This is my first chapter, and if you're here, then you must not have minded the prologue. I hope this one is okay with you too.


It hurt. It hurt as if the whole ordeal had happened all over again… His entire body… Ravaged… And it didn't make sense. He was supposed to be gone, gone, gone. And there was the light, too, this grim, bleak reminder that he still breathed.

He tried to lift a hand, just to touch the body that should no longer have existed… But, even as he did, he felt a new jolt of pain overtake his entire left side, and was unable to retain a gasp. There was a strange taste of copper in his mouth that was fairly familiar but still a surprise. He licked his lips; Blistered and bruised as the rest of him. And then he saw the face.

It was a blur really, which, though he blinked several times, remained out of focus, as did the rest of the details of his surroundings. "Good morning, Mr. Ducard. I'm glad to finally speak with you face to face."

What kind of a nut job says something like that?

The bed, or perhaps cot, shifted under him, and by instinct he knew some one had taken the liberty to sit chancily on the edge. The blur boldly thrust what Ducard assumed was a hand into his line of vision, allowing him a pin-point area to focus on. "Do you know where you are?"

Ducard turned his head away, closing his eyes against the intruding light, and the invading question; Too much at once. The cot shifted again, and a hand was at his cheek. The intrusive presence urged his head to turn back towards the voice. "Do you remember what has happened to you?"

Bits and pieces…

His eyes remained closed against the harsh extremities of the world… The presence seemed accepting, and allowed him to descend back into the darkness. "Just rest."

o.o

"Where am I?" His voice crept like a ghost from his throat - A week of silence finally disturbed. His vision remained blurred, accursedly, and he often found himself referring back to his first lessons with his sensei, which had detailed the uses of his other senses…

But it seemed that either all of his senses had been numbed by the… Happening, or the entire room had been cleansed of scent, and taste. The only sounds he usually heard were those of the Healing Man, who came too stand beside his cot every day as Ducard progressed in his recovery, otherwise the little dwelling was void. The only sense he found he could still rely on was that of touch. At times he might have even allow a bandaged hand to slip to the floor, and stroke the tiled floor… Cool and soft edged, the tiles reminded him greatly of a color white.

But today there was else to think about.

"You are in the healing rooms of the Council of the Heavenlies." Ducard licked his lips to further investigate, but was silence by the Healing Man's calming voice, "That is all you need know for now."

The fatherly presence moved to work on the changing of Ducard's bandages. A an herb soaked cloth washed over his face, offering a hint of relief from the constant burning in his skin. What skin there was… The fire, which the healer would say little about, had taken most of his skin, leaving many raw, open wounds on his body, which the healer bathed in an herb that he guessed must have grown by the multitudes around these 'healing dwellings.'

"The plant has amazing regenerative capabilities," his healer had boasted the day that Durcard had become coherent. "It also counteracts the effects of that poison you and your men have ingested."

The Healing Man did not often volunteer information about the healing dwelling and it's location… Or whom the Council of the Heavenlies truly were. He seemed thoroughly aware of Ducards dark history, of the shadow warriors and his origins… And his intentions with Bruce Wayne. But the healer only continued to work to ease the pain of the many bruises, breaks, and wounds.

He had broken many bones when that forsaken train had fallen from it's track, and had also sustained a deep gouge through the skin and into the are just below his lungs, which had nearly taken it's life in that injury alone. The explosion had left him without hair or skin, just a blistered outer covering.

In the days he had lain without breath, with out life, in the healing wards of the Heavenly Council, as the healer often referred to it, they had rubbed away the dead and cracked skin, and dressed the gaping wounds plaguing his body. Now, with the aid of the mysterious herb, his skin had begun to grow back, and even a fine bristling of hair on his scalp, where the burns ought to have stunted the growth for ever.

It was in the tea, he supposed. For it was all, at this point, that he could ingest. The healer had incorporated his herb into the salve in the bandages and cooling clothes that soothed the burns on his face… But the main source, Ducard believed, was the tea. In any other case, he would have rejected the foreign substances, but now was too weak to refuse.

His sight, despite the herbs, remained blurred. When confronted about this, the Healing Man responded simply with a shrug, barely visible in the white-ish haze. Ducard was a warrior, though, and had learned to read the heart of his opponent. The healer kept his especially guarded, but it was reasonable to assume that there was more to his lack of sight that the solemn man was telling.

o.o

I have failed. Ducard lay in the folds of linen, freshly changed that day, his arms resting above the chalk white sheet. The haze of white that he normally saw had faded to a have of blue, as it always did as night descended. I have failed miserably. Generations of the Shadow League, entrusted to me… I have destroyed it all.