9530/The Word of Batman

The Word of Batman
Date of Scene:	08 January 2022
Location:	Saint Patrick's Cathedral
Synopsis:	In an effort to dissuade her from joining Michael, Batman tries to break Caitlin Fairchild's resolve. She proves to be more resilient than expected.
Cast of Characters:	Caitlin Fairchild, Bruce Wayne
Tinyplot:	Path of Glory

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Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
St. Patrick's Cathedral is the heart of the angelic host in New York. It's from there that Michael issues his commands, sending armies out to take care of tasks and engage resistance at varying locations. The population inside St. Patrick's has diminished somewhat; presumably, the process of rapturing the Faithful has begun.

Caitlin is not in the Cathedral. Her need for privacy prompted the cardinal to put her in the small clergy house, one of several outbuildings on the property. She's turned the small apartment into a command center, and is sitting at the dining table with a pile of electronic equipment in front of her and heavily used Themysciran battle armor in pieces scattered around the area. She's wearing a plain, even severe black dress that looks like it was taken from a nunnery, and wearing subtly yellow-tinted glasses suitable for preventing electronics-induced headaches. Classic rock blares tinnily from the stereo on the shelf.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Batman has gone to war on Manhattan Island. He has monitored the various and sundry angels that have arrived as part of the host, categorizing them in his own files with notes on capabilities and weaknesses. The retreat wasn't a defeat for him, but rather an excuse to gather more data on the enemy. As long as they sat here and did not attempt to drive him off the battlefield, he would make use of every moment. Rest had been relegated to minute-long micro-sleeps taken on the hour, and a thick layer of salt-and-pepper stubble had already formed on his jaw.

He had come close to the Cathedral for the purposes of reconnaissance. He'd learned how to avoid their gaze, and even angels had to obey some physical laws when confined to the mortal plain. He steered clear of the Cathedral and reasoned that listening devices would serve no great purpose when he was unsure if the host even needed to communicate verbally. But it was this scouting mission that led him to the clergy house.

"Making war against the people you called friends is time consuming," comes the grim voice of the Batman from the windowsill, an intensity there like violent rage honed and sharpened into a deadly and meticulous edge, "Of all people, one would think you'd sleep the sleep of the righteous."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin screeches in sheer bloody terror as a literal nightmare of hers manifests at the window and growls at her. Hair messily pinned up with a chopstick and a thermal probe, owlish glasses, and barefoot to boot. She stumbles backwards fast enough to knock the chair over and promptly blows out the seam at the side of the dress clear up to her knee.

"B-Batman!" she squeaks, hands shaking and her voice fluttering with raw fear. "Oh my gosh, you scared the heck out of me!" she announces. Caitlin puts a hand on her sternum and gulps air, trying to slow the heart rate hammering at her throat.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" she says, trying to put some backbone into it and make it more demand than question.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"I stopped believing in God when a man shot my father in the chest and my mother in the throat in front of my eyes when I was eight years old. I stopped believing when I listened to that last, strangled breath escape her body. I stopped believing when he did it all for a handful of pearls. When he walked away into the night and I never saw him again."

He slips down from the windowsill, coming to his full height. Prowling towards her like a lion in the zoo suddenly finding itself outside of the cage. His shoulders squared, he takes slow and measured steps towards her.

"Where was God when a madman beat my son near-to-death before incinerating him in a fireball? Where were the blades of the righteous striking down the wicked then? Do you know why he did it?" His voice has a serrated edge to it now, the rage rattling about in his ribcage, "For a laugh. A joke. Some perverse comedy."

He stops now, on the other side of the table from her. He plants hands on the table noisily, causing everything on it to jump from the force and shake a little. His teeth are borne, eyes almost wild beneath the cowl.

"Maybe I'm here to kill you, Fairchild. Maybe your ending of the world has finally cut my tether. Who can say what I'll do now? But tell me, in this moment, do you feel safe? Protected?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Batman's words hit Caitlin like physical blows, making her flinch away from the gory imagery and that terrifyingly unamused laugh. A humor like a computer, something that knows of the concept but can't truly embrace it. She maneuvers to keep the table between her and him as best she can, hands shaking slightly.

"Y-you won't do that," she stammers. "Richard's told me. I know you have a co- a code," she adds on with a shaky admonition. "And it's the same as me. I've never had to kill anyone and I know you won't do it, either." She tries to gather her courage and lifts her chin at him with the beginnings of some defiance. "You and I both know that it's not something you can ever take back," she asserts.

A beat later: "And if I scream, there's an army of angels a hundred yards from here," she says, trying to make it sound like a threat.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Do you know why I have that code?" Batman answers, continuing to edge around the table towards her as he speaks, "It's not a code of honor. I didn't decide to live by it because under this mask I'm a good and honest person. Any chance of me being a decent man died with my parents in that alley. Soaked in blood and screaming."

He beats his hands on the table again. Louder this time. Enough to raise a racket. He lifts his fists, drumming on the wood. Over and over until he finally rears back and with a single, axe-handle blow shatters it into pieces. His strength, human though it is, comes from iron will and vicious focus.

"I have the code to keep what's inside where it is. Because I know that once I take a life I won't stop. I'll never stop. I'll break everything in my way. Rip it apart. Tear it to shreds."

"I have a code because there's a devil in me, Caitlin Fairchild, and it wants out."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
The attack on her projects seems to annoy Caitlin more than intimidate her. This is not the Batman she's accustomed to, clearly. His indiscriminate rage and ire seems to baffle the redhead and she just shakes his head at him mutely while he speaks.

"You-- I -know- Richard's told you about my problem," she accuses Batman. "You think you're the only person who's got problems? My gosh! I'm a doggone /clone/, you-- you jerk!" she says, spitting out the word.

"I was factory assembled to be a killing machine. It's in my brain like, like a bad memory," she adds, jabbing a finger at her temple. "You were a victim of circumstances. Tragic, and I'm -so sorry- you grew up with that," she tells him, with a surprisingly earnest expression of empathy. "But you made yourself into what you are. I was made into, into--" she gestures at herself. "Into this. How can you come here raging about your code and your rules to someone who wasn't given any choice at all?" she demands, finally finding some backbone.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
For a moment, the Bat regards what she's saying. That vicious, untamable rage seems to melt away as quickly as it appeared. He locks his impassive gaze on Caitlin, mouth set into a grim and thin-lipped line.

"I made myself a killing machine," Batman answers, rising up to his full height, "Because I vowed that what happened to my parents wouldn't happen to anyone else. And I chose not to use those weapons of death because death is the weapon of the enemy."

"You can walk away from this. Turn your back on this. There is always a choice when the will is strong enough. People are going to die. More parents with children. Innocent people who don't deserve the sword but are going to get it anyway."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Like Richard's brother?"

Caitlin tries to match Batman's grim-set expression, though she swallows some fear a little reflexively as she pushes on his nerves in turn. "You think he didn't tell us about it? You put Robin into your ... your whole /life/ and made him play by the same rules you did, and he got killed for it."

She looks at the window, licks her lips, and points at it before looking back at Batman with that arm extended. "This isn't just some vendetta in the streets. This is about trying to make a better world," she tells him. "Look at who is fighting here! It's-- it's evil, bad people! I had to trade body shots with a doggone evil wizard. He had everything except a bad goatee! And then they brought in this Lady Death, she's-- she's *bad news* on such an epic scale. A whole legion of demons and undead. -Saint Michael- saved us from her. He hit her so hard he knocked her into next week and sent her armies crawling back. I think you'd be a little more grateful that we didn't leave a legion of the dam-- of the bad guys running amok!"

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"You know nothing about him," Batman answers flatly, all that rage from moments ago disappearing and leaving behind only an empty voice, "And I refuse to justify myself to you."

When Caitlin points at the window, his gaze follows her finger.

"And Jonathan Sims? Where does he fit into the evil scheme? Zatanna Zatara, who has stood before dozens of world-ending crises and never batted an eye? There's no better world in the offering here, Caitlin. Only destruction and death."

"Years ago, I visited a monastery in the Himalays. There they practiced a dangerous form of meditation called the Thogol - designed to bring a person close enough to death as to experience and understand it. I've been where your crusade is taking us, and I saw nothing but black emptiness."

He continues to loom in place: "Michael is not saving us from anything. He's here to destroy."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Sims is at best tragically misguided and at worse, he's the best liar I've ever seen," Caitlin tells Batman. "You think--" she exhales in frustration, fingers curling in the air for words that don't come easily to her.

"This isn't just about lives. It's about -souls-," she tells him. "It's how humanity has spent thousands of years recklessly destroying ourselves. Good people are killed by the bad. Salvation is lost because they are constantly pushed into such-- such terrible, horrible situations, that they give in to despair and sin. We live like starving animals in a cage, Batman," she pleads. "You've seen how bad and horrible the world is. What-- what about Joker?" she asks of him. "That lunatic has killed so many people and he's driven so many others into despair. But you let him keep doing it. The -world- keeps letting him do it."

"This is the literal voice of God coming to purge the unholy and the inhuman, and you're standing there on the side of demons and monsters saying that it's better for us to be dragged into Hell, just because someone doesn't have your 'moral code'," she says, and manages to express scorn with those words.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Batman remains silent at first, as though weighing up Caitlin's words. His brow furrows, feeling the tempting warmth of persuasion pouring through his thoughts. A part of him hears truth in her words, reaching out to take them to heart. But Batman is a man of singular will, and that voice is pushed down into the depths of his psyche and locked away in the darkness.

"I don't kill the Joker for the same reason I don't kill you. Or anyone. Because I refuse to sit in judgement. It is not my place to decide who lives and dies. Nor is it yours. Nor is it Michael's. If God wants to wipe me from the face of the Earth, let them do it now."

He looks up, turning his gaze from side to side slowly before leveling it on Caitlin once more.

"We're fighting. We're given the chance to fight. That tells me one simple thing: this isn't written in stone. Nothing is. And when all this is decided, and you find yourself on the wrong side of history, you're going to wish you'd listened to me."

He turns about, stalking back towards the window before pausing a moment to look over his shoulder.

"As for my soul? I'd give it up in a heartbeat to end this. To make sure no more blood is shed. If all this is for the sake of my soul, then it's a raw deal."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Is that what this is about?" Caitlin wonders at Batman's shoulders. "This-- is this you spitting in God's eye because you see Him finally doing what you couldn't do?"

She steps forward, closing the distance by a few paces. "That's it, isn't it. You're not here because you want to stop me. You're here because you think you are -damned-, and you want me to prove your right," she breathes.

"Batman, no one's beyond redemption," she says, and takes another half step forward. Close enough that there's no longer a destroyed table between them. Earnest, overwhelming compassion rolls off of Caitlin. She lifts a hand, hesitating, and rests her fingertips on Batman's armored tricep. It's a simple thing, the human touch. The most basic and yet most essential of human needs. It's inviting as a warm blanket and as evocative as a mother's reassuring caress, no matter how deeply buried that memory might be.

"Even the Joker. Even you. All you have to do is ... is -let go- of that fear you have," she begs him. "Trust in God's plan and His mercy. He loves you. He has seen everything you've done and He still -loves you-. You have been tested, like Job. Like Abraham. This is your chance to set that aside. The only thing that's keeping you from His grace is your unwillingness to humble yourself before it."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Batman remains still for a moment. That same awful, cloying sensation encouraging him to do what he's bidden. He frowns, eyes moving with glacial slowness and purpose from Caitlin's own to the hand on his arm.

"Take your hand off me."

He steps away from her now, stepping up onto the windowsill. He crouches there, looking back over his shoulder at her again.

"I don't believe that whatever Michael claims to serve gives a damn about me, you, or anyone. I wouldn't waste the spit."

Then he's gone. Out into the night. Back to his tower to watch, wait, and plan.

Damned as he may be.