The children listened with baited breath, their jaws hung open and eyes bulged, as the old woman told them about Him. Her raspy voice lilting and falling with perfection inflection as she described the action.

"Can I see the picture?" Bartram asked from behind her hip.

She turned on an aching back and happily showed the boy the newspaper clip inside of the book. She smiled her toothless smile as the little boy lit up.

"He's something, isn't he?"

Bartram nodded. The rest of the children never so much as blinked as she told them more of the story. When they grew they would come to question her facts and logic, the way the adults did. They believed, of course, they knew better than to doubt but they would become disenchanted when they found out that not everything in the world was as good and pure as He was. For right now, though, the children loved Sunday school.

"Yes," Father McCallough said, rubbing his hand across the back of his head. "Have a seat, my lad."

A pretty young woman with bronze hair that fell out of her hood smiled at him and nodded that he could sit beside her. The priest looked at his seniors then smiled sheepishly and sat down.

Of all the buildings at the compound, Father McCallough's office was the nicest. Spacious and wide enough for the twelve priests to be able to spread out and recline comfortably but not festooned or dirtied with anything but the most necessary amenities. The Father's desk, three couches, three chairs, a window that looked out on the grounds and, behind the Father's head, a huge bat painted in the blood of unbelievers.

"Why have you called us here, Father?" Mordan, a rat faced priest asked, not unkindly.

The Father took a drink and looked around at them for a moment before he spoke. "Tell me . . . how go the Sunday school services this morning?"

"Well, Father," the pretty young priest, Ana, said. Her voice didn't fit her soft features. He had saved her from an abusive husband who had tried to slit her throat. She never let anyone see it without her scarf because of the staples. Still, the young priest thought she was beautiful. "We could all learn from the children's faith."

"Mm."

"Father?" Kasdan, a fat priest who, when he still knew of such things, the young priest had thought resembled Friar Tuck, said.

The Father raised his eyebrows, signaling the fat man to go on.

"Is something wrong?"

The Father glared at his glass. Something was very wrong. "My faith, Brother Kasdan. I find myself questioning my faith."

"Have you prayed to Him?" Kasdan asked earnestly.

"No," the Father said after a beat. "No, I fear it wouldn't do any good."

"Father…?" Ana asked, her gravelly voice filled with doubt.

McCallough stood and went to the window with his glass. He took a sip and leaned his arm against it. It was so beautiful outside. His father's creation. The Blessed One had saved him so he could be here to witness the wonder of his Father's world and he had the hatefulness to doubt him. No, he was right. He was right. The Lord had fallen but it wasn't his fault. He had been polluted.

"We have to do something," Father McCallough said. "He is being destroyed and he doesn't even know it."

The priest waited in stoic silence as McCallough turned to them then began to pace the length of the room. His heavy footfalls making the floorboards squeak. "It is the outside world which we have rejected that is destroying our Lord's integrity. The children, the man they learn about, is gone or, if he isn't, he won't last for long. Soon he will all but be replaced with a human no better than any of us who will associate with the decadence of the outsiders. Captain America, the Amazon, the alien. I wish we had the power to help Him. If we could just vanquish them… He would be safe."

"What of the boy?" Mordan asked. He liked this discussion and wanted to see where it was going.

"The boy? Yes, he is a spoiler. But, unlike the others, he doesn't ruin His sanctity. He's just a tempt that we may see how holy He truly is. The boy is a threat but the Lord is strong enough to resist him."

"He wasn't always there," Ana rasped.

"No," McCallough said. "No, he wasn't always there. Perhaps he was a sign that God was going to test his Son. To see how strong he was. My brothers, we cannot let him fail in the eyes of the Father."

"What will happen if he does?" the young priest asked nervously.

"Armageddon," Kasdan whispered.

"Yes," McCallough said. "The End of All. Even we, the faithful, will be at risk then. Damnation isn't as far away as it was when he found us."

"Then . . . What can we do?" the young priest asked.

McCallough had crossed back to his desk, his back turned to the priests. He turned with a letter opener in his right hand.

"Aloro," the Father said to an older woman priest on the edge of one of the couches.

"Yes, Father?"

"If I told you, Aloro, that your very soul was to be damned if you didn't put this blade in your heart what would you do?"

Aloro was quiet, watching from beneath her hood. Not sure what to say.

"What if He told you this?"

"I . . . I would do it."

McCallough handed her the knife. "The Lord tells you to slay yourself in his name."

Aloro's eyes widened behind the shadows of her hood. She looked at the bloody bat behind McCallough's desk and felt the tears in her eyes when she heard the voice. His voice. The Lord's own. He wanted her to do it, for his sake. She took the letter opener in her shaking hands and held it up to the bloody bat.

"For you . . . " she said then grasped it with both hands and forced the blunt blade through her chest. She fell onto her knees as she struggled to breath.

"Aloro is faithful," the Father said. "She has given her very life for the Lord. He has no such choice. We have to save Him ourselves."

"What do you mean?" Mordan asked, a sinister smile on his face as he watched Aloro fall onto the letter opener, blood seeping from her mouth.

McCallough looked at the all, studying each of their faces. "For the sake of our children's souls, for those about to die, for those not yet saved, yes, even for ourselves we must kill the Bat."

"Gun runners . . . " he said simply.

The gunmen were all silent, waiting for someone to fire first.

"Aw, I was hoping for a challenge," the boy said.

The Bat smiled wolfishly then snapped back to his trademark sneer as a blackout bomb hit the concrete floor and enveloped the tiny light.

"Shoot him! Shoot him!" One of them yelled. He was down a second later as a boot hit him in the stomach, then another in the face.

"Aaahh!!" Danny Marcioni screamed as he ran backward into the darkness fired his piece. A metal stick hit him in the elbow, deadening his arm, then there was a muted click, barely audible over the gunfire, and the boy, launched from his staff, kicked him with both feet, breaking his nose.

"Batman!" a thug with a death wish screamed. He held his fire as the light began to shine through the darkness. He was going to stand there, perfectly still, and he wasn't going to panic. That was when he got you. When you stopped thinking. Guy Parnaci wasn't a fool. He would stand perfectly still and shoot the Bat in the face.

A tap on the shoulder. Guy turned.

"Hi," Batman said. Guy stammered and hurried to shoot him. Too slow. A hard right hook sent him sprawling through the air, breaking the swinging light fixture above him.

There was a stampede of feet coming from all directions.

"You locked the doors?" Batman asked.

"Yeah," Robin said, hoping he was looking at Batman in the darkness.

"If you need help scream."

"You wish."

"Where'd he go?"

A chop to either side of his head and Mario Perez didn't wonder where Batman was anymore.

"Ooooh, crap," Lenny Getz stammered. He tried to run but was tripped. He passed out long before his chin hit the concrete.

"The cops! The cops! The place is freaking surrounded!" one of the thugs yelled, uncharacteristically helpful to his business partners.

They all turned to run, the three of them that hadn't run out into the street. In the moonlight streaming in through the warehouse's broken and half boarded up windows they saw the outstretched wings then he was on them in a flurry of kicks and punches.

He looked out into the alley when he had finished them off. Gordon and his men had the others all against the side of the brick wall when there hands on their heads. They all had choice words for him, he was sure. It didn't matter. More scum off the streets. He grabbed the sides of his cloak and ran back to find his partner.

"Did you get the rest?" he asked as the boy came to a stop inches before running into him.

"Yeah," he said. "Three Mafioso goons laying in a pile beside the door. Boy, they could scream."

"Mm," the Bat grunted.

"Hey--"

He put a hand to the boy's mouth.

"What are you doing?" Robin mumbled into his leather glove.

"Shut up."

There it was again. A click then whirr. Someone was taking pictures of him. Studying him, no doubt.

"Stay here."

"Huh? Why?"

He didn't answer as he ran for the stairs and vanished into the darkness. He was outside a moment later. They didn't know he was there. He wondered if he had timed it just right. They were using infra red. As long as the camera wasn't on they couldn't see him. A cloaked figure hovering over the smashed skylight. He wasn't going to be able to creep up on them with the gravel. The direct approach, then, he thought.

"Who are you?"

The cloak, stunned, jumped back. They clasped the camera to their chest like a mother in a fire, determined it stay intact. Batman approached them cautiously, his cape drawn across him and a batarang ready in case they pulled a weapon.

"It-- It's you . . . "

"Give me the camera and you won't get hurt."

"You won't hurt me . . . You saved me."

Batman reached out to take it, grabbing the cloak's arm. He began to struggle and yelp, trying like mad to get away. He was afraid to have the Bat touch him, what it might do to human flesh.

"Stop," Batman said. "Stop it!"

Unkempt nails ripped across his face. He jerked his head away then squeezed down on their shoulder, numbing their arm and landed a blow across the jaw. The camera clattered to the ground.

"Now," Batman said as he stepped over the cloak. He stopped short.

A woman, no more than twenty, lay in front of him. Her long auburn hair fell over her face but hid nothing from him. A black bat was tattooed across her eyes and nose like a mask, staples glinted in the moonlight on her neck.

"Please . . . "

"Who are you?"

He knelt down to help her up and she would always hate herself for doing it but she had to get back with the footage. It was for his own good. In one rapid movement she lifted his mask and emptied half a container of pepper spray into his face. He screamed and fell back while she picked up her camera, readjusted her hood, then vanished.

She had to get back.