Batman: Kill the Justice League

Chapter 4: The Parting Sea

There are an army of bodies buried by the madmen of Gotham. Innocents. Reaching out to welcome me as one of their own. Each night I ask them, their families and loved ones, for forgiveness. To be a force for good, I had to be incorruptible. I had to separate myself from the darkness that swirled within them, within me. On some fateful nights, in the hours before dawn, I would confront the souls lost, face their accusing words and breathe in the fumes of their torment, and I would wonder...had I killed them, by letting the demons live?

The answer to that haunting question came from the depths of endless darkness, dormant within the black hole of the cave...where the bat lived. Dripping with hunger, with eyes of red flame, it warned me that if I fed it even one soul, it would find any reason to devour the next, and the next, until it would eventually need no reason at all.

And on other nights, when the rain pelted against the windows of Wayne Manor in disarray, and the bat was asleep ...I knew that every soul could be saved, that if you could rehabilitate one single person, it was as if you had saved them all. Darkness would not taint the righteous. That was the heart of my holy mission against evil itself. I had seen it. I believed in it. But the bat whispered still...

"People of the world watch helplessly as Metropolis succumbs to an invasion, and earth's mightiest heroes have fallen under its spell."

"Leaked videos online, which appear to have been recorded by a surveillance drone, show The Batman and Wonder Woman fighting against their own ally The Flash, a battle that Gotham's Dark Knight ultimately won. The whereabouts or condition of Central City's beloved speedster remain unknown..."

"One thing is clear, the fate of Metropolis is tied to the fate of the entire world."

"Why did it choose to invade Metropolis, of all places?"

"The answer to that is obvious. It's the home of Superman. You want to subjugate the human race? The power to do that lies in the hands of the Kryptonian."

"We should have never trusted him!"

"You fool! It's not his fault. This machine has taken over his mind. Without Superman, this planet would have been destroyed a dozen times over!"

"Yet we're all going to die anyway because of his power!"

"Batman and Wonder Woman will save us. I believe in them!"

"You think the two of them can defeat Superman, Green Lantern and Aquaman?"

"Send in the army. Why is the world not responding to a freaking alien invasion?"

"It's understood that the world's superpowers have met behind closed doors, and director of A.R.G.U.S. Amanda Waller has been given authority to act in defence of the planet. Braniac seems to have cut off entry into Metropolis with an army of his own brainwashed soldiers, and a total technological shut down which rumours indicate come from his domination of Cyborg A.K.A Victor Stone, another fallen hero of the Justice League."

"In many stories of the apocalypse, it's said to eclipse the entire world. Who would have thought that, in reality, the fate of the planet would be decided in a single city?"

"Metropolis is our holy land!"

"The devil and his army have it in their grip."

"Today, the world is relying on one man and one woman to save us all."

"Hurry, oh wayward child, hide away at night, or The Batman will come...from the shadows he will come...and snatch all those with ill intent."

I shut down the broadcasts from live feeds around the world, and we returned to the state of silence from before. I could feel Diana's eyes bore into me from behind, and waited for her to say what was on her mind. We were about to enter the fight of our lives, and we were out of sync, divided, and unsure of where we stood with one another.