Batman enters the “Birds of Prey” fanfiction, beating through ninjas to save the gamblers while Batgirl works the roof.
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Batman always approached the Monarch Theater with trepidation. When he was eight years old, his parents took him to see the movie The Mark of Zorro.
It was the last movie they saw together.
It was the last time Bruce saw his parents alive. A common street hood gunned them down for the contents of a wallet and a string of pearls.
After the Wayne murders, the theater held a few more movie screenings and plays. But a few months later, crime consumed Park Row. The theater lost its upper-class crowd and inevitably closed its doors. It sat unoccupied for decades.
Batman knew Gamble’s people ran a mini casino out of the Monarch Theater. It was a nonviolent crime, and Gamble used the profits to prop up the community in the Hill. Those factors put the operation at a low priority for Batman.
That didn’t mean he ignored it. He’d frequented the establishment as his alter ego, gangster Matches Malone. From the few nights he attended, he’d deciphered how Gamble ran the operation, who the players were, and how tight Gamble ran security for the establishment.
Now, Batman combined that knowledge with the Monarch Theater schematics he’d memorized on the ride over via the Batcomputer’s link to the Gotham City Records department.
Illegal gamblers, particularly the high-end types who frequented Gamble’s establishment, would want to get out quickly at the first sign of trouble.
Neither the theater’s schematics nor Malone’s surveillance revealed any hidden tunnels or any other secret escape routes out of the theater.
However, studying the subway network revealed an abandoned line running under the theater. It made for a perfect quick getaway. Did Gamble access it? If not, could Batman find a way in before Kano’s ninjas struck?
The vigilante moved through the dusty props and tattered, discolored set pieces from the last show (Julius Caesar, Batman recalled) as he moved through the backstage area. He eventually reached the main stage, from where he could see the theater’s main area.
Batman crept into the shadows created by the torn curtain that separated the mid-stage area from the rest of the room. From here, he gained a clear view of the theater’s main area.
Gamble cleaned up the place, bringing back some of its cinema palace splendor. It’d be a decent renovation if not for its private and illegal use.
Cleaners removed the rusting and molding seats from the general seating area and replaced them with casino-style poker tables. There were nearly two dozen tables with seats for five players and a standing position for a dealer.
Tonight, the house was full.
As Malone, Batman noted Gamble only used four or five men who looked like obvious security. They spent their time walking through the room and watching the front doors, despite the doors remaining locked and chained from the inside. A fire hazard, but better for their crowd control.
Two of Gamble’s security men stood by the front doors. Two more walked the room. Other guards manned either side of the two upper balconies to have an unobstructed view of the crowd.
The actual security were the dealers and a few players Malone clocked as too stiff and too bad at poker to truly be enjoying themselves.
Now Batman saw the dealers and the front door guards herding players toward a side door leading to the area formerly housing the kitchen.
Clicking open a line to Batgirl, Batman asked her if she had noticed anything about the theater’s western exterior wall.
“It’s an alley, had a dumpster,” Batgirl responded.
Batman heard a thud, most likely Batgirl landing on another roof. She continued. “Thing was, the dumpster had moved from where a truck could get it to just outside the exterior door.”
That dumpster would make a perfect cover for an escape route into the subway, Batman thought as he cut the link to Batgirl.
Then another explosion.
The front doors blew in, followed by debris and smoke. The players and their escorts were far enough away to avoid injury. However, it scared them so much that the orderly evacuation went to hell.
Some players screamed and stood their ground, unsure of where to escape. Others bulldozed through the people ahead of them in a desperate attempt to flee through the kitchen. Still others ran for the safety of the tables, turning them over like gunfighters in a Western saloon.
Back at the now-open front entrance, five more ninjas entered, arrows nocked on their bowstrings. They were too far away for Batman to stop their first barrage of arrows. The ninjas hit the players, increasing the group’s fear.
Gamble’s balcony men began trading fire with the ninjas, buying Batman the time he needed to use his Batline to swing across the room.
As he swung across the space, another explosion shattered a section of the roof. The vigilante barely dodged the falling debris. Some gamblers weren’t as lucky.
Arrows from the ninjas at the front doors struck more attendees. Uninjured attendees risked their lives to help the injured escape.
Noting their attire, Batman deduced the rescuers were of a lower income than those selfishly running for their lives.
Two of Gamble’s men fell to the ninjas. Only one ninja caught a bullet.
Batman evened the odds with a barrage of Bat-shuriken. Three of the five ninjas fell to the assault. The remaining two lost their bows.
The caped vigilante landed in front of the remaining ninja at the front door. Gamble’s men wisely ceased fire, allowing the Batman to act.
The vigilante downed the remaining ninja before the ninja could draw his sword. Batman then looked at the hole in the roof. Ropes fell into the theater.
Before anyone descended the ropes, flashbang grenades went off just outside the hole in the roof. One ninja, his arms wrapped in a bolo, fell through the hole, crashing through a table down below.
A year ago, Batman grudgingly brought Batgirl into the fold because of her resourcefulness and her ability to learn quickly.
She’d learned tonight to lead with the flashbangs and smokescreen. Her actions above bought him and Gamble’s men more time.
There were still roughly a hundred people in a variety of states of pain to get out of the theater.
Will Batman and Batgirl save the remaining gamblers and stop Kano and his ninjas? Read the next chapter to find out!
While writing this fanfiction, I used Green Ronin’s Mutants and Masterminds, 3rd Edition RPG, to leave some things to chance. Check it out!
Like this Birds of Prey fanfiction? Check out Mark’s original “Shadowdance” saga books!
