A/N: This is an alternative universe taking place after 'The Dark Knight Rises' (amazing movie) and instead of the Fusion Reactor's core causing an explosion, it creates a chemical reaction that transports Batman through time and space into another dimension where animals have evolved to act like humans and where humans never even existed. This also takes place right after the events of 'Zootopia' despite both movies coming out four years apart from each other. Without further ado, let us commence the beginning of this new story. 'The Dark Knight Returns'. Enjoy!
Snow fell from the skies as Gotham police officers battled on the cold streets. Thousands of cops were beating the criminals who had helped Bane plunge Gotham to anarchy and caused several thousand people to die weather it be exile by walking on a frozen river and falling to their deaths through the blanket of unstable ice that covered it, or being hung by the cables that held up the bridges that lead to the outsides of Gotham. Fifteen minutes into the fight, Bane had come face to face once more with the one who lead the attack on his new anarchy, the Batman.
"So you came back to die with your city?" Bane asked the man who he had broken once more, and was confident he could do it again.
"No, I came back to stop you" Batman growled. And the two engaged in combat once again. As they fought, Bane was surprised to see Batman was fighting harder than before and gaining the upper hand no matter how many approaches he took to fighting the Dark Knight. Their fight took them upstairs to the front of Gotham City Hall, and Batman had nearly destroyed Bane's mask, necessary for him to survive. Several small hoses and pipes connected to the mask's air canals had come out due to how hard Batman's attacks were. Air hissed out the pipes and Bane groaned in pain at each attack Batman had given his mask, the more exposed it was, the weaker he became.
"Rrrraaaaaaaaggggggh!" Batman called out charging towards Bane as he was distracted, trying to reconnect the pipes to his mask's air canals and kicked him through the city hall's glass door. One of Bane's helpers saw what was happening and tried to help him, but Batman took his gun and gave him a hard elbow to the collarbone, and smacked his own gun across his skull, knocking him out.
"Guard all the doors!" Batman ordered tossing the gun to his ally and Bane's prisoner, Miranda Tate. After catching the weapon, she went up to the destroyed city hall exit as Batman kicked Bane repeatedly in the ribs as he stood on his hands and knees on the floor.
"WHERE'S THE TRIGGER!? WHERE IS IT!?" Batman demanded as he grabbed Bane and placed him against the reception desk that stood in the middle of the lobby and repeatedly punched his mask, disconnecting more hoses from his mask and making him more vulnerable.
"YOU'D NEVER GIVE IT TO AN ORDINARY CITIZEN! WHERE IS IT!?" Batman shouted in the weakened Bane's face as he punched the side of his head as well. With each punch, Batman also demanded over and over for Bane to tell him where the trigger was and who had it, but Bane was too weak and badly beaten as he now lied against the desk's wall.
"Tell me where the trigger is. THEN, you have my permission to die" Batman said, quoting what Bane had said to him before leaving him broken and weak in the same prison he was in years ago before he escaped just like he did. All Bane did was rasp through whatever air canals were still sealed.
"I broke you... how did you come back?" he groaned.
"You think you're the only one, who could learn the strength to escape? Where's the trigger?" Batman asked before he returned to his original question. Bane shook his head slowly as he spoke.
"But I never escaped" he admitted, leaving Batman confused. He was told that the child of Ra's Al-Ghul, leader of the League of Shadows was the one who had escaped the pit long ago and was trained by their father before they left.
"But the child, the child of Ra's Al-Ghul made the climb" Batman said before noticing Miranda Tate had abandoned her post and knelt down beside Batman and over Bane.
"But he's not the child of Ra's Al-Ghul" she said before pulling out a knife and lunging it right in between the weak spots of his armor in between the titanium dipper twi-weave Kevlar plates. He gasped in pain as he felt the blade twisting in his side and blood soaking the side of his suit.
"I am. And though I'm not ordinary, I am a citizen" she said, pulling out a small tube-like device with a red button on top right out of her cardigan, it was the trigger to the weaponized Wayne Enterprises nuclear reactor core that Bane was using to hold the city hostage and isolate it from the rest of the world. Miranda retracted her hand that held the trigger away as Batman tried to grab it.
"M-Miranda, why?" Batman asked in between heavy breaths of pain. Her Mona Lisa-esque expression remaining on her face.
"Talia. My mother named me Talia before she was killed. The same way I would have been killed if not for my protector... Bane" she said as she looked down to him and showed a sad smile as she began reconnecting the hoses and pipes back into his mask's air canals and allowing him to breathe properly once more.
"I climbed out of the pit. I found my father, and brought him back to exact terrible vengeance. But by that time, the prisoners and doctor had done their work to my friend, my protector" she continued with her hands still on the trigger and knife still lodged into Batman's side. As she told her story, Bane let out a lone tear and smiled that could not be seen underneath his mask.
"The league took us in, trained us. But my father could not accept Bane. He saw only a monster who's very existence was a reminder of the Hell he had left his wife to die in, and because of that he excommunicated Bane from the League of Shadows. His only crime, was that he loved me" Talia said as she had now finished fixing Bane's mask and turning back to Batman with an stern face showing aggression.
"I could not forgive my father, until you murdered him" she added. While still in an intense amount of pain from the knife, Batman tried to speak.
"He was trying, to kill, millions of innocent people" Batman said, trying to get Talia to see his side of things but all she did was exhale at his statement and saw as Bane picked up the gun he had taken from the guard he had knocked out.
"Innocent is a strong word to throw around Gotham, Bruce" Talia retorted, this time using his real name instead of the one he used while wearing the cape and cowl. Batman felt like he had been betrayed by someone he considered a friend, gave full authority to run Wayne Enterprises, and possibly even loved.
"And I honor my father by finishing his work. And vengeance against the man who killed him is simply a reward for my patience" Talia said before Bane held Batman up and began tying a long piece of black rope around his throat. Smiling as she watched Bane tie the rope around Batman's throat, she continued to taunt him in whispers, her thumb now placed right on top of the blinking red button resting on top of the bomb's trigger.
"You see, it's the slow knife, the knife that takes it's time. The knife, that waits years without forgetting that slips quietly between the bones. That's the knife that cuts deepest" she said as she twisted the knife again, making Batman gasp loudly in pain and held the trigger up in his face.
"Please" he begged. Talia's thumb slammed down on the trigger, but no explosions, buildings being destroyed, or any people screaming in agony as they were burning in the bomb's blast radius. Batman had then realized his ally, Gotham police commissioner Gordon had successfully disabled the bomb's signal to the trigger, preventing a remote explosion. Batman now had the upper hand once more.
"Maybe your knife... was too slow" he rasped. More of Bane and Talia's goons came into the city hall, warning her that the truck carrying the bomb was under attack. She chuckled and save a sickly smile.
"Gordon. You have him a way to block my signal. No matter" she said, withdrawing the knife from Batman's armor. His armor's right abdomen now soaked from the middle of the abdomen plates down to his waist, causing him to grunt in pain and relief of having the knife removed, but the sting from the blade still remained where it struck him.
"He's bought Gotham eleven minutes" she concluded before standing up and looking at her armed guard.
"Prepare a convoy. We must secure the bomb before it detonates" Talia ordered.
"Right away ma'am" he said before running to do Talia's bidding. Then, she looked to Bane who still had Batman securely wrapped in the rope by his throat.
"Don't kill him, I want him to feel the heat. To feel the fire of twelve million souls you failed" she said looking down at Batman with slightly closed eyes and a face devoid of any mercy or remorse. Before Talia left with her convoy, she stroked Bane's mask gently and gave one more saddened smile to him.
"Goodbye, my friend" she bid Bane farewell and walked outside the building. As she left, Bane muttered one 'Goodbye' underneath his mask that was barely audible to the human ear.
"We both know I have to kill you now" Bane said, defying Talia's order not to kill him and kicked him right on the back of his armor, knocking him down and placing the gun underneath his chin.
"You'll just have to imagine the fire" he said getting ready to pull the trigger. The sound of twin rail guns firing was made and two projectiles shot Bane right in the chest and blew him to the other side of the room. The blast was lethal and had killed Bane, he was no more. Getting up, Batman saw that Selina Kyle/Catwoman was the one who fired the shots using the cannons on the front of the Bat-Pod.
"About the whole 'No-Guns' thing... I'm sure I feel as strongly about it as you do" she said before removing her tactical goggles and jumping right off the vehicle to help Batman remove the rope that Bane had placed on him.
"We have to force the convoy east to the entrance to the reactor" Batman said.
"I need you on the ground, I'll be in the air. Go, now" he added. Selena gave a nod and ran back to the Bat-Pod and rode it outside city hall and began tracking down the convoy. Batman on the other hand ran towards the new vehicle Lucius Fox had given him, which was called 'The Bat' in order to give both Gordon and Kyle another advantage to preventing the bomb's detonation. As soon as he was airborne, Batman had finally tracked down the truck carrying the bomb as well as two more advanced models of his old Tumbler followed right behind it, and one more right in the front.
"Lucius, I'm in the air. And I'm right on the bomb's tail" Batman said, establishing a secure communication with Lucius.
"You have to get that bomb here, you've got about about ten minutes" he said.
"I'm on it" Batman said before he cut off the transmission and began firing the Bat's guns at the truck, hoping to stop Talia. One of the Tumblers began firing it's cannons at the Bat, but Batman kept on dodging each RPG the cannon fired by swerving the vehicle to the left and right sides of the street. After a few rounds fired, the Tumbler was then blown away and destroyed by Catwoman who now just fired a round out of the Bat-Pod's cannons, powerful enough to take out the vehicle, the drivers were killed from the impact. After one vehicle was down, she turned around and began following the truck.
"Ah great" Batman muttered to himself when he saw that the second Tumbler had been shooting homing missiles to take him out. After getting into the air and doing a few evasive maneuvers, the missiles were now gone and went back down to help Catwoman who had just taken out the Tumbler that was right in front of the truck. With one more missile still following him, Batman was able to get that missile to hit the remaining Tumbler.
"What!? No!" Talia called out in anger realizing every last one of her defenses had been taken down. The Bat hovered in front of the truck and shot at the road and the tires to get the truck to stop, and it worked. The truck began swerving off the road and landed down a chasm in the street that lead to a parking garage. The impact was large, the bomb was still in tact but Gordon (who had been in the back with the bomb this whole time) had sprained his arm, the driver was dead and Talia was on the verge of death.
"Give me a hand! We can get a cable on it! Gordon called out to Catwoman who had just parked the Bat-Pod right in front of the truck's wreckage and Batman had landed the Bat right in the back. Both had left their vehicles and ran with Gordon to the open driver's seat of the truck to see that Talia was badly injured and would be dead within a few minutes. She chuckled at them.
"Fox showed me how to override the reactor, including the emergency flood" she said weakly. Batman had realized that now the only way to deactivate the bomb for good was gone.
"There's no way this bomb will be stopped. Prepare yourselves, my father's work... is done" and with her last breath and her final words spoken, Talia Al-Ghul was dead. Gordon then noticed Batman had hooked a cable up to the Bat and began hooking it to the bomb.
"I can get it out over the bay!" Batman said as he noticed that there was now only one minute and fifty seven seconds on the bomb's timer.
"Set it to fly out over the water, then eject?" Catwoman asked.
"No autopilot" Batman said. This made Selina and Gordon realize Batman was going to sacrifice himself to ensure Gotham's safety and prevent millions from dying. She followed Batman as he began walking towards the cockpit of the Bat.
"You could've gone anywhere, been anything. But you came back here" she said. Batman stopped walking and looked right into Selina's eyes.
"So did you" he said.
"I guess we're both suckers" she said before pulling Batman in for a kiss, which he actually returned. Their kiss lasting only fifteen second before he broke it and got back into the Bat and began preparing for takeoff. Before he could close the windshield, Gordon walked up to him.
"I never cared who you were" he said.
"And you were right" Batman said as he flipped a few switches and fired up the engine.
"Shouldn't the people know the hero who saved them?" Gordon asked.
"A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know the world hadn't ended" and with that one final statement, Batman took off into the sky hauling the bomb with him. Gordon began flashing back to the day he remembered something like that happening. Soon, it fit into place.
"Bruce Wayne?" he whispered to himself. It was at this moment that James Gordon knew the one he trusted with his life, the one who plunged his hands into the filth to keep his clean, to give his life for Gotham was Bruce Wayne. The one person he least expected to be doing all those brave things as Batman.
Soon, Batman had flown over the Atlantic ocean and the bomb was now at five seconds. Now realizing this was the end for him, Batman closed his eyes preparing to feel the embrace of death. The bomb began glowing red, and the inside of the Bat's fuel tank emitted a blue glow. After the five seconds were up, the bomb detonated but not in the form of a mushroom cloud, instead as a large purple beam of energy that touched the sky and the ocean surface. All of Gotham's citizens were in shock at what they just saw, they thought that the bomb had exploded and Batman was dead.
Warning! Warning! Engines disabled! Warning! Warning! Engines disabled!
Batman opened his eyes realizing that he was still alive and that he was hearing the sounds of the Bat's computers alerting him to an engine malfunction. Where he was, he didn't expect at all. He was spiraling out of control out of the night sky, which was odd to him because he knew back where he was in Gotham, it was in the afternoon and the sun didn't set for another few hours. He had to be somewhere else, somewhere other than Gotham.
Danger! Danger! Prepare for impact! Danger! Danger! Prepare for impact!
Now Batman had realized that the best thing to do was to eject himself from the vehicle. Just as the vehicle got closer and closer to the ground, Batman flipped a few switched on one of the control panels and two levers with two clutches on the sides similar to that of the ones on motorcycle handle-bars, and painted to in black and yellow stripes to resemble the colors of caution tape emerged from the left and right sides of the seat.
Ejection mode: Engaged!
Batman then placed his hands on the levers and clenched the clutches tightly, allowing him to pull them upwards. The Bat's computer gave a 'Goodbye' before the windshield came off and the seat ejected from the vehicle with Batman still buckled in on it. Once ejected, Batman slammed his hand on the center of the seat belt and both sides came off, allowing him to activate his memory-cloth glider cape and fly to the safety of a tall building roof where he watched as the Bat crashed landed in the streets and catch fire once the wreckage came to a complete stop. He could hear several screams of bystanders rushing away from or towards the crash site to get a closer look.
"Where am I?" Batman asked himself. He took out his military electric binoculars from the clip on his belt that held onto them and looked down at the crash site. Through the binoculars they saw something he didn't expect at all, animals walking on their hind legs and talking like humans.
"This doesn't make any sense" he thought as he enhanced the view on the binoculars to see that they were wearing clothes too, as well as taking photos and videos of the whole thing on smart phones. After a while, Batman deactivated the binoculars and hooked them back onto the back of his belt right next to his grapple-gun just as news crews began setting cameras up and began reporting on the scene of the crash.
"How is this possible?" Batman asked. He knew wherever he was, it was going to be a while before he could find his way back to Gotham.
A/N: Well there you have it, chapter one! Pretty good way to start a crossover huh? I'm pretty sure a few of you are wondering who the villain for this story will be, that's gonna be revealed further into the story. Now that Batman's arrived in Zootopia, there's gonna be a media circus surrounding the crashed Bat. More to come in the next update. Please review, thanks!