The wind was loud at this height, which made listening difficult, but Batman's voice carried well enough and Finn had learned to focus through worse conditions than a cold headwind on the back of a flying dragon.
"The kingdom was not always called the Kingdom of El," Batman began. "It was the Kingdom of Wayne. My family's kingdom. King Thomas Wayne ruled it with my mother, Queen Martha Wayne."
He paused for a moment, his cape pulling flat in the wind.
"One night, something fell from the sky. The witnesses said it looked like a meteor, bright enough to see from the capital. When troops arrived at where it landed, they found two people. A man and a woman, both of them looking human enough that the troops didn't immediately know what to make of them. The woman was giving birth."
"From the sky?" Ciri said.
"From the sky," Batman confirmed. "Their names were Jor-El and Lara. They didn't involve themselves with the kingdom at first. They took their child into the woods and raised him there, away from everyone. Nobody paid them much attention. There were stranger things in the world at the time."
Richard shifted his position behind Finn. "Tell them about Luthor."
"I was getting to that." Batman's jaw tightened slightly. "The kingdom had an advisor at the time. Lex Luthor. A capable man, by most accounts, before pride got the better of him. The Els discovered that the volcano near the kingdom's border was showing signs of an imminent eruption. They brought this to Luthor. He dismissed them. He didn't want to be told what to do by two people who lived in his woods."
"So the volcano erupted," Finn said.
Batman nodded. "The volcano erupted. Luthor's inaction nearly destroyed the kingdom. The Els intervened, used their abilities openly for the first time, and saved a significant part of the population and the capital itself. After that, Luthor was disgraced. The Els were brought into the court as advisors in his place. They exposed what they were, what they could do, and my father accepted them."
"And Luthor?" Ciri asked.
"Disappeared. For a long time." Batman's voice went flat. "We will get to that."
The ground below was still forest, endless green rolling underneath Beast Boy's wings. Finn looked at it for a moment then turned back.
"The kingdom prospered under the advice of The Els," Batman continued. "Their knowledge, the things they brought from wherever they came from, advanced the kingdom faster than any of its neighbours. The people accepted them. It was, by most measures, a good time."
He stopped again.
"It was during this time that my mother had a brief affair with Jor-El. I did not know this until recently. I don't know what King Thomas thought of it. What I do know is that he raised me as if I'm his own son without reservation. He could not bear children of his own so I suppose that affects his opinion of the affair as a whole. Whatever he felt about it privately, he never let it reach me." A pause. "He was a good man, if not pitiable."
Nobody said anything for a moment.
"Then Luthor came back," Richard said, filling the silence.
"Then Luthor came back," Batman agreed. "He had spent his years in exile studying magic. He used it to assassinate both my mother and King Thomas while they were travelling. I was there. I saw it."
The wind filled the gap he left.
"After that," he said, "I swore that anything unnatural in this kingdom would be removed. Imprisoned. I believed that what killed my parents was what comes of allowing unnatural things to exist and grow unchecked."
Raven spoke from further back. "Your actions were guided by rage, not thought. Not everything unnatural is a monster. Not every monster is unnatural."
Batman turned his head slightly toward her. "I know that now. I am aware." He said it without defensiveness, which was somehow worse. "I also decided that I had no right to the throne. I am a bastard. The Els were the ones who had saved the kingdom, who had advanced it, who had the abilities to protect it where I could not. I asked them to take the crown. Their children, Kal-El and Zala, are the heirs of their new dynasty."
Finn turned that over. "And you think that was a good decision? In hindsight?"
"The Els' abilities have kept the kingdom safe for decades. No neighbouring kingdom has dared to move against us directly because of what The Els are capable of. They have brought knowledge that we would have taken centuries to reach on our own." Batman looked forward. "By most measures, yes. It was the right decision."
"It is somewhat ironic," Kory said from her position on Beast Boy's left shoulder, where she had been floating alongside for the past few minutes rather than sitting. "You made people with unnatural powers the rulers of your kingdom while hunting everyone else with unnatural powers."
Batman said nothing to that. There was nothing to say to it.
Finn decided to move the conversation along. "What about the Kingdom of Storms? And the Amazons? You mentioned both before and I still don't know what either of them has to do with the war."
Batman exhaled. "The Kingdom of Storms is our neighbour. Their king, Jefferson Pierce, was a tolerant man. More tolerant than most. His family carries an innate ability to summon and control weather, which made him somewhat more understanding of unnatural abilities in general. He was never our enemy by choice."
"His advisor," Richard added. "John Constantine. Tell them about Constantine."
"...Constantine had a vision," Batman said. "He claimed to have seen a group of people arriving from the sky, people who would look human, act human, mingle with humans, but were not human. His vision told him that these people would bring destruction to the land."
Ciri's expression shifted. "He thought it was the Els."
Batman nodded.
"Prophecy," Finn muttered, mostly to himself. "Bites you every time you think you have a hold of it."
"So they say," Batman said.
"And the Amazons?" Ciri pressed. "Are they your enemy as well?"
Richard answered this one. "The Amazons are an island nation. All women. They produced some of the finest warriors in the known world and they keep to themselves for the most part. They have treaties with their neighbours, binding ones, obligations of mutual defense. So when King Jefferson Pierce was assassinated recently, his daughter, Queen Annisa, declared war on the Kingdom of El in response, honour-bound by their treaty, Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons had to answer her call."
Ciri frowned. "Assassinated by who?"
"They are accusing Princess Zala," Richard said.
Batman went very still. "What?"
"That is my reaction as well, Bruce."
"Zala would not do that." Batman's voice had lost its flatness. "She would not. Something is deeply wrong here."
Then the treeline below them ran out.
The forest simply ended and what replaced it spread in every direction below them, three armies at full clash, the lines of them broken and tangled together. Fire and lightning and things that had no natural explanation moved through the mass of soldiers. The earth in patches had gone black. The sound of it reached them even at this height, a low constant noise of screams and the clinging of steel.
Batman's fist closed slowly on the ridge of Beast Boy's back.
"We are too late…" he said.