Every spotlight in the Gymnasium ceiling blazed, their pallid beams slicing through the dust like swords.
All three thousand seats were occupied. Even the aisles were packed with Gotham thugs waving homemade banners and screaming themselves hoarse. The air reeked of cheap cigarettes, sour sweat, and feverish hormones.
In the VIP Box at the very top.
Yang Ming lounged on a leather sofa, his crossed legs propped on a mahogany coffee table, cracking five-spice sunflower seeds at a rapid clip.
Beside him sat a man in a bespoke suit who wore sunglasses even indoors.
Bruce Wayne.
"You call this a school?" Bruce watched the court boiling below like an ancient Roman arena, one eyebrow rising slightly.
"What? Worried about the money you spent building it, Master Wayne?" Yang Ming spat out a seed shell. "These brats were a lot wilder when they were fighting rats for food in the sewers. I just built them a legal cage."
Bruce said nothing. Behind his sunglasses, his gaze remained locked on the boys warming up courtside. His fingers tapped lightly against his knee, as though he were assessing something.
Clack.
A glass of whiskey packed with ice slammed down beside Bruce's hand. A few drops splashed onto the cuff of his expensive suit.
Bruce turned.
The woman serving the drink wore a wildly ill-fitting gray tracksuit, her long black hair tied haphazardly behind her head. Worst of all, she actually had a pink plastic cat-ear headband on her head, emblazoned with the words "Gotham's Hope."
Loki bit her lower lip so hard she nearly drew blood. Her once-arrogant eyes were now bloodshot. Her grip on the tray was so tight that her knuckles had turned white.
"Drink. Mortal." Loki's voice sounded as though it had been dredged out of an ice hole.
She