A.N. So the other night I had a pretty awesome dream where Bruce Wayne was actually a woman, but her Batman persona was 'male'. Basically, to help protect her identity and to better intimidate criminals, she chose to make her alt ego a man. Let's see where this crazy idea leads us, shall we? Bwahahaha!

Chapter One: Self Destruct pt 1

Dark. Nothing but a dark, swirling mass of withering bodies screaming in the air. Beneath her is hard dirt, stones. Everything's cold. Always so cold.

Shrieking from above. Always shrieking. The noise drowns out everything. Thoughts, sounds, cries for help.

Nothing but the dark and the cold and the shrieking.

She closes her eyes, resigned to her fate. This was it. This was all. To lay and be consumed by the dark and the shrieking and the flap flap flutter of leather wings above her.

Her eyes open, just a bit, straining in the dark as the flap flap flutter and shrieking grow louder. But there, ever so small, is the tiniest sliver of light.

Of hope.

She gasps, reaches out, tries to take the light in her hands. But she's small and so far down. The sliver of light and hope gets swallowed up by the dark and she's left in the dark once more.

She sighs. Her eyes close, and she looses herself in the terrifying flap flap flutter and the shrieking...

Brooke Wayne wakes up with a gasp and a groan. That dream, always that same dream. She tangles her shaking hands through greasy black hair.

Brooke licks her chapped lips and slowly sits up. Her body aches from sleeping on the hard ground but it's nothing compared to the tight achy feeling in her chest. The feeling she always get after the dream.

Brooke slowly gets up, weary of her sore limbs.

"A dream?" Asks a low, gravely voice beside her. Brooke glances at the old man sitting on the opposite end of the cell.

"A nightmare." She answers simply.

A tired, worn smile pulls at the old man's lips. "Worse than this?"

Brooke lets out an empty laugh. The cell the two call home is little more that a tin box. Light seeps through the gaps in the roof which always leak water when it rains. Shouts echo from outside, and during the night the wind beats on the thin walls, stealing away what little sleep the two might get.

She just shrugs. Honestly, she'd take the tiny cell over the dream any day.

She glances again at her companion. She really has no idea why he ended up in such a place. He's kind, at least to her. Being the only women in the Bhutanese jail, the guards had been kind enough to give lodging with the man least likely to rape her. As if any man could. While Brooke didn't look it, she could hold her own in a fight.

An hour later Brooke finds herself standing in line for the morning gruel. A few other prisoners are scattered around the muddy courtyard. They vary in age and hight, but they all have one thing in common. They are all staring at Brooke.

"They are going to fight you." The old man states simply behind Brooke. She glances at him from the corner of her eye. "They fought me yesterday."

It was commonly becoming an assurance. The men would gang up on her, try to beat her down, get their frustrations out. She was a woman, she was the weakest out of them. Men like these viewed women for being good for only one thing, and when that thing wasn't allowed, they decided the next best thing was to beat her instead.

"They will fight you every day." Answers her cellmate.

Brooke glances wearily around her, not meeting a single gaze, but at the same time not backing down.

"They will fight you until they kill you."

Brooke holds out her plate. She watches as the grey mush dribbles into it. She sighs. "Can't they kill me before breakfast?" She sighs before turning to find a table. Her path is blocked by massive man, backed by six other aggressive looking prisoners. The leader of their little posse smashes away her plate.

"You are in hell, little girl." He snarls in broken english. Then he rears back a fist and punches Brooke. She goes down hard, landing on her back with a loud oomph.

"... and I am the devil." Continued the man.

Brooke lifts herself up, dusts herself off, and rolls her shoulders. A wicked smile begins to creep up her face. "You're not the devil." She sneers.

The man punches at her again, only for his fist to be caught in her grip. The smile comes full force as she kicks his kneecap, sending the man to the ground with a cry.

"You're practice."

An hour later found Brooke Wayne locked up in a solitary cell. When she asked why she was locked up alone, the man has snapped back, "For protection." Brooke had sneered. "I don't need protection." The guard in turn had jabbed his finger at the unconscious prisoners. "Protection for them."

Brooke sighs as she lets her head fall back against the cold wall she's leaning against. She flinches only the slightest bit as the door to her cell slams.

Her eyes snap open as a cool european voice drifts from a dark corner of her cell. "I often wonder at the riches to be found in dark places."

Brooke sits up. "I thought the point of solitary confinement was the solitary part." She snarks back. Being punched then tossed in an even dirtier cell wasn't doing much to ease her volatile temper.

She came make out the vague shadow of a man seated in the far corner. His features are cast in darkness, outlining only a tall and lean profile and nothing else.

"These men have mistaken you for a criminal, Ms Wayne..." Says the man as he stands up and steps into the light. Her first assessment is confirmed as he is well built but still lean, with a well groomed and well aged face and dressed in a cut suit and tie.

"Who are you?"

The man smiles gently. "My name is merely Ducard. But I speak for Ra's Al Ghul. Have you heard the name?"

"I've heard the legends. Master warrior, international mercenary, feared by all the underworld... some swear he's immortal."

Ducard chuckles. "Ra's Al Ghul uses theatricality and deception as powerful weapons." He approaches Brooke. His piercing cold blue eyes search her own green ones.

"You have not escaped his notice. A woman like you is here by choice... or because she is truly lost."

Brooke is the first to look away. Ducard's penetrating gaze is unnerving, even to someone like her.

Ducard continues. "Ra's Al Ghul and his League of Shadows offer a path to those that are capable of upholding our code."

"Code?" Brooke smirks dryly. "Aren't you criminals?"

"A criminal is simply a person that someone else thinks..." He gestures to the cell around them, "should be put in prison."

Brooke nods. "Can't exactly argue with that."

"This world is run by tyrants and corrupt bureaucrats. Our code respects only the natural order of things, we're not bound by their hypocrisy. Are you?"

Ducard moves to the door and knocks. It is opened by a guard. He turns back to the still sitting Brooke. "There is a rare flower, a blue doublebloomed poppy, that grows on the Eastern slopes. Tomorrow you will be released. Pick one of the flowers. If you can carry it to the top of the mountain, you may find what you are looking for."

Brooke narrows her eyes at the man. "And what am I looking for?"

Ducard returns her gaze, a glint in his eye.

"Purpose."

A.N. Thoughts? Good? Bad? Let me know. It was kind of hard to write the hole prison thing with 'Bruce' being a woman. Most prisons have men and women separated. But given the nature of the prison they find themselves in I think it'd make since that they'd have no qualms about keeping a women with a bunch of men, as long as they don't make too much trouble. A jail in the middle of mountain-nowhere isn't exactly going to have a woman's section.

Special thanks to SkullsAndDuggary for telling me to "Hell yes go for it," when I told her I was thinking about writing this fic. Skulls doesn't have a Batman fic, but she has the best Jurassic Park fic I've ever read, and I've read pretty much all of them. Go check her out.