."
Jake's jaw clenched.
"But you represent something of immense value to her." Bane's tone carried understanding born from observation. "She's waiting for you on the floor above us."
The certainty settled into Jake's chest like a stone. Fifth floor. One more level. One more obstacle between him and the woman who'd drowned him twice. Who'd wrapped his wounds with sequined jacket strips and sung lullabies while his broken body leaked chemicals. Who'd believed in her fractured mind that she was helping when she'd been destroying.
"The question is," Bane said quietly, "whether you're ready to face her."
Jake's heart stuttered.
The rhythm broke for half a second, muscles contracting out of sequence before stabilizing again. His enhanced perception caught the disruption, analyzed it, categorized it as emotional response rather than physical failure.
Fear.
The recognition landed with uncomfortable clarity. His heart had stuttered because some buried part of him that the chemicals hadn't fully corrupted was afraid. Afraid of seeing her again. Afraid that the pheromones might not be completely purged. Afraid that looking at her face would trigger responses his conscious mind had spent days trying to kill.
But the fear toxin had burned through those corrupted pathways. Had cauterized the neural connections that made resistance feel like betrayal. The second voice was gone. The conditioning was dead.
All that remained was Jake Cross holding forty pounds of blackened flesh and the absolute conviction that Harley Quinn deserved everything he was about to deliver.
His grip tightened on the severed arm until crystalline tissue groaned.
"I'll kill her," he said.
Deathstroke moved closer, boots crossing concrete with professional precision. "You made a wise choice, Spider. Sparing Bane demonstrates potential for strategic thinking."
Jake's eyes tracked to the mercenary without turning his head.
"But the League cannot lend you a hand until a pact is formed," Deathstroke continued. His stance was casual but his words carried weight. "Until you commit to something beyond your immediate vengeance."
Jake's voice came out cold. Resolved. Fueled by adrenaline his restored cardiovascular system was finally producing at functional levels.
"Who said I needed your help?"
Deathstroke's mask tilted in what might have been amusement. "You don't have to need it to have it. Find me when you're ready to talk."
The words hung in the chemical-tainted air. Jake's analytical mind processed them against the interface still glowing in his peripheral vision.
The bonus rewards waited. Two selections from four options.
His eyes found the fourth choice again. The one that had materialized like temptation made digital.
KILL MILESTONE: 28/30.
Two more kills and the system would extend its hand. Would offer something time-limited based on totem rarity. Would give him back what Harley had cost him, maybe. Would restore the arm for forty-eight hours. Would make him whole again for brief windows that statistical probability said would expire during critical moments.
Useless.
The system had abandoned him when the Time Bank expired. Had sent the Reaper with scythe raised and absolute certainty. Had only relented when Jake's fingers closed around that single thorn, when desperation found currency the system recognized.
It didn't care about him. Didn't care about his survival except as mechanism to continue collecting. To reach one hundred percent through violence and theft.
But Deathstroke's words echoed.
You don't have to need it to have it.
Jake's mind traced connections. All he'd gained had come from the system. The powers. The interface. The totems that bought time in exchange for identity consumed. Every advantage, every survival, every moment of enhanced strength that let him compete with monsters.
All of it system-granted.
And now it offered more. Promised extension if he killed two more people. If he reached thirty deaths and claimed whatever reward waited beyond that milestone.
Two kills.
Twenty-nine when he finished with Harley.
Just one more after that.
The rationalization assembled itself with frightening ease. One more death to unlock whatever the system wanted to give him. One more soul that Death couldn't account for. One more step toward whatever completion meant.
His chest tightened.
No.
The thought surfaced with crystalline clarity. He'd killed twenty-eight people. Each one a choice. Each one time bought with violence. The number was already catastrophic.
Adding two more for system rewards he couldn't trust would just prove he'd learned nothing.
His eyes tracked to the standard rewards. Bundle of Cash. Totem Icon. Mystery Reward.
Practical. Immediate. Not dangling carrots designed to make him kill for the system's entertainment.
But first.
Fifth floor.
Harley Quinn.
Justice delivered with forty pounds of blackened flesh and the absolute conviction that she deserved nothing less.
Jake's feet found the stairs. His right hand gripped the severed arm tighter, positioning it for the swing that would cave her skull. His spider-sense painted the path upward in clear colors.
Behind him, Bane's labored breathing. Deathstroke's patient observation. Death's infinite patience.
Ahead, one more level. One more confrontation.
Then decisions about systems and leagues and what came after vengeance was satisfied.
The stairs ascended through industrial architecture, metal groaning under his weight. Each step brought him closer to resolution. To the moment when Harley Quinn's choices came due.
The fifth floor materialized.
Smaller footprint than below. Single open space that had once been executive offices but was now something else entirely. The walls had been decorated, paint still wet in places, creating patterns that suggested obsessive attention during limited time. Pink and blue. Harley's colors bleeding together in ways that hurt to perceive.
And in the center of the space, positioned to catch light from windows overlooking Gotham's burning skyline: a chair.
Makeshift throne constructed from salvaged furniture, wrapped in fabric torn from expensive clothes, decorated with bat fragments and playing card pieces. It faced away from the stairs, toward the windows, silhouette visible against firelight.
The chair turned.
Slow. Deliberate. Theater cultivated through years of performance.
Harley Quinn sat in her throne. Unarmed. Makeup running but freshly applied, like she'd tried to reconstruct her face during the time Jake fought his way here. Her ponytails were intact, styled with care despite obvious injuries.
She smiled.
"My dearest Good Night," she said, voice carrying that broken-glass Brooklyn lilt, that manic sweetness wrapped around genuine emotion. "How happy I am to see you!"
~MimicLord
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