"Where are you going, Lord?" the Irishman, Father McCallough, asked. He expected the Batman to stay and fight. To try and save himself. They were doing this for his sake, he had been polluted by "heroes". Those flagrant infidels like Captain America, Wonder Woman, the Flash. False gods all. It was their task, the Brotherhood, to ensure his sanctity. Still, he expected their mighty Lord to put up some resistance.

The Reaper roared and slashed out like a well oiled machine with her sickle hands. Batman ducked and felt the ears on top of his mask slice off, landing dejectedly in the yellow, downy grass. No time to worry about them, they weren't important. Before they hit the ground her left hand swung out, missing his ripped stomach by inches. He grabbed her shoulder, trying for a grip. She sneered and pounded the mace at the end of her sickle into his face. Rolling with the impact, he twisted and landed on his torn stomach.

"Aaagh!" he screamed. It burned like fire. He put a black gloved hand to the wound and pulled back red. He was bleeding. Bad.

The Reaper roared and he saw that even her teeth had been replaced with metal. Shining razors sprouting from blood clotted gums glinted in the gray light of the moon as she raised her sickle fists and leaped at him. Here was his chance to find out what was going on. The traitor, Hurland, the one who had been in his cave told him they were coming. Coming where? He had to know if that was a ruse or if Shilo and Alfred were in danger as well. Her sickles broke through the rain deprived ground and clung, holding the edges of his cape down like the tacked up wings of a butterfly. Like an animal she screamed then lunged to bite him. He groaned as he dropped back onto his palms then kicked her face away. God, he thought, he was going to need help.

"You!" Batman roared as he limped over to the Father. "Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

"My name is Father Brian McCallough," the Father said.

"No it's not. McCallough is Scottish. You're Irish. I want your real name. I'm tired of playing games with you people."

"Brian McCallough," the Father said again. "My mother was a fine Irish lass. A shame she lacked faith."

What did he mean? No time to worry about it. Batman grabbed the man with the blood red bat on his face and pulled him close. He was getting weak, lethargic. The cut on his stomach was bleeding badly and wearing him down.

"Your man - Hurland - said that you were coming when he was in my home," he shook the Irishman, his yellow and red face smiled graciously. "When you have been saved my brothers and sisters will see to it that your spoilers pay for their intrusion in your sanctity."

They were going to his home. He knew it now. Hurland had been modified - butchered - just like his victims on the Gothamtrak subway. Just like the girl writhing and screaming like a madwoman behind him as she tried to pull her sickle hands out of the Earth. They knew where the Cave was. How to get there. They were good.

"I'll kill you if your men so much as touch them," Batman said, confident McCallough knew all about his friends and family.

"No, you won't, Lord," McCallough said. "You won't kill me because you're above it. You are the son of God--"

He heard the sound of guns, a crowd of then, clicking as their owners prepared to shoot him. He glanced over his shoulder. Men and women from the commune, bats seared onto some of their faces, not all, stood with rifles at ready. Militant communes, the thought made him want to laugh but it was hardly the time.

"You will fight the Reaper," McCallough said. "You will die an honorable death. And you will live forever in our hearts."

His stomach ached as he turned to find some of the villagers had helped the Reaper loose. She stood heaving in front of him, ready for round two. He looked at McCallough who smiled like a small child.

"Go," McCallough said.

There was no other choice.

This wasn't Bruce.

The men and women, five all told, stopped short as they swung their crowbars and wielded their automatic weapons. They had destroyed the computer and vandalized many of Bruce's memorabilia. He wouldn't be happy about that. They saw him outlined against the light of the Manor's hallway in the darkness and, without a word to one another, charged after him.

Alfred hurried to shut the clock. Locking them inside. They would break loose, of course. He knew that. Still, he needed a moment to get his own weapon. He could hide in the Manor, he had lived here for thirty five years. They would never know its many nooks and crannies as well as he did but they would demolish the house until they found him. Hiding wouldn't help matters. Playing their game in this house would.

He caught his breath then ran to get his gun.

The woman bruised and bled at his attacks but they didn't stop her. She was a machine now. A holy machine bent on his destruction. He had taken a batarang in each hand to up his effectiveness but nothing had come of that either. They were battling through the streets of the commune now. Families sat on their ramshackle front porch as their Reaper chased him through the streets. They watched with an insane awe. Children clapped and cheered her, their amazement with the Bat hidden to their reprimanding parents. He would be praised when this was done.

She was backing him into a house. A small light burned in one of the windows. Someone was home. He hoped they didn't get caught in her path since she didn't seem to care if she killed every one of them so long as she ripped him apart. He kicked her in the face, her nose breaking under his boot and blood spilling down her face. No good. She screamed but that was the extent of it.

He ducked and hit her in her breadbasket between her naked breasts as her sickles cut through the half rotted wood of the front door. She kneed him in the face, knocking him onto his back, then raised her right hand and hammered the sickle attached there down towards him. Without thinking he grabbed it, inches from his face, and she began to press down against him. She roared as she brought her left hand careening through the air towards his skull. He flipped over, the burning in his half clotted stomach muscles returning as he ripped the wound open again, and kicked her. Nothing happened besides the termite infested porch splintered beneath both of her sickles.

Disregarding the torn open floorboards she yanked out her sickles and charged again. He readied himself, crouched in a fighting stance, and considered trying to blow out her knees. If only he had time to reach into his belt, he thought, but doubted it would do better than anything else he had tried. The blood pouring out of her broken nose mingled and interbred with the foam pouring out of her razor filled mouth she ran towards him then, abruptly, fell through the floor.

He sighed heavily then, taking advantage of this sure to be short lived respite, reached for his communicator. He had to make sure Shilo and Alfred were okay. They were coming to the Manor.

"What have you done--" a woman said behind him. He turned to see her tear stained face, she had a gun in her hand like ninety percent of her neighbors but held it limply at her side. "What have you done to my daughter?"

"Come on out, old man," the woman with a bat shaped scar on her face said as she entered the bedroom. He held his breath as he stood behind the door. She was coming in, knife in hand, to gut him. He kicked the door into her face, hoping to knock her out, but only stunning her. She dropped the knife onto the floor and stumbled. The butt of his gun slapped her jaw and she toppled.

Three down. Two more.

"What have you done to Ana?!" the Italian woman screamed as she beat his chest. "What have you done to her?!"

"Nothing," Batman said, trying to sooth her but not particularly in the mood for crying jags over someone who was trying to rend him to pieces, no matter whose daughter she was.

"You lie!"

"No," he said, a little harsher than he intended. "I haven't done anything. It was your Father. The Irishman."

She looked at him, tears streaming down her face. "You lie! He said you would lie! Try to deceive us! He said they had tarnished you, the outsiders! I didn't believe him but he was right!"

He heard her coming. The woman, her mother, apparently didn't care if she killed him. Batman turned to see the Reaper running towards them.

"Get down!" he screamed as he grabbed the Italian woman and pulled her to the floor with him. She was stunned, trying to mumble words, string together sentences, to express her grief at seeing her daughter like this.

"Run!" Batman yelled. "Get out of here!"

"I will not run. She is my daughter," the woman said. She got up with some effort then walked over to the monster before her.

The Reaper breathed heavily as her mother studied what had become of her.

"This . . . This is your holy mission?" Her mother cried. "Oh, my Ana!"

She reached out her arms to embrace the bleeding monstrosity and the Reaper lashed out. One sickle slashed her face while the other ripped through her heart. The Reaper screamed as she did this, she didn't want to do it. She had known this woman or at least thought she had. It was His fault.

Batman was stunned. Too stunned to move. Reaper screamed what sounded like "NooMoth!" then dug her blood stained sickle into his thigh. Batman screamed in pain, nearly passing out from the intense hurting in his stomach, leg, and now pounding head. She raised her other hand for the killing blow. There was no other choice, he realized, as he reached for the mother's gun. She wasn't human anymore, not really. It would be a mercy killing.

The sickle flew towards his face then he was gone. The Reaper turned her battered head to see her Lord laying on the floor to her side, his leg and stomach bleeding profusely from her wounds. He held a gun in his hand and pointed it at her face. There was an explosion then the computer relay systems in front of her eyes flickered and went black.

Father McCallough ran into the house at the sound. He looked at Reaper, then hard at Batman.

"You are not holy," McCallough sneered. "You are the Devil."

He pulled a remote control out of his back pocket. "Do you see this, Satan? It is a control. With one push of this button I will send all of these lost souls to their maker. They will be saved from your deception."

"Time to die," the last man said, a gun pressed to Alfred's temple.

"Don't try to deceive me, Satan!"

"Put it down," Batman sneered. He wasn't bound but, rather, hurt too badly to do anything. He doubted if he could even stand.

McCallough sneered then kicked him in the face. "I am a servant of the Lord!"

Batman spat blood onto the dirt. He turned to the commune's citizens. "Listen to me. He's going to kill you. Do you see the thing he holds in his hand? Do you?! He's going to kill you all. Stand up, you fools! Help me! You're all going to die!"

There was a wave of whispered discussion amongst the gathered villagers. Dissention was taking seed. They couldn't die if He was the Devil. What would happen to them? McCallough sought to damn them all.

"Listen to me!!!" Batman screamed. His head was swimming.

"Mother," a young child asked. "Should we listen to the Deciever?"

"I . . . don't know . . . "

"I have nothing to live for," the man snarled. "My Lord has deceived me. All I have left is to destroy him."

"Why?"

"Don't question me, unbeliever!"

"I . . . I'm not . . . You say the Batman is your Master?"

"Yes. He was . . . "

"He wouldn't want you to do this."

"He doesn't matter anymore. He has been polluted and tarnished by people like you."

"No . . . No I help him. I'm his disciple as well."

The gunman was quieted by this.

"I help him when he's hurt, when he doesn't know what to do. He's just a man. Men need help."

"Don't try to double talk me, old man."

"Why haven't you shot me yet?"

"What?"

"You haven't killed me but you say you want to destroy Him. What's stopping you, young man?"

"I . . . "

"You don't want to take a life, do you?"

The man shook his head. Alfred couldn't see this but took his silence to mean that he didn't.

"He wouldn't want you doing this, you know."

"I know . . . "

"Put the gun down."

"No!"

"Then shoot me. Kill me and be on your way but, you have to realize, he will find you. Your Master. Whatever you do to him he will overcome then he will hunt you down. He'll find you wherever you go."

"No . . . I'm helping him."

"No you're not."

"I know," the gunman sobbed, unexpectedly. "I only wanted to do what was right and help Him. Father McCallough said he needed help . . . I . . . I didn't know what else to do."

"You'll think of something," Alfred said as he took a frying pan from the wall and based the man in the head. He felt sorry for the young man but couldn't give him the opportunity to kill him.

"Shut up, McCallough," Batman said woozily. He was about to pass out.

"Father?" one of the men said.

"Yes, my son?"

"I think . . . " He looked around. "I think he should be put on his feet. It's not fair to kill a man like this . . . "

"It's also not fair to commit mass murder," Batman murmured. He was trying to get McCallough angry. If he got the Father angry enough he might actually have them lift him up. The commune was ripe with fear and dissention. They realized now that Batman, their Lord, was their only hope. McCallough was a lunatic.

"What?!" McCallough screamed. "I am saving these people, you dog!"

Batman laughed bitterly. He had to stay a wake just a while longer. "You're crazy. You've been drinking too much . . . Just like your beautiful mother. Tell me something, McCallough, did the pretty lassie leave your father for a sheep?"

"Raa!" McCallough screamed, he swung out to punch Batman. "Die! Die you monster! You Devil of Hell!"

The commune citizens watched in horror as McCallough beat upon him. He was going to kill their Lord.

"We have to help him!" a young boy yelled. He charged McCallough who turned and slapped him down. His father stepped up and made to punch the Father, his friends and neighbors following him.

"Stand back!" McCallough yelled. "Lay hands on me and I will send you to damnation!" He screamed as he displayed the control. The commune citizens froze dead in their tracks. McCallough grinned like a madman.

"I am in control! I am the Messenger of the Lord!"

"McCallough," Batman choked.

McCallough looked down at the wretch below him with wild eyes.

"Catch," Batman said, using the last of his strength to knock the control out of his hands. McCallough and the commune citizens both stood stark still as it flipped through the air. A young girl snatched it and gave it to her mother who smiled as she took it then nodded to the rest of them. McCallough screamed as they flooded over him.

"Lord . . . " the boy had led the attack whispered as he knelt over Batman's fallen body.

Batman looked at him, the darkness of unconsciousness swimming around the corners of his vision.

"Thank you," Batman whispered. "I knew you would save me."

"How did you know?"

"Faith."