Batman in Africa
The black government helicopters swooped down toward Batman. They had been relentlessly chasing Batman for hours through the concrete jungle known as Gotham. The World Police had actually been pursuing Batman for five years now, as he successfully evaded authorities while still leading his underground freedom movement. As he jumped and dodged sky scrapers ,swat teams,Marines, and billboards, and as the blood slowly leaked from a bullet hole, Batman's mind drifted toward an event that he witnessed in Africa a very long time ago.
Bruce Wayne's first trip to Africa was as an Ivy League medical student. Wayne had more global idealistic goals at this time. He believed he could change the world through traditional means. He had signed on to work for a foreign children relief organization as a juvenile surgeon. He found out quickly that he really was just working as a battlefield surgeon for a semi-fascist guerilla group. Day after day ambulances would bring blown apart soldiers into the large tent, and Wayne would sew them up. As an American the natives were extremely suspicious of Wayne. Wayne also grew jaded at his own efforts. He began to feel that he was getting too comfortable seeing blown off limbs and dead children. He wondered how he was changing the world by keeping mercenaries alive.
In his time off from battlefield duty, Wayne would explore the local environs and watch the villagers. One incident would leave a lasting impact on Wayne. A black leopard had acquired a taste for human blood. The leopard had recently killed a sentry on guard duty, and attacked another soldier a few days later. The villagers were in frenzy over it. One evening, at dusk, the leopard was spotted and Wayne was conscripted to join a hunting posse.
Wayne rode in the back of an off-road vehicle with an elderly villager who, like Wayne, was more interested in watching the ruckus than participating. The off road vehicles trailed the leopard for a mile or two. They even managed to encircle the leopard, and land a shot at it. Wayne mentioned that it looked like curtains for the black leopard. The old man laughed at the thought. The old man said the leopard was just waiting for the darkness of night.
It was now almost completely night and the posse had to use floodlights to track the leopard. They had been trailing it for a few hours. The posse started to get excited as they cornered the leopard by a thicket. The group appeared to have run the large beast down. The leopards head would appear and disappear behind trees repeatedly. The posse was just waiting for its next appearance to put a few rounds of fire into it. However, the leopard's head did not appear again, as the pattern of logical events should have dictated. Wayne's driver yelled at the trailing vehicle if it had a spot on the leopard, to which he replied that he did not. The leopard had seemingly disappeared into the night. The posse frantically lit up the area with enough light as to make the jungle appear to be in daylight, but to no avail. The leopard had outsmarted them. Wayne asked the old man how he knew the leopard would escape. The old man told him that the leopard had escaped the villagers ever since he was a little boy. "At night he owns the jungle. We are just visitors."
Batman's mind streamed back to his current situation. Three large choppers swooped and maneuvered to get a better shot at him. They could see his head pop up and disappear behind buildings continuously, in a pattern. The snipers were ready to shoot. "Now is my chance", Batman thought. He pressed a button on his belt that somehow caused Gotham to go into a city wide black out. The choppers lost sight of Batman. It was now totally night and Batman had disappeared. Batman laughed," At night I own the jungle".
