Chapter 1

Continued from the end of S3E15 ...



Daylight brushed against his cheek as Bruce slowly drifted out from a dreamless sleep to reality. The air that he breathed in was chilly, absent of the chemicals that flooded his lungs what seemed like moments ago. "Five..." he whispered through parched lips. His memory of the events that preceded that very moment was returning, and the betrayal of his lookalike stung, especially after all that he had done for him. It didn't help that the ground beneath him felt as calloused as the frigid gaze Five had presented to him as a parting gift, "This... is what I was made for. To be Bruce Wayne." Five's words echoed in his head, the voice that sounded just like his - yet another bizarre product of Hugo Strange's malevolent genius.

Bruce's eyes widened fully. He was in a simple cream-colored cotton robe and trousers and his shoes were nowhere to be seen. He looked around. Nothing appeared familiar in the least. Four walls and the ground beneath him lined with stone, an iron-gated door that led to an empty hallway, and a window overlooking a snow-capped landscape that was the only sight that was reminiscent of the view from his chalet in Switzerland. But as he studied the mix of limestone and granite in the walls that kept him in, as well as the asian notches on the archaic iron spokes that kept him from escaping, he suspected he wasn't anywhere near the Swiss alps. To make matters worse, he was a prisoner.

"Let me out!" came a dry-throated guttural sound emerging from deep within him. His tongue tasted sand. He couldn't remember the last time he had a drink, or how long he had been out. All he knew was that one moment he was in the Narrows, and the next... wherever 'here' was. Five couldn't have been working alone. And Bruce had the strongest inkling as to who was really behind the kidnapping. He slammed the gate with his fists. The thudding echoed through the hall. "You can't keep me here!"

Thoughts of Alfred ran through his mind, how worried he probably was at this point. It was odd how the most trivial of things rose to the greatest importance - like Alfred's shepherd's pie. What would come of it? Was Alfred still keeping it warm? He pummelled his fists against the gate again. Anger began to melt away into fear. But it wasn't exactly his life that he was worried about, there were too many unknown factors that prevented him from properly assessing his situation, and he hated not being in control. He needed answers, and soon. "Open this door!" he yelled, even as he dropped his face towards the ground. Yelling into the empty space began to felt like a futile effort. The hall remained as empty as it was when he had awoken. He wondered if he had simply been abandoned in the vast, ancient abode to die a slow death. Kathryn had warned him about carrying on his investigation, and yet he had persisted. But how could he have not when everything he knew was being threatened?

Just as he was about to lose hope, the clicking of a lock falling into place brought him back to attention. He looked up to see an elderly man standing plainly in front of him as though he'd been there forever. His hair as white as powder, a level expressionless look on his face. He wasn't someone that Bruce recognized. "Who are you?" he asked, even as he stepped back to avoid the swinging gate. Gathering what courage he had, he said with as much conviction as he could muster, "I want to speak with whoever's in charge."

The elderly man, clad in robes much similar to his own, stepped boldly into his prison and gazed at him. The lines surrounding his mouth stretched as he spoke, "That would be me."

Bruce didn't believe him. Surely there was more to this than just an old man. "Is the Court of Owls behind my abduction?"

"The Court is a tool, nothing more."

Bruce paused, he couldn't understand how one who had the insight on what was happening could so casually brush away the Court, knowing full well that they had their fingers all over Gotham, playing its system like a puppet. "You won't get away with this. People will know I'm gone."

Unfazed by Bruce's threat, the man continued, "We've taken precautions to ensure your absence won't be noticed."

It dawned on Bruce then, how the entire puzzle fit together. "My clone..." he muttered. That's what Five had been created for... Hugo Strange, then the Court of Owls. They all led to this. This one man. "He's in Gotham pretending to be me, isn't he?"

The man nodded in an almost robotic fashion. There was nothing about him that gave even a hint of human compassion.

"Alfred will figure it out," Bruce blurted out in certainty - if there was one person who knew him better than anyone else in the world, it was Alfred. And his background with the SAS wouldn't hurt either.

"Perhaps," admitted the man. "But by that time I'm certain you will come to see the light."

"What light?"

"The light of our cause."

A little frustrated with the man's cryptic nature, Bruce couldn't hold back a bite of sarcasm. "No thank you. I'm not interested to join your cult."

For the first time since the man had entered his cell, what looked to be a smile bent a corner of his lip. "You assume that I am your enemy, but I am not."

Bruce discreetly imagined himself making a dash for it. The man before him was standing in the doorway, but he also seemed frail - he wouldn't think that the man would be able to stop him if he went through the gap fast enough. "It'd be hard to convince me of that since you did take me against my will."

"Would you have come otherwise?" It was a rhetorical question. "You can't understand how important you are in the scheme of things. You must be made aware..."

Bolting towards the hallway while the man was distracted with his response seemed like a good idea for a while - till he was met with a powerful force buried into his chest that sent him reeling across the floor, coming to a halt only after hitting the wall on the other end of the room. His chest pulsed in agony where it had been hit, and he had to take a moment to catch his breath. The elderly man calmly lowered his raised fist, that Bruce could only assume was the source of the impact.

"Another thing," said the man. "You will not be allowed to leave till we have imparted all that knowledge that you require for your mission."

"We?" asked Bruce, struggling to his feet as he tried once more to plan his escape. This time he drove himself directly at the man, ducking low to knock him off his feet. It was one of the more dodgy moves Alfred had taught him - "Not exactly a gentleman's fight." was what Alfred would say, but one that Bruce would employ anyway. He figured the urgency of the situation would negate all requirement for manners.

But just the second Bruce had expected to make impact with the man's ankles, they disappeared into the air like the flutter of wings as his robes flapped through the space above Bruce, and landed right behind him. Scrambling to his feet, Bruce swung a fist at the man, only to find his fist swiftly ending its flight in the iron grip of the man's palm. He swung another fist at the man's cheek, but that in the man's other palm. Both the man's hands began to compress, and Bruce heard his knuckles popping as pain seared through his arms and he gasped in the moment of helplessness. "We," repeated the man, without even breaking a sweat. "You have many questions, but you will only get your answers if you surrender to this place. There is no escape. Even if you manage to get by me, there will be twenty more right beyond this passage. And fifty more beyond that. You will fail, and you will be returned here, more broken than you had arrived."

"Please..." cried Bruce, falling to his knees. The man responded almost immediately, removing his hands from Bruce's, and Bruce pressed his bruised knuckles against his chest to soothe the pain. Alfred had taught him a lot, but he'd quickly come to acknowledge that he might not be able to fight his way out of this one. The only option left to him was to go along with the man's demands. Maybe he would learn something about his captors that he would be able to use to his advantage once they were less wary of his will to return home. "Just tell me where I am... please."

"You are..." replied the man. "In Nanda Parbat."