Rated T for language, some violence and suggestive themes.

I did write this story and do not give permission to have it re-posted elsewhere. Batman and all affiliated characters belong to DC and are not mine! (I wish...)

Chapter One

The ghosts from years past laugh at you. They nip at your heels, then when you look down dissipate into nothing. Tantalizingly, they caress their fingers over your soul and whisper sweet nothings into your ear. But the ugly, blistered truth reveals itself when you reach out to touch, to grasp, to embrace and find yourself holding nothing more or less than smoke, the remnants of a long gone substance.

Phantoms. Phantoms of dead ideas, ideals and ideologies. The passion once running through your blood is a distant memory. Dried up dust, the veins collapsing on themselves as nothing but Death's ashes holds them up.

But as the old saying goes, it is darkest before the dawn. The definition of dark is the very absence of light. As time carries me forward, I've found that to be among the closest things to absolute truth there is. Even as you're in the fetal position, lying in a graveyard and slowly counting the hands that bring you closer to your brethren beneath the ground. Even then the clouds will break and the unblemished moon will cut the night. You begin to see once more everything that was once and may again be alive.

Then the sun rises. It shatters the quiet night like a modern day bomb. It replaces the cloth of stars with a tapestry of colors - pale yellows, piercing blues, burning reds and lighthearted violets. The stone that has slowly formed over your skin and encased your mind shy's away from the light. But it can't hide - it breaks, it is destroyed by the warmth and its leftover pebbles are taken away by the wind. The birth of dew and fresh beginnings fill your nose. Once again, you breath.

Hey you.

Yes, you. Do you see any other twits standing around, scratching their heads like a baboon scratches his ass?

Come sit down, close to the fire. It's warmer here and safer too -unless you are a friend of the shadows. The shadows don't like it here. Wonder why? Sit!

I have a story to tell you.

My name is Lanya (LANE-YAH, not LAWN-YAH). I have no family, save for a brother who passed on many years ago. And when I say 'passed on', I really mean murdered brutally in cold blood by a gang of thugs. His name was Jason.

Jason.

Hmm? Oh, thank you for your sympathies. I was just thinking of the good times...

We had a lot of good times. We were just built that way. We never tried to make the most of any situation; we just did. We had nothing, and I mean nothing, hardly the clothes on our backs, and nobody except for each other. But we lived, we played, we learned, we fought, we stole, and we did it all with a grin.

Then we stole from a warlord. We weren't very good thieves, because the warlord caught us. In his favor, he did offer us the chance to join his army. We declined. And by 'declined', I mean spat in his face and told the pig to go suck an elephant's egg. We weren't very smart kids either.

So the warlord threw us, two orphan children, into the Pit. The worst hell on earth, as the saying goes. I don't know if that's true. I was once stuck in the dentist's chair for six hours. The second worst hell on earth, perhaps.

This was after the child has escaped-the legend of Bane. But we weren't about to make that climb, thank you very much. Well, I could. I wanted to. But Jason was scared of heights and I didn't want to leave him behind for a second. But we tried anyway. It just didn't work, but I guess if it had, the prison wouldn't be the worst hell on earth, would it? Everyone would be dancing their merry way to freedom.

But you know what? Bruce Wayne escaped because he found the strength to get out. Taila escaped because she found the strength-and fear-to get out. Bane was rescued. But us? Call it teamwork. We built a ladder.

A human ladder.

Why the hell not?! I tell you, in all those years, I cannot believe nobody ever built a human pyramid to the top. You had enough prisoners and it wasn't like it was hard to convince them to work together.

I have to thank whoever it was who gave me the idea. A Christian missionary, I think. See, one night I was sitting in the cell and thinking about why everyone called this place hell when I remembered what someone had said once in the marketplace. They were American and smart because they had nearly no money on them and wore old clothes to blend in (I love the stupid tourists, though as I said, this one was smart). But anyway, they were talking about politics and they said: "I imagine hell is like a bunch of people sitting at a long table, each with spoons too long to feed themselves, but just long each to feed their neighbor. Yet they refuse to help each other."

Why didn't we all help each other?

Pause for a sec, let me tell you about Jason. He deserves to be immortalized. He was twelve when he died, or thereabouts. We never really did learn our ages. He had very short black hair and black eyes. They were the prettiest black eyes I ever saw. Not just black, but bright black, like a glittering sky black. Like the black you only see in the middle of the desert, or the deepest forest. The places that humanity has not slashed and burned...yet. He was shorter than me, but I've always been tall, like a tree. He was skinny-only the rich were fat-and he was wearing an olive green shirt and black breeches when we were tossed into the Pit. No shoes. He had this grin though, like the grin you see on gargoyles that adorn some wealthy person's house. It was an imp's grin. And then he'd have the nerve to wink at you before dashing off, like he was some hotshot movie star. Who did this kid think he was? I asked him one day. He was sliding a coin in between his fingers-without looking!-and he said to me, with that awful grin, he said "Clint Eastwood." and winked. I didn't know who the hades that was, but I smacked him upside the head anyway. Jason always knew too much for his own good.

I loved that boy.

Poke up that fire there, will you? The light is fading too fast and the dawn is hours away.

So, where was I? Oh yeah. So we built our ladder. Two on bottom supporting a string of men, each standing on the other's shoulders. We made it to the top, and helped some of the others up. We were dropping down the rope when hell broke loose.

The guards had noticed what was happening. They ran after us, shooting crazily into the crowd. It was dark, with only scant moonlight. There was screaming and yelling and blood and blasts of gunfire. We broke and ran. I made it; Jason didn't.

That's enough of the story. I don't like talking about it. But I met Bane before I left. I always felt bad for him, because he was in pain. We'd help him, sometimes.

Now, I'm going to let someone else take over the story. They can narrate it so much better than I can.

The name of the narrator? I don't know. I don't want to know. They have always been with me though, like a whispering wind that follows you through life, turning up in the least expected places.

It's time to go, friend. No, stay with the fire and listen. Listen to our story. Because someone needs to hear it. I've said my piece.

Listen!

Besides, you don't want to follow me anyway. See that glow way over there? I'm headed to meet them. They are looking for me. Goodbye, friend. Keep the fire lit.

What do you mean, 'who are they'?

It's Bane, of course.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed the fic. ^_^ Feedback is always welcomed. The next chapter should be up after this weekend. The writing style will be more consistent after this chapter-I bet the first few paragraphs threw you for a loop, lol. That was a sort of poetic piece I wrote to start the story off. I'm planning on doing the next several chapters in 3rd person unless a lot of people prefer the 1st person/Lanya narrative.

Oh, and we get to see Bane next chapter ;) So stay tuned.