The average stadium could contain up to 50,000 people, but in classic Gotham fashion, the mayor at the time and his ilk had decided to make it big, make it grand! The reason they gave the public was to boost tourism, but who would want to tour a shithole where even the air wasn't safe to breathe and the gangs could disappear politicians overnight?
As expected, just a little over a year later, evidence of the mayor's embezzlement flooded the News for days!
Reporters had a field day exposing shell companies, inflated contracts, and kickbacks that traced back to the his personal accounts.
But the real irony was it wasn't a young, aspiring cop or any of Batman's predecessors who cracked the case, but one of his own former associates who'd been cut out of the grift. Unfortunately, by that time, the frame of the stadium had already been erected and to tear it all down would've been too expensive, so the succeeding mayor and his henchmen just decided to bite their teeth and finish the job.
To avoid following his predecessor's footsteps straight into a federal prison cell, the mayor at the time had chosen the best company money could buy, one with actual credentials and legitimate contracts.
The result was a stadium that could hold up to 100,000 people at once, with state-of-the-art facilities, luxury boxes that'd put penthouse apartments to shame, and a retractable roof that cost more than most Gotham schools ever saw in half a century.
If there was anything a Gothamite could be proud about, it was the city's stadium.
The structure itself was a rare example of Gotham ambition meeting actual competence.
Not that it mattered, of course.
Revenue from tourism still hadn't increased, the projected influx of visitors never materializing beyond the occasional convention that could've been held anywhere. Meanwhile, the city's internal circulation hadn't seen uptake at all!
Mainly because those who were actually interested in sports were just too damn poor to afford an extra hundred bucks on tickets, parking, and overpriced concessions, while those who could it cared a whole lot more about politics and how to increase or retain their net worth in these trying times.
Every now and then, these wealthy clients would visit the stadium for networking events, galas masquerading as charity functions, and corporate boxes where deals were made over expensive Whiskey. They'd spend heartily on private suites and catered spreads, but even the V.I.P section and all its premium services accumulated over these years could not cover the cost of materials and construction of the stadium.
Hell, it couldn't even cover its yearly operations and maintenance costs.
It did not help that the local teams were piles of dogshit either.
Any promising new talents with actual promise would be scouted and taken by the surrounding cities or States, lured away by better contracts, safer neighborhoods, and the appeal of not getting mugged on the way to practice.
This left only a rare few aging players clinging to their fading careers and rookies too desperate, too foolish or too idealistic to realize they were signing their futures away.
Due to the reasons above, ever since its construction, Gotham's stadium had never seen more than a few thousands fans, much less been filled to capacity.
Tonight, that changed…
For the first time since its construction, Gotham Stadium saw tens of thousands pouring toward its gates and more to follow!
If this were the usual sporting event, the mayor would've been ecstatic! Alas, none of the attendes intended to pay, and even if they did, there was nobody in the ticket booths to operate them.
There hadn't been any since Gotham fell.
"Who do you think will win?"
"I don't know." The blonde spoke through a mouthful, crumbs tumbling from his lips. "But I'm hoping Deathstroke will."
"I'm betting on the Imp."
"You're betting against us?"
"What do you know? Deathstroke's already lost to the Imp once."
"Word is they went at it again in Coast City, and this time the Imp lost."
"So that's where he's been!"
Among the crowd, similar conversations could be heard.
Black Mask and Two-Face had decided to run a gambling operation to give their henchmen something to do and determine who'd control how many percentage of the port.
Why'd Dent agree to this arrangement?
Because he was criminally insane, not stupid.
Although the port currently belonged to him, it was a critical location for incoming supplies.
Even if Roman hadn't pressured him, the smaller gangs, the Falcone family, or even Dent's own increasingly restless henchmen would eventually try to seize it.
Allowing the False Facers a stake would weaken his total control, certainly, but it'd also relieve the pressure on him and his operations.
This way, Black Mask and he could present a united front against outside threats, and the presence of another established kingpin would also discourage any ambitious underlings from getting ideas above their station.
He'd already profited handsomely from port operations over the last two weeks, it was time to split the cake before the situation spiraled beyond his control.
The gamble determining each kingpin's share was precisely the battle between the Terminator and the Hellbred. Victory meant 65% control of the port, defeat meant settling for scraps, but the kingpins weren't the only ones gambling tonight.
Their underlings had their own wagers riding on the fight.
As for loyalty?
What loyalty could possibly be expected from these wolves and vultures?
If loyalty was all that kept people like him in power, they'd have been ousted from their seats and found hacked to pieces in a ditch somewhere.
Of course, these men hadn't come merely to spectate.
They'd come as reassurance.
Deathstroke's reputation was known to all in their circles.
As long as an mercenary of his caliber existed, they'd never feel secure in their positions, but if the Imp could put him down for good, that'd be one less knife to their throats.
If Deathstroke won instead, the same script would play out, just with the Hellbred's corpse on the slab.
Either way, once they secured the body, they could reverse-engineer whatever made these two so special.
Armed with that knowledge, they'd never have to fear anyone again.
Even if Batman somehow crawled back from the dead, could he take down hundreds of Super Soldiers? What about a thousand? Two? Ten? Naturally, the most valuable discoveries would belong to Black Mask and Dent, but the leftover scraps should be enough to transform these ragtag thugs into a fighting force to be feared, if not revered on Earth.
With those calculations running through his mind, Harvey leaned back in his seat, carefully surveying the scene through a monitor.
Deathstroke was nowhere to be seen, but he knew the mercenary must be lurking somewhere among the masses. His scouts had also confirmed that a black silhouette was rapidly approaching the Stadium. The stage was set, the actors chosen. All that was left was for the curtain to rise.
"Heads or tails. Life or death. One falls, one rises. Either way, we'll profit from the funeral."
He flipped the coin and checked the result. Tails.
The fight hadn't begun, but the verdict was already in.
Dent leaned forward and scrawled a word on a piece of paper before feeding it into the ancient fax machinethat, while as outdated as the gap between stone age and bronze age tools compared to modern technology, would be much harder to trace than a text or a phone call would have been.
The transmission crackled across Gotham's decrepit lines to Sionis, carrying only one word and also his chosen Champion.
"Don't disappoint, Imp."
.
.
.
Diving thousands of feet to build momentum, Rowan pulled up and glided toward the Stadium in the distance. Even from this height, he could see tens of thousands swarming toward it, likely to cheer Deathstroke's victory or tear Rowan apart should he lose.
The kingpins hadn't commanded this kind of reach before.
At their peak, excluding the loose network of those who paid protection money, the combined forces of all Gotham's crime lords should've totaled 5,000 to 7,000 at most. That number had exploded in the two weeks since he and Batman vanished, most of whom were people that joined later for rations, clean water, or simply a roof that wouldn't collapse during the night.
Which was exactly why he needed to be heavy-handed.
The violence wouldn't just deter others from signing up if he failed; it would gut their operational capacity and give people like Heller and Marcus a fighting chance regardless of the outcome of tonight's battle.
For a moment, he considered recalling all the Shades scattered throughout Gotham, but then dismissed the thought.
They served the city better spread out.
Though Rowan had to admit, ego played a role too.
He wanted to beat Deathstroke, and he wanted to beat the mercenary fair and square.
Man versus Man.
Catching a flutter of white at the corner of his vision, Rowan narrowed his eyes at the disappearing silhouette. 'Azrael.' Anyone even remotely familiar with the Caped Crusader would know his on-and-off frenemy. Rowan didn't have strong feelings toward the religious zealot beyond appreciating how badass Saint Batman's outfit was.
In fact, the two of them shared a similar philosophy: the ends justify the means, though Rowan's version leaned more toward 'tit-for-tat' justice.
The problem was the man's upbringing and Rowan's own nature.
Azrael was a Christian warrior conditioned from childhood by the Order of St. Dumas, a subdivision of the Knights Templar, to serve as God's instrument. Whether he actually carried out the Presence's will or merely the agenda of those who'd brainwashed him was beside the point.
What mattered was given the opportunity, the Knights Templar would drive steel through his spine without hesitation.
Rowan hoped it wouldn't come to that…
Then again, if it did, he had no qualms about snapping the zealot's limbs either.
Turning from where the Knight had vanished, he descended to the Stadium's roof and took in the scene below.
Dismissing the vanished Knight, he dropped onto the Stadium's roof and scanned the seats filling below.
Black Mask's False Facers dominated one side, Two-Face's crew the opposite.
Meanwhile, Scarecrow's raggedy thugs sat interspersed with Falcone's remnants and a handful of lesser gangs.
Each faction had carved out its own turf, while maintaining noticeable distance from their rivals.
Clearly, they weren't here to fight, only to spectate, so he'd give them what they wanted—a spectacle.
"Say, does it not chafe your hide that we ain't been gifted a formidable moniker, like, say, the False Face Society?"
The stilted, old-fashioned speech made Rowan freeze mid-step.
"Jamie, for the last time, you're not a medieval peasant, and you need to stop binging Monty Python!"
"Never! For the Knights Who Say Ni! demand loyalty!"
"Then may the Holy Grail comfort you when your wife walks out, 'cause I sure as shit ain't gonna!"
"W-Walk out?"
"Yeah, dumbass! Jane told me she's had enough of it. It wasn't funny the first time, and it isn't funny now."
Poking his head over the ledge, Rowan took in their faces and called out, "Ay, guys?"
"""IMP!"""
"Yeah, yeah. Just happened to be passing through and, well, I couldn't help but overhear." Dismissing their terror with a wave, he fixed his eyes on the one who clearly wasn't Jamie. "So… Why exactly are you having private heart-to-hearts with your buddy's wife?"
"""…"""
"We-Look, I—Hold on! I don't gotta explain shit to you!"
Rowan's gaze bounced between them slowly, then he voiced what the gathered thugs were all thinking. "You two are fucking, aren't you?"
Jamie's face went several shades paler. "Nolan... Please tell me he's lying!"
Nolan, unfortunately, hesitated just a second too long. "How could you?! We've known each other since we were kids!"
"What-I-Why would you believe him?! He's a vigilante! He's obviously trying to turn us against each other!"
"Yeah, they're definitely fucking." Crossing his arms, Rowan shook his head as the surrounding members of Falcone's crew murmured their agreement. Something about 'fake friends' and 'snake.'
The clicked his tongue, then pointed a thumb at the exit. "Ay, Jamie, I was gonna punch through the roof, pulled you up and threw you over the ledge, but you know what? Eh, I'll let you off this once. I'm not really in the business of kicking a man when he's down."
"… Isn't that a bit excessive?"
"Excessive?! Look at what the fuck you lot have done to the ci—"
Rowan hadn't finished when a blur slammed into him, hurling him across the roof.
"Slade… I was getting invested in that conversation."
He couldn't see the mercenary's face behind the mask, but he could sense the rage.
"And that investment will cost you dearly."
"Pft, I've been hit harder by grade schoolers. What happened? Forget to eat your Wheaties for little ol' me?"
"... That will cost you too."
They both knew they had more weapons available. Deathstroke had his firearms and holy relics, Rowan had his Magic and Shades, yet neither reached or called for them.
Both had something to prove, aftet all…
To themselves and to each other.
"Third time's the charm!"
Charging at each other, they each drew collapsible staffs from their utility belts. They clashed three times before stopping in a deadlock that looked rather comical from afar, given the difference in height, but there was nothing comical to either fighter, nor to the roof beneath their feet which had begun to warp under the pressure.
"You hit like a child."
"You fight like a machine, and that's not a compliment!" Rowan collapsed his staff suddenly, dropping beneath a swing that would've sent him sprawling. Slade instantly pivoted to track him, only to catch the staff's butt squarely in the face. Rolling backward and coming up in a crouch, the mercenary yanked the knife from his belt and hurled it forward.
The blade got batted aside as expected, but it did what it was supposed to, which was to buy him some time to catch his bearing.
Not that he needed to.
Not when Rowan instead opted to circle around him like a shark. "Ah! Blood in the water…"
Below, the thugs and criminals cheered rhymically.
"""Fight! Fight! Fight!""
"C'mon, Dickstr—I mean Deathstroke! Terminate him!"
"Imp, Imp, Imp!"
"Accept it, Slade."
Then he paused right in front of the kneeling mercenary and mocked, "You're past your prime."
Throwing himself forward with a punch, Rowan hissed as his fist connected with the mercenary's elbow instead of his face, fingers popping loudly even as the impact sent Wilson tens of feet backward. "You're still decades behind the curve, brat."
Shaking out his hands, Rowan popped his fingers back into place with a deadpanned, "Ouch."
"Plenty more where that came from!" Deathstroke swept low at his legs, and the moment Rowan jumped to evade, the mercenary's backhand caught him mid-air, sending him spinning to the side with a crack across his helmet.
His earlier taunts must have struck a nerve, because the mercenary unleashed a series of overhead strikes, forcing Rowan to dodge LEFT! RIGHT! RIGHT!
Then left again in rapid succession.
On the fifth swing, Rowan finally pulled out a smoke bomb and backflipped clear of his range. The moment Deathstroke swung again, he fired the Batclaw at the staff, reeling himself toward the mercenary, only for Slade to jerk the weapon upward and slam it down, using Rowan's own momentum to drive him into the PTFE fiberglass.
He barely had a moment to recover when the mercenary switched weapons, katana driving through the reinforced fiberglass as Rowan rolled aside.
If this were ordinary glass, he would've shattered it and taken the fight down into the stands, but the material held, so Rowan did the next best thing and seized the blade's hilt.
Launching himself upward, he shouldered into Slade's chest, caving in several ribs judging by the cracks.
That should've been the end of the exchange, but he wasn't the only one who knew how to grab things. Slade could as well, and the object of his choosing just happened to be Rowan's neck.
The mercenary drove his elbow into Rowan's face, shattering half the visor away just as several appropriated GCPD helicopters flew overhead, broadcasting the entire fight to the city.
Nursing a split lip, a broken nose and several bruises, Rowan forcefully expelled the bloody blockage in his nostrils as he drove a kick into the mercenary, who finally backed off thanks to his own protesting ribs.
If there was any silver lining to getting his face smashed in, it was that he'd managed to swipe Deathstroke's katana.
Both fighters rose on shaky legs, facing each other across the damaged roof, when Rowan caught the telltale glint of a scope miles away reflected in the polished blade.
Not even he, and he reckoned Bruce could calculate ballistics at this distance or in this timeframe, but he knew where a professional would aim. He jerked the katana up behind his head and angled his body sideways.
The bullet struck the blade dead center, shattering it in half and sending shrapnel into his already cracked helmet as he turned his back on Deathstroke, despite every survival instinct screaming at him to keep eyes on the mercenary.
But, absurd as it was, he trusted Slade wouldn't take a cheap shot. And he was right. Deathstroke stood beside him instead, both staring toward the distant shooter. Miles away, across several city parks, Deadshot met the gaze of three glowing orange eyes and one white lens, and felt his blood run cold.
Villains were always harder targets than heroes.
Heroes operated by rules.
They believed in honor and refused to kill.
Deathstroke had honor too, but he would happily cripple Lawton for life, if not simply execute him outright.
The Imp, meanwhile, was a corpse away from crossing over completely based on his growing body count.
'This isn't worth it.' With such thoughts in mind, he immediately put his sniper rifle in its case. The more time he had to run, the more distance he could put between himself and the Stadium, the less likely it was he'd be found by the two nutjobs. On the phone, Maroni Falcone continued to shriek about the money and the contract, but Lawton hadn't survived this long by ignoring the obvious.
Back at the Stadium, Rowan and Slade backed away from each other, both men hissing their discontent into the cold air.
"Scurrying rat."
"Honorless cur."
They exchanged a glance, then exchanged fists, fighting to their heart's content.
They worked down the list of moves and gadgetry until their pockets were empty, until their bodies were bruised and battered, until all that remained were sloppy punches and tired kicks, yet both stubbornly persisted. But before a true victor could be determined, they suddenly caught the slow, ominous whine of the M134 mounted on the helicopter.
It might seem excessive for other cities, but to Gothamites, this was nothing out of the ordinary.
"These damn—" Slade spat.
"Fuck." Rowan cursed, already diving for the ledge, yet both were still caught in the line of fire, one taking bullets the stomach, the other the arm and shoulder.
A bullet tore into through the joint, instantly loosening Rowan's grip on the Batclaw.
He roared, freefalling off the building as another round punched through his back plating and finally into his chest.
'Roman!' Memorizing every detail of the kingpin's snarl, Rowan tried to use his patchy glider that could only slow his descent by a tad.
He was awake only long enough to feel a pressure against his arm that drastically slowed his descent, then the blur of the earth rapidly approaching. He wouldn't die. That much he knew, but—'This is gonna hurt…' Or so he thought, until a large, burly man in a suit that was almost as ridiculous as the first Robin Suit with the speedo broke his fall.
"Imp, is it?"
"Wi-Wildcat?"
"Yep, let's get you outta here. You've done a lot, son."
Rowan sighed, then found himself turning to find Deathstroke, spotting the mercenary swinging away on his own cable. 'I owe you one, old-timer.'