Earth -44
Gotham City

Month ago...

"DUNNO ABOUT YOU JEEVES," Mutated human with alligator skin told the weakened old gentleman under his fist, "BUTI CAN DO THIS ALL NIGHT!"

"Nuh-uh, Wally Gator" female jester with ponytails said.

"Save some for the rest of us."

"Enough of this," twofaced man said observing the situation and flipping a coin. "Now tell us where Batman is before we get really rough."

"Uhh.. Batman? What pray tell ahh... is a Batman?" the old man said feigning to ignorance as large muscled man with tubes going from his hand to the cannister in his back lifted him up. "Perhaps there is another way I can be of service."

KRRRAKKKK!

The old gentleman was brought down with his back hitting his assailant's knee as the laughter of the jester echoed in the footage he was watching from the screen of the large computer in his cave.

"Play again."

"Bruce," they told him, "this has to stop."

"Clark is right, Bruce," his friends told him. "We're
concerned."

"Watching this over and over again," Clark told, "it's not healthy."

"I tell you what's not healthy, Clark," he said turning to face his friends. "It's not healthy to stand here knowing that the man who raised me like a father is in a casket upstairs with 36 shattered bones. That we couldn't have an open casket because he was beaten to a pulp six feet from where you're standing now."

He took a deep breath before continuing with his eyes on the ground.

"My whole life, he has been there for me. No matter what I had done, no matter how angry I had made him. I would ring, and he would come. It's not healthy to know that he won't be anymore and that it's my fault."

"But now you have the responsibility to honor him by putting him to rest," Clark said as Diana, Wolf, Steve and Oliver turned to walk away. "Bruce, what happened to Alfred was horrible. The rest of us are going to be upstairs at the wake. I hope you'll join us."

Almost everyone had left him alone in the cave when he called two of them back.

"Victor and Webs, wait. A few years ago, I begun a scan of Alfred's mind. To create an artificial intelligence that might outlast him. But it was never finished. I called it the Alfred Protocol."

"What are you asking us, Bruce?" Victor asked.

"What do you need?" Ms. Tarantula asked.

"I can't bring him online by myself. I need your help.. please, Victor and Tara. I need him. He was like a father to me."

A month ago...

"How-may-I-help-you?"

"How-may-I-help-you?"

"How-may-I-help-you?"

"How-may-I-help-you?"

"How-may-I-help-you?"

"L-look, I'm not going to go after Batman anymore. I'm going to the airport now," Bane said trying to plead for his life against the copies of the Alfred Protocol surrounding him. "I'm going home to Santa Prisca."

"How-may-I-help-you?" the Alfred Protocol kept repeating as it's copies advanced on Bane.

"How-may-I-help-you?"

"Y-you don't have to kill me, too..." Bane said as the copies raised their arms at him, " I'll leave."

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

"How-may-I-help-you?"

"Bruce," Cyborg said with Webs on his shoulder approaching uncaped and uncowled Batman, who was observing the situation on Bane from the
Bat-Computer, in a closed off section of the Batcave,
"What the Hell is going on!?"

"Ring-the-bell,-sir. Let-me-in,-sir. Ring-the-bell."

"It's him.. It's Alfred... He started spreading once he was activated," Bruce said faced against the Bat-computer where the Alfred Protocol was calling out to him through everything else brought up on the screen. "Creating more and more of himself. Nothing seems to be able to stop him."

"Why?" Cyborg asked.

"He is trying to protect me. Take away everything and everyone that might hurt me. Bane wasn't the beginning." Bruce said without turning to face Cyborg. "He was the end. Last night, the Alfred Protocol systematically murdered every inmate in Arkham Asylum."

"Dammit, Bruce, the whole point of this was to build you an A.I. that could stitch you up and make sure you ate your dinner," Cyborg snapped at Bruce. "We have to stop this before it goes any further. We need to deactivate the program."

"This crazy program needs to be shut down before more lives are taken." Webs said.

"I agree," Bruce said reluctantly as looked at the Alfred Protocol helping civilians around the crime scene and the cops taking selfies over Bane's body.

"And I'm still his blind spot, Victor. He is doing all of this because he cares about me. If I let him back into the cave, I can reprogram him, stop him from doing anything like this again."

"No, Bruce, you can't do that," Cyborg said denying Bruce of his intentions.

"This is a hungry virus looking to feed and spread. We need to come up with a way to destroy-" Webs started.

"I already lost him once, Victor and Tara!" Bruce said speaking over Cyborg and Webs. "I can fix this. Make it better and keep him."

"Look, Bruce, we're figure out a way to break through,"Cyborg said as he turned to leave. "I'm going to find a way to fight it from the outside, without letting either of us get too vulnerable. Whatever you do, don't let them in here."

"Let-me-in,-sir," the Alfred Protocol kept calling out from the Bat-computer as Bruce turned to look at Cyborg as he left, with a bitter look on his face.

"Ring-the-bell,-sir. Let- me-help-you,-sir."

Few days ago..

"Listen to me, Bruce," Cyborg said struggling as he tried to approach Batman who was surrounded by androids in the Batcave. "I know you're still in there. I know you can still hear me."

The androids charged to attack Cyborg who used his hand canon to shoot them away as he kept trying to fight his way to friend he was still trying to save.

"The protocol is trying to shut me down, but I'm still alive because you want to listen to me!" Cyborg spoke with blood coming out of his mouth as he continued to fight his way to Batman in a mechanized shell. "The best part about you is your humanity. We can stop it before it rewrites you
entirely. You just have to want it, Bruce!"

" Victor..."

"You can let go of Alfred and be yourself again," Cyborg kept trying to reach out to Batman as he fell to his knees.

"You don't have to let yourself become some kind of
horrible Murder Machine!"

"Victor," Batman said looking down on Cyborg and
released nanites out of his mechanical body, "I-am-
precisely-who-I-want-to-be."

"Bruce..." Cyborg said horrified as the nanites surrounded his body. "Bruce, no!"

"My-father-will-always-be-there-for-me-and-I-will-always-be-there-for-him," the Murder Machine spoke as the nanites consumed Cyborg's body and put his hand on Cyborg's throat. "Everyone-else-is-a-weakness. Weakness-I-am-ready-to-shed."

RRRRRIIIPPP!

As Batman ripped Cyborg's head off his body. His world then started to crumble and fall apart. He was then founded by the Batman Who Laughs.

"My, my, you certainly done a lot to keep our daddy alive." Batman Who Laughs said laughing a bit.

"Who-are-you? My-scans-show-that-you-are-me. From-a-parallel-earth-perhaps." Murder Machine said.

"Oh, did you figure that out by using Google or Bing?" Batman Who Laughs cackled.

"Why-are-you-here?" Murder Machine asked.

Batman Who Laughs told him about his plan on recruiting people like them to aid Lord Barbatos in taking over the Multiverse, and in return, he would bring his Alfred back.