The spaceship was entirely organic, but to the unaccustomed human eye it was simply constructed of something iridescent. Neon lights flickered through the small, glass windows into the vast white-dotted darkness of Gotham and smoke swirled up from its damaged engines. Batman had been the first to discover the crashed vehicle, and he dreaded the prospect of yet another alien arriving on Earth. The place was already starting to get cluttered, and he was positive that it couldn't accommodate anymore otherworldly beings.

The man grabbed the sample analyser from his belt and scoured the crash site for a small piece of debris. It wasn't hard to find, the ship had lost most of its outer shell when it landed. The shard was like molten lead. The shape shifted, seemingly at random, taking either the organic form of its ship or geometric angles. As it moved there was no gust of wind, no sound, as if somehow it didn't even displace the air.

If he hadn't been wearing the cowl there would have been visible lines digging into Bruce's forehead. Luckily for him, no one saw just how puzzled he was by it. The debris was quickly placed into the sample analyser and it made a low rumble as it tried to identify the metal.

The results were exactly what Batman had expected, the metal was foreign. There was no substance like this on Earth, which confirmed the already obvious reality that this was an alien vessel. The question was, which planet had it originated from? The easiest way to find out would have been to ask one of the few human Green Lanterns, but they were off planet at the moment. They had an entire sector of space to monitor, and Bruce certainly wasn't going to call any of them back for something so insignificant.

He tapped on the earpiece fitted into his cowl. "Cave, contact Kal-El." He instructed before the butler had the chance to greet him. Bruce was a paranoid man and insisted on using code names when addressing people over comms.

"Understood, Master Wayne." Alfred answered immediately.

Bruce proceeded to inspect the wreckage once more, kneeling by it and running gloved fingers against the multitude of hull plates scattered amongst the rubble. Being thorough was one of Bruce's specialities; if he was posed with a riddle, he'd analyse it, dissect it, break it down, then piece it back together with an answer attached. He never missed anything...but sometimes he needed another perspective.

"It's not often that you ask for help; I'm flattered." A welcoming and confident voice quipped. Bruce could practically hear the smile on Superman's face as he stood from his crouch.

"Don't get used to it. And all I need is an opinion." He replied.

When he turned, he saw Superman standing tall with his arms crossed and a pleasant smile plastered across his face. The moonlight seemed to ignite the crest on his chest; the crest of his Kryptonian heritage but also, rather coincidentally, the letter S in English.

"Sure thing, Bruce."

Bruce winced at the mention of his name. He didn't know how Clark could be so careless with their identities... Still, he knew Clark well enough to know that he wouldn't have used his name if there was anyone within hearing distance. Bruce directed towards the vessel without another word.

The tall and broad man peered downwards at the wreck, squinting as if he was trying to see far into the distance. "Hmm... This is... astounding. I haven't seen anything like this before. It appears to be alive, on the cellular level. Whoever made this craft must see no difference between engineering and biology. It's incredible."

Bruce kept his eyes on the Kryptonian. He watched his face, kept a keen eye out for any nervous ticks, involuntary reactions, anything. "Doesn't look familiar?" He pressed.

With a deep sigh, Superman turned to face his colleague. "It's not Kryptonian, if that's what's you're asking."

Bruce met the man's disappointed frown with a grimace. He trusted someone's face more than their words, and had good cause to.

Superman continued "But you could've told me that."

There were several seconds of silence as the men stared at each other. Superman wasn't a fan of Bruce's tendency to play with his cards close to his chest, especially since he considered Bruce to be a friend. No matter how close Bruce would get to someone, that tendency would never change...and that lack of trust affected Clark more than most.

"I have to go. Plane's going down in the Pacific." Clark said with another heavy exhale. "Keep me posted on this. Stick to crime lords and let me handle the interstellar refugees."

As soon as that last word left his mouth, Superman morphed into a blue blur and fired into the air like a rocket. A sonic boom promptly answered his disappearance. Bruce took a brief glance at the sky, ignoring the harsh wind that resulted from Clark's swift exit. Their relationship had been crumbling ever since Clark had started consorting with the vigilante ironically named Reaper.

There was a time, not long ago, that Bruce would have trusted Clark with his life. Now that he associated himself with a murderer though... his trust had been disintegrating every day. They were back where they started; working together but under constant tension.

Bruce looked over the outer shell of the ship one last time before finally investigating the inside. A sensor still strapped to his side started beeping the moment he moved into the vessel. Instinctively, Bruce reached for it and narrowed his eyes at the chart that had appeared on its screen. There was something there... Invisible to the naked eye. Bruce could only assume that it was radiation of some sort, but he'd have to ask more professional opinion to be sure.

He didn't spend too much time on the inside. It was cramped and only designed for a single person. Apart from the chair, navigation systems, and a strange device near the front, it was all but empty. It seemed pointless to spend more than a minute or two exploring it.

Before any unfortunate citizens of Gotham could stumble across such an unsettling sight, Bruce had moved the wreckage to his Batcave. There it stayed for a few days while he waited for Hal to return to Earth. He hadn't made much progress when that time came, all he had managed to figure out was that the strange waves were originating from the alien device on the ship.

"You thought this thing was leaking radiation?" Hal Jordan laughed when he finally got the chance to look at it, right hand projecting a glowing green device as he grinned playfully at Bruce.

Bruce stood behind the Green Lantern, dressed in his Batsuit with its cowl pulled off his face. Arms crossed, he rolled his eyes at Hal's jab."I don't have an alien supercomputer on my ring finger."

Hal nodded, dropping his usual facetiousness. "Jokes aside, no piece of equipment on Earth could've accurately processed these frequencies."

"Frequencies? You're saying it's just emitting...ultrasonics?"

"Yeah. On a scale that doesn't even exist in human science as of yet. Clark could probably only hear this stuff up close...which explains why he isn't here politely asking you to turn it off."

The energy construct emerging from his ring changed shape, forming a different intricate piece of equipment. All this did for Bruce was make him feel even more insignificant. He was a verified genius; he knew his way around a crime scene, a laboratory, a person's mind and the legal system, but when faced with the extra-terrestrial, he felt like the class idiot. And it frustrated him. Angered him.

Suddenly, the cave was flooded with a shrill series of pops, slurps and crackles. "Sounds like...a language. Ring, identify." Hal commanded.

The robotic voice of the power ring's processer promptly answered with "Unlisted dialect, unknown origin. Adding to database."

"Well, congratulations Bruce... You've discovered a new species. Even the most well-travelled Lanterns don't get to say that often."

Bruce only furrowed his brow further. "I thought the Guardians knew everything."

"C'mon Bruce, that's one big universe out there. New discoveries are being made every day. Despite what you'd want, no one can have all the answers. The Guardians are smart, but that doesn't make them gods." The Green Lantern's ring formed yet another separate device, which zoomed over to Bruce's computer and plugged itself into one of the USB ports. "Ring, cross-reference databanks for any linguistically and aurally similar dialects and transfer data to partnered device."

The ring chirped "Copying two hundred and seventy-two database entries. Working..."

Hal then relinquished his focus on his other constructs, which faded into thin air, stopping the flow of the odd language. "I'm sorry I can't stick around to give you a hand with this, but I'm giving you everything you'd need to crack it. A Rosetta stone of sorts."

"How unfortunate." Bruce said with a slight sting of sarcasm.

"It's been weeks though. If this character is dangerous, they would've made some kind of impact already."

"What if it's studying us? Observing?"

"It could be scared. Terrified, even." Hal tried to reason with him.

"There isn't anything more dangerous than a terrified animal."

Silence filled the room like poisonous gas. Hal knew he should've expected this from someone like Bruce, but it still didn't make him any less wary of his thought process. "But they're not animals, Bruce. They're people."

The frown on Bruce's face intensified. "People are animals."

Hal sighed and shook his head. "Whatever. Just try and be hospitable to our new visitor. First impressions can either make friends or start wars."

Bruce's expression didn't change. His eyes were sharp and his mouth was tightened into a frown.

"Uh... better yet, maybe just call Clark or me when you figure something out." Hal added. "You'll probably scare them off."

The scowling man narrowed his eyes at Hal, who found it pretty easy to ignore. Once you've known Bruce for a while it became natural to shrug off his attitude. Without another word Hal flew out of the Batcave. He'd been there so often that he'd memorised all the quickest exits.

Bruce wasn't exactly pleased with the idea of passing this case off to more qualified heroes, but at least now he didn't feel completely useless. He could use the data Hal gave him to decipher the language found in the ship, and maybe then he'd be satisfied with the amount of information he'd contributed. Despite intergalactic issues not being his strong suite, the vessel had crashed in Gotham... his city. No one was going to prevent his involvement.

Every night he went out into the streets of Gotham, fighting crime and searching for the alien that owned the space craft. When the sun was up, however, he spent all his time attempting to understand the strange alien language. It left little time for rest, much to Alfred's dismay.

Two weeks after discovering the wreckage, Bruce had only managed to learn one word and four letters. It was much more complicated than he had originally suspected. Still, he was making faster progress than most others would have been able to. Nevertheless he was growing irritated just staring at a screen all day and hearing foreign words that sounded, to him, like someone was drowning and gagging up sea water.

He left for his usual prowl around Gotham earlier than usual. It made hiding in the shadows a little harder when there were barely any there, but it didn't inconvenience him too much. If there was one thing that Bruce was good at, it was adapting.

Crime seemed more numerous at this time, likely because the villains didn't expect to see Batman out so early. He uncovered a smuggling ring, stopped a bunch of thieves planning to rob the richer areas of Gotham, and then finally stumbled across a group of escaped felons.

He'd been chasing them in the Batmobile when it happened. They had just turned a corner, and the minute that Bruce followed them he heard a loud crash. The criminals had hit something... something so solid and strong that it had wrapped the car around it; forming a half moon shape.

Bruce had to make a sharp brake and swerve out of the vehicles way just to make sure he didn't hit it. He exited his car and narrowed his gaze at the destruction. The car was still on the road, so what could it possibly have hit to cause that much damage?

His answer came whether he wanted it or not. From the front of the vehicle came something unlike anything he'd ever seen before. It was tall and with a humanoid shaped body - it appeared to have a similar skeletal structure as the people of Earth but that was the only thing that they had in common.

It's skin looked like it was... alive; moving, pulsating, and morphing. It was grey, completely, like their atmosphere had zapped all the colour from them. More troubling than all of that was its face or lack thereof. There was nothing there, just a blank slate covered in that thumping skin. There were no eyes, no mouth, no sensory organs of any kind. For a species with a form comparable to humans this wasn't exactly normal... at least not from the very few aliens that Bruce had encountered.

The creature pulled the door off of the car much too easily, and when it reached on he heard the criminals screaming. It yanked out one of them but his body was so mangled that Bruce wasn't certain how he had survived.

The thug couldn't fight. He was barely conscious enough to register what was happening. The creature lifted his broken body by the neck, and with such strength Bruce knew that it would only take a split second for it to kill the man.

His jaw tightened, and with no more delay, he growled the one word he had learnt in its language - 'stop'. This seemed to grab its attention as it's head snapped in his direction. He could tell that it was looking at him, but he couldn't determine how exactly. It had no eyes, so maybe its visual senses came from sound and vibrations.

That was the theory, at least until the pulsating skin on its face began to crawl away. It receded and joined a darker patch on the neck. Now when Bruce looked at it the aliens face resembled that of a human woman's - all sensory organs included. He quickly realised that the odd substance covering her body was intended to be a suit, it wasn't actually connected to her at all.

"Your accent is terrible." She spoke in perfect English.

Bruce was seldom surprised, but this definitely knocked him back a few notches. He didn't let it show, of course, but the fact that she knew their language was both confusing and worrisome.

"You can speak English." He stated lowly, his hostility growing.

"It took exactly 14 local planetary rotations to master your language. It is primitive at best." She responded bluntly.

Two weeks... It had taken her no longer than a fortnight to almost fluently learn English, in the same amount of time Bruce had only figured out one word. Her species must have been more biologically advanced than humans, which was even more alarming than her landing on Earth.

"What do you want?" Batman snapped back rather vaguely, but he could tell that she knew what he meant.

"The same thing that you want." She replied, directing towards the criminal slowly choking in her hand. "To free this planet of barbarism."

His teeth clenched at the sight of the dying man and he spat back "Let him go."

The alien's brow furrowed. "I do not understand..."

Bruce took a cautious but threatening step forward, seemingly unafraid of her brute strength. "Let. Him. Go."

The alien's posture didn't change, but the timbre of her voice did slightly. "This man is a criminal, is he not? I understand that voiding governing legislature in this territory is punishable by death."

"That isn't your decision to make. If you take his life now, you're no better than he is. You'll be worse." Bruce growled.

After several tense seconds, the woman dropped the man from her vice grip, and he collapsed onto the ground in a mangled mess. Bruce could hear what was left of his skeleton snap but somehow he still drew breathe.

"A court system...? Hmpf. I will respect your laws, but I believe them to be a most inefficient solution."

Bruce didn't believe for a second that she was here to help. He'd been witness to this kind of act before, but he also wasn't in a position to engage someone with this kind of strength. There was no way he'd come out on top, primarily due to this alien's willingness to kill.

"Get out of my city."

"I do not answer to you. Besides, this 'city' is a seething cesspool, overrun with delinquency and greed. I determined that this area required the most immediate attention." The alien slowly hovered into the air, Bruce watching intently. "We will likely meet again. I hope it is under more convenient circumstances."

Bruce was starting to become highly irritated with people flying away from conversations but, alas, this alien did the same thing. As she disappeared into the sky he was left, as usual, glaring at the mist-like clouds swirling above Gotham; pessimistic thoughts running through his head and deducting ways to prepare for the inevitable fight she was going to bring.

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