God Hates A Gambler 2

MARCH 3RD, 2010 – THREE MONTHS AGO

Seventeen years ago today, Anthony Chance Pratt was born.

And for sixteen years after that, the world had decided that it was gonna make him feel like shit for it. Strangely enough, he’d hoped that the seventeenth year would somehow be different.

Which was… 

Honestly, really dumb of him to expect.

His lungs burned deep as cheap sneakers slapped against wet pavement, cold March rain soaking straight through his hoodie. The drizzle was already bad enough with the wet, but it was even harder to find his way around; Gotham’s backstreets a slick mess of reflecting neon and gutter runoff. 

Fuck fuck fuck—

Still, he couldn’t bother to stop.

Not with the sound of angry voices echoing off the narrow walls of the alley as heavy footsteps pounded against the asphalt.

I didn’t even do anything, man!

He really hadn’t.

Not this time, at least.

It was a clean game of dice, as clean as he’d ever played, and that was the worst part of the whole setup.

Chance had done like his name and just played the odds, trusting his luck like he did half the time. Not even any cheating this time around, just reading the tells of the other people in the game, watching the mark’s shoulders everytime he rolled and pushing the bet as far as he could.

And it got him a simple two hundred dollars.

Two hundred crumpled damp dollars, all in twenties, off some kid who looked like he didn’t need it anyway. Considering he was shooting craps in the back alley of a conveniece store in the Bowery, he was already prepared to lose it anyway.

Nobody gave a shit about some kids gambling in the first place.

Except… That wasn’t exactly true.

That specific kid’s older brother seemed to give a massive amount of shit.

And, apparently, that older brother ran with the Red Sticks.

And, apparently, extremely good, highly legitimate dice skills looked exactly enough like a rigged game that five gang members were currently chasing him through the industrial district at eleven on a Tuesday while the rest of the city pretended the noise didn’t exist.

Happy birthday, Chance.

He cut a hard left down a narrow alley, nearly losing his step as slick concrete and a too-deep puddle did its best to fuck him over. Shit! Pain whited up his shoulder as he slammed up against a dumpster to keep his balance, rust scraping his jacket. The soaked hoodie clung to his spine like a second skin, cold weight making him shudder even as he started running again.

C’mon! C’mon! C’mon! He could see the buildings shifting already, streetlights of Burnley not too far away. 

That meant witnesses, cops; people who gave a shi-

The alley ended.

Chance’s eyes went wide at the sight of too-tall chain-link blocking his path, an overflowing dumpster right next to it and a rusted fire escape ladder pulled up way too high to reach no matter how hard he tried. 

No. No no no—

Chance spun around, sneakers sliding on wet trash, already looking for another exit.

“Found ‘im!”

Shit!

All of the people chasing him entered the mouth of the alley, five Red Sticks fanning out enough to block any way out. One of them stepped out in front, heavy jaw and thin mustache not doing much to change a face that looked just like the kid whose money he took.

“Thought you could run, huh?” The brother tapped a baseball bat against his open palm, the sound of the wood thwacking against skin. “Thought you could cheat my little brother and just walk away?”

“I d-didn’t cheat him, man, swear to God.” Chance raised both hands, palms out, back pressed up against the chain link. “It was just dice, f’real. I can give the money back, look.”

“Yeah.” The gangster smiled wide. “You can.”

Okay, okay. Chance reached a shaking hand toward his pocket.

He didn’t get a chance as the bat swung.

Chance folded over, eyes wide and mouth open as it caught him dead in the stomach. All the air in his lungs vanished as his lanky body dropped to the ground hard. Garbage-slicked pavement scraped against his face as he gasped for breath. W-wai-

The second hit caught him clean in the ribs, a crack loud enough to be heard sounding out through the alley. A third hit took him in the shoulder, driving his face right back down into the dirty rainwater.

He pulled his knees to his chest, tried to wrap his arms around his head and curl up, but there were too many boots and there were too many hits coming his way. Kicks and fists and the heavy bat coming down again and again, exploding across his back and arms and all the rest of his body.

Blood flooded his tongue, everything spinning all around in lazy circles. “Wai-wait, I pr-” A foot caught him in the kidney, words bursting into a scream. Gonna die. I’m gonna die in a fucking alley on my birthday ov-

The bat rose high again and Chance threw his hands up with a flinch,  refusing to just lie in the mud and take the final hit.

Then something flipped in his chest.

Not flipped.

Pulled.

Like a slot machine lever yanking down hard, or the first turnover on the table in a game of Find The Lady turning over on a table; whatever it was, it worked.

Chance’s eyes snapped open just in time to see the fire as heat exploded out, fingers searing him back as it burst from each one of his fingers in a massive, violent spray of orange flame that lit up the rain-slicked alley like a flashbang.

“Meta!” The brother with the bat stumbled backward with a scream, dropping the wood and throwing both arms up to shield his face from the blistering heat. “Holy shit, the kid’s a fucking meta—!” 

The others scattered, four bodies slamming into the brick walls and tripping over wet garbage bags, panicked and scrambling as they left him lying in a puddle of his own blood.

“Run!”

All five of them ran, feet pounding desperately back down the alley the way they came, slipping on the wet concrete, leaving Chance on the ground with his fingers radiating heat like he’d just shoved them into an industrial furnace.

The fire guttered out, a last puff of orange embers dying in the cold rain. What the… Everything hurt as he pushed himself upright, a groan tearing from his throat. 

But he was breathing.

He turned his hands over, flexing his fingers as he half-expected the flame to burst out of his knuckles again. “…’m I dreaming?”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“Wake up!”

He wasn’t.

At least, not anymore.

Not as a slap cracked across his face hard enough to snap his head sideways and drag him back awake.

“…owww.”

His arms hung at his sides, bruised and battered and throbbing in a way that he knew was half his fault. The space beneath him was a mess, gravel scattered and the actual roof surface covered in a dusting of ash and scorch marks. Oh… oh yeah. The air tasted thick with cheap smoke, ozone, and the coppery tang of his own bleeding lip. That was me.

He blinked down again. Why am I not touching the ground?

The blurry edge of Gotham’s nighttime skyline came back to him bit by bit as his eyes fought to focus, everything swimming back into place. The gray hockey mask, the boulder shoulders, and the same ham-sized hand connected to it gripping him by the collar of his thrift-store vest and holding him completely off his feet. …is… is he one-handing one-fifty pounds, J-Jesus fucking Christ?

The fight.

Right.

Ante blinked again through cracked goggles, part of him whining about five bucks wasted. The rest of him was too busy thinking about how the fight had gone wrong immediately and in the most-embarassing way. Because trying to throw explosions at a guy who moved like a coked-up rhino and hit like a sledgehammer was not, in any universe, a winning strategy.

Being honest, he had tried.

He really really had.

Explosion had been sitting at a good three-fourths, and Wall-Crawler had vanished to leave him an empty slot, and he was cornered on a rooftop with absolutely nowhere to run. He had thrown everything he had in the tank at Hockey-Man, but he might as well have thrown confetti ‘cause it hadn’t mattered. 

At all. 

The guy had ttanked the hits that landed, slipped the ones that might have hurt, and the second he got his hands on Ante, the fight stopped being a fight and turned into a beatdown.

He’d been ragdolled and tossed around, hands that could palm Ante’s skull doing their best at tossing him across the gravel like a toy. 

To make it worse, he couldn’t go all out.

He had to hold back. 

Explosion had its own blowback and every blast shook his bones and bruised his arms. Even if he could handle it, dropping a full-blast bomb at point-blank would have brought the entire brownstone down to the ground. Being beat was pretty bad, but he could deal with that.

Dying wasn’t something he was ready for, and suicide definitely wasn’t the move.

Long story short, he’d passed out somewhere between the third slam against the HVAC unit and the fifth.

Now he was awake.

And he really, really, wished he wasn’t.

“Uncle…” If he had swallowed sandpaper, Ante figured his throat would have sounded better than this. “Uncle, okay? You… you got it, man. We’re g-good.”

“Good, huh?” The big man’s laugh rolled deep and amused in the open air, even behind the mask. “Then where is it, kid?”

Ante raised one hand and, immediately, the big man casually raised his other fist.

“Wait wait, just wait, man!” His words spilled out in a rush, eyes locked on the fist. “No booms this time, promise! Hand to God! Just—just lemme—”

He closed his eyes, already focused on the draw in his second slot; Storage sitting right there and holding the stolen canister. Ante grabbed onto that thread and pulled in reverse, pressure shifting in his chest and something popped right out of nowhere and onto his palm.

“S-see?” He held the thermos out like a peace offering, arm shaking slightly. “H-here, man. It’s all yours. Take it. We’re square.”

The big man plucked the canister from Ante’s gloved fingers with his free hand, turning the metal over to examine the GCPD evidence label. The entire time, his grip on Ante’s collar stayed just as tight as ever. 

“Well, I’ll be.” The masked face tilted downward. “And here I thought all you could do was that little explosion trick.” The grip shifted a little, getting even tighter against Ante’s throat. “Scratch that. You were crawling up the side of the precinct like a little bug a bit ago, weren’t you?”

“…I…I was, yeah.”

“So, you just pulling powers out your ass or what?” The hockey mask leaned in. “How’s that work?”

Awww… Ante’s stomach dropped straight through the soles of his boots. Shit.

It was already bad news to be a meta in Gotham. Ante didn’t know much about it but everybody knew that fact. You don’t show off if you didn’t want curious people breaking down your door to ask questions in the Gothamite way. Hell, you’d be lucky if you didn’t get popped by a dirty cop who thought metas were freaks.

“…can I plead the Fifth?”

The big man laughed again. “Y’want me to break your arms?”

Ante swallowed the copper in his mouth. “…no.”

“Well, there’s your answer.”

“…fuck.”

The massive fist twisted, and suddenly his combat boots hit the ground again. He staggered, fighting to keep his balance, even as that big hand hovered close enough to snatch him right back up.

Not that running was even an option.

Oh, I’m cooked. Ante was dead-certain at least two of his ribs were fractured, and Explosion was a no-go unless he wanted to die. Another random roll was doubtful to save his ass, given his history with trash draws and he couldn’t afford the guy suddenly taking him seriously. 

So he talked.

He wasn’t an idiot, though.

All he gave were the basics, just the parts this guy had already witnessed and wouldn’t bite him too bad in the ass; just what any idiot could easily piece together with a little observation and ten minutes of critical thinking anyway. 

Three powers active at a single time, that came from random draws that burned out the more he used them and dumped him back to a baseline kid.

He didn’t breathe a single word about the bootlegs after the heavier draws stacked up, didn’t dare mention how he could force rerolls if he got handed some hot garbage, and didn’t spit up a single syllable about the strict budget of nine pulls he had to share across three slots to survive a bad week.

Some cards you kept pressed tight to your chest or you died.

The big man just listened in total silence, the little tilt of the hockey mask the only sign that he didn’t think it was total bullshit.

When Ante finally stopped talking, the heavy silence on the rooftop stretched out long enough to make his skin itch.

A hum broke it.

“That’s a mighty fine little skillset you got there.” The bass eased up from the voice, still enough to sound like a threat. But even still, it was almost friendly. That didn’t make Ante feel any better at all. “I bet a kid with a setup like that got himself a cute little name, too. Mind telling me what it is?”

“It’s…” Ante swallowed a mouthful of nothing, green eyes darting toward the roof edge. “It’s… it’s Ante.”

Eyes went a little wide behind the mask. “Like up the…?”

Yeah, yeah, I know. He sighed. “…yeah.”

The big man threw his head back and laughed, loud and completely genuine. “That’s plain adorable. I go by Sportsmaster.”

Oh fuuuuuck. The same way he cursed in his head, Ante also groaned out loud.

He knew the name.

A good chunk of the people breathing the shitty air in Gotham knew the name. If you bothered paying attention to meta shit that wasn’t just the Joker, it wouldn’t be too hard to notice a guy that lived on the evening news. One of the high-tier heavy hitters the Bat dealt with when he wasn’t busy chasing the actual asylum escapees. 

And Ante just stole a biological weapon the guy was looking to steal himself. …this is the worst job ever. First job, ever, and he was counting it too.

Sportsmaster held up the canister, the metal reflecting a streetlight. “How much your little fixer offer you for this run? Ten thousand?”

Ante blinked slow, head still spinning. “…two?”

“Two grand?” Sportsmaster laughed so hard the man almost bend over, one hand braced against his thigh. “Boy, you got played so hard I’m surprised you still got pants on.” The big man slowly straightened back up, the deep chuckle still rumbling in his chest. “How’d you like a job, Ante? Pays a hell of a lot better than whatever charity work you just did.”

Ante’s mouth went completely dry. A job.

For Sportsmaster?

“…can I say no?”

Sportsmaster’s laugh cut off halfway, the man’s shoulders flexing as he stared down Ante like he’d just pissed in his cereal. “D’you want me to break your legs?”

Ante swallowed hard again. “No.”

“Well, there’s your answer.”