Author's note: This was the hardest part of this part of the film for me to write. The screenplay differed quite a bit from the film so I had to take a while to make sure I understood it properly, and because it contained so much action it was quite tricky to write. Hope it's ok, anyway.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OC.

Prologue

Part 3

The Beginning

That was the coldest Bruce had ever been. That evening, as they sat on the shore of the lake around a small fire, he rubbed his arms, shivering violently against the hypothermia.

"Don't rub your arms, rub your chest. Your arms will take care of themselves."

Bruce did as he was told, too cold to speak, let alone think for himself.

"You have strength born from years of grief and anger. The strength of a man denied revenge. Why, Wayne?"

Bruce walked down the drive to where his oldest friend, Rachel, was stood. It was his first time seeing her for two years.

"You look well. 'Assistant District Attorney', right?"

She smiled and nodded. "You still trying to get kicked out of the entire Ivy League?"

Bruce shook his head, laughing slightly. "Turns out you don't actually need a degree to do the international playboy thing."

She smiled, looking down at her shoes, and then back to Bruce. He could tell there was something on her mind.

"Bruce, I don't suppose there's any way I can convince you not to come -"

"Someone at this proceeding should stand for my parents," he replied coldly.

"Bruce, we all loved your parents. What Chill did is unforgiveable -"

"Then why is your boss letting him go?"

"Because in prison he shared a cell with Carmine Falcone. He learned things and he'll testify in exchange for early parole."

During the car journey to the courthouse, Bruce did not speak a word. Finally, as Rachel parked her car, he turned to look at her, cutting through the strained silence between them.

"Rachel, this man killed my parents. I cannot let that pass."

She opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind, shrugging instead.

"Rachel, I need you to understand."

She considered this for a moment before nodding gently. Bruce returned the gesture, and then together they got out of the car.

The 'proceeding' was small and bureaucratic, with a five person panel. Bruce was sat amongst the observers, not once allowing his eyes to move from the back of Chill's head. It was Rachel's boss, Finch, who was addressing the panel.

"Given the exemplary prison record of Mr. Chill, the twelve years already served and his extraordinary level of cooperation with one of this office's most important investigations, we strongly endorse Mr. Chill's petition for early release."

The chairman nodded, consulting his paperwork. "I gather there is a member of the Wayne family here today."

At this, Chill turned in his seat.

"Does he have anything to say?"

Chill noticed Bruce's cold eyes and couldn't help but look away. Bruce did not respond to the chairman. Instead, he stood up and left the room. Every eye was on him as he did so.

He was waiting. The gun was up the sleeve of his overcoat. He was ready. The side exit opened and two cops came out. A shout went up to the pressmen who were around the front of the courthouse.

"They're taking him out the side!"

Reporters swarmed around the building like flies as Chill emerged.

"Chill, any words for the Wayne family?"

Chill kept his head down and carried on walking. Bruce straightened and took a deep breath – this was it. He began to walk towards Chill…and a reporter spotted him.

"It's Bruce Wayne!"

The reporters began to clear a path, clearly eager for a confrontation. A blonde, female reporter piped up, "Joe! Hey Joe!"

She caught his eye. Bruce dropped his hand to his side as he moved, he was breathing hard, thinking, deciding.

"Falcone says hi!"

The blonde reporter thrusted a gun at Chill's chest and fired. He fell to the floor. Bruce stopped in his tracks as reporters dived for cover. The cops were already on the blonde reporter, and meanwhile Bruce was stood just fifteen feet away with a loaded gun up his sleeve. Suddenly, Rachel was at his side, pulling him away from all of the chaos.

"Come on, Bruce. Come on, we don't need to see this."

"I do."

His final conversation with Rachel had been painful. She'd driven him away from the courthouse, into the centre of the city.

"Are you okay?"

"All these years I wanted to kill him. Now he's gone. Now I can't."

"You don't mean that."

"What if I do, Rachel?" he snapped bitterly. "Chill killed my parents. They deserved justice."

She was appalled. "You're not talking about justice, you're talking about revenge."

"Sometimes they're the same."

"They're never the same, Bruce. Justice is about harmony, revenge is about making yourself feel better. That's why we have an impartial system."

"Well, your system of justice is broken."

"Don't you tell me the system's broken, Bruce! I'm out here every day trying to fix it while you mope around using your grief as an excuse to do nothing. You care about justice?"

She yanked the steering wheel, screeching the car across two lanes on the freeway, onto an exit ramp that led them into surface streets. The streets were dark, crowded and threatening.

"Look beyond your own pain, Bruce."

She gestured at the filthy streets where shadowy figures were conducting their business down dark alleys.

"This city is rotting. Chill is not the cause, he's the effect. Corruption is killing Gotham and Chill being dead doesn't help that – it makes it worse because Falcone walks. He carries on flooding our city with crime and drugs, creating new Joe Chills. Falcone may not have killed your parents, Bruce, but he's destroying everything they stood for."

She finally stopped the car, in front of a run-down basement club.

"They all know where to find Falcone," she gestured at the club . "But no one will touch him because he keeps the bad people rich and the good people scared." Her voice softened. "What chance does Gotham have when the good people do nothing?"

"I'm not one of your 'good people', Rachel. Chill took that from me."

"What do you mean?"

Bruce pulled up his sleeve and turned his hand over. Rachel simply stared at the gun in his hand, too shocked to speak.

"I was going to kill him myself."

Rachel looked at Bruce for a moment. Then she slapped him. Bruce did nothing. She slapped him again. Still nothing. She began to cry.

"You're no better than the rest."

She pointed at the gun resting in his hand.

"What would Tamara say? Or your father? They would be ashamed of you."

After that, Bruce got out of the car, and that was the last he saw of her. He'd thrown the gun into the water of the harbour. He found his way onto the next ship out of Gotham.

"And when you left Gotham, what were you seeking?" Ducard asked.

They were stood outside the monastery, the day after Bruce had taken a fall through the ice. Ducard leapt up onto a stone wall, grabbing on by using pikes on his palms and on his feet.

"To lose myself. I couldn't do anything as Bruce Wayne. I felt useless."

Ducard gestured up to the top of the fifty foot wall.

"Perhaps you can beat my record."

Bruce jumped up onto the wall, landing higher than Ducard, feeling a surge of confidence.

"How long?"

"Two days. The test is not to see how quickly you can climb, but how slowly. The Ninja is thought invisible, but invisibility is largely a matter of patience."

He slowly reached for another handhold.

"On your journey, you sought knowledge of the criminal world?"

Bruce nodded. "I needed to understand the thoughts and feelings of those who stand in the shadows." He remembered his times spent in the port towns on the coast of Africa. "The first time you're forced to steal so as not to starve, you lose many assumptions about the simple nature of right and wrong." Those times he'd often shared his stolen food with starving children. He also recalled the short time he'd spent in London. There, his favourite tactic had been to remove wallets from the pockets of wealthy businessmen, then to hurry after them under the pretence that they'd dropped their wallet. This way, he'd often be rewarded for his kindness with a bank note from the wallet. "I needed to feel the fear before a crime and the thrill of success without becoming one of them." In Eastern Europe, Bruce had been taught by fellow criminals how to effortlessly break into safes. "I thought I would find something." In Shanghai, he'd made friends. "I thought I would learn what I'd needed to do with my skills and my anger; but the harder I looked the less I saw." It was also in Shanghai that he got arrested. "It got to a point where I wasn't even sure what I'd been looking for in the first place; and I was lost." He was arrested for being involved with a group of men who were trying to steal from Wayne Enterprises.

It had been two days. Bruce and Ducard clung to the wall just short of the roof, their eyes locked, both in agony – drenched in sweat and straining. Ducard blinked, breaking their eye contact, and reached for the roof to pull himself up. Bruce closed his eyes in relief, allowing Ducard to pull him up onto the roof. They lay there in the half-light of dawn, and then Ducard turned to Bruce, laying a proud hand on his shoulder.

"You are ready."

The poppy that Bruce had picked all those months ago was now shrivelled dry, resting on the altar of the throne room. Bruce, clad in a ninja black uniform, watched as Ducard – also in black – picked it up, taking a pestle and mortar. He dropped the flower into it and ground it to dust. The dust was poured into a small brazier, which Ducard lit. He motioned to Bruce, who approached the smoking altar.

"Drink in your fears. Face them."

Bruce breathed in the smoke and instantly staggered backwards, shaking his head. His mind was plagued by images, horrible ones that he wished to forget – Chill's trembling gun, his father staggering to the floor. Ducard slipped on his ninja mask, hinting at Bruce to do the same, but Bruce was struggling to think through the effects of the smoke.

"Why the masks?"

As if in reply, dozens of ninjas stepped forwards from the shadows – the entire hall had been filled with identical ninjas, and Ducard had melted into the crowd as one of them.

"To conquer fear, you must become fear. You must bask in the fear of other men, and men fear most what they cannot see."

Ducard struck at Bruce, but Bruce spun and parried – and just like that, Ducard was gone. The ninjas moved in unison, forming walls.

"It is not enough to be a man, you have to become an idea – a terrible thought – a wraith."

The ninja closest to Bruce turned and slashed with their sword – it was Ducard. Bruce leapt sideways, rolling through a wall of ninjas. He looked down at his arm, seeing the open cut. The torn uniform was a dead giveaway. Before him, a wall of ninjas parted, revealing a wooden box. Bruce stared at it, his mind still spinning from the smoke.

"Face your fear…" he heard Ducard say.

He cautiously approached the box and lifted the lid. Bats exploded from inside, filling the air. Bruce dived away, staring at the cloud of squawking bats above him, flinching whenever they came to close to him. Suddenly, Ducard leapt at Bruce, who rolled to the side, only just managing to block him. Once again, Ducard had blended in amongst the rest of the ninjas, and the bats were everywhere. Bruce stayed low, silently slashing the arm of the ninja nearest to him. The man did not move, he didn't even so much as flinch.

"Become one with the darkness." Ducard paced softly through the crowd. His eyes lighted upon the ninja with the slashed sleeve, and he triumphantly knocked the man to his knees, pressing his sword to his throat. "You cannot leave any sign," he told the man as he pulled off his mask. It wasn't Bruce.

"I haven't," said Bruce, pressing his own sword to Ducard's neck from behind him. Ducard looked around him to see that several of the surrounding ninjas had slashed sleeves. He smiled, and at this gesture, the ninjas turned in unison and sat down on the floor.

Ra's Al Ghul was seated on a small stage at the head of the room. Ducard led Bruce to sit down before him, and a ninja placed a tray between the two men – on it was a bottle and a burning candle. Ducard placed the candle in front of Bruce and handed him a small glass, whilst Ra's Al Ghul began to speak in Urdu. Ducard translated.

"We have purged your fear. You are ready to lead these men. You are ready to become a member of the League of Shadows. Drink."

Bruce tipped back the glass, the strong-tasting liquid hitting his throat and making him cough.

"By blowing out this candle you renounce your mortal life. You renounce forever the cities of man. You dedicate your life to solitude."

Bruce leant forward to blow out the candle, but he paused, looking around him at the rows of seated ninjas.

"Where will I be leading these men?"

"You will need them in Gotham."

"You want me to go back to Gotham?"

"You yourself are a victim of Gotham's decay. That is why you came here, and that is why you must go back. You will assume the mantle of your birth right. As Gotham's favoured son, you will be ideally placed."

"For what?"

"To help us destroy the city."

"What?" he cried.

"When Gotham falls, the other cities will follow in short order. Nature's balance will be restored and Man will finally return to solitude."

Bruce turned to Ducard.

"You can't believe in this."

Ducard looked back at Wayne, troubled.

"Ra's Al Ghul has rescued you from the darkest corner of your own heart, what he asks for in return is obedience; and the courage to do what is necessary."

Bruce stared at the flickering candle and the bottle. He had made up his mind. He flicked his sword out, simultaneously smashing the bottle and tipping the candle, causing flames to spread across the wooden floor.

Ducard reached out to extinguish the flames. "What are you doing?"

"What's necessary."

With that, Bruce struck Ducard in the head with the butt of his sword and doused his mask in the liquid fire before tossing it back into the mezzanine, where the explosive powders were stored. Ra's leapt from his throne, striking at Bruce with his own sword, but Bruce parried it easily. Explosions roared from the balcony above them and flames shot across the ceiling, explosions surrounding Ra's and Bruce as they fought. Bruce leapt clear from the falling debris, but Ra's was not as fortunate, the heavy charred wooden beams crushing him. The monastery was chaos. Flames were rising and ninja bodies were strewn across the room, while others fled as fresh explosions ripped across the hall. He had to get out, and fast. Bruce picked up the unconscious Ducard and hauled him out of the throne room, into a passage, where he smashed through an ornate screen which led them outside. The two men crashed down onto a steep slope of ice and rock as the monastery exploded above them. Bruce rolled over to grab a rock to support him, but as he looked across he saw Ducard's unconscious body sliding down the icy slope, his limp form rotating, spinning as his body gathered momentum, rushing towards the edge of the cliff. Bruce dived after him, sliding head-first down the ice, the cliff moving closer and closer as Bruce raced after Ducard. They were just mere feet from the cliff edge as Bruce grabbed Ducard and raised his free, gauntlet-clad arm to smash at the ice, digging in with the silver scallops, and stopping right at the very edge. Ducard hung limply over the tremendous drop and Bruce struggled with the dead weight, but he managed to pull Ducard up onto the ice. He had made it.

He carried Ducard down the road leading to the tiny hamlet he had encountered on his original journey to the monastery. He kicked the door down of the nearest hut, which happened to belong to the old man he'd seen on his way up the mountains. The old man stared at him for a few moments, before motioning for Bruce to put Ducard down onto some mats that lay on the floor. He wiped the blood from Ducard's temple and looked at Bruce again, who was making his way to the door.

"I will tell him you saved his life," he said, in heavily-accented English.

"Tell him…I have an ailing ancestor who needs me."

There was just one inn in the hamlet. It was smoky and crowded, full of Sherpas and climbers. All conversation ceased as Bruce entered, filthy and ragged, but the eyes that were upon him did not matter. He just needed to use a phone.

"Wayne residence."

Bruce found himself smiling at Alfred's familiar voice. It was the first time he'd heard it in years and he was relieved to find he had not forgotten it.

"Alfred," he croaked hoarsely.

"Master Wayne. It's been some time."

"Yes. Yes it has. I need a ride."

"And where are we, sir?"

Bruce looked around. "Bhutan, I think." A curious Sherpa nearby nodded at him.

"Am I to assume that you're without money and passport?"

"I'm travelling a bit light, yes."

"I believe there's an airstrip at Kathmandu long enough for a G5. Make your way there, I'll have the jet down in fifteen hours."

"Very good. Oh, and Alfred?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Bring some painkillers."

Author's note: I'll put the first chapter up later today or in the morning. It'll properly introduce Tamara and has the first appearance of Dr Crane. Hope you're enjoying it so far.