Emergency. Wonder Woman to Gotham City, came the Martian Manhunters voice over the speaker, Monitors indicate Batman in need of assistance.
Im sorry Ray, I have to go, said Wonder Woman.
She ran to the teleporter and was sent directly to the top of the Gotham City police building. Batman had been knocked unconscious. Bane was about to foot stomp the Dark Knight into the ground.
Wonder Woman flew at him, not even bothering to attempt to remove his venom tubes. She did not know of this weekness. She fought the full strength Bane. Seeing Bruce lying wounded like that had enraged her, and Bruce had recently rescued her from Circe.
Wonder Woman was winning. Soon she had Bane on the ground, but he was struggling, and then she noticed a dark blue glove. The Batman had regained consciousness and crawled over. He pulled at some tubes attached to the back of Banes costume, and they came loose.
As the Dark Knight passed out again, Wonder Woman was startled to see Banes muscular frame literally receding into a smaller physique. So it had been chemically induced, and Bruce had known how to stop it. She pulled out the other ends of the tubes, and used them to tie Banes wrists and ankles.
Then she went down and played bullets and bracelets with a number of costumed hoods, before snaring a few in her lasso. As soon as Commissioner Gordon and Harvery Bullock had regained control of the building and taken the villains (Bane included) into custody, Diana picked up Batman in her arms and flew him to Wayne Manor. She had been there once, when the League had been outlawed by the Thanagarians. She filled Alfred in on what had happened, and he went to the Batcave to recall the Batwing by remote control.
Bruce was completely out of it. Alfred put him to bed and offered Diana some tea.
Im sure the master will be very grateful. You saved his life, Princess.
Why is he so closed to me, Alfred? she said, and told him of the cold reactions shed had from Bruce after their adventure with Etrigan, He said something cryptic like I havent been a kid since I was 8 years old.
Princess, Master Bruce has probably never told you why he became the Batman. His parents were murdered by a street thug with a gun, when the three of them were coming out of the cinema. He was only 8 years old. He swore to wage war on all criminals, often without the support of the police.
Hasnt he ever had a serious relationship though?
There was a Miss Andrea Beaumont. They met while he was still in training to become the Batman. He almost abandoned his Dark Knight plans, until she abandoned him, to go on the run from the mob. By the time he saw her again, she had become an excessively vindictive extension of the Batman, homicidal. Then there was Selina Kyle, the Catwoman, but she loved only the Batman, not Bruce Wayne; and in the end, she loved crime more. The Master told me how you danced with him as Bruce Wayne in Paris, before you guessed his dual identity. You may be just what he needs, if he could only admit it to himself.
Diana wondered. It had not escaped her notice, that Bruce had always been trying to prove himself in some contest of value with Superman. The friendship between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel had been somewhat loosely defined. How would Batman take to having been saved by her, and the whole case wrapped up by her, while he was unconscious?
Maybe Id better go, she said.
Ill tell him what happened, said Alfred.
Wonder Woman returned to the Watchtower.
Giantess World
