The White Wolf Warning

NOTE (PLEASE READ): This is FICTION. Meaning that it doesn't follow the cannon verbatim. This story assumes that Bane broke Bruce's back, that the bomb failed (meaning that Bruce didn't go over the ocean), and that Bane survived the whole ordeal. Everything else as far as the ending goes is true (City Hall battle, Talia dies, Bruce 'retires' and Robin is introduced)

Prologue: The Answer to the Riddle

Cairo, Egypt

The driver, Mister Jericho Amirmoez, the Captain of the Cairo Police Department, chased the black sedan into a parking garage. I was in the back, preparing a Heckler & Koch MP5, given to me (an understatement) by an old friend of mine (an even greater understatement).

The ammunition was easy to load, the weapon was light enough. Now began the mental preparation. Breathe-slowly.

I closed my eyes and Jericho raced passed the barrier as it closed and followed the sedan.

The car that I found myself in no less than thirty minutes ago being driven by someone I thought I would never be able to trust a mere year ago was a Black Maria. Also given to me by the same old friend who gave me the Heckler, this vehicle was my prime mode of transportation. It was a metallic gray, the color of the sky when it rains at 6:00 pm- the color of grandmother's hair, the grandmother who did nothing but sit in a chair and knit as if it were her God-given function. The engine was a beautiful 600hp, and it purred like and Greek sphinx- with authority and dignity, who always asks the same riddle:

"Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?"

Simplest riddle in the world.

Mister Jericho had been driving as if he were in a film with the same repetitiveness. Car chase, car chase, car chase. The longest television commercial in human history for vehicles that perform acrobatics that you would never get away with- and if you did, then you are mad. I'll alert the presses.

"Mister Jericho," I said, turning back towards him, "I don't plan on wasting prepared bullets. Drive!"

He nodded, message understood. I can honestly say, my job is wonderful.

The black sedan pulled into a dark parking space. Fortunately for him, Jericho saw this and blocked him in. I opened the back door, the Heckler was in my hand- the sedan was still occupied.

Nonchalantly, I approached the vehicle from behind, heading towards the driver's seat. I looked through the windows and noticed three insurgents of the younger variety. They were seven, eight, and twelve. All of them their father's ambition which was hidden by their mother, who sat in the passenger.

The mother who could feel my presence, began to pray in her head that God would deliver her and her family from the gates of which I held open for them.

Her eyes landed on me, on my weapon on index finger which was firmly placed on the trigger. I could tell simply by the silhouette of her hair that a mere three hours ago she was at a gala for the Cairo Museum, one that I was also attending, not bothering or noticing me as she mingled with her cohorts and colleagues from the University from which she was a former student of. She probably thought that this night would end with a bottle of wine, a soft bed, a warm body to sleep against and to intertwine herself with in beautiful harmony. She probably thought that this night would end with her children, warm, at home, dreaming safely of aspirations, of stories, that would be written down the morning after and made into a bestselling novella of human legitimacy.

All of that vision of the night changed when her husband, the target, the Beelzebub of this situation, decided to run into a parking garage because he forgot one critical detail to his organization's plan. The catalyst to the operation, the position of the assassin- which was him of course.

I knocked my gloved hand up against the glass of the back seat three times, a death knoll. I moved towards the driver's door, I preformed the same procedure with the window. Another death knoll.

The driver rolled down his window.

"Mister Balsak?" I asked, wanting to be sure. I raised the weapon a little.

The driver nodded.

No further questioning. Elimination of all witnesses.

As I walked away from the scene, Jericho exited the van and walked towards the clear story of the building.

Across the street was a hospital, more specifically a hospital room and to get even more specific than that, the hospital room of the Egyptian President's daughter.

"Is this what we saved?" Jericho asked me.

I didn't answer him. I simply looked back at the sedan and said:

"Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes."

"Shakespeare?" Jericho asked.

I nodded. "King Richard III."

I walked towards and stood next to him. His face was downcast, distraught, as if our work were for nothing.

"Did we do the right thing?"

"History will answer that question," I said, "all I know is that the rest is labor which is not used for you I shall give to myself to finish."

"Macbeth." Jericho replied.

"You are well versed Amirmoez."

We walked together back towards the van and left the parking lot. As soon as we left, he dropped me off at the Cairo Museum. Weapon in hand once again, the crowd stopped and wore glances of fear and worry. Jericho followed me as soon as he parked the van, him, along with his officers. Marching into the final hours of our vendetta. The last of the damned souls of the Earth were about to be sent into Tartarus.

Hades and his legion entered the Museum.

Interesting analogy. A correct one.