Appointment in Blüdhaven.

Gotham had been called “the national leader in corrupt legal systems”. It was true, but with a bit of an asterisk: to get that ignoble distinction a city had to have a semi-functioning legal system in the first place, so Blüdhaven technically did not qualify for contention. The corrupt cops likely outnumbered the straight cops ten to one, organized crime was so rampant they basically had mob-branded bookstores, and it wasn’t clear whether the news avoided reporting on any of it because it was such public knowledge or because all the journalists worth their salt had moved out (or moved on, forcibly, via ****) long ago. It wasn’t anarchy per se, but Gothamites like Brendan liked to think of Blüdhaven the same way everybody else thought of Gotham, as “we’re bad, but at least we aren’t rock-bottom”.

Regardless, he wasn’t moving there. He just had to get in, get it, and get out without attracting too much attention. After a few days of—in retrospect, paranoid—planning, he bought his ticket, rode the train, and walked through Blüdhaven as nonchalantly as possible, head down and hands in pockets but not in a creepy way, until he arrived at the address Miss Graves had given him. With a totally-not-suspicious glance around, he donned the amulet, hid it under his shirt, and went through the door.

Except the door was locked, so he scaled a few boxes and scurried through an open second-story window and plopped onto a metal catwalk with a loud clang and a pain in his back, just like the pros.

He grunted in pain and loudly grasped for a handhold, using the railing to pull himself to his knees. By the time he saw the armed guard it was too late to hide. He froze with fear, only remembering his effective invisibility when her eyes passed right by, landed on the open window immediately behind him, and traveled onward. A sigh of relief escaped as a guttural ****. He hadn’t expected a guard. Why would he? He was looking for Tsukuri and an unnamed, presumably female, ally, not a bustling hive of secret activity. But no second guard arrived, and he allowed himself to relax and descend to ground level.

While she investigated the open window, Brandon searched for his real target. In any other city with a supervillain scene, an empty warehouse didn’t have an armed guard unless it also had some secret underground lair. And as expected, he wasn’t in the office long before a wall slid open and a newcomer crept into view, a slender Asian woman with close-cropped black hair and a sweatshirt-and-jeans combo that screamed “nondescript fugitive”. He hadn’t seen a lot of Tsukuri without her mask or with clothes, but he also wasn’t about to second-guess Luthor’s intelligence or surveillance network. He’d found his target.

She poked her head out the office door, into the main warehouse space. “Something wrong?” A flash of irritation passed over her face when the guard shrugged, but only a flash. Without another word she spun, nimbly stepped around Brandon without acknowledging his presence, and stalked back to her secret door. He followed her down a metal spiral staircase to the inevitable basement hideout, passing a smattering of other guards—all female, he noticed with both joy and befuddlement. She emerged in a smallish-large room maybe the size of a fast-food restaurant, with a poorly-stocked bar against one wall and a makeshift arena constructed of a boxing ring and chain-link fence. The whole place cried out for a deep clean, new lighting, and perhaps maybe a single patron.

Brandon had heard rumors about the Glamour Slam. Everybody had. From what he could remember, it had been operated by a villain who used mind control on women for weeks, forcing them into battles without their knowledge or consent, until it collapsed around them as evil plans tend to do. For a moment he struggled to remember the mastermind behind the plan until he saw her in the flesh.

She was hard to miss. Slender and lissome, she strolled through the room like—no, because she owned the place. Her blood-red dress would have stood out among the uniformed guards even without the strategic cuts above her breasts and back and all the way up one leg. The amount of skin on display revealed much of an intricate dragon tattoo from one bare shoulder to the far thigh, accentuated by knee-high heeled boots and gloves over three quarters of her arms. He ogled her so much he almost forgot to look at her face, sharp and composed, with a cunning glare between flawless eyeliner and a classy pince-nez. Even if her unique personal style hadn’t given her away, he probably would have guessed in an instant that Tsukuri host and ally was none other than Roulette.

“False alarm,” Tsukuri droned, “no heroes around.”

“And what was your plan if they were?” Roulette snapped in a tone Brandon knew well: an irate authority future who already knew the answer to a question. “Try to talk them into submission? Sneak away in the chaos of an empty room?”

“I was just check—“

“You were just going upstairs when you’re supposed to be laying low. Letting you hide out here is a big enough risk even when you’re not popping your head out every fifteen minutes. Until you and your teammate”—she put enough stress on that word to give it a heart attack—“get either a solid plan or a steady income, you stay out of sight. Otherwise you’re out on your ass.”

Tsukuri scoffed, her hands balled into fists. “You couldn’t kick us out if you wanted to.”

Roulette leaned into Tsukuri’s personal space. “Try me.”

For a moment the universe revolved around the inch between their noses. Even the plumbing went quiet, poised to flee, until Tsukuri sneered and backed away. Without drawing the attention of the onlookers, she tugged at her sweatshirt as though she wanted to remove it, then fled through another door before she could finish.

Roulette rubbed her temples. “The next guard who lets her go upstairs gets to be her sparring partner for a week. Are we clear?” A vague murmur of assent came from the guards, a farewell applause to Roulette returning to what Brandon assumed was her office. He glanced at Tsukuri, then Roulette, then back again, and made his choice. Luthor’s mission could wait. When fate drops a gorgeous, dangerous woman like Roulette at your feet, it would be terribly rude to not give her something to do while she was there.