"You've slept in." Savage stood over my bedside. His large form shadowed me. This was the closest I'd ever stood to him. He didn't have a smell, which I felt was odd, because he didn't bathe, at least not that I ever saw.

"I was dreaming." I said, rubbing my face."

"I'm pretty sure you weren't." I heard Khonshu say in the back of my mind. I looked over and saw myself sitting on a stump that I had been using as a stool.

I wasn't looking at myself, I realized. I was looking at Khonshu, who was now able to manifest himself. Savage saw me looking and turned around, but he didn't see anything.

"What are you looking at?" He asked.

"Nothing. Sorry. Like I said, just had a dream, that's all."

"Broth is ready." He said before leaving the tent.

"What do you mean, you had a dream?" Khonshu asked, closing in on the side of the bed. "I don't remember any dream."

"How are you doing this?" I asked him. He laughed.

"I figured it out last night. That's how I know you didn't dream."

"It was a vision, more than anything." I explained. I wasn't going to tell Khonshu all the details, just the ones he needed to know. "The council of Arbiters."

"The council?" He asked, taking a step back, "That means… shit, they know, don't they?"

I nodded.

"That means we are in big trouble, Daniel." He slumped back into the stool.

"I have good news for you then." I said, smiling. I was about to try to lie to Khonshu using the same mental technique I used to stop people from reading my mind. Here's hoping it works…

"Nabu, Vashu, and Rhodu all vouched for us. If we can prevent Ra's from accomplishing his goals, we will be forgiven."

Khonshu leered at me. I felt like I could hear my own slow heartbeat. I had to try to not be nervous.

"You must be one helluva negotiator," Khonshu finally said, rubbing his chin, "if those three vouched for you, and the council agreed to forgive us, then that's everything we could ever want."

I smiled. He believed me. I had just literally cheated Death, for the second time, I might add.

"There is one thing. We need to be in San Francisco by Friday. It is Wednesday right now. If we don't, we will be too late to stop Ra's."

"That's gonna be a problem. I have a feeling that Savage isn't gonna let us just leave."

"Why wouldn't he?" I asked, "We aren't prisoners."

"You haven't finished your training. He wants something from Ra's too. I just… I don't trust him, Dan. He feels off. I think it's better if we leave without telling him."

I had to agree. I also had a weird feeling about Savage. We'd known the man for a few months now, trained and travelled with him every day, and somehow knew nothing about him? That was odd.

I went out of the tent to eat the broth Savage had made. It was bland and tasteless, like every day. Khonshu and I decided to wait until Savage went hunting to leave. We weren't exactly sure where to go, but we would figure it out. Khonshu wanted to be forgiven and accomplish his duty of killing Ra's, and I wanted to save my friends.

After breakfast, we had our chance. Savage ordered me to practice the three forms I knew until he got back from hunting. I was about to leave, head westward like we were currently on course with Savage, but Khonshu stopped me

"Let's take a look at his tent first." He instructed me. I wasn't going to disagree.

The whole time we'd been traveling with Savage, we'd never gone into his tent. He'd never told me not to, but the air about it just made it feel prohibited.

The tent was dark and musky. It smelled of the same incense that Savage always burned. There was no cot, like in our tent. There was just a spot on the ground that was more bare, an obvious sign that Savage slept there. There was a table made of branches, bound together by an old cord. On the table, there were a few items of interest.

The first was an ornate sword with a black blade. It appeared Chinese in origin, like a jian sword. The second was a scroll in a language I'd never seen before. The third was a very old journal made of rawhide and scribbled on with charcoal. It was the same language as the scroll. I took all three objects and shoved them into the leather rucksack savage had given me.

"Smart." Khonshu complimented, "The scroll is probably the four forms. We can teach the fourth one to ourself."

Hanging on the wall of the tent was a large, hand-drawn map. It appeared to be a map of the whole valley. Thank god I'd seen it before we left, because west of our location there was nothing but mountains. South, however, there appeared to be a village.

Khonshu and I made our way south. Despite the fact that he wasn't really there, Khonshu would make a good traveling companion.

We walked for about an hour and a half before we heard a noise that sent shivers down our spine.

"Wilson!" We heard an animalistic voice roar.

"No damn way…" Khonshu muttered. "There's no way we heard him back at camp just now. We are miles away."

"We need to run. Now." I said, looking at Khonshu. He had the same look of fear in his eyes. I began to run.

I ran all day and all night at full speed. I had no idea how far away Savage was at any time, but I wasn't going to slow down at all. There was no way I was going to let Savage catch up to us. By the time we made it to the village in the morning, I was exhausted.

These people had likely never seen anyone like me before. Maybe they'd never seen an outsider. Women, children, and men alike lined the dirt street to gawk and stare at me.

"You know," Khonshu started to say, appearing next to me suddenly, "Ra's talks all big about cleansing the world and all that, but this is the real problem. These people have nothing. If Ra's really wanted to change the world, he should start by helping those in need in his own backyard."

I was taken aback by this. Was Khonshu really saying what I thought he was?

"You know what? You're right." I told him, not caring about who heard me 'talking to myself.' I was too exhausted to care. "Bruce always used his money to improve things in Gotham, besides just being Batman. He always donated his money to local causes. Ra's should learn from him."

Now that I was sure Savage wasn't following anymore, I collapsed to my knees in the middle of the dirt street. A man came up to me. I looked up at him, and I couldn't believe who it was at first.

"Ali?" I asked. He looked shocked that I knew his name.

Five years ago, when I was on the Suicide Squad, we were captured. A man called Ali, who no one could communicate well with, was also a prisoner in the same facility. He helped me escape, then disappeared. Finding him here was insane. He didn't have any idea who I was though. Couldn't blame him. I'd had short hair and a neat beard back then. After months of living in the wilderness, I was sure that my hair and beard were wild and made me look like a madman.

"Daniel." I told him, pointing at myself. "Remember?"

"Daniel?" He inquired, trying to remember who I was. He then pantomimed shooting a gun. I knew then that he remembered who I was. I just nodded. I was too exhausted to say anything.

He yelled something in Nandese to a woman nearby. She went inside quickly.

"Wife." He told me, in his broken English. "What doing here?"

"Ra's Al-Ghul." I breathed out. He took a step back.

"Follow you, Ra's Al-Ghul?" He asked, clearly frightened at just the mention of his name. I shook my head and lifted up my burlap shirt to show him the scar that Ra's had given me on my abdomen.

"Ra's Al-Ghul tried to kill me." I told him, trying to explain it simply.

His wife started to come back, holding some kind of water or wineskin. Ali turned to me before she got to us.

"No talk, Ra's Al-ghul. Ra's Al-ghul bad man." He told me. I nodded.

"I understand." I responded. His wife came over with the leather bottle. Ali didn't want me to talk about Ra's. Couldn't say I blamed him. I drank whatever liquid was in the water skin. It wasn't water. And it certainly wasn't wine. It tasted like vinegar and salt. But hey, who was I to complain?

"Thank you." I said, grabbing Ali's hands. He helped me up from my knees.

"You eat food." He said, helping me inside.

I wasn't sure what the food was. It was meat and veggies. But it was better than anything Savage had given me in the past months. I nearly cried, it was so good. Ali's wife looked pleased that I enjoyed it.

"Come." Ali said to me, after I'd finished eating. I stood up to follow him into another room. Khonshu was leaning up, next to the doorway where Ali was waiting.

"You should find a phone." He said spitefully, "we don't have much time."

"I'm working on it." I thought to him. He just shrugged.

There was a little boy in the room, playing with toys. He was about four or five. Before you ask, he was not the boy that Fate had shown me in the vision. He was the spitting image of Ali, actually.

Ali pointed at the boy and smiled.

"Daniel." He said, still pointing at the boy.

"Daniel?" I asked, stunned as I pointed at the boy too. Had Ali named his son after me? He nodded.

"Yes. Daniel."

"Why?"

"You help run." He told me, pointing at himself. He'd named his son after me because I'd helped him escape. I didn't know why he had been there, nor would I ever know, but me helping him escape meant enough to him that he'd named his son after me.

"Ali… I'm honored." I said, bowing my head in respect. He just smiled and shook his head. He went back into the other room.

"Ask him for a phone." Khonshu said in my mind.

"I'm working on it. The guy named his kid after me."

"I noticed. No one's ever named their kid after me."

"Start being nice."

Khonshu appeared in front of me to flip me off, then disappeared again.

"Ali," I said, trying to get his attention, "I need a telephone. Can you help?"