Chapter Three: Main Line

Batman appeared in an instant. He leaped off the rooftop and onto the street, where the dark figure was lazily sending cars into the air, while sirens rang around. The police hadn't gotten here yet, save one cruiser that was in the neighborhood and was now levitated in midair. Batman couldn't see if there was anyone inside but if they were, they were in a seriously dangerous position. He winced behind his lenses in the sunlight, he hated working in the day but of course he really did have no choice now, did he? Most of Gotham's criminals tended to appear at night themselves. Perhaps this one was yet another out of towner.

It seemed to be a male, wearing a dark hooded robe with a trim of red at the edges of the cape-like robe. He couldn't see his face but a small portion of a pale chin. It was vaguely reminiscent of that Star Wars emperor. He didn't see him yet, and surprise was the key. He grabbed his grappling gun, wishing he had Robin here to back him up. Unfortunately the kid was in school. He was alone. He shot the grappling hook, aiming for the feet hidden under the folds of black cloth, but the hook suddenly froze in midair as the creepy figure took notice.

"Dare you to attack the Arbiter!?" The figure yelled, blasting Batman back some kind of psychic blast and across the rooftop. He suddenly was blasted back himself into the wall of the building across the street…no, he fell down, clutching his head and yowling.

"Yes, dear, I do." Batman got up rather indignantly to see a blonde woman standing at the edge of the roof proudly. She was wearing a white trenchcoat…it was her, the woman from yesterday.

Emma Frost.

"Is that a thank you, I hear, Mister Batman?" she said, not turning around when he approached her.

"Arbiter is powerful, yes, but not as powerful as I. A nuisance. All telekinesis, and no brains. I can easily trigger his pain centers to the highest degree, he has no idea how to stop me. Whoops, there we go—'

Batman grabbed her arm and pulled it as if it had anything to do with her power, not liking this in the least.

"This is my city," he growled in his deep, raspy voice. "And I'll take care of things."

"Oh yes, the males and their territory thing. I didn't think Bats were the kinds of animals to make a pit stop at every fire hydrant now—oww, you're twisting."

She glared at him. "Really, I help you and this is the thanks I get? You wouldn't last a second with him. Want to try? He's not as strong as he could be but he's got an awful lot of raw power and he might get a lucky shot in. Your police friend could have been smashed into a pulp, but I managed to bring him down in time." She motioned carelessly to the cruiser lopsidedly landed safely on top of a taxi cab.

"You're telekinetic too?"

"Not…really. I just used his mind to do it. He really has no defenses whatsoever, the dimwit. Well, let's clean this up, shall we, Bats?" She smiled at him cheerfully, and pulled her arm out of his grasp, but his 'look' was so daunting she folded her arms.

"What? He's down and out, don't worry."

"I saw you at the bank robbery. You are a criminal."

She looked a bit fidgety, but shrugged, and tossed her blonde hair back. "Oh, that. Yes, well, I'm not really a petty thief but—so that was you up there, wasn't it? There was a boy with you—"

"You are a criminal, and I'm going to take you in." He grabbed her arm again.

"Really, have you any idea how to treat a lady? A bit obsessed about this criminal thing, aren't we?"

Batman let go of her arm, suddenly realizing the danger he was in, blinded to it before by the urgency of the situation. If she could read his mind…he immediately focused, bringing all his martial arts training to hand. He had to clear his mind. Think of nothing. Complete control.

She glanced at him. "I'd assume so. But before you 'take me downtown' like a good girl, let's see who you are, Batman. I haven't much time around masked heroes, they all usually parade their little faces for all the world to see. A man who wears a mask, well…I'll say that—"

A look of concentration came across her beautiful face. The same look crossed across Batman's. She was trying to access his mind, he could feel it, he could tell. Some random memories surfaced for no reason. Alfred tending to his side when he was sick. A date with Vicki Vale.

No, he would not let his mind be opened like this again! He hated this sort of thing…his very mind had been wiped by some members of the JLA, a few minutes of memory was robbed him. It had made him hyper-paranoid, and some of those old feelings, despite him having gotten over most of it, still remained.

She grunted. "Bit of a toughie, aren't we, Bats? You've got a very…interesting mind, indeed. You are no match for me, unfortunately."

He said nothing, though a detached part of him mused that if an onlooker came here, he'd just see two people with constipated looks on their faces standing at the edge of a rooftop staring at each other.

Emma reached deeper into his mind. It was so unusual, unlike any she'd ever seen before. It was dark in there, as she expected. Cavelike. She touched on his subconcious and was immediately repelled, and she gasped, horrified. She hadn't even seen anything but she suddenly felt cold, lost, alone…afraid. There was a child running in the darkness, a small boy with dark hair. He was laughing cheerfully, even though it was a dark cave.

She followed, yelling, "Wait!" He laughed, then tripped over a rock and fell on his face. He started crying, and picked up a few stray pearls from the ground. He sniffed and placed the pearls in her hands.

"What's this?"

He started crying again and ran off, and she followed, until there was a light ahead. It was the city, a warped version…well, Gotham was already pretty warped in her opinion but this was creepy. There was a bright yellow light, and she blinked and they were at an opera house, and the little boy was now wearing a suit and holding the hands of a man and a woman. The woman was wearing a pearl necklace, and they were walking down the alley next to the opera house.

Emma followed behind them, looking at the pearls in her hand. His mother and father, no doubt. When she looked up again, there was a man in front of them. He asked for their money…and suddenly everything went to pieces. The boy's cries were so loud she covered her ears, and before she knew it the man and the woman were on the ground, dead. The boy wailed and broken pieces of the necklace scattered across the ground. Something red fell. Emma looked down and saw that she was shot too.

"What the…" the boy wasn't a boy anymore, but a Bat. A giant, horrible, B-movie monster of a bat, five stories tall and was now towering over her.

"Oh, cliché, but you've gotta be kidding me—" she turned to run but there was a brick wall in front of her. There was a spray paint graffiti of a Robin's symbol, with the sloppy, dripping red letters scrawled across it: "Here Lies Jason Todd." There was a mangled wheelchair with a hideous clown's face on the seats in the corner, and it was laughing maniacally.

The Bat-creature roared and it felt so real, the hot breath that seared across her face. "Frost…" She screamed with terror as it came closer like it was going to eat her. "Frost!" it roared. She closed her eyes.

"Miss Frost!" The voice rang out clear and she suddenly snapped out of her reverie. She looked up into the face of the horrible bat-creature, it was going to eat her—no…wait. It was daytime. It was only Batman.

"I'm..." she breathed heavily, like coming out of a nightmare. Sweat dripped off her forehead, hair plastered against her face stickily. She was surprised to find she was still standing.

"What…what happened?"

"I don't know," he said. "You fell unconcious."

"Ah…right…" she blinked, the memory of the day coming back to her. She wiped the sweat from her brow.

She suddenly gasped and felt her stomach. No bullet wound.

Emma gazed at him, disturbed. What kind of man had a mind like that? His subconscious sucked her into its own dreams and created one horrible nightmare. Unless that was the life he lived.

But it didn't make sense. She was too powerful and her powers were too refined for her to make such a juvenile mistake as to get lost in another person's mind. She shook her head, trying to clear it. It was like there were two whole…entities in there.

That boy, and that monster. She could feel each one so separately.

"Tell me, dear, have you ever seen the psychiatrist? It isn't that bad, believe me," she asked shakily as she got up. Normally she wasn't bothered by the things she saw inside people's minds but this had gotten her spooked. She couldn't even try to control it, even though surface illusions apparently got to him, as of last night. Deeper in, at that subconscious level, it was too much of a tangle.

"Were you trying to get in my mind?" he asked in that growly voice. She shuddered, remembering the bat-monster.

"Erm, not anymore. Say, you aren't a mutant, are you? Because you have the most excellent defenses I've ever seen. Albeit disturbing, but good in a pinch."

"A mutant?" He didn't sound like he recognized the term

"Oookay, perhaps you and I, mister Bats, ought to have a little chat. Our friend down there'll be fine, I'll just place a little inhibitor in his mind so he can't use his powers for the time being." She wiped a stray piece of hair from her face. "Anyplace we can talk without being heard?"

Batman pointed upwards towards a high office building's roof silently.

"Fine, perfect. Lead the way."

"You can't fly or anything, can you? Because I'll have to carry you."

"I don't weight that much," she said with a smirk, feeling a little more like herself.

It was kind of nice, being carried by Batman, he was strong and whatever he used for that grappling hook thingy was strong too. They landed more or less gracefully on top of the tall office building and indeed, it was so high up that they wouldn't be overheard, unless some nosy pencil pusher would come out for a smoke or something.

"Sit down, Bats, this might take awhile," they both sat at the edge of the roof. It was windy, and her hair kept blowing around frantically. He scowled at her penchant to use his name like that.

"So you don't know what mutants are? I really can't believe that. Have you heard nothing in the news over the past, what say ten, twenty years? Well, apparently you aren't one, but I could've thought so…"

"You mean meta. Meta-human."

Her face was blank.

"Powered human? Super human? You have 'powers.' You're meta."

"It's like we're speaking a different language," she laughed, and adjusted her coat, as it was chilly up there.

"I think I know why. They said that our world had been…there was some kind of calamity with all the alternate universes and ours had been smashed together with another's, if I can put it that way."

"We've had something similar, yes."

"In any case, reality had been messed with. X-men…good mutants that are fighting for all that good stuff, kept disappearing. Reappearing here. I haven't been in contact with anyone in ages. I know Beast is here, and maybe…Kitty, but I haven't heard…"

"That's why no one's heard of your company until last week. Something happened to tie your reality with this one and people are leaking through the holes."

"Er…yes. That's a better explanation than I have at the moment, anyway. How do you know so much about me?"

"You don't wear a mask, Miss Frost."

"Ah yes. Everyone here does. 'Cept that Superman fellow. My goodness, I'd love to get the reasoning behind that one."

"So would I," Batman muttered so dryly she had to wonder if he had actually cracked a joke, but she had a feeling he'd never admit to something like that.

"So I'm stuck here, unless my whole 'world' as it were comes here. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. I'm not sure if I want it to or not. It's best to leave old skeletons behind, hmm? Maybe you should take a leaf out of that." She said it rather sadly, as if she was remembering something very unpleasant from her past.

"Never look in my mind. Again," he said angrily and got up.

"Oh, like I would want to!" she got up after him. "You're crazy, you know that, Bats? I couldn't even see who you really were! You know why?"

"Because I'm Batman, that's why! And don't call me Bats!"

"Yes! Yes, you are Batman," she stalked in front of him. "There wasn't any alter ego, just you. Okay? Does that make you happy?"

"Tell me something I don't know," he said grimly.

"You need help. You're obsessed about a murder…or something. You've got a very creepy mind, needless to say. I nearly got lost in there!"

"I forced you out," he said curtly.

"No one forces me out," her eyes widened in anger. "I got myself out! Your willpower isn't great enough to force me out!"

"My willpower is a lot greater than you think," he muttered.

"You're just a human! I'm a mutant. I can do a lot worse to you than you'd think. I went easy on you. Just because I can't get in doesn't mean I can't do this—"

He suddenly winced with pain, but grunted and didn't say anything.

"Or this!" She activated his pleasure centers but there was no evidence on his face, save a twitch and narrowing of the eyes.

She groaned. "Don't tell me you're so twisted that you can't ever be happy! What is wrong with you, Bats?"

"I'm just a human."

She winced, and then promptly kicked him in the shin. She had never met a person without powers that was so able to anger her so, and was able to evade her. She was sure if she tried really hard she could take him down, but to take that kind of exertion for a normal person? Scratch that, he wasn't normal. And she thought she had diamond skin. She hadn't come across anyone colder than herself. Even if she did have diamond skin…she had a feeling that maybe he'd still be able to defeat her anyway somehow. He was an odd one, that was for sure. And being the power hungry woman that she was, used to dealing with all types, she knew she'd rather have this type on her side than against her.

As annoying as he was.

"Well, what are you going to do now, Bats, arrest me?" The only reason why she kept calling him that was simply because he told her not to, and it annoyed him. "Cause you know, I did steal that money."

He glared at her. "Why?"

A raised eyebrow. She could tell he didn't like her very much, either. "Because. It wasn't just the money you know. I'm not that much of a klepto, despite it all."

"You're trying to frame someone."

"You are good. Yes, there's tracking numbers and all kinds of lovely things on those bags, and I managed to plant them where they needed to be. You got the little men, and I got the big men. They're probably going to be in jail tonight, if all goes well."

"I don't think you're much of a vigilante. What's in it for you?"

"Now that, my dear Bats, is the mystery." She began to walk away, towards the stairs door. A dark gloved hand grabbed her slender one, it was strong and tugged her back. That irritated her as well.

"I didn't say you could leave."

"I have a business to run, and I'm quite late. And my date had some kind of panic attack and is probably hiding under the toilets or something."

His hand let go, as she mistook the gesture as 'permission' to leave and the door closed behind her. But Batman was surprised, was what it was. She hadn't figured out his identity, even with looking at his mind. He wasn't sure whether to trust her word on that she wasn't a criminal, or even if he ran back downstairs and became Bruce Wayne again, would she figure it out.

Or simply maybe, she was still playing with him, and his mind. And that's why he let her go.

Stay Tuned for Chapter 4!

Or Else. (Says Batman.)