Batman received a distress call from the Justice League.
This could be described as adding fuel to the fire or kicking someone when they were down, but it was all in a day's work for Batman and the Justice League.
There was a strange phenomenon where if Batman had no troubles, the Justice League would be trouble-free as well. But as soon as Batman was inundated with crises relating to the Batman Family, the Justice League would inevitably create issues just to bother him.
The same was true in this universe. Previously, when Batman had the upper hand, the Justice League was quiet. But now, with Shiller involved in a complex interplay, and Batman busy trying to kick him out, the Justice League had reached out instead.
In fact, it wasn't anything major, mainly the concern over the vampire expansion that had them worried. Previously, these creatures had only appeared on the East Coast, but recently, Seashore City and Star City had also seen signs of vampire activities.
This meant that this was no longer a minor nuisance. Their talked-about plan to block out the sunlight could indeed be put into action, which was absolutely unacceptable to the Justice League.
And as the brains of the Justice League, how could Batman not be there? Justice Hall immediately sent a message to the Batcave, worded rather sternly, demanding Batman to come immediately.
What made Batman even sadder was that although he wanted to kick Shiller out of the Batman Family relationship, with this incident emerging, his only option was to consult with Shiller, and he couldn't even bring Dick along.
Because the possibility of Shiller being a vampire was too low, even lower than the chance of him being a vampire himself.
"They want you to come?" In the Batcave, Shiller held a cup of tea, looking at the content on the communicator, and slightly furrowed his brow, "It seems they are blaming you for not being there now. You always gave them hope before that whenever something happened, you would have anticipated and prepared earlier than them."
"Most of the time that was indeed the case."
"But not this time because the conflict erupted within the Batman Family first, and you haven't had the chance to oversee the whole situation," Shiller said, putting down his teacup and lightly tapping the table, "If you go now, it would confirm you really weren't prepared, which would greatly undermine their confidence. So it might be better to do the opposite."
"You mean..." Batman instantly understood.
Usually, anything that happened would be communicated by Batman to them. For example, under normal circumstances, Batman might have warned them months in advance that the vampires could spread.
Even though they might not listen, at least it gave them a feeling that everything was under Batman's control, no matter how much the situation worsened, Batman would have a solution. This was the spiritual pillar of the Justice League.
But on one hand, Batman was busy with Battleworld matters, and slightly overlooked the real universe. On the other hand, as soon as he returned, the Batman Family internally caught fire, and as he was busy putting out this fire here, he was unable to take care of the bigger picture.
This was also normal. According to Shiller's observation, the strength of this universe's Batman wasn't very high, far inferior to Arkham Batman, and also quite behind the Primary Universe Batman. Shiller figured he was probably equivalent to the later-stage Beihan.
Before coming to control, although he hadn't read the comics, he roughly knew that Batman in this comic must have died early on; otherwise, the comic wouldn't have been able to have two parts. This also indicated that this Batman's strength was ordinary.
If it had been Arkham Batman, this small affair in the Batman Family would have been resolved much earlier. Not exactly packing everyone into cans, but at least putting each one in a hibernation chamber and tossing them into the depths of the Batcave to sleep. After all, he still had hundreds of trophies as performance targets and no time to dally here.
So Shiller was teaching according to his aptitude; without the right tools, don't engage in jobs that were too delicate, and clearly, it wasn't the time yet to get involved with the Justice League storyline—best handle the matters at hand first.
Batman also understood his intention; indeed, he wasn't prepared. Rushing to the Justice League now, not only would he not be much help, but he would also give everyone the impression he was unprepared, significantly diminishing their trust in him.
Rather than pretend everything was under control, keep urging as you will, I won't budge on my end, and when asked, it's actually because I anticipated this long ago but had other plans.
And Batman also had quite an understanding of the Justice League; although the vampires had some expansion momentum, it was nowhere near the level needed to conquer the world, they just loved to make a big deal out of minor things.
Thus, Batman sent back a message, roughly saying not to panic, and that he had more important matters at hand. Everyone should return to their respective cities to stand guard, and those without assigned cities should form teams to defend the unguarded areas, restricting vampire activity as much as possible.
That also served to assign tasks to them. Batman had never been one for micromanagement, and the other members of the Justice League weren't fools. With things said to this extent, most of the Justice League heroes could perform their duties and complete the tasks.
But oddly, half an hour after Batman's message was sent, Justice Hall sent a reply.
They said that given the current vampire situation, the Justice League should come up with a better response plan; thus, they invited Batman to attend a meeting.
Batman just didn't get it—what was so significant about the vampire situation now, just because they yelled a slogan? The slogan of the pea sandwich ruling the world had been shouted for fifty thousand years and didn't warrant a full Justice League meeting.
For a true scientist like Batman, the plan to encase the Earth in a shield to block out the sunlight sounded intimidating, but it was purely pseudoscience.
He didn't know if these winged rats knew that the Earth was rotating and orbiting; if you wanted to block out sunlight globally, unless you could make an entire spherical cover to wrap around the whole Earth, you would also need to keep this barrier relatively stationary with both the Earth and the Sun. Otherwise, how could it permanently face the Sun?
If you had the ability to keep such a huge barrier stationary in the cosmos relative to the Earth without affecting the gravitational pull, the tides, or the geological structures, why not just build a spaceship and head to a planet without sunlight? Why bother with Earth then?
This is a typical manifestation of the more ignorant you are, the bolder your ideas. Why don't you just encapsulate the Sun? Then the entire Solar System would be your domain, wouldn't it?
Therefore, as for the vampires' goal, Batman was utterly dismissive, even though they could perform magic. The difficulty in achieving it was simply too great,
Even if they could actually achieve it, ignoring far more viable methods in favor of such a foolish one, then this King of Vampires was essentially saying goodbye to bicycles.
Batman, though not understanding why the Justice League took such an alarmed stance, still patiently responded with a communication, primarily to explain his reasoning.
Now, vampires were expanding everywhere merely to make a fuss and distract the superheroes.
Theoretically, ignoring them was the correct response, but the Justice League, made up of superheroes, couldn't just watch as various cities were plagued, so splitting forces, even if not the best strategy, was necessary.
Although the superheroes were all called back to their respective cities to deal with local vampires, Batman was still confident that after solving the problems with the Batman Family, he would pull out the main personnel behind that far-fetched plan.
That's why he sent such a communication, letting the superheroes follow their own hearts, as he would cover for them anyway.
But unexpectedly, the superheroes didn't take his advice this time and insisted on calling him over for a discussion.
Batman thought it might be because the vampires were too aggressive this time, and the so-called King of Vampires' marketing was too successful, causing some people to panic. Calming them first, then setting up a plan was no problem.
In his response, Batman tried his best to reassure the superheroes, knowing most of them were eager to return to their cities. He told them not to feel burdened, to first be heroes for their cities, and leave the overall situation to him to control. It would definitely be okay.
Yet, less than half an hour later, he received another response.
The content of the message from the Justice Hall had Batman stunned; it essentially said, "We called you, and you haven't shown up. Have you betrayed us and turned into a vampire?"
At this point, Batman felt almost mentally disordered. Was this even human language?
Upon seeing the content of this communication, Shiller laughed.
Indeed, the Batman Family also felt as if they were playing a game of Werewolf, but the premise was that they were a family, not just colleagues, or bosses and subordinates. Batman and Robin were relatives.
Batman's main purpose in hunting for a mole here was not the fear that the mole might interfere with their work, but rather that they might damage the relationships within the family. He hoped to deal with any family member who might have been turned into a vampire using a gentler method.
Like with Dick, even though everyone noticed something odd about him, since Batman hadn't said anything, everyone just avoided him rather than turning into foes.
If handled with a harder approach and normal Robin fought with vampire Robin, no matter who got hurt, it was hard to end well. Even if Batman ultimately developed a serum to turn vampires back, what about those who were injured or sacrificed in this war? Could they just be forgotten?
Of course not; this was bound to leave a scar on the Batman Family. They were harming their own relatives, and not just those who hadn't been transformed, even those who were saved after becoming vampires couldn't accept such behavior.
Batman hesitated to take drastic measures because a feud between brothers always ends in mutual destruction; when there was a capability to mediate, escalating conflicts was counterproductive.
Dick's issue was barely resolved, but according to their speculation, there was another mole lurking within the Batman Family, possibly inciting the conflict between the Radical Faction and the conservatives.
Batman's play at Werewolf in hunting the mole here was not because he lacked better solutions, but purely out of his paternal affection.
But the Justice League was another matter entirely.
The first and most important point is that this Alliance is mostly comprised of adults, whose relationship resembles colleagues more than family.
Batman formed the Batman Family primarily as emotional support, to provide understanding and comfort to each other, but the Justice League was established to maintain peace on Earth, not to seek emotional solace.
In this case, turning to play Werewolf at the first sign of trouble to sniff out a mole was somewhat nonsensical.