Issue 2

The Man Who Broke the Bat

They're traveling south, following the river and the faint trail left by the mysterious parachutist. The river had widened out gradually in the afternoon, and the terrain had slowly begun sloping downhill. The trees are even thicker here, which had made it more difficult for the parachutist to move forward without leaving traces.

Every once in a while, as they move forward through the thick growth, Batman begins to think they are simply tracking an animal. Surely a human couldn't be this cautious. Then, in a place where the earth is softer, he spots the slightest indent of a man's boot heel, and so the search continues.

At one such imprint, Batman – who is in the lead – stops abruptly. Bane immediately draws one of his pistols and scans the greenery around them.

"What is it?"

This imprint is deeper than the others, as if their quarry allowed his weight to rest fully in a standing position. He had stopped here, stood for a moment, watching or perhaps listening for something. After this print, the trail veers abruptly off-course. Batman takes a few cautious steps to the left, alternating between scanning the trees and studying the ground. Weapon at the ready, Bane follows. After moving a few yards through the undergrowth, Batman halts again and kneels to study the ground more carefully.

"Something made him wander off-course," he explains. He looked around for a moment. "There's someone else out here."

Still crouching, Batman moves forward again. Bane follows close behind. The trail is suddenly much easier to follow, as if the parachutist wasn't bothering to hide anymore. And there's a second set of prints. Smaller and shallower, but still boot treads. Someone else had joined him here, someone lighter, a woman or more likely a teenager. There is no evidence of a struggle, either. Instead, it seems as if they stopped and talked for a moment, then continued forward together.

Bane's tracking skills aren't on par with Batman's, but even he can read the scene here. "So there's two of them now."

"Right." Batman nods. "They met up here and…" he points off parallel to the river… "started moving south again."

"So, we keep following the river."

"Looks like it."

They resume their tracking, walking in silence for a while. Still focusing on the trail in front of him, Batman can't help wondering what lies ahead. Whoever they are following may not be friendly, and now they are potentially twice as dangerous. The possibility of combat makes him think of his own unexpected partner, the brutal giant stalking along behind him. Last night, he had entered Arkham confidently, knowing Robin would do everything he could to help him. He can't be as sure of Bane. That's not so say that Bane isn't a capable fighter, in fact he far surpasses Robin in that respect. And Bane seems more at home here in the jungle than he ever did in the dirty streets of Gotham. He's more animal than man, with a savage nobility that Batman begrudgingly admires. Even so, he never expected to find himself allied with the brutal gangster who nearly took over Gotham's underworld.

Batman remembers well the events that led to his first meeting with Bane. The city was finally enjoying a period of relative peace. It had taken him years, but he had wrested control of the city from the powerful crime families that had ruled Gotham for generations. Falcone, Maroni, and Cobblepot had all been put in their place. Then the League of Assassins, feeling he hadn't gone far enough in eradicating crime, stepped in to destroy Gotham.

Batman had stopped them, and after that the Joker's wild assault on the city. Scarecrow, Joker, Two-Face – they had all been beaten and sent to Arkham. Things were finally quiet, so quiet in fact that Dick Grayson – the first Robin – had decided to branch off on his own, calling himself Nightwing and claiming nearby Bludhaven as his jurisdiction.

Into this peace came Bane, an opponent like none the Dark Knight had ever faced before. More cunning than Scarecrow and far more brutal than Two-Face. He and his gang had staged a riot in a secret maximum security prison in South America, breaking free and disappearing into the jungle. Three months after their escape, crime in Gotham escalated suddenly. The newcomers started by cleaning out any competition in bloody shootouts, wiping out the remaining leaders of the crime families Batman had driven underground.

Batman had attempted to strike back. Bane's response was simple, but brilliant: breaking into Arkham. In one night, five years of work in the city was undone, as every homicidal maniac Batman had captured was suddenly unleashed on the city. Bane had waited and watched, studying the methods of the city's self-appointed protector as he dealt with the onslaught. Only then, with Gotham in a stranglehold and Batman exhausted, did Bane emerge from the shadows in person.

The Dark Knight brings his thoughts back to the present. Reliving the past doesn't help them now. He still doesn't know if he can trust Bane when they inevitably find themselves in a fight against whoever brought them to this jungle. But whatever had passed between the masked warriors in the past is best left there until this is over, whatever this is. Afterward, Bane will face justice for his many crimes.

Now Bane places a hand on his shoulder, pointing silently at the sky ahead. There's just enough of a gap in the branches high above them that they can see a bit of color against the blue sky. Another parachute is coming down, perhaps 5 or ten miles ahead. Unlikely the previous three parachutes, however, this one isn't gray, but bright red. Otherwise they never would have seen it.

"What do you think it means?"

Batman doesn't answer, instead resuming his march forward. He's still more baffled by the entire situation than he cares to admit. A new issue weighs on his mind now: neither of them had heard whatever aircraft dropped the parachute. Even at this distance, there should have been some sort of sound. A mechanical droning to stand out from the jungle's many animal cries. For that matter, at least some of the jungle creatures should have gone silent as the aircraft passed overhead. Instead, there is nothing, no change. Just a spot of red disappearing from sight in a blue sky.

His query unanswered, Bane falls into step behind the Dark Knight, watching as before for any sign of danger while Batman's focus is on the trail itself. Even if Batman doesn't share his thoughts, Bane knows that great detective intellect was hard at work trying to solve the mystery of their current predicament. For himself, Bane prefers to keep an open mind, not jumping to any conclusions but rather letting the situation reveal itself. It is an approach to life he honed during his childhood.

Born in prison, the child that would become Bane had learned that watching often meant the difference between life and death. Studying the inmates and the other guards, watching their routines, waiting for his moment. His patience – and a certain amount of judicious brutality – had eventually made him the top dog in the prison. But he had wanted more; he had wanted to see the sunlight, feel the outside world, breathe free air.

So he had escaped, he and 36 others. He only took the most ruthless, the most loyal. He had no use for the others. After defeating Pena Duro, Gotham City was the only place in the world that seemed like a challenge. And so he had led his minions to Gotham, where he had once again watched and waited. He had studied and stalked the Batman with the same patience and care he had the guards of the prison, and he had nearly succeeded in making Gotham his own. No, he had succeeded. With the right application of pressure, he had broken Batman's will. And then he had broken his back.

Ultimately, however, fate had intervened, and the city he had conquered so carefully had slipped from his grasp. The Batman had returned to be the city's defender, but circumstances had prevented the two titans from facing each other again. Instead, a macabre round of rock-paper-scissors had decided Gotham's fate; he had broken Batman, only to lose to the fiendish Azrael, who was defeated in turn by the Batman. Honestly, Bane is still shocked the Bat had ever recovered at all.

To this day, Bane holds the distinction of being the only one to truly defeat the Dark Knight. And though no one else saw it, Bane knows that it has changed Batman forever. He keeps it hidden beneath a dark mask and a heavy scowl, but the man under the mask had died a little, never to face the world with the same arrogance he once had. And if he had ever held out hope for a brighter future, that hope is gone now.

And somehow fate has caused their paths to cross again. Fate, or another puppet-master with an equally morbid sense of humor. Bane chuckles slightly. He's getting introspective. It has been a long day.

As the sun moves lower in the sky and the darkness under the trees becomes even more oppressive, following the trail becomes difficult. And as the shadows deepen, the shrieks and caws of the jungle become louder and more frequent. Batman is about to call a halt for the night when he notices the last rays of the sunset breaking through the trees ahead. The plant life all around them is beginning to thin, and the trees themselves are spaced further apart. Without even realizing it, Batman and Bane both pick up the pace. They break through the trees just as the sun slips below the horizon.

All around them is tall savannah grass, swaying gently in a slight breeze. The clearing stretches for miles, with more jungle trees just barely visible in the distance. The air is still heavy with humidity, but with the sun gone and the gentle breeze blowing, the heat is starting to taper off. Standing in the waist-high grass but still in the shadow of the trees, Batman and Bane examine the savannah cautiously. Should they go forward, and risk being caught in the open?

After a pause, Bane gives voice to what they've both been thinking: "We could wait for dark, then cross staying low."

Batman nods, looking up at the fading light. His answer, however, catches in his throat. The stars… what on earth is wrong with the stars?

Bane follows his gaze. His mouth drops open.

Now that the sun has finally disappeared below the western tree line, a host of stars begin to emerge. But the alignment of the stars, the very constellations that dot the night sky, are like nothing either Bane or the Dark Knight have ever seen before – and in the course of his training and his adventures, Batman has slept under every sky on earth.

Batman exhales slowly as the realization sinks in. Their situation, and the challenges they face getting home have just grown exponentially in light of this new information.

"We're…we aren't on Earth anymore."

Still gazing in awe at the sky, Bane slowly sinks down until he is sitting in the tall grass. "Beautiful…" he breathes, his voice barely more than a whisper.

Batman has to agree, in spite of the difficulties this revelation presents. The sky is indeed beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that for a moment, he forgets their problem and the mystery of how they came to be here. He even forgets the blurred, starless sky of Gotham, which has been his home for so long, he had almost forgotten what a clear night looked like. And as they watch, a pale moon – almost full – joins the stars in orbit.

So caught up on the celestial sights above, the two master hunters fail to notice that they themselves are being tracked. As they sit in the moonlit grass, a hooded figure watches them from the shelter of the trees. Watching and waiting, he sees the starry sky, but his focus is on the fighters ahead of him.