A/N Can I just say (again) that I hate fight scenes? Even the simplest ones give me the most wretched writer's block. Sigh. This chapter was so supposed to be up yesterday.

On a much happier note, THANK YOU for the gorgeous reviews you all left for the last two chapters! My private wish was that I would get 50, and you guys gave me more than 60! I feel so spoiled!

Disclaimer After an intensive and expensive therapy session, I have at last remembered what it is that I am supposed to say here: I do not own … do not own … do not … Darn. There goes my five hundred bucks.

Disclaimer 2 I generally avoid using excess profanity in my writing, and because of this, I wanted to warn you all that I've chosen to use some much stronger language than usual in this chapter. However, it's confined to one segment of the chapter, so if you're concerned about it, just skip the section that begins with the label INTERVIEW WITH BRUCE WAYNE and ends with a page break line. You won't miss anything vital since the important points of the interview will be reviewed via Gordon's thoughts.

Chapter 19

There was once a baroness whose cruel husband forbade her on pain of death ever to leave the castle where they lived. But defying his orders, she crossed the drawbridge one morning when he was absent and went to visit a person whom she loved very much. When she returned, she found a madman guarding the bridge with a terrible sword. "Unless you give me a basketful of gold, I shall not let you cross the bridge. If you try to cross without paying, I will kill you." Knowing her husband would return by sunset, the Baroness hurried to the house of her wealthy former lover to borrow the money, but he said, "You betrayed me to marry the baron. I owe you nothing." Next, she petitioned her old mother, but the woman refused, saying, "Your ransom would take everything I have left to live on. If I give it to you, I will starve to death." Finally, she went to the house of her best friend, but although the woman offered sympathy, she possessed no money at all. Finally, the baroness begged a boatman to ferry her across to the castle, but because she had no money to pay his fee, he refused. Desperate, the baroness tried to rush across the bridge and was slain by the madman.

Who was most responsible for the baroness's death?

-Traditional Philosophy 101 Puzzle

"The transcripts you requested, sir."

Gordon accepted the folder from the excessively polite sergeant and nodded her dismissal. Sighing, he glanced wistfully around the cluttered and shabby appointments of his familiar office. Sooner or later he was going to have to move into Loeb's old quarters in City Hall, and he wasn't looking forward to it. He'd been putting off the transfer on the excuse that things were already confused enough at the moment, although having to run things from temporary quarters didn't made it easy for his new chief of police, either.

Pushing the irritating thought of moving away, he opened the folder, scanning portions of the recorded interviews from that afternoon.

INTERVIEW WITH GLADYS AYLMER, SCHOOL SECRETARY. CONDUCTED BY DET. REYNALDO CURTIS.

CURTIS: When did you first become aware that shots were being fired in the school?

AYLMER: I was in the school office, working at my desk. The front wall is glass, but it's very close to the front of the school, and the school walls are very thick. I didn't actually hear the shots, but I saw a student, Richard Grayson, he was out to take his driving test this morning, and he'd just come through the front door. He was coming to the office to check in, when he suddenly turned and ran down the hall. I went after him to see what was wrong, and when I went around the corner, I saw David …

CURTIS: It's all right, just take your time.

AYLMER: I'm sorry. It's just, we've never had anything like this happen at Bailey. We're not some inner city school with gangs. David had a gun, and he was marching Richard down the hallway. He threatened to shoot anyone who intervened.

INTERVIEW WITH AMANDA IRVING, SOPHOMORE. CONDUCTED BY DET. EDWIN GREEN.

GREEN: So you ran out of the classroom to find Richard and warn him. Did you?

IRVING: Yes. I thought he'd still be near the front doors, since I'd just seen him in the parking lot and you have to check in at the office if you come to school in the middle of the day. I found him in the hall, and I told him we had to get out of the school because David was going to kill him. But he wouldn't go. He just kept asking where David was, and then he found us.

GREEN: Who found you, Amanda?

IRVING: David. He pointed his gun at us, and he made Rick go with him.

INTERVIEW WITH BARBARA GORDON, SENIOR. CONDUCTED BY DET. REYNALDO CURTIS.

CURTIS: So the other students went into the classroom, but you kept going, even though you could have gone in to safety?

GORDON: I told you, I've had some self-defense training. I thought maybe I could help.

CURTIS: What happened next?

GORDON: The next people I saw were Amanda Irving, Ms. Aylmer, and Bruce Wayne.

CURTIS: Bruce Wayne? What was he doing there?

GORDON: I don't know. Maybe he dropped Rick off at school. He was out this morning. I think Amanda said it was for his driving test. We're all in the same class.

CURTIS: Did he say anything?

GORDON: Yeah. Amanda told him David had Rick at gunpoint, and Mr. Wayne asked where. But she didn't know, so he put his phone up to his ear, and he asked Alfred for a location.

CURTIS: Who is Alfred?

GORDON: He's the butler.

CURTIS: The butler?

GORDON: They're billionaires. Anyway, the next second Mr. Wayne wants to know how to get into the basement, so I took him to the closest door, which was open. I tried to go down with him, but he wouldn't let me. He told me that someone needed to stay upstairs and tell the police where to find the wounded.

CURTIS: Did you tell him people had been shot?

GORDON: No.

INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD GRAYSON, SOPHOMORE. CONDUCTED BY COMMISSIONER JAMES GORDON.

GRAYSON: I parked, went inside to register in the office, but I heard shots, so I went to see what was going on.

GORDON: You knew they were gunshots?

GRAYSON: I shoot skeet sometimes, at the club. I know what a rifle shot sounds like.

GORDON: You know, most people don't run towards a gunshot.

GRAYSON: I took a first aid course at the club last summer. I thought maybe I could help.

GORDON: What happened next?

GRAYSON: Amanda found me. She said David was looking for me with a gun.

GORDON: You didn't try to run away, even though he was coming for you?

GRAYSON: I knew he was upset, about his mom, I mean. I tried to talk to him a few times, because my mom was killed a few years back, and so I thought maybe he needed to talk to somebody who, you know, understood. And the last time I saw him, he seemed friendlier. So I thought maybe if we talked, he would calm down.

GORDON: What happened when he found the two of you?

GRAYSON: Amanda threw herself in front of me, between me and the gun.

GORDON: That was very brave of her.

GRAYSON: I know. And it's not even like we're good friends.

GORDON: What did David do?

GRAYSON: He yelled at her to get away from me, and then he told me to start walking down the hall. I had to, or he would have shot both of us. He took me to the basement, to this room he had down there. He kept saying that he was a killer. I tried to tell him he wasn't, but he wouldn't listen. He asked me … he asked me if I understood, and I said yes. Maybe I shouldn't have, maybe that's why …

GORDON: It's ok, son, just take your time.

GRAYSON: I thought he was going to shoot me. I had this whole plan about how I was going to dive away from the gun, but he just put the gun up to his jaw … and … he didn't hesitate at all, he just pulled the trigger and … his face just … I should have stopped him, but … oh God.

GORDON: We can finish this later, if you like.

GRAYSON: No. I'm ok.

GORDON: What did you do after David pulled the trigger?

GRAYSON: Nothing. I couldn't … I couldn't even think. And then Bruce was there.

GORDON: Why was Bruce there?

GRAYSON: I pushed my panic button. Bruce makes me carry it all the time, ever since I was kidnapped when I was eight. But I guess you know about that.

INTERVIEW WITH BRUCE WAYNE. CONDUCTED BY DET. SARAH ESSEN.

ESSEN: So the panic button is also a homing device which you followed into the basement. Were you armed?

WAYNE: Do I look like the kind of guy who carries a gun around?

ESSEN: But you went after an armed suspect anyway?

WAYNE: You don't have any kids, do you?

ESSEN: And then what happened?

WAYNE: I got lost in the basement. It's a fucking maze down there. Isn't there some kind of law about making it easy to get around schools so that if one kid goes crazy and tries to kill the rest you can get to him? Where the hell are my campaign donations going if the stupid morons in office can't even protect our children?

ESSEN: Mr. Wayne, you need to calm down.

WAYNE: Don't you fucking tell me to calm down.

ESSEN: Mr. Wayne, sit down. Mr. Wayne … Thank you. You got lost in the basement. Then what?

WAYNE: I heard a shot. I ran forward and finally found Richard. The other boy had shot himself. He was lying on the floor with half his head blown off.

ESSEN: And then what did you do?

WAYNE: Richard wanted to go home.

ESSEN: Are you aware that it's against the law to leave the scene of a crime?

WAYNE: Against the law? What should be against the law is the fact that you people weren't even there yet by the time it was over.

ESSEN: Why did you go home?

WAYNE: Maybe you didn't hear me the first time. Richard wanted to go home. He had just seen his classmate blow his brains out. He was covered in David Stern's blood. Yeah, I took him home, and I'm sorry if you a have a problem with that, but maybe if you'd do your fucking job, this wouldn't have happened.

ESSEN: Mr. Wayne, calm down.

WAYNE: My parents were killed in the middle of downtown. Now my kid almost gets shot in the best school in the city. I don't know where the hell you people spend your time, but it's clearly not protecting the citizens who pay your salaries.

ESSEN: If you don't sit down right now, I'm going to lock you up until you sober up.

WAYNE: Fuck you.

END OF TRANSCRIPTION

Gordon flipped the folder shut and sat glaring at it. As much as he wanted to hunt down Bruce Wayne and punch him in the face, a part of him understood exactly how the man felt as he plunged down those basement stairs, because he would have felt exactly the same way himself—desperate, crazy, and terrified. You don't have any kids, do you? Wayne had demanded of Sarah, and it was true. Ultimately she couldn't understand, which was why Gordon had almost lashed out at her himself, on the way to the dance after they'd gotten the call about the body.

But drunk or not, scared or not, he still doesn't have the right to scream in her face. The transcription was devoid of emotional punctuation, but he could imagine in the exclamation points. There was no note saying that she had actually thrown him in the drunk tank, but he hoped Sara had at least exerted some force.

And yet …

My parents were killed in the middle of downtown. Now my kid almost gets shot. Gordon chewed furiously on the corner of his mustache and knew that, sooner or later, he'd forgive the man, just as he'd forgiven him for burning down the family mansion in a drunken rage, and before that for wrapping three sports cars around telephone poles by his twentieth birthday, and before that, for wiping his eight year old bloody hands all over Gordon's jacket. Despite what he had thought on Friday night, Bruce Wayne hadn't forgotten anything.

And then there were these curious witness accounts about Richard Grayson, and the boy's own reluctant confession that he had run toward the shots because he had thought that he could help. Of course, that wasn't so very remarkable since Barbara had been doing exactly the same thing on the other side of the school (and for a moment he was overwhelmed with a bursting pride that mingled with the slightly panicked knowledge she would do it again next time). Still, it was odd how reluctantly Richard had told his story, eager to pass over his own courage in favor of the irrational guilt he insisted on assuming over David Stern's death. And somebody sure goofed up there. How could a kid whom everyone knew was grieving and in trouble get to that point without somebody besides another kid intervening?

But of course, there was the other, darker possibility that might explain Richard's skimping on the details of his halting narrative. Just exactly how well had the two boys known each other? Was there any connection between this and the prank at the dance? It had to be more than coincidence that Richard was implicated, one way or another, in both.

Or did it? Dammit, he liked the kid. He'd gone to Wayne Manor Saturday morning, ready to skin off his rich kid hide and nail it to the wall, and instead found himself completely believing Richard's embarrassed explanation that he'd turned the game into a strip poker joke so that no one would think he rated Barbara's kisses too cheaply. And then he had sat there across the interview table, white as a ghost and saying it was his fault David Stern had pulled the trigger the last time.

Groaning, Gordon shoved the folder of transcripts away and looked around for something to distract his mind for a few minutes. Something which didn't involve analyzing the troubled minds of teenagers.

There was a stack of unopened mail on his desk, and on top balanced a plain brown box. Picking up the package, he examined it curiously. There was no return address, only his own name on a printed label and a blurred Metropolis postmark. Security would have already checked it for explosives when it came in, so he used a letter opener to slice through the thick tape, pushed aside a handful of packing peanuts, and found a long, narrow blue velvet bag. The rattling lumps that filled up about a third of the bag were heavy, but when he tried to peer inside it, the bag was too long and dark to allow him to see its contents.

Impatiently, Gordon grasped the end of the bag and turned it upside down. And then his jaw dropped as a gleaming cascade of gold and diamonds and the ancient treasure of the goddess Bastet clattered onto his desk.

"I should have stopped him," Rick said in a dull, dead voice. "It's my fault he's dead." He stared blankly before him into the darkness of the caverns.

Bruce shook his head. "You taking the blame for David's death makes as much sense as his taking the blame for his mother's."

"But I was there. I should have stopped him." Anger suddenly broke the through the boy's numbness, and he slammed his hand down onto the counter in front of him. "I predicted his next move and locked myself into a response, so I couldn't react fast enough to what he did. It was a rookie mistake."

"We all make rookie mistakes sometimes," Bruce responded evenly. "It still doesn't make his death your fault. David was the one who pulled the trigger."

"I don't even think he knew what he was doing," Rick said softly, the flare of animation dying back out of his face. "I should have stopped him. I could have stopped him. All my training, and I let him die."

Bruce didn't respond again, although he would have done nearly anything to be able to ease his ward's pain. But this was guilt Richard would have to work through on his own terms, in his own time. There was something else, though, that had to be faced tonight, and although it filled him with dread, he walked briskly over to the case were Robin's armor hung and pulled out the cowl. "Suit up," he ordered, dropping it in Rick's lap.

The boy glanced up, startled. "Bruce, I really don't think … I should."

Bruce forced his face to remain set, his voice to be cold. "That was not a request." Ignoring Richard's startled look, he began to don his own armor, but felt relief when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy move to obey.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Alfred asked softly, coming over on the pretence of helping with the buckles. "He's exhausted."

"He's doubting himself. If he doesn't get back out there now and remember that he can trust his own instincts, this could paralyze him for a long time. I have to make sure he's recovering before …" Bruce trailed off, pulling on his gauntlets. He hadn't had time to discuss his latest plan with Alfred, but he hoped the older man wasn't going to put up an argument.

The butler guessed the end of the sentence anyway. "You're sending him out of Gotham?"

"He needs a break from this town."

"Richard needs a break?"

Bruce ignored him. "By the way, don't let me forget to apologize to Detective Essen."

"I've already ordered the flowers," Alfred told him, before going to make certain that Robin was properly strapped in to his armor.

Back in Metropolis, his friends had called him Knuckles because he always carried a set of brass ones. He had a knack of digging them into the ribs of his victims and making them cringe forward against the edge of the knife he was holding at their throat. He aimed to make the same name for himself here in Gotham, where he had fled after things got a little too hot for him in Metropolis.

His first week hadn't been too bad. He'd found a place to hole up, gotten to know the territory, knew where he was going to work so that he wasn't trespassing on anybody's turf. The only thing he found a little weird was how every native hood and lowlife had a habit of looking over their shoulder when darkness started falling. Of course, everyone in this kind of work did that if they wanted to stay alive, but in Gotham, they did it all the freaking time, and they weren't looking at the shadows along the street, either. They were watching the sky.

It was because of the Batman. Knuckles couldn't figure it out. So what if there was a nut who dressed like a bat and beat guys up once in a while. It was no reason for dozens of tough hoods to slink around with their tails between their legs. Besides, he hadn't talked to anyone who had actually seen this so-called Batman. They all had a friend or a cousin who knew a guy who knew a guy, but that was it. Knuckles was starting up business tonight, and the last thing he was going to do was waste energy worrying about an ghost story.

He jerked his Metropolis Meteors ball cap lower over his eyes and shoved his hands into his pockets. It was definitely colder here, which took a little of the pleasure out of a night job. He could use something to fend off the cold before he settled down to serious work.

Looking around to see who else was out tonight, he spotted a slender man sidling up to a hunched old woman. He passed her a bill and she pressed something into his hands in return before he hurried away down the dimly lit street. Giving once more glance around to make sure there was nothing that looked like an undercover hanging around, Knuckles strode rapidly toward the old woman. "Yo, granny."

She looked up at him and he saw that her face was the color of ebony, shriveled like a walnut shell. "You want somting, boy?" she asked, but her island accent was so thick it took him a moment to understand her words.

Can't even get a pusher who speaks English anymore, he thought in disgust, before saying, "Depends on what you got."

She regarded him shrewdly for a moment and then cackled, flashing her four remaining yellow teeth. "You want what I got, boy. You need it bad." She reached inside her coat and pulled out a small dark object, letting it dangle from her fingers.

Knuckles reached for it, then recoiled in disgust. "What is that?"

What she offered him was not a packet of powder but a dead bat. It was shrunken and shriveled, its wingtips tied to its tiny feet, the fur pulling grotesquely away from its gaping jaws. When he looked closer, he could see a row of pins with colored heads protruding from its wizened body.

"Obeah can't touch him," she whispered. "He too strong. But maybe it protect you, eh? Keep him far away. You new in town," she finished briskly, "I give you good deal."

Knuckles stared at her. "You trying to tell me this is some kind of magic spell to keep the Batman away?"

"Smart boy," she crooned, leering.

Swearing, he knocked the bat out of her hand and stomped on it, feeling the delicate bones crunch beneath his boot. "You think I need protection?" He pulled his left hand out of his pocket and shoved its fistful of brass knuckles under her nose. "I got all I need right here. I ain't afraid of a lunatic in a mask."

She glared up at him, and for a moment he thought she would fly at him in her rage, but then she threw back her head and laughed, a shrill, loud shrieking that sent a chill down his spine despite his bravado. "You ain't in Metropolis no more, boy. You gonna wish you had dat." Still laughing, she shuffled away down the street.

"You're all crazy!" Knuckles shouted after her, before hurrying away in the opposite direction. Crazy witch.

No longer in the mood to hunt down a fix, he strode in the direction of the spot he'd picked out for himself, a recess with deep shadows near a corner that people out late often walked past on their way to find a cab. Stuffing his cap into his pocket and pulling on a ski mask, he cursed the cold and settled in to wait.

He didn't have to wait long. After about ten minutes of watching, a man in a long overcoat, hat pulled down almost to his woolen scarf, appeared. Knuckles waited until the guy was right in front of him, before he grabbed him by the coat collar and dragged him into the shadows, forced his face against the building.

"Pull out your wallet," he hissed, knife and knuckles in place.

The man was shaking in terror, and it took him forever to work his gloved hand into a pocket beneath the coat.

Knuckles started to hiss, "Hurry—"

He didn't understand why he was suddenly being dragged along the pavement, one arm nearly wrenched from its socket, his knife clattering down into the frozen gutter. He didn't understand until he was lifted and slammed against the wall and found himself staring into gleaming eyes that were definitely not human, heard a voice from hell rasping, "Welcome to Gotham."

"The next one's yours," Batman gruffly directed, the hapless Knuckles bound in the snow below them while his almost victim talked eagerly on his phone to the police.

Robin nodded wordlessly and they slipped off the roof, only two more shadows in the darkness of Gotham. As they made their way deeper into the city's seamy southern quarter, Batman kept a wary eye on his colleague, noticing his uncharacteristic slowness, the absence of his usual effortless grace. He can't handle anything too challenging tonight, he thought as they abandoned the street to avoid a group of drunks, again taking to the rooftops. Just enough to remind him of who he is.

They were waiting out a noisy argument on the balcony below them when they caught sight of the spotter. In the past few months, several minor criminals who organized joint operations had taken to employing a bat spotter as part of their regular outfit. The job of this man was to find a high vantage point and keep watch exclusively for the Batman. Such sentries were considered extremely gutsy and were well compensated. What the gangs hadn't realized yet was that using a spotter actually made them more likely to be targeted by Batman, the presence of a guy craning his neck at the sky drawing attention to what otherwise might have been a successful operation.

When Batman saw the sentry, he hesitated, not knowing how big the job would be and not wanting to drag Robin into something he wasn't up to. But a moment later the boy lightly touched his arm and pointed, and Batman knew he couldn't pass up the situation now. It wouldn't do Robin any good to think he wasn't trusted.

They silently crept up behind the watcher, who was craning his neck downward, probably wondering how much longer he would have to wait up here, exposed. Batman flung one gauntleted hand over his mouth and the other around his chest, intending to pull him down silently, but as the sentry struggled, a tinny jingling broke the night. Shouting immediately erupted below, and too late, Batman realized that the man was not just a watcher but an alarm. Slamming his hand against the guard's neck and dropping the dazed body to the rooftop, he stepped to the edge and looked down into a into narrow loading bay between the buildings, a large truck parked in its center. There were only four suspects, but they were already ducking under cover, guns in hand, three clustered by the hood of the truck and one by the warehouse door.

They could try waiting them out, but Robin was already readjusting his vision for sonar imaging, so Batman did the same. Together they tossed handfuls of small explosives down, and with a series of pops the area flooded with choking black smoke. Batman took the three by the truck. One shot that went wild, a couple of heavy punches, a sharp arm twist followed by a scream and the crack of bone, and the gunmen lay subdued on the freezing and filthy concrete. As the smoke cleared, he saw the fourth man by the warehouse entrance lying face down and bound, while Robin examined the alarm system the thieves had bypassed, trying to trigger it.

Batman tensed and sprang forward as a fifth man, gun in hand, suddenly appeared in the door of the warehouse. But his shout of warning died on his lips as Robin almost leisurely sidestepped the gun muzzle, grasped the thief's arm, spun him around, and cracked his head against the doorframe. As the body crumpled to the ground, he reached back over to the keypad and typed in sequence of numbers. A soft series of beeps announced his success, and Batman relaxed slightly. The kid was going to be all right.

Rick put the last pieces of his armor away, and leaned wearily against the side of the cabinet. He felt incredibly exhausted, but relieved. It had been so many nights since he'd been Robin that a part of him had started to wonder whether he would have lost his edge when he did go back out. And after his failure with David, he'd been filled with kinds of doubts he hadn't experienced since he first started becoming Batman's apprentice. But back inside his mask, he had remembered who he was and what he needed to do. It was an overwhelming relief.

"We need to talk," Bruce announced.

"Okay," Rick agreed numbly, too tired to even feel curious.

"You're leaving town tomorrow."

Rick froze mid-yawn. "What?"

"You were shot at as Robin. You were suspected of being involved in the Bailey prank, and now one of your classmates comes after you with a gun. Gotham's too hot for you right now."

"It's just a coincidence those things happened close together!" Rick protested. "They don't have anything to do with each other."

"Maybe," Bruce admitted. "But it doesn't matter if they're actually related or not. People are paying too much attention to you both in and out of the mask. Your cover, or mine, won't survive too intensive scrutiny. You need to be out of reach for awhile."

"It's going to attract some attention if I suddenly leave," Rick argued.

"Not if we tell them I'm taking you out of the country to see a trauma specialist."

Rick frowned, his tired brain struggling to process this. "You're coming with me?"

"Not really. I'll simply drop out of sight while you're gone."

"Why can't I do the same? There's no reason for me to actually leave Gotham if no one knows I'm here."

"You're going."

"Why?" Rick demanded.

"Because we both need a break from Robin."

He stared at his guardian in shock. Bruce looked regretful, as if he had said more than he had meant to. "You don't want my help?" Rick asked slowly.

"At the moment, your involvement at Bailey is complicating an already complicated situation."

"That's not an answer."

"You need to get out of Gotham for awhile. You've become too involved at that school. You feel so guilty over what happened to David that you haven't even started trying to figure out whether his psychotic break is connected to anything else that's going on there."

Rick winced. It was true, but he persisted, "That's still not an answer."

Bruce's expression hardened. "Then the answer is no. Right now, I can't split my focus between a murderer and wondering whether you're going to make it through the next twenty-four hours without getting shot. I cannot afford to be distracted."

So that was it. Robin was getting in Batman's way. Rick discovered that he didn't have any arguments left and nothing to offer in his own defense. Wordlessly, he turned toward the lift.

"Richard. Rick, wait."

Rick didn't turn around, just pulled the metal grille shut behind him and ascended into the dark.

José Martinez crouched behind a stack of crates inside the large truck, struggling desperately not to cough on the choking smoke that wafted in through the open door. Outside, he could hear the terrified cries of his friends, and he knew that the Batman was there, that despite their emergency plan that told them what to do if the unthinkable ever happened, none of them would escape. His only hope was to stay absolutely quiet and pray that Batman's x-ray eyes wouldn't spot him through the sides of the truck.

The sounds of struggle outside had long since faded when José finally became aware of the approaching sirens. Everyone on the street knew that the cops inevitably followed in Batman's wake, and although José didn't want to be one of the moaning bodies on the ground outside, he didn't really want to end up in a jail cell either. Trembling, he stuck his head out of the opening, but the loading bay was empty except for his incapacitated fellow thieves.

Leaping out of the truck and ignoring the feeble call that followed him down the street, he ran as fast as his tattered sneakers allowed, skidding on icy patches on the sidewalk and finally collapsing beside a friendly dumpster. Gradually, his heart rate slowed and his breathing evened out. At last he reached inside his jacket and drew out the dead bat nestled in his shirt pocket. It hadn't seemed like much for the forty bucks he'd paid for it earlier that evening, but now he kissed its withered wings fervently and silently blessed the old witch who'd sold it to him.

Standing up, he was about to slip out of the alley and head for home when a soft footstep behind him made him whip around in alarm. His hand not holding the bat darted into a side pocket, fumbling for the blade that resided there. But the knife dropped from his suddenly numb fingers as he saw who—what—was advancing toward him.

Trembling violently, he held up the charm. "¡Déjame, en el nombre Diós!"

There was a low laugh that filled him with dread, and then the charm was torn from his grasp. "¿Y que tienes aqui?"

"Batman," José gasped, falling back against the dumpster and beginning to cry.

A massive fist closed around the tiny bat, and José heard its bones crunch. "Llora con fuerza, hombrecito," whispered the shadow. "Porque ni Diós, ni Batman puede salvarte."

To Be Continued

A/N Spanish translations: "Leave me alone, in the name of God!" "And what do you have here?" "Cry hard, little man. Because neither God nor Batman can save you."

Woot! I think I've updated more in two weeks than in an entire year! Wait … that's not something to be proud of …

I'll start on review responses tonight, but it will probably take me a couple of days to get to all of them. (That IS a good thing!) And if anyone reviewed both previous chapters but didn't get the extra, let me know.

As far as this chapter's reviews go, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the philosophy problem posed at the beginning (and of course your comments on the chapter itself!).