Disclaimer: The character of Batman is, of course, the property of DC Comics, and the movies are the property of Warner Brothers. No profit is being made from the publication of this story, and no copyright infringement is intended. The character of Connie Tate is an original character of my creation, and she belongs to me.
Author's Note: First of all, to those who have followed my story so far, I apologise for the delay in updating. I've been sick for a couple of weeks and haven't written much in that time, but I'm back now. Reviews are, as always, very much wanted and appreciated.


The screen in front of him was dark, but he could see shadows forming shapes against the light of the moon through a window. And, most importantly, he could see her. So far, everything had gone exactly as he planned it, she had done exactly what he expected her to do, and thus proven herself again as a worthy player. Almost despite himself he hoped she would continue to, now that he was about to throw a second challenge her way. Or rather, her first real challenge. This first one had been a lure, to get her to play with him. If she could be coerced into continue playing after tonight, he would pull out all the stops to make it the game of a lifetime.

A caped figure crouched on the roof of Wayne Tower, scanning the street far below, just as a woman in her late twenties emerged from the front doors of the Tower. The figure watched as she ascended the black, glinting stone steps and joined the people on the sidewalk, heading down 24th Street, before crossing the street and heading down Liberty Avenue. She seemed vaguely familiar to him, but from this high above the ground it was hard to be certain.

The Batman watched as a marked police car sped past on the street below, reminding him that he now faced another obstacle in his fight against crime – the long arm of the law itself. He waited for a few more moments, hearing the sirens of the police car becoming more and more distant, before leaping effortlessly off the parapet he was standing on, and going into freefall. His finger moved to press a small button activating an electric current in his gloves, and as the gloves touched the fabric of his cape he was suddenly no longer falling, but soaring over the rooftops of the city.

The wind carried him for blocks, but eventually he had to find somewhere to land. He was over a residential neighborhood, and landed softy on a sloping, tiled, roof. All he could see as he scanned the area were the blue lights of a television left on, and a cat sneaking out through an open window. Apart from that, everything was quiet.

Behind him, on the other side of the roof, he noticed a small bell tower, and realized that he was standing on the roof of a church. From the street it looked as if it had been squeezed into the space between two apartment buildings, but he guessed that the church had been there first, long before the apartment buildings or the houses across the street were even thought of.

For a moment he stood simply savoring the silence, and allowed himself to be somewhat amazed that there still existed places where the night was silent and calm in the city. In the places where he normally spent his nights, it was never peaceful and seldom quiet.

He was brought quickly out of his reverie when he caught the sound of soft, hurried footsteps approaching. He soon saw the source of the footsteps, a woman dressed in a long, black coat, with shoulder length dark hair walked with firm steps towards the church. Slowly he moved out of the light of the winter moon, and into the shadows he knew so well, and watched the new arrival. He watched as she stopped in front of the wooden doors and hesitated, before slowly venturing up the stone steps, placing one hand on the door and pulled it towards her. To his, and it seemed also to her surprise, the door opened without a sound. Cautiously she entered into the darkness inside. Quickly, before the door slammed shut, he followed her inside, hiding in a dark corner just inside the door.

The sound of the door slamming sounded echoed loudly inside the deserted church, and Connie spun around and looked back, as if to see that someone hadn't followed her inside. She saw nothing, and turned back to face the altar of the church. The moon cast a ghostly light through the ornate, colored glass window that served as a natural focal point above it. Still hesitating, Connie stepped into the cone of light emanating from the window, trying to get her eyes used to the semi-darkness.

So this was St. Catherine's. Well, she was here, but she still had no idea why. She looked around, but saw no one else, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She took a few more hesitant steps, but stopped. Sighing, she forced herself to face the facts. She had no idea what to do, or why she was here, and why was she still here? She should have been home by now; she should have unlocked her front door, thrown her coat on the floor of the hallway, grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down on the sofa that stood lonely in her living room. But here she stood in a deserted church, without a clue as to what, why or whom, all because she could never learn when to leave something alone. With a sigh she sat down on one of the front benches. After all, something could happen. And if it didn't, maybe she would finally learn a lesson.

For a moment she just sat there with her eyes closed, and when she opened them again, she noticed something beside her on the bench. In the darkness it gave off a ghostly green glow, and she realized that it was a computer, more specifically a laptop of the notebook variety. If she hesitated at all, it was only a second before she picked it up and opened it. As she did so a series of images flashed across the screen, so fast she could barely get a glimpse of any of them, much less make anything of them.

Just when the images dissolved and the screen faded to black, a noise, loud and shrill like a siren, reverberated through the building. It was so high in volume and frequency that it made all the windows shatter, and glass rained down from above. In a second, Connie had dropped the laptop and crouched to the floor, her hands covering her ears. The noise didn't last more than a few seconds, but her ears were still buzzing, and her heart was pounding as she got to her feet.

Again she looked around, but she saw nothing now that she hadn't seen when she had entered, and out of nowhere an intense feeling of fear gripped her, a feeling of being watched from somewhere in the shadows. She decided to get out, to walk quickly out of the church, and get home, and try to forget how stupid she had been. Taking a deep breath in an effort to steady herself, she began walking back down the aisle, her eyes firmly fixed on the door.

Batman had stood in the shadows, watching with wonder as events unfolded in front of his eyes. Events that, to him, made no sense. He guessed that the woman had walked into this not knowing anything about what would happen. Her reaction, and the fact that she was now walking away from the whole thing, told him that she was not an accomplice of whoever was behind this. Pointless as it was, it was probably just some bored punk hacker, but still… He needed to know everything, including what she knew. And so, he stepped from the shadows.

Just as Connie reached out a hand to open the door, an arm extended from the darkness, barring her exit. She turned her head to see a black clad figure looming over her, and gasped involuntarily. Despite the darkness she recognized the figure from dozens of newscasts and debate shows. The Batman – hero vigilante turned murderer. A desperate thought ran through her head;
Five people. Five innocent people, in cold blood.

And then, unwillingly;

I'm next…

She jabbed at the shadows, where she assumed his face would be, and felt her fist hit something, but before she could make a run for it, the figure had retaliated, dragging her back into the room. She screamed, and tried to fight free, but she didn't have a chance against someone double her size and many times as quick to move. She found herself kneeling involuntarily as her legs were swept effortlessly from under her, and an arm wrapped itself around her neck. And then, a voice, dark and menacing, more of a growl than a voice;

"I do not want to hurt you. Why are you here?"

The arm around her neck let up ever so slightly, allowing her to breathe freely. She thought for a moment about what to answer. Truth was, she didn't have much of an answer to give, when it came to the reason she was there, his guess would be as good as hers.

"I don't know."

Her voice sounded surprisingly calm, comparing to how she felt.

"Then, what brought you here?"

With some difficulty, because of the arm the same thickness as a small tree still around her neck, Connie nodded towards the front of the room, and the laptop that lay half-opened, still glowing on the floor, amongst thousands of glass shards.

"That, I suppose."

To her surprise, the grip around her neck loosened, and he let her go. Without another word to her, he moved towards the laptop, picked it up with a gloved hand, and looked at it. For several moments he seemed to have forgotten her, and Connie thought about the possibility of trying to run again, but decided against it. He was probably as fast as he was strong, and then she wouldn't come far before he caught up with her. And there was another thing, her fear had abated, and she had become steadily more curious, not just about the mysterious riddle that had brought her there, but about him, whoever…whatever he was. But she was still shaking slightly as she got to her feet, and brushed shards of glass off of her clothes.

"What are you doing?"

The question escaped her lips before she could stop herself, and the second after she had uttered the words she felt his eyes on her, sharply surveying her.

"Someone set you up for this…why?"

Connie shrugged.

"I don't know. Probably some bored guy who thought it would be fun to see if he could trick me into doing what he wanted me to."

"He succeeded."

Connie raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?"

He turned, and looked at her, and she got the feeling that he was studying her more intently now.

"You are here. So he must have succeeded."

His voice was neither accusing nor amused, but simply stating a fact, equal to stating that the sky was blue.

For the tenth time in what seemed like only minutes the thought; Who the hell is this guy?! flashed across Connie's mind. Right now, nothing about him made sense to her. He was a known murderer, on the top of the Gotham PD's most wanted list, he had fighting skills like a top trained soldier, he knew enough about stealth to make himself virtually invisible, and he had a vocabulary to rival Yoda's, and yet, she was still there, and she was still alive.

She watched as the laptop was closed and disappeared in the folds of the long black cloak that hung from his shoulders. He turned and walked towards her, and she felt an involuntary shudder as he stopped right in front of her. She had to tilt her head slightly in order to look into his eyes, together with his mouth and jaw the only features of his face visible. His voice was still like a growl, but in a strange way it sounded softer now.

"Go home. Whoever is behind this did it to lure you in, and scare you. You were lucky. If he contacts you again…don't take the bait."

He walked away from her, and without as much as a look back at her, he disappeared in the same shadows he had emerged from. Connie stood for several moments staring into the darkness before she started to walk.