Author's Note: I am so, so sorry.

Billionaire Bruce Wayne awoke to the familiar smell of damp cave walls and the unfamiliar smell of flowers. He sat up, realizing almost immediately that he was not in the Batcave. Sunlight shone from far above him. He ran though a number of possible scenarios that would have resulted in his presence here without memory of how he had ended up in such a place. He looked around, noting that he had been lying on a suspiciously dense and rectangular bed of yellow flowers and stood up and backed away from them. There was a high probability that this was the work of Poison Ivy, which meant those flowers could have any number of mutated properties. They appeared quite similar to buttercups, but were much larger than Ranunculus repens naturally grew.

He was in his suit, but his utility belt appeared to be missing, along with most of his equipment, most notably his grappling hook. He would be unable to simply grapple his way out of this cave. This was most certainly a cause for alarm. It meant that whoever had brought him here not only managed to kidnap him without his knowledge, but had either disabled or evaded the many safeguards and traps he'd put in place to prevent the belt from being stolen. He had to find some way out before they, whoever they were, returned. He would be able to learn why he was brought here and retrieve his belt later.

The cave only led to one direction. He had no choice. So with no tools, no real knowledge of where he was, and very few clues, he headed the only way he could. Forward.

He walked down a fairly straight tunnel, and discovered an doorway-like opening framed by two pillars. He didn't recognize the architecture, but could tell by the erosion of the stone that it had been there for a long time. He entered it.

Away from the sunlight patch of flowers, the cave was dark, but he was accustomed to the darkness and unfazed by it. The ground here was stone, and he could hear his footsteps echo throughout the larger cavern that he had entered.

There was a small, lit area in front of him, and in the center of it, a single yellow flower. He was wary, but curious about its presence. As he approached, it spoke to him, and he froze on the spot in surprise.

"Howdy! I'm FLOWEY," it said, "FLOWEY the FLOWER." Its voice was childish and light.

Batman blinked. The flower had two eyes and a mouth. It peered at him and he tensed, wondering if it were one of Poison Ivy's creations.

"Hmmm..." Flowey was smiling. "You're new to the UNDERGROUND, aren'tcha? Golly, you must be so confused."

He was confused, and the talking flower wasn't helping.

"Someone ought to teach you how things work around here!" The flower continued to talk, not even waiting for Batman to respond. "I guess little old me will have to do. Ready? Here we go!" Suddenly, his surroundings darkened completely and he felt something being pulled out of him. That something appeared right in front of his chest, and just so happened to be a red, glowing... heart? It wasn't a real heart, certainly, but whatever it was had apparently come out of him, and illusion or not, that was unnerving.

The flower didn't miss a beat. "See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being. Your soul starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV."

Batman discovered that while the glowing red heart, apparently his soul, was pulled out like this, he was forced to wait. He clenched his fist. He'd fallen into a trap, and this flower was taking its time to spring it.

"What does LV stand for?" continued the flower, as if Batman had asked, which he did not, "Why, LOVE of course! You want some LOVE, don'tcha? Don't worry, I'll share some with you!" Flowey winked and stuck out his tongue.

Batman just waited patiently for the flower to finish. Five while bullets appeared behind Flowey.

"Down here, LOVE is shared through... little white... 'friendliness pellets.' Are you ready? Move around, get as many as you can!"

The white bits started to converge on him. He covered himself with his cape and sidestepped out of the way and flatly said "I'd rather not." Normally, in this darkness, he would be nearly impossible to see, but the red glowing soul shone through the cape as if it weren't even there. He heard muted footsteps approaching.

The flower's grin shifted into a sinister smile and the voice took a menacing tone. "You know what's going on here, don't you? Well, that's not going to save you. DIE."

The white pellets suddenly surrounded him from all sides and began to close in around him while the flower laughed.

As suddenly as they came, the bullets disappeared, and a ball of fire seemed to knock over the flower without burning it. What appeared to be an anthropomorphic goat approached and looked at the flower disapprovingly.

"What a miserable creature, torturing a defenseless SOUL..." When the furry humanoid turned back to look at the human, he'd already disappeared.

Batman watched the goat woman look for him. His soul was no longer visible or glowing, and he was safely hidden in the Shadows. He re-evaluated his situation. The flower most certainly had ill intentions towards him, but didn't seem to have any connection to Poison Ivy, or in fact any of his known enemies. And whatever it did to him... if it were to be believed, it had pulled his soul from his body and forced him to wait for its attacks. He had no way to counter that. He would have to avoid such encounters as much as he could.

Were it not for the... goat woman... the flower would certainly have killed him. He blamed himself for not being careful. He'd been focused on moving forward and was nowhere near prepared for what happened.

He'd dealt with his fair share of strange circumstances, but this came with no explanation. Where was he? How did he get here? How was he going to leave?

He stealthily followed the goat person to another entrance. She entered it seemingly unaware of the man following her.

The sight of the entrance bolstered his resolve and filled him with determination.

He wouldn't be caught off guard like that again. He would find his way out of wherever he was and confront who or what was responsible for bringing him here.

Author's note: It takes me weeks to write a single chapter of a serious fanfic, but this whole chapter is just a couple hours of work.

I need more practice with writing Batman. Ugh. Yeah, sorry, it's a bit of a slow start.

Addendum: Now EDITED with the help of a friend, AutumnLeavesInTheWind. I don't actually remember if she has an account here.