Bane

January 6, 1998

Bane rose, weary. Fleeting memory betrayed him, the last moments in his mind were only entering the adit, and the overwhelming sensation of dizziness.

He was up now, though, flickering torches lighting the way of the hall. Up, and onto his heavy, water saturated boots. His soaked clothes were heavy on him, his vest heavy weighing heavy on his shoulders.

Bane stared down at his hands, small pinhole wounds in each wrist.

"I saved your life."

Bane turned on his heel, stumbling only a small bit, his pistols drawn.

The woman, pale in the light, opened her hands. There was a metallic chime as Bane's spent rounds, and full, fell against the black glass floor of the hall. "I saved your life. It wouldn't be fair if you took mine to repay me for my trouble."

The front of her threadbare clothes were covered in blood, and black, thick stains.

"I've repaid would-be saviors as much, many times over."

"Not me."

"Not yet." Bane holstered his pistols.

"Not ever. Sandra. Sandra Sevilla... or I used to be."

Bane shrugged. "Don't care."

"I saved your life." She said, taking a cautious step back.

Bane tilted his head, staring at her through his mask, fighting against the savage impulse to destroy her.

"Quiet type." She smiled.

Bane rested his palms on the gripes of his pistols.

"If you kill me, you're only a monster. I want to be more than a monster. I think you do, too."

Bane saw himself unsheathing his blades, driving them into her, and splitting her into two. He saw the blood spray out of her, the upper half of her struggling to claw herself away from him. He saw himself lunging onto what remained of Sandra Sevilla, stabbing, cutting and slicing away at her until there was nothing left.

He saw it, but he did not do it.

"Yeah. There's humanity somewhere there inside you, isn't there?"

Bane stepped back one solitary step.

Sandra stepped a single step forward. "Who are you beneath that mask?"

Her voice echoed in his head.

"Not a monster. Not a man, no... but could you be... could you truly be mine?"

Bane shook his head in a sharp motion. "Stop."

Sandra took another step toward him. "All that life inside you. You want to share that life, don't you?"

She was closer now. Close. Close enough to touch him.

Bane lashed out, and punched her in the jaw, felt the impact, felt the his knuckles connect with flesh and bone.

Her head moved, if only a little. "So you're not a man, then."

Bane stared at her a moment, then to his fist, then to his fists.

"Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes." She smiled, rubbing her jaw. "Please."

Bane charged in, swinging heavy punches - not wild haymakers - the punches Jonathan knew. Precision strikes, timed strikes, each calculated to hit and break bone.

Each strike, she dodged. She watched his fists in distances measured by millimeters.

Bane continued forward, and Sandra dodged, parried, and sidestepped each punch, each kick as though there were no attack at all.