I do not own Batman, or any D.C. character named within. I am only using them for a tale written for entertainment purposes only.

Batman: Night of the Hunter

By LJ58

4

"They found him like this at bed check," James Gordon told Batman. "I'm assuming it's your competitor again?"

Batman eyed the desiccated, almost unrecognizable body, and simply stared.

"We both know it was him. Or it," he said.

"When you say it," the commissioner asked uneasily.

Batman's level gaze assessed his longtime friend, and nodded.

"Just that. It is a genuine supernatural entity. I still haven't ascertained what drew it to Gotham, but I am working on learning what drives it, and hopefully what will rid us of it," he told the weary man in a shapeless suit.

"Do me a favor, figure it out fast," James Gordon sighed as they both left the cell. "This is worse than…."

"Than…?"

"Give me a minute," the somber police commissioner sighed. "Just…."

He turned, and frowned as he realized the corridor was impossibly empty.

"Typical," he rasped, and instinctively reached for a pipe he no longer carried. "Damn it," he growled, and headed for the exit, knowing the coroner was going to have trouble with this corpse, too.

He still wasn't sure how he was going to write it up.

Or explain it to the mayor.

~B~

"Have you found anything?"

Robin turned from the impressive array of crays that comprised the legendary Batcomputer, and grimaced.

"Does bad news and worse news sound familiar?"

"Explain," Batman said even as the Batmobile's cooling turbines faded away in the background as his mentor approached him, and pulled back his cowl.

Not that Bruce Wayne's face was any less grim than his heroic alter ego.

Sometimes, even Robin wasn't sure where Batman's mask began, or ended.

"I collaborated with Oracle just to be thorough, like you said. We didn't find any other indications of our shadowy vigilante anywhere else. So unless he's new, he managed to keep his activities quiet until now. We have found no less than four hundred possible archetypes that might fit the patterns you indicated. Only two of them in our region."

Batman mused on that many vindictive spirits, and tried not to imagine them out there running loose.

"Go on."

"None of them cross with Mr. Thomas' path. He's buried a lot of people, but usually the type you don't mind burying anyway. I mean, sure, a lot of innocent people got shoved out of his way, sometimes forcefully, but I couldn't find anyone that might have had a personal grudge. Well, nothing that would explain our shadow."

"Who are the two archetypes?"

"One is obvious," Robin told him. "Joker," he actually shuddered, knowing everyone currently thought the madman dead in the wake of his last rampage. Batman, however, as usual, wasn't so convinced.

"And the other," Batman asked.

Robin sighed, and looked back at him only then.

"You. You're the only other person to fit the archetypes you gave me. Parents mur….."

"I know what I am," Batman growled. "We obviously aren't seeing the proper parameters for our search. I'll call Fate again. You might as well retire."

"There is someone…."

Batman turned and eyed him again just as he was about to go deeper into the cave.

"Yes?"

"What about someone like Ivy? I mean, she's all elemental, and all. Almost like Swamp Thing, or guys like him. Wouldn't they be connected to the….weird stuff, too?"

Batman stared at him for a few moments, and then nodded.

"That's a valid consideration. Follow that line of reasoning tomorrow. For now, you still have a life, and school. Go."

Robin grumbled, but headed for the hidden lift back to Wayne Manor.

"I'll tip Oracle on it, too," he said as he left, but wasn't sure if Batman had heard him.

Then again, Batman always seemed to know everything at times. It was weird to see him looking for answers, when usually he already had them.

Batman went into his archives, a chamber filled with souvenirs of his early adventures, and which now housed a library filled with both criminal and arcane lore.

He was still searching through both when he felt a tingling at his back, and spun around, one hand already pulling his cowl down even as a golden aura exploded before him, and Fate himself stepped out of the light.

"Have you found anything," Batman asked without preamble.

"Perhaps. Still, I sense you have encountered….something. Haven't you?"

"I met the shadow night before last," Batman nodded. "He, or it, is definitely not human."

"You are so certain?"

"Amorphic, red eyes, no real physical shape. It was also immune to fire, or gunfire. It apparently also radiated something that inspired terror in its victims even before it touched them."

"Not you," Fate asked curiously in his bland, hollow tone.

"You know that I have only one fear, and it's already under control," Batman growled.

"Of course," Fate nodded, knowing Batman's motivations well enough. "Still, I can tell you, there is nothing of Chaos about the aura I sensed touching you. It is, in fact, something far more primal. And human."

"So….supernatural?"

"Obviously. Do you know of the onryo and goryo?"

"Japanese spirits of vengeance. Not always on the side of the angels, but always out to balance the books at any cost."

"Essentially," Dr. Fate nodded. "I believe you have something similar here. One that likely fulfilled its own personal vengeance, and continued to exist in this realm in spite of settling its own debts."

"That happens?"

"More often than you would think," Fate told him.

"He… It told me that we were the same," Batman admitted. "That I am what he was, and would become."

"You must know that there are some who think you too extreme. Too….committed to your own crusade," Fate told him. "Sometimes, you can become so fixated…."

"If I thought Gotham would be safe, I would have retired years ago," Batman growled. "I'm not here for my own motives. I never was, Fate. I am here to save my city. Not murder anyone I feel deserves it."

"Indeed," Fate murmured. "Still, one must be wary when you approach the abyss…."

"Don't quote adages to me. Just tell me if you have something that can help."

"Just one thing. If this spirit is drawn here by the injustice it likely feels compelled to address, you must assure it that you are, in fact, what it thinks. That you will deal with your city, and your enemies, in your own way. If it accepts that word, it will depart."

"When you say depart…."

"Such spirits are driven by the human heart, and all its passions, Batman. Even a lord of Order cannot fathom such depths. It may depart this realm, or simply this city. The question is, can you convince it that you are what Gotham needs. That you are all that Gotham needs."

"Are you saying you cannot simply banish it?"

"As I said, some things are beyond even a Lord of Order. Consider, this spirit may well have a purpose neither of us may yet see. Is it then our right to decide its ultimate destiny be cut short because we find its methods….distasteful?"

"You are only reminding me why I loathe magic," Batman grumbled.

Fate gestured, and a portal appeared behind him as the man simply stared, and finally stated, "I have come to feel you loathe a great many things, Batman. That does not cause them to be unnecessary at times. As even you must know."

Batman glowered at the now empty space behind him, and shook his head.

No help at all.

Sometimes, the most powerful members of the League were more a hindrance than anything else.

Amazing, too, how blind some of those more powerful members could be.

Clark came to mind in that regard, too.

Even as he turned, he spotted Alfred carrying a tray toward a nearby table.

"I thought you might wish refreshments, Master…."

"Alfred, don't move," Batman ordered as he eyed his faithful friend, and companion.

Alfred frowned, but knowing his employer well enough, tensed as he stood there, and tried not to stare.

"Have I something on my jacket," he asked dryly even as he felt something behind him close to him.

Batman scowled as the shadow seemed to rise right out of the hard rock, and towered over the butler.

"Why are you here," Batman demanded, staring past Alfred at the now towering, gaunt figure with burning red eyes.

"Why am I anywhere," the shadow rasped in a low, gritty gravelly voice. "As ever, I am drawn. Don't you know this?"

"You can tell me that better than I," Batman shot back, and stepped toward him. "Alfred, leave."

"But, sir….."

"Go," he snapped, his eyes never leaving the entity before him.

"As you say, sir," Alfred sighed, and walked away, gasping as he glanced back to see the humanoid shadow only then. His only response was a very controlled, "My word!"

"I felt your call, Bat," the shadow said as he neared him only after Alfred had departed.

"Did you? And do you know why I….called?"

"I believe I can guess," the shadow growled. "As I said, you are as I. As I was. As I am now as you will be."

"So you say."

"So I say. You share the same drive. The same need for vengeance….!"

"Justice," Batman hissed.

"They are often the same. As you will learn."

"I don't believe that."

"You will."

Batman said nothing to that.

"Still, because you are as I, I suspect you want me out of your….hunting grounds."

"You unsettle my city. I protect Gotham. I don't need your help."

"I felt you did."

"Is that why you killed Thomas? Even though he was in jail."

"He was about to make a move that would have done far worse than he had. He would have cost the lives of countless innocents, and destroyed all you intend to build. I could not allow that."

"You don't think I wasn't ready for that move?"

"Were you," the shadow sneered.

Batman took a daring step forward.

"I was," he spat back. "And you undermined not only Thomas, but my own ploy. I could have used his attempted coup to uncover, and undermined all those that still supported him, and tried to continue his madness. Instead, you killed the man, and now all his lackeys have no reason to come out, and expose themselves. So, well done. You just set me back weeks. Maybe months."

The shadow grumbled, its edges loosing solidity as it seemed to shiver.

"It is still best to simply excise the guilty," the shadow all but pouted.

"Understand me," Batman growled himself now. "I know how easy it is to kill. I know it is a quick solution to certain problems. But that doesn't always solve the true problems such men create. You rushed in, killed over a dozen men, and then what? You still left people hurt, homeless. How many innocents were still badly injured while you sought your vengeance the other night? How many burned to death while you focused on your guilty? If you aren't saving the innocents first, then you're aren't really avenging anyone," Batman shot. "You're just another killer. Another problem. And I don't want you in my city."

The shadow shivered again, grumbling even lower, and sounding more than angry.

"I see," the shadow finally growled. "I was too early. You're not ready yet. But you will be. You will be," the shadow said, and melted away. "I will return when you are ready."

"Then you will never return," Batman snapped.

"I think I will. I think you'll be the one to call me, too. I know," the shadow hissed just before it vanished.

Batman glared at the spot where it had stood, and scowled.

"Sir," Alfred appeared on cue just then, looking around a turn in the chamber. "Is it over?"

"For now," Batman murmured, still eyeing the spot the shadow had stood somberly.

"Do you think that he's truly gone, sir," Alfred asked as a weary, battered Bruce Wayne slumped in a chair, eyeing the news that naturally misinterpreted everything that had gone on the past few days. Or nights.

"I don't know, Alfred," he admitted. "Nothing human could done what it does, but then, I don't think that creature was human. If he is one of Fate's Onryo, it may still be out there. Watching. And waiting."

"For what," the longtime friend and servant of the Wayne family asked.

"That's a very good question, Alfred," he murmured, not truly seeing the colorful digitally-enhanced images dancing before his eyes just then as he glanced to the computer where Robin's earlier research was still displayed. "That's a very good question."

Alfred said nothing as Batman, ignored the hour as ever, simply sat down, and went back to work.

End…..?