"What exactly are you doing here?"
Bruce Wayne's voice was ice-cold as he addressed Constantine. In his grip, he balanced a short-axe shaped like a stylized bat, holding it with the casual lethality of a man ready to strike at any moment.
"I've always felt we were on the same side. Don't tell me you haven't felt that connection too?" Constantine replied, his tone breezy. He lit a cigarette with practiced ease, pulling his trench coat tighter to keep his limbs from seizing up in the biting mountain chill.
With a series of sluggish, exaggerated movements, he pushed the massive wooden doors shut behind him. From the strain on his face, it was clear the task was anything but easy.
"And what if I have?"
Without a change in expression, Wayne flicked his wrist. The hand-axe whistled through the air, grazing Constantine's ear close enough to trim the hair at his temple before thudding deep into the wooden door. The resulting hole provided a fresh, if unwelcome, draft of freezing air.
Wayne reached into the lining of his cloak and drew another axe from a row of identical weapons. He was a man who believed in redundancy; specialized equipment was always superior to whatever one could scavenge from the dirt.
"I have questions for Death, but apparently, I'm not yet prestigious enough to get an audience," Constantine said, flicking ash from his cigarette. He looked up at Wayne and continued, "As for these Barbarians, I've seen enough. A pack of noble madmen. Honestly, I've never cared for their style of fighting."
"What is it you want from me, Constantine?"
Wayne's words were sharp and final. There was no detectable hint of wariness in his voice; despite Constantine's foul reputation, Bruce believed the situation remained firmly under his control. At the very least, he didn't view the mage as a teammate. If a battle broke out that required cooperation, he'd simply tell Constantine to get lost.
"A place to stay," Constantine muttered, looking down at his cigarette with a shifty, almost wretched expression. "And a chance to meet Death."
He spoke the name as if it were a common acquaintance, though it carried the weight of the universe.
"Do you need me to take your head off first?" Wayne's voice remained flat, devoid of emotion. It was impossible to tell if he was being literal or merely issuing a threat.
To meet Death?
Wayne knew exactly what that entailed. If Constantine were serious, it meant trouble. It wasn't that Wayne lacked courage—on the contrary, he possessed more than most. To face fear every day and eventually choose to become the very thing that fear itself dreaded required an unparalleled Will.
As a man of profound caution and learning, he was well-acquainted with Nietzsche's warnings about gazing into the abyss. But he was prepared. Now that he knew "Fear" was no longer an intangible concept but something that could be bled, Wayne had spent countless hours calculating exactly how to dismantle Diablo.
"If that's what it takes," Constantine said, snapping his head up. His eyes were bloodshot, revealing a man who was anything but calm. He looked like someone who had recently stared at the raw, ugly truth of existence and hadn't quite recovered.
"The world is getting strange, isn't it? It's like Death has forgotten me. Or maybe you've felt it too? It's more like... He's excluded us. Like no matter where we show up, we just don't fit the puzzle."
Constantine watched Wayne closely, fishing for a reaction. The answer would dictate his next move.
"Maybe you're just antisocial," Wayne replied, stowing the axe and turning his back.
He had a battle to return to. The rewards offered by the Ancestors were worth the exertion. Since a clearer, more direct path to power had presented itself, he wasn't about to ignore it. He simply needed to prepare more—even if the prospect of using "Fury" as a source of energy made him uneasy.
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