Bane

January 5, 1998

Bane felt something brush - something rush - past his leg. It was large, heavy, and very much alive. (Run.)

Bane ignored the memory of fear. Fear was not his, it was the dead boy's.  Fear did not belong to the creature he was, and though he no longer knew where he dead boy ended, and he began, he remembered his own once existence, the fearless charge against the outlaw. Even if it cost him his life once, here he was. Alive.

Bane continued through the cool waters, hesitating only a moment as the waters touched his throat just below his mask. His guns would prove useless right now, and in the water there was no way to move with speed enough to defend himself, or destroy anything that attacked him - were anything to attack him - and though he could fight through the fear easily enough, there was no -

Bane rose out of the water with enough force to knock the wind from him, its scaled hide muscular beneath his body. As he slid down the length of its black scales, he unsheathed his blades and buried them to the hilt in the beast, and stopped his fall.

(Serpent.)

He ignored the memory, dangling from its back, and getting his left leg up and over its back. Bane struggled to recover his breathing, climbing up the length of its broad scale hide.

The serpent stiffened, plummeting back toward the water. Bane braced for the splashdown when it shifted without warning and Bane found himself rushing toward the water with the beast atop him.

✟ ☧ ✟

Darkness, air escaping around him in white water he could not see, in bubbles of precious breath he could not breathe, weight he could not lift crashing down on him.

His blades were still in his tight grip.

He may die, but not with his mouth open. Not screaming, not drowning, and not trying to escape. He was beneath it, and it rolled, and for a precious moment he was above water. Above water, racing away from where he wanted to be, away from the entrance, away from the mouth of that place.

Bane pulled a blade free, dangling a moment in the rushing water, and pulled himself forward, thrusting his blade up, and into its flesh. He repeated in slow succession, climbing through the rush of water up its thick armor of black scales.

He needed air. He needed it to surface again.

...or. He needed it to stop.

Bane felt his blade suddenly stop against something hard, something dense, but not as hard as rock, or steel.

Bane sheathed his dagger, and drew his pistol. He pressed the muzzle against its head.

Bane pulled the trigger.

No blast. No explosive recoil. No force.  He squeezed the trigger again, and again. Useless fucking weapon. At least the blades never jammed, at least the -

✟ ☧ ✟

The world rang around him in a high pitched squeal.

Water, as Bane discovered, amidst its numerous unpleasant traits, had qualities he disliked. For all the good it was for, for thirst, and life, it was infinitely more destructive than he.