The Archer and the Acrobat

[Green Arrow]

Gotham City.

Oliver Queen had seen many places on his travels, but none were quite like this. He hadn't been born here, but Gotham had made him the man that he was today. It was a city of contradictions. Corporate towers stood mere blocks from derelict slums. The rich threw parties and flaunted their wealth in the high-rises above; while on the streets below the people either stole or starved. Gotham was rotten at it's core: but the world was too afraid of the truth to ever look past the surface. In their cocoon of wishful thinking, they were warm, and safe.

Ignorance is bliss.

Not everyone turned a blind eye to Gotham's true nature, of course. There were champions like James Gordon who fought as part of the system, stamping out corruption and wielding the law as a weapon to make the world better, rather than as a shield of excuses to justify inaction. It was a losing battle however, and while the Commissioner did not stand alone, far too many chose to stand against him, rather than with.

In such desperate times, a few had adopted desperate measures to aid his campaign. Bruce Wayne was one; Oliver Queen another. While united by a common objective however, their crusades took radically different forms. As the Batman, Bruce fought with fear and intimidation, saving Gotham from crime by waging war on it's criminals. Oliver couldn't deny that it made a difference: Blackgate and Arkham were practically bursting with criminals kept safely off the streets. There were times however when Bruce lost his objectivity. For him, this was about vengeance: the criminal underworld had taken his mother and father from him. This was his retaliation.

Oliver fought for a different cause. While he too was an orphan, his parents had been killed on a jungle safari; somehow, he doubted that a silly outfit and a few gadgets would have the same affect on a pride of lions as it did on petty criminals. Where Oliver's path diverged from Bruce's was at the realisation that in war their are casualties. Countless criminals had been removed from the streets, but those who remained were more desperate; more dangerous. Every gang that Batman destroyed flooded the others with new recruits. Every thug who'd once carried a knife had upgraded to a gun, to protect them from the Chiropteran menace. Every costumed whack-job publicly tossed into Arkham inspired a dozen more to take their place. When Batman waged war, the criminals waged back; and the citizens of Gotham were caught in the crossfire. That was where Green Arrow came in: one man, saving the city one innocent victim at a time.

Or sometimes one man and one teenage girl, apparently.

Oliver came to a halt at the edge of the rooftop, his glance turning sidelong beneath his hood to seek out the sidekick that Batman had 'loaned' him for the night.

"You keeping up, kid?" he grunted.