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Bruce watched through the magnification scope in his cowl’s visor. He could feel the intensity of Artemis at his side, as she looked through her binoculars with just as much obsessive vigor. It had been hours since Jason had come to the small town populated by the native tribe. Under ideal circumstances, he might’ve received food and rest there. But the trials were chosen during a time of year that cattle raids were common. The town had been occupied by bandits from a neighboring tribe, who had overcome its defenses and were holding it hostage until the cattlemen returned from watering and feeding their livestock. When they did, the peaceful release of their village would only be granted by turning over the herd.

It was, as Artemis had explained, a deeply common ritual in this part of the world, one the villagers had surely done themselves. The whole thing was treated as routine by raiders and hostages alike, with a minimal of bloodshed once the initial raid had proven victorious. Bruce had a hard time understanding how such a violent act could ever be enshrined as some kind of tradition, even being from Gotham, but here, life was cheap.

Jason’s test was simple. There were thirty men occupying the village. He had to get to their leader.

It had been four hours and so far, he had not made a single move, scoping out the enemy stronghold just as his parents were doing. Paradoxically, the waiting made Bruce more confident. Jason was taking the time to observe his enemy, examine their routines, learn their individual personalities. That spoke well of how his performance would go once he went into battle. 

The problem was how long would it take him to commit? Like a gameboard being reset, the patterns of the enemy patrols and activities would only last so long. Something would break the routine—the situation was too precarious for it to continue for any real length of time. The commander would give someone new duties, assign a new task, and then all the intel Jason had gleaned would be useless.

Analysis was good, but it had to go with action. 

Finally, Jason moved. Later than Bruce would’ve liked, but he suspected Jason was just being thorough. It fit with his actions. He moved through the town slowly, methodically, but with a surgical speed when necessary. He had clearly planned his attack down to the second, while leaving himself enough wiggle room to adapt when necessary. His Nth-metal gauntlets proved formidable, but nonlethal, weapons, meeting with Bruce’s approval. They easily evened the odds between Jason’s underdeveloped physique and his mature opponents. When coupled with Jason’s stealth, the boy was unstoppable. He downed ten enemies before they even noticed they were being attacked. 

Now Bruce was truly impressed. Apparently, Jason had set up small incendiary devices around the town, so stealthily that even his parents hadn’t noticed. Now that he was detected, he set them off. It was a complete gamechanger. The hostage-takers weren’t just under attack now, they were being attacked with overwhelming force. They scurried to secure the village and mount a defense, which completely blinded them to a single intruder already in their midst. Jason collected five more bodies on his way to the commander.

The enemy leader was no hero. Upon realizing they were being attacked, he retreated to a church in the center of the site, with thick walls and a cultural prescription against desecration to protect it. He didn’t bring any guards. Bruce surmised that without the defenses being mounted, he didn’t want to be seen pulling any soldiers off the perimeter for his own protection. Maybe he intended to grab a scurrying soldier off the streets and order them to defend him, away from prying eyes… if it weren’t for Jason having already rendered so many of them unconscious. Unnerved and jumpy, he arrived at the church.

Jason had already secured it. The moment the commander closed the doors, Jason was ambushing him. Five minutes later, the commander ordered a full retreat. His men left the village, carrying too many wounded to take so much as a handful of loot, never even knowing that their only attacker was one young boy.

“He’s good,” Artemis said. 

“A shame it’s wasted on this… game,” Bruce replied. 

“It is a little cynical, isn’t it? Teaching the Bana that these conflicts are between fighters all equally sinful. It would’ve been just as valid for him to walk right by.”

“Has any Bana ever tried that?”

Artemis smiled fiercely. “No,” she said, with no small amount of pride.

***

The next trial took Jason through a tropical oasis. With the sightline cut down by the greenery that ran in all directions for hundreds of feet, Bruce and Artemis had to choose between sacrificing sight or stealth. If they followed more closely behind Jason, they could keep him in view, but neither of them doubted that he would be aware of their presence. If they lingered back as far as they had before, they would lose sight of him, but be able to follow his trail.

It was a terse discussion, but both of them had reached the same conclusion, even if they both also wanted to be talked out of it. Jason had handled two trials already. In all likelihood, the third would be his too. They decided to follow at the same discrete distance as before.

It began as a sharp jangle of trouble. The trail Jason had been leaving became erratic, then shifted. As if his gait and level of stealth had suddenly changed. There was a lingering sense of dread that Bruce had learned to trust, though it didn’t fully flourish until he and Artemis diverged. He was following Jason’s trail, which had become so overpoweringly strong that he thought it was nearly impossible not to notice, while Artemis was following his horse’s path. Jason was no longer leading it. It had taken off at a gallop through the woods, fast enough to shred through the greenery.

They decided to follow what Bruce had as Jason’s trail. He was soon proven right; there was evidence of a struggle. Patches of bent and broken plant life. Scraps of clothing, torn and bloodied. Items in his inventory, discarded to make him lighter, faster. Bruce and Artemis wordlessly collected them.

“What could do this?” Bruce asked. The bandits of the last village could never offer such a fight, and neither could any beast he’d ever heard of.

Then, the trail grew cold. No more signs of struggle, no more blood, no more discards. Bruce and Artemis traded a look. They’d both surmised that the fight was over, but with no body, it meant the winner had taken the loser with him. Or her.

The trail left behind was small, but possible to follow. Even for someone as good as either Jason or his attacker, carrying a body multiplied the very presence one would try to hide. And Bruce and Artemis were well-motivated. Too well-motivated: they had to force themselves to move slowly, painstakingly, picking up the trail nearly inch by inch as they went. As much as they wanted to rush forward and find out what had happened, they knew that not only would they not find their son that way, but it was more than likely they’d destroy the very trail they were poring over.

Inch by inch.

Step by step.

Finally, with a sense of relief that was almost physical, that came upon a small cave in the ground. There was no doubt the trail led through there. They slipped inside, Bruce going to nightvision, taking Artemis’s wrist to guide her as her own eyes adjusted. They both knew without speaking that there was no time to waste on acclimating to the dark.

The cave system was fortuitously simple. There was the passage they were in, which in one direction ended within twenty feet, and in the other led on and on. They moved through it with haste; Artemis was soon accustomed to the dark and able to move with her customary grace and silence. The passage wormed through the bedrock of the earth, the roots of the forest overhead hanging down like stalactites in an older cave. 

The passage opened up into a low but widespread cavern, just tall enough to stand up in, with the roots directly overhead. It was a temple, primitive and crude, with an altar in the center of the chamber surrounded by log pews. Simple, but effective—any additional adornment had rotted away over time. 

Jason was on the stone altar, its carving plain and misshapen, but he hadn’t been tied in the traditional manner to it. His hands were simply secured behind his back, a similar set of plastic cuffs cinching his ankles, and he was gagged. A goose egg was rising on his bruised face, but from the fierce resistance in his eyes, he was healthy enough to be aware and focused.

Karna stood over him. Bruce wouldn’t have known who she was if it weren’t for his background research on the Bana. A particularly vicious fighter, she’d never agreed with the tribe’s overall capitulation to Wonder Woman and her reintegrating them with the greater Amazon society. Like a few others, she’d gone rogue, disappearing into modern society.

The decision had evidently cost her. One of her eyes was gone, replaced with a black glass orb, and scars ran down her body from shorn scalp to her muscular arms, ending in a number of missing fingers on her left hand. Her bulletproof vest and BDU trousers surely covered more of her damaged, lethal visage, but she moved with enough certainty that Bruce couldn’t write her off as crippled. For all the damage she’d taken, in her fight with Jason and before, she was still a lethal combatant.

“You didn’t expect me to take it lying down, did you?” Karna asked. Her voice was hoarse and throttled, owing to a long scar across her neck. “The Bana-Mighdall have fallen far, but now so far as to take a man into our order? A man?”

Artemis unsheathed her sword. “Not so far as to lay down to the likes of you.”

Batman just grunted. One thing he liked about the Bana. Not unnecessary conversation. They weren’t going to end this with a talk. It only stopped when there was too much blood flowing to cross.

Karna drew her sword. It had a wicked-looking black blade that was immediately leveled at Bruce’s chest. Her eyes were blazing with such a rage they seemed to be reflected in the blade, although it was just catching the shimmer from the torches lighting the cavern.

Bruce held out a hand to Artemis, waving her off. If it was him that Karna wanted, that was fine by him. He took a baton from his utility belt, and with a flick of his wrist, it telescoped out into a kendo stick. He’d barely assumed a fighting stance before Karna charged him, opening with a downward slash intended to cleave him in two and put a quick end to the battle.

Heaving the sword upward, Bruce parried Karna’s blow to the side. The impact of the clashing steel and polymer was bone jarring. Bruce stumbled back, shaking off the shattering vibrations of the blow. Karna swiped from left to right, trying to halve him another way, and Bruce brought his sword down on hers. The clash turned her strike aside, but it was also enough to wrench the kendo stick from his hands. Karna grinned wickedly as she wound up for another over-the-head swing.

Realizing he would never have time to retrieve his own weapon, Bruce flung himself forward, driving into Karna with all his strength and weight going into a right hook to her breadbasket. The blow staggered her; Amazon or not, the force behind his shot was enough to split timber. Karna crumpled, cradling surely broken ribs, but Bruce gave her no mercy. With a quick chop of his hand, Bruce struck a nerve cluster in her neck, finishing her off. Karna’s eyes swam back in her head as she collapsed.

“And she thought you weren’t worthy of the Amazon,” Artemis said. While Bruce had occupied Karna, she’d moved to free and protect Jason. Now she used his bindings to secure Karna. Bruce wondered idly if she’d be so adamant about the strictures of Bana tradition once she faced their justice system.

“Was that the third trial?” Jason asked. “Did I need help? Did I fail?”

“No, son,” Artemis said. “She cheated. We just evened the playing field. That woman never should’ve been able to ambush you.”

Bruce nodded in agreement.

“Then I can still finish the trials. I just have to find the gorbaana root and…”

Jason looked up. There, among the sprigly brown roots that haired the ceiling, was a clump of them that surrounded a red, resplendent herb. Climbing on top of the altar, Jason reached up to pull aside the roots that held it. Like a potato, it grew underground, with the bottommost portion sticking through the top of the cavern. Jason was able to get hold of a handful, dig his fingers in, and rip it away.

Bruce and Artemis stood well clear, guarding Karna, as Jason went to work cutting the herb, soaking it in water, building a fire, boiling the herb, stirring the mixture—moving on and on with preparations that seemed they would never end. Finally, when fully half of the water had boiled away, he poured the rest into a cup. The herb had shrunk into a small, shriveled husk. Jason examined it carefully—as Artemis had impressed on him, if something had gone wrong, it would be most evident in the detritus left behind.

He didn’t look to Artemis for confirmation of his skill at the ritual, one way or another. Just dropped the empty husk to the ground and drank his concoction. Then he laid down and let sleep take him.

“Let’s go,” Bruce said.

“Leave?” Artemis asked.

“We’re not supposed to be here. And we can’t help him anymore.”

“But the vision quest… his dreams…”

“Do you really want to be here? To worry over him when there’s nothing we can do?” Bruce shook his head. “We did what we came here to do. He’s safe. Let him get home on his own.”

***

As expected, the Bana were quick to take possession of Karna when Bruce and Artemis escorted her back to the village. They said they would hear her case, but Bruce guessed it was only Amazon secretiveness that kept them from pronouncing judgment on the spot—in front of him, an outsider.

Although Bruce and Artemis couldn’t have sat still and watched while Jason weathered the fever of the herb, they couldn’t wait around while he was absent either. They scaled the mountain where Jason had faced his first trial, setting up camp by a spring that sent a river down into the Bana village. From there, they’d have a perfect vantage point for Jason’s return.

“Shayera and Diana are on their way,” Bruce said. This high up, he could get markedly improved reception on his suit’s satellite communication. “They’ll be here for Jason’s anointment.”

“Good,” Artemis said. She sounded distant. Bruce couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in Jason, but she was more upfront with her worry. Bruce projected confidence for her sake. As if he could believe in it himself.

“Maybe we could stay here a while after the anointment,” Artemis continued. “With Shayera and Diana.”

“As long as you’d like,” Bruce said. 

Artemis looked to the distance, as she had ceaselessly since they’d crested the ledge with the spring’s flowing waters. There was a small plume of smoke, just cresting the horizon. She only smiled. “It’s him.”

Bruce checked with his scope. At this range, even his technology couldn’t make out much, but the height, the gait, the body language—it all slowly added up to Jason. It had to be him. And still Bruce didn’t stop looking until he was sure.

“It is,” he said simply.

The release was all the greater now, Karna’s interference having piqued their worry. Now it was certain. Jason was safe. He had succeeded.

Artemis kissed Bruce. It took barely anything to deepen, to tip over into a celebration of not just his survival, but their love for each other. Artemis undressed quickly, ripping her armor off with screeches of torn fabric, while Bruce only unzipped his fly and pulled his hardness out of its rapidly inadequate confinement.

Artemis laid down on the moss growing at the riverside, her posture as alluring as her eyes were challenging. She was inviting him as much as she was demanding him. Bruce climbed onto the moss, and positioned himself between Artemis’s thighs. As Bruce leaned forward, sliding on his belly, he slipped his hands under the cheeks of her ass and pulled her toward his open, waiting mouth. The tip of his cock rubbed against the coolly erotic slickness of the moss, sending a throb of excitement up and down his spine. Bruce settled himself on the rock, nodding toward her cunt, and began to eat her pussy.

“God!” Artemis cried as her body stiffened with pleasure. She arched her hips and, as she threw her head back in total sexual abandonment, she began to pump her cunt up and down against his face. “Eat me, Bruce… oh, Jesus…! Eat me!”

His tongue slithered sensually up and down the slick avenue between her cunt lips. Artemis’s body was hot and wet, and she was oozing her juices into his mouth. Bruce licked her slowly, from the puckered ring of her anus, right up to the tip of her throbbing clitoris, pausing more than briefly to lap up the creamy reward from her cunt. Bruce pushed his tongue deep into the creaming tightness of her passageway, and he could feel her muscles convulse around the slippery intrusion.

“Oh yes… oh yes!” Artemis moaned. “It’s good, really good!”

She began to moan, grabbing at his head with her powerful fingers, pulling him closer to her pussy. Artemis was incredibly hot inside, and Bruce took a particular pleasure in flitting his tongue from side to side, stinging the wet walls of her cunt with his licking caresses. 

When she began to grind her hips in a tight rolling circle, Bruce slipped his tongue from her cunt, and Bruce began to stroke Artemis’s clitoris. Bruce battered the tender bud savagely with a rapid back and forth movement, until her clitoris seemed to be vibrating under his lapping tongue. Artemis arched her back away from the moss, smearing her wetness across his face.

“I’m coming!” she cried, finally grabbing onto his head. She pulled him hard against her quivering cunt. She pumped her hips and gyrated her thighs, screwing her crotch all over his face. “Oh, God! Oh God…! I’m coming… I’m coming…! I’m coming!”

Bruce stroked her mercilessly throughout her orgasm, feeling the quivering flesh trembling under his tongue. Bruce could taste Artemis’s come in his mouth, a sudden warm wetness, and he dug his tongue into it, flicking it back into his mouth, drinking it down. Bruce parted her dank pussy, and sunk his teeth into the button of her clit. Grinding his mouth sensually from side to side, allowing the pain to mingle in with her pleasure, Bruce could almost feel her orgasm vibrating across his lips.

“Oh God… Oh God!” she cried, tears of release streaming from her eyes. “Fabulous…! Wonderful…! Bruce…”

Bruce pulled his mouth away from her cunt and straightened himself. Artemis sobbed in disappointment and tried to return his lips to her upturned pussy, but Bruce was too fast for her.

Taking his cock in his hand, Bruce guided it at her wet, open pussy, and inserted the swollen tip of his shaft between the lips of her cunt. Bruce watched his cock entering her body. He pushed it slowly, carefully in, through the dripping vibrations of her orgasm, until his belly was pressed directly against her belly and the entire length of his cock was buried inside of her. Bruce began to push his cock in and out.

“Oh—oohhh!” Artemis cried, gasping in pleasure at the shimmering intensity of the sensation. She humped her pussy up and down his drilling cock, the wet walls of her canal clutching at his hardness. “Again… again! I’m coming again!”

Bruce could feel her coming this second time. Her cunt tightened down around him; and Bruce could sense her wetness all over him. He pushed his cock slowly, deeply in and out, stroking Artemis with his full hard length. Her body became very hot, and Bruce could feel her wetness gushing against his driving middle. Bruce watched his cock sliding in and out of her, the lips of her cunt clinging to the sides of his shaft. 

He went in dry and came out wet, his flesh glistening with the ample evidence of her orgasm. Bruce pumped into her until he could feel her orgasm peaking, and he continued to pump until she began to respond once again to the in and out thrusting of his cock.

Bruce knew he would have no difficulty in coming. He slipped his hands under the cheeks of her ass, and waggled his hips, driving his cock in and out of her as he pushed and pulled Artemis back and forth. Her cunt gripped him tightly, grinding the entire length of his shaft in the warm wet prison of her overwhelmed pussy. His hunches became deeper and stronger as the pleasure of fucking washed through his drilling middle. The tempo of his thrusts accelerated, and became more frantic, until Bruce was grunting. He stiffened suddenly, and drove himself in for one last thrust.

“I’m coming!” Bruce cried, as his prick erupted and spilled out a fiery spurt of sperm. “I’m coming, Artemis… I’m coming!”

His cock pumped and throbbed inside of her, as wave after wave of sperm spewed into her gripping passageway. Bruce could feel it splashing against the roof of her cunt, and then, like a slow, rolling wave, Bruce felt it wash back against his pulsing cock, bathing him in his own orgasm. 

After the incredible, almost paralyzing initial spurt, Bruce resumed his thrusting, grinding his pelvis into the softness of her welcoming hole. The moment Bruce did so, and Artemis felt the burning lick of his cum, she pushed back against him, and began to come for a third and final time.

They lay like that afterward, his cock yet buried in the puddle of her cunt, Artemis’s arms around his back and shoulders, their bodies locked in exhaustion as tightly as they had been in passion. A warm, pleasant feeling rolled softly inside of him for her. Bruce could feel the sperm dripping from her sex. It leaked all over the stone.

“We should rest,” Bruce said. “It’ll be a long time before Jason makes it back here. We wouldn’t want to pass out during his anointment.”

“No. I mean, yes,” Artemis murmured. She blinked couple of times. It had been a long day. This time of evening she was usually rather groggy, and more so tonight than normally. Her hand moved between their bodies, giving Bruce’s sleeping cock a final squeeze of love. “If you’re tired.”

“I will be,” Bruce said. Almost impossibly fast, still flushed with the relief of their parental ordeal being over, his cock had grown erect again, and Bruce realized he was thrusting it in and out of Artemis’s tightening cunt. What was even more interesting was that Artemis was not only returning his thrusts, she seemed to be doing so with ever-increasing passion.

“Bruce…”

“Yes?”

“Give me another baby,” she said, her cunt gripping his cock. Artemis moaned softly. “Or just fuck me.”

Bruce screwed his cock into Artemis, deeply, powerfully, a brand new orgasm building suddenly within him. “Oh, yes,” Bruce said. “Oh… yesssss!”