Fire Rising

I – The Pit

He came upon the child where the Pit opened up into the sky. It was a full moon tonight, brighter than the fires in the caverns. The child was watching the bats leave their nests and fly up into the night.

"You shouldn't stare for too long," he said. "You might start to think you can fly out too."

"You don't think I could?"

He gestured towards the bottom of the wall, where bones had gathered over the countless generations the Pit had served as a prison.

"Many have tried to climb out of here," he said. "They've all failed."

"That's because they've been doing it wrong," the child pointed up, near where the bats were streaming out. "See that ledge? That's what defeats them. Every single time one of us tries to escape, they stop at that ledge."

"It's a wide gap to the next ledge."

"Too wide, they think. The fear defeats them. So even if they jump, they fall."

"And I suppose you're the one who will make that jump."

The child shrugged. "When my legs are a bit longer."

He laughed, and this made the child smile. But as with any joy to be had in the Pit, it was tart and fleeting.

"You were born in this shit hole like I was," he said, growing serious. "Do you even know what you would do, if you were able to get out?"

"There's a better world out there," the child said. "And somewhere in it is my father."

"And I suppose once you find him, you'll be leaving the rest of us here to rot."

The child gave him a jab on the shoulder. It actually hurt, a little bit.

"Don't be absurd. I need to liberate my mother. And you. My mother says my father's a powerful man, so it shouldn't be too—"

He had laid two fingers on the child's shoulder. A warning – they were being watched.
Behind them, another of the prisoners had appeared, one with a particularly sallow face, and bad teeth. He extended a finger at the child, but it was to the man that he spoke.

"You truly live up to your name," he said. "You are a bane upon us all. Keeping that morsel to yourself while the rest of us starve."

Bane kept his hand on the child's shoulder. The mother had kept her in loose clothes, had cut her hair short. But Talia was coming into her own, it was increasingly difficult not to see that.

The prisoner took a step forward, and Bane felt a surge, the kind he felt when he knew he was in for a fight.

"Come here little girl," the prisoner wheezed. "Isn't fair that this one keeps you all to himself."

Another step.

"I won't hurt you, I promise," he reached out. "Just maybe a scratch, a bite—"

The stone came whizzing past Bane's arm, and right into the prisoner's nose. There was a crack where it hit. The man howled.

"Bite that," Talia hissed.

Blood was spurting from the prisoner's nose. He cried out again, in anger this time, and charged.

Predictable, Bane thought. He caught the man by the throat before he came in arm's length of the girl. Now the only sounds the prisoner made was whatever he could gasp out through Bane's grip. His eyes began to bulge.

Bane noticed, with a bit of irritation, that the blood from the man's nose was trickling onto his sleeve. He buried his thumb in the soft spot under the prisoner's chin. The prisoner began to gag.

The dilemma now was whether to kill him. On one hand, Bane knew he had no lack of enemies in the Pit. On the other hand, it wouldn't do to have him telling others the child's secret.

He turned to Talia, who was watching the man turn blue with a look of mild interest.

"What do you think?" Bane asked.

"I think he should die."

And so he did.

Bane left the corpse along with the bones at the wall. Already, flies were beginning to gather. But when he turned back to Talia, he saw that she had paled.

"I want to go back to mother," she said. "Right now."

"It's all right," said Bane. "That man can't harm you now."

"It's not me. It's her. What if they—"

Talia flustered. He thought that she might cry, but she didn't - she stood quietly, her breathing ragged, her fists tight at her sides.

"If they ever—if they ever hurt my mother, I will kill them all."

"You will," Bane said. "And I'll help you."

When she finally stopped trembling, she simply gave him a nod, her face assuming a look of complete serenity. Just in case though, he took her hand, and they walked back into the darkness together.


II – Bhutan

Every step was painful. It was the endless blast of sunlight, reflected off the snow. It was the whiteness, stretching out as far as he could see, and the cold that bit into his limbs while he walked. It was Ra's al Ghul pronouncing his excommunication – 'you are no longer of the League of Shadows,' he had said, and Bane had been turned out into the wastes.

He supposed he had a few things to be thankful for – they hadn't killed him, for one. He had a pack at his back, and he got to keep his coat. But out here all his old injuries returned to haunt him – the constant buzz on his senses that made every step, every breath, heavier. It was three days to the nearest town, and he wasn't sure how long he was going to last against the scream of his own nerves. And there was something else.

He stopped and laid down his pack. Behind him was nothing but the relentless blue sky and his footprints on the snow.

"You can come out," he called out. "I know you're there."

His voice echoed off the landscape.

Twenty paces back, the snow began to shift. She rose up from the ground, clad in white to match the snow. Even from a distance he could tell she didn't like that she'd been found out.

She'd grown a lot since the Pit. Her limbs had grown long, and she'd let her hair grow out. He knew, as she strode towards him, that she had at least three different weapons on her person – the slender sword strapped to her back, a firearm at her hip, a dagger in her boot. But she approached with impunity.

"How did you know?" she asked. "I made no sound. Cast no shadow."

"No," he agreed. "I just knew."

The corner of her lip turned up. "I must learn not to be too predictable."

He grasped the opening of his coat, smiling broadly, even if it hurt to do so. "I'm
certain you would have assassinated anyone else."

"Don't be absurd," she said. "I wanted to make sure my father wouldn't try to have you killed."

Bane opened his arms, gesturing towards the empty landscape. "If Ra's al Ghul wanted me dead, I would be dead already."

She looked over her shoulder, as though she expected someone might be trailing her.

"He's wrong, you know. About you."

"That I am 'an animal of base cunning who has no place in the League?'"

"It's an excuse and we all know it." Talia rarely expressed anger. To hide what she really felt was something she had learned back in the Pit, and sharpened into an art under her father's tutelage. Out here though, it was just her, Bane, and the wilderness.

"When he sees us together, he remembers my mother and his failure to reach her in time."

"Perhaps he sees my failure."

"What?"

"Your father was not in the Pit the night your mother died," he paused, "I was. I was there, but I was not strong enough—"

"You helped me escape," Talia's voice had dropped, almost inaudible below the rising wind. "And you've paid a high price for it. That's what matters."

"It would seem that isn't enough for your father." Bane began to turn away. "It seems he'd prefer that I die slowly, of my own pain."

Talia reached into her own coat and pulled something out – Bane recognized it even before she began handing it to him.  

"If that's what he wants, then he'll be disappointed," she said.

The mask had been designed specifically for him, when it became apparent that his old injuries from the Pit would never quite heal. It went around his face in a manner Ra's had said, with a certain amount of satisfaction, to be grotesque. It allowed him to breathe a constant supply of anaesthetic gas – just enough to keep the pain at the very edge of perception.

He strapped it across his face and breathed. Almost immediately, the old hurts began to fade, dulled into a vague pulsing he could ignore if he wanted to.

"That," he said, his voice muffled, "is much, much better."

Talia touched her finger to the tip of the mouth guard. "You look very fierce," she said.

"Oh, I intend to be."

"Where will you go?"

"I haven't decided yet. Maybe South America. I hear they need mercenaries there."

He made to adjust the fit of the mask, but allowed his finger to brush against hers. "You could come with me," he said, knowing even then what her answer would be.

"He's my father," she kept her eyes on his as she said it. "He's the only family I have left. And the League of Shadows is my heritage."

It occurred to him that this may be the last time he'd ever see her, and he knew she thought the same.

"Then I'll wish you good luck, Talia al Ghul," Bane said. "May the world tremble at your feet."

She smiled – a real one. And just as he thought she was about to back away, she stepped towards him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Against the wind, she was warmer than he could have imagined.

"Take care of yourself, my friend," she whispered.

He watched her walk away, until she was a white figure against the white ground, until the wind wiped her, and his, footsteps away. Only then did he take up his pack, and go in the opposite direction.


III – Brazil

'A woman's here to see you,' the Lieutenant had said. He'd tried to hide a smirk too.

Just because it seemed prudent to do so, Bane had asked who it was.

'She calls herself the 'Demonhead',' he had said.

She was under armed guard, in the room they usually kept for interrogations. The first thing Bane noticed when he opened the door was that the single bulb on the ceiling was swinging on its wire.

Five men had been assigned to guard her. They were all sprawled on the floor, except for one who had wound up on his back on the table they kept the interrogation implements. He had a screwdriver through his throat.

One guard was against the corner, bleeding from the eyes. The other two were on the other end of the room, their skulls darkening where they had knocked against each other.  
The fifth had his arm broken at an awkward angle, the bone jutting out through the skin. He was making a slow whining noise, which meant he was still alive. Bane took a cursory glance around and decided he was the only one.

"Your men were rude," Talia said. "Next time, I advise you to get better ones."

She sat beneath the swinging light, legs crossed, hands on her knee, and not a hair out of place.

"Of course," Bane snapped the Lieutenant out of shock. "I apologize most profusely."

Bane pulled a chair across hers while the Lieutenant, and a pair of others, began moving the bodies out. He caught the Lieutenant casting a glance at the woman, who didn't look all that different from any of the other tourists loitering downtown. Under his mask, Bane smiled.

"My father's dead," Talia said.

"Ah," Bane leaned back. "So Ra's al Ghul isn't immortal after all."

When she smoothed her skirt out, Bane saw she hadn't quite kept it spotless. There was a small red stain on the cuff of one sleeve. She must have already been in a bad mood.

"Who killed him?" he asked.

"One of his former protégés," she said. "A man named Bruce Wayne."

The name was familiar. "The American billionaire?"

"There's more to him than meets the eye."

"You want revenge then?" His eyes narrowed. "That shouldn't be too difficult for you."

"If it were just revenge, yes." She shifted in her seat. "But my father had a plan for Wayne's city. For Gotham. I intend to see it through."

"And so, you come looking for me." He breathed in deep, through the painkiller gas, and laughed. "And I thought you'd just missed me."

"I have been looking for you for six months," she said. "I've been up and down the continent, down every crook and crevice you can imagine, chasing your shadow."

"Your name is whispered everywhere," she said. "Always in fear. People wonder why you wear a mask. Or what magic gives you such hideous strength. But all agree that when it comes to striking terror into the hearts of other human beings, you are the best."

Talia shrugged. "And yes, I did miss you."

The last of the bodies had been removed. The Lieutenant was struggling with the surviving guard, but pain had overwhelmed the man. He clutched at his ruined arm, the whine rising to a cry.

Bane made a noise that behind his mask sounded like a sigh. "What do you think?" he asked.

She wasn't even looking at the man. "I think he should die."

And so he did.


IV -  Mexico

It had been ten minutes since the screaming started. Bane and Talia were having dinner.

"It's not that I dislike Shan Yu," Bane was saying. "It's his choice of imagery. In the passage, he says that to truly know a man, you must hold him over the edge of a volcano."

"Which is true," Talia said, waving her fork around. "Show a man his death and you will know him for who he really is."

"I don't disagree." Bane had a morphine drip in his arm, it was the only way the pain could be kept at bay while he ate. And these dinners with Talia, when she came by every now and then, tended to take a while.  "I just never understood why it had to be a volcano. Why not a knife to his throat? It's a lot easier."

Off to the corner, the screams had given way to harsh voices. Two men, asking questions. This time there was sobbing, and the faint smell of piss began to drift into the room.

"I like the volcano," Talia said. "It's more dramatic."

"It's unnecessary," Bane said. "I've always preferred Katsumoto. Or Yu Shu Lien. They understood the economy of words."

"And see how they ended up. Katsumoto was gunned down by his own countrymen, and Yu Shu Lien was assassinated."

"That has nothing to do with their poetry!"

"If they'd tried tossing their enemies into a volcano, maybe they wouldn't have ended up that way," Talia said, with no small amount of cheer.

Bane took a swallow of wine. It was vintage red, a gift, Talia had said, from Miranda Tate. What sort of a name is Miranda Tate, Bane had asked. The sort no one in Gotham was likely to ask questions about, she had said.

Not too far away, something was sizzling. It smelled an awful lot like the roast pig on the table. The screaming began again, echoing through the room, so Bane had to raise his voice.

"If you like Shan Yu so much, you should read Hanzo. He lived through different times than Shan Yu, but you might enjoy his choice of imagery…"

The Lieutenant came over. He had blood all over his leather apron, and a pair of glistening prongs in one hand. He waited for Bane to finish what he was saying, and for Talia to remark that she had never read Hanzo, before making his report.

"Wayne has an armory in the Applied Sciences wing of the company building," he said. "It's completely off the books, but seeing as that one wrote the books, he can say for sure."

"Applied Sciences…" Talia closed her eyes. "That's in the basement."

"Did he say anything else?" Bane asked.

The Lieutenant shrugged. "He thinks we're with the Joker. Thinks that lunatic followed him all the way here, after what went down in Gotham. He thinks now he's told us Bruce Wayne's secrets, we'll let him go."

"Continue to let him think that," Bane said. "And give him another ten, fifteen minutes. Just to make sure he isn't lying."

The Lieutenant nodded, and then turned to Talia. But she just gave him a smile, the sort Bane had seen turn other men weak.

"The potatoes are marvelous," she said.

The Lieutenant made a stilted sort of thanks, and returned to his charge.

"I don't see why we shouldn't just kill him," Bane said. He didn't have to say who he was talking about. They were on a brink of a conversation they'd had at least a dozen times before.

"He must be punished for murdering my father," Talia said patiently. "Punished, as each man who laid hands upon my mother was punished."

She emptied her glass. "And when he falls, all of his city should fall with him. Only from the ashes of the old can the new be built."

She put the glass down, and the ring it made filled the void left by the man's screams – it seems he didn't have ten or fifteen minutes left in him.

"I will do this," she said, eyeing him directly. "Even if I have to do it alone."

Bane chuckled at that.

"Are there any volcanoes in Gotham City?" he asked.

Talia raised an eyebrow. "Not that I know of."

"Then we'll just have to improvise." He raised the bottle. "More wine?"


V – Gotham

"I broke him," Bane said. "I broke him, and yet he returns."

Talia joined him at the window. "There's more to him than meets the eye."

"He climbed out of the Pit, like you did."

"So he did." She didn't seem all that bothered. "May we be judged on the merit of our enemies."

She had returned to the garb of the League of Shadows, and its weapons – a knife in her belt and the detonator in her sleeve. Doom would come to Gotham City when she willed it.

"He is coming here," Bane said. "To free Miranda Tate."

"Of course. He loves her," Talia said.

"When he is closest," she ran a thumb through the hilt of her knife, "I will strike. Then he will know me for who I am, and he will see his world burn."

"And we will burn as well," Bane pointed out.

She glanced up at him. "Yes, I seem to have brought us to our death. Does this bother you?"

He shrugged. "Everyone dies. I have you to thank that I won't be dying in the Pit."

She almost smiled at that. "And I have you to thank that I won't be dying in the Pit."

They stood for a while, in silence, watching the snow gather on the rooftops of Gotham.

"I always knew there was a better world outside," Talia finally said. "I just didn't know I'd have to raze the current one for it to rise."

"When you looked up at the sky, you saw a better world," Bane said. "I only saw you."

He hadn't really expected her to reply – not in this moment, recognizing the endgame was upon them. And so he found himself surprised that she had reached for his hand. Her hand, he thought, which after all this time was still so much smaller than his.

She was bringing his hand up to her face. His fingers grazed the fall of her hair, as she kissed the back of his hand. A whisper of her lips, nothing more.

"We'll burn together," she said.

And Bane knew that it had always come to this, from the time he had found her as a child, staring up at the moon.

At that moment the doors burst open. The Lieutenant came running in, his gun strapped to his chest and a wound bleeding freely on his temple.

"He's here," he said.

Bane felt a surge, the kind he felt when he knew he was in for a fight. At the corner of his vision he saw Talia nod.

"Then let's go meet him," he said.


END