The man covered head-to-foot in black leather fell from nowhere, rolled, came up with his hands poised in a defensive posture. Batman, ever-cautious, eyed him from across the rooftop. "Fell from nowhere" seemed to be precisely the case. No plane or helicopter or any other sort of vehicle overhead. No sign of a parachute. Flight-capable, perhaps? A teleporter? But neither were suggested by the rough landing. His posture shrieked "danger." His stance, Batman noted, promised death to anyone who attacked. He recognized the martial arts form, one that Shiva had wanted to teach him. He'd learned it only to know how to defend against it. "Where?" The voice was a rasping growl. Batman replied with his own. "Gotham City." "Gotham." The man's head tilted minisculely to the left. A breath later, "Batman, then." He straightened. "Engineer's been playing with the fucking Door again." Non sequitur. Batman filed it away for later. "And you are?" "The Midnighter." He smirked. "I'm you." "...explain." "Parallel dimensions. Alternate Earths. What do you call it here?" Another minute headtilt. "Hypertime. You're another me, I'm another you. Good thing it's not like antimatter." He sighed. "I'm stuck here until they find me. When they do I'm going to kick Angie's ass across the Carrier." Hypertime. Worlds of possibilities, intruding on his own. Batman loathed the entire concept. "Your people will be looking for you." Midnighter nodded. "The Authority. We're not 'superheroes' like your Justice League. We DO things." He smirked again. "Proactive, not reactive. Only way to get anything accomplished. Make a finer world, as Jenny says. --Jenny Sparks," he said without waiting for the question, "nastiest bitch you'd ever meet. Scares the hell out of me. She's perfect. You probably don't have an equivalent." Amanda Waller, Batman thought but didn't say. "Any idea how long it will take them to find you?" "You ever try scanning through infinite possibilities? ...couple of days at worst," he shrugged. "You do what you need to. I won't get in your way, Bruce." "You have me at a disadvantage," Batman said dryly, not bothering to dissemble. Obviously, this...parallel him...had extraordinary sources of information. "Sorry." Midnighter almost sounded sincere. "I'd give you my name if I had one. I don't remember it." He stared across the rooftop. "Does this Earth have a Henry Bendix?" "I don't know anyone by that name." "If he were here, you would. He tortures people into supersoldiers for fun. Too bad; if he was, I'd have a good time hunting him down and twisting his fucking head off." It wasn't a threat, or bragging; just a cold assessment. It told him something about Midnighter's probable origins. It also told him more than he wanted to know about this man's "parallel Earth." "If you know about this world, you'll know that in my Gotham..." "...I should play by your rules. Because it makes so much sense to incarcerate your psychopaths and virtually ensure they'll escape to kill again. How do you live with that?" "How do you live with blood on your hands?" Batman snapped, instantly regretting it. There was no arguing with this type, all moral certitude. ...and then they looked at each other, identical expressions of mixed disdain and conviction, and both realized just how pointless it was to debate the issue. *** Midnighter thought: Christ, and I thought *I* was wound up tight. Almost idly, the tactical computer in his head ran the numbers. It wouldn't come down to a fight, not here, because there wasn't any reason for it. But in 90% of the scenarios, he won. Sometimes easily, sometimes not. The other 10% intrigued him. The Batman might be as fine a specimen of humanity as obsession and training could create, but the Midnighter was superhuman. Physically stronger, faster, imbued with quicker reflexes courtesy of Bendix' methods. The computer usually guaranteed victory even over more powerful opponents because he could see their weaknesses. The Batman had very few weaknesses. The "wins" were on the whole simply a matter of greater strength and endurance to matched skill. The losses were due to.... Hm. What it came down to, frankly, was that Batman was simply *smarter.* Even without a computer in his brain. Stupid to be jealous of that; this was, after all, himself. He wondered how deep the differences ran. "To the Bat-cave," Midnighter said, and snickered. *** Walked over to the case containing Jason's costume. After a moment he drew himself up and saluted the case; nothing self-conscious about it at all, just honest tribute. *** Something was missing. The Midnighter noticed it, finally, after seeing the 'cave. Getting an idea of Batman's routine. Once Midnighter realized, it put his whole profile of the Batman into doubt. Midnighter had been comparing Batman to himself. All other factors being equal. But they weren't. There was no Apollo, here. Not by any name. ...It stunned him. He had just *assumed* -- stupid, stupid thing to do, but this was a parallel *him.* After figuring his location Midnighter had fixed on the appropriate doppelganger, someone called "Superman." Wondered just how much this super-man might be like his 'Pol. Very little, as it turned out. FAR too innocent. And married, to boot. To a *woman.* Bizarre. Midnighter wondered, briefly, about the parade of Robins, and knew that wasn't it. Nor was it this "Nightwing" person, either. There *was* something there, something complicated but never spoken of, and when Midnighter asked where he was--because it obviously wasn't *here*-- Batman had given him an indecipherable look and said that Nightwing was his own man, with his own life, in his own city. No...partner. Unfathomable. That lack explained so much...and it horrified him. But that wasn't the worst of it. There was simply--no one. No true companion, man or woman. Comrades, yes, others to join the "crusade." Midnighter read the files on the JLA, chuckling, recognizing some archetypes and wondering at the lack of others. The Engineer was easy enough to find in the man called Steel, but no one seemed concerned that this world's Shaman-Doctor was a teenaged boy. The Winged Huntress was split into two, huntress *and* hunter, the eternally resurrected Hawks. The feeling came off him in waves, too powerful to ignore A voice in his head. ~ This is the Engineer on radiotelepathy. ~ The voice paused. ~ Midnighter, I'm reading two of you. ~ ~ My double. Get the fuck down here, Angie. ~ ~ Be right there. ~ *** Midnighter looked up from the computer and said, "They're here." Batman would have asked how he knew if the answer hadn't become immediately evident. There was a shimmer like a hole in the air and six people stepped out of nothing into the cave. A dark-haired man wearing a suit but no shoes and feet...feet marked with treads. Blonde woman in a British-flag T-shirt, fingers stained with nicotine. Red- haired man in round sunglasses and exhibiting the distinctive twitch of a junkie. A woman covered in a shiny metallic substance and nothing else. Short Asian woman with no discernable extraordinary qualities. A very large white-haired man-- Who, on seeing the Midnighter, whooped and flew toward him on a halo of golden light. Midnighter let himself be grabbed, face splitting into a startling smile. "Took you long enough to find me, you bastards." "Shut up," said the glowing man, and kissed him. "Ahem." The blonde woman cleared her throat and addressed him with a strong English accent. "Hope our cretinous friend there didn't cause you too much trouble." "Not...too much." He moved a bit closer and noted that she smelled sharply of cigarettes and faintly of ozone. "Jenny Sparks?" "Yeah. Batman, right? Took us a while to find the right parallel. Too many of you. Bloody obsessives." While she talked the Asian woman sprouted a pair of wings and flew up to the roof of the cave, peering down. The dark man had his hand to the cavern floor. "You had a mother of an earthquake here. [magnitude] You want to look into shoring up the eastern wall, it's riddled with microfractures." "I'll do that," Batman said, and watched the junkie wander over near one of the fissures in the cave floor. Jenny sighed. "Angie, make sure the Doctor doesn't fall into the center of the Earth, would you?" Jenny shook her head. "Power to XXXX, and not a bit of common sense. --Chrissakes, Apollo, peel yourself off!" "Sorry," 'Apollo' told her, not looking at all repentant, still holding on to Midnighter. "Missed him." "True love, so sweet," she muttered. "Apologies for the disruption, Batman. Won't happen again." "Thanks for the hospitality."