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WHO: EDGEWORTH and BATWOMAN
WHERE: Parking lot.
WHEN: 4/21 late night.
WHAT: Words are about to fall on deaf, pointy ears.
WARNINGS: Violence.

It hadn't caught on with the police yet: a group of young men and one woman who had been making rounds in populated areas, the only woman in their group chatting up both men and women at stores or clubs and then luring them into open, but less populated places where the other men would be waiting. The jumps got violent in a matter of seconds, pinning their victims and ripping away their bags, purses, jewelry and other accessories, then beating them hard and instilling the fear that if they uttered a word to the police about this, they would not survive the "next time".

After a long night of hunting them down, Batwoman had been the one to surprise them in a parking lot as they poured over their earnings for the night. While they huddled together in their van, she landed on the roof of the vehicle, seizing their attention.

It was a very predictable fight afterwards. The only surprise was for how tiny the woman was, she knew how to handle her blade well enough. However, none were a match by the end. As soon as she had finished handcuffing them all, she reached into her utility belt for the untraceable cell phone to tip the police off.

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He'd been working late a month now. The nights he returned home before two in the morning were rare; the nights he returned home before midnight were nonexistent. It had been a number of years since he'd driven himself this hard, and he was finding that at thirty-four he didn't have the resilience he had at twenty-four; there was an ache in his shoulders and in his eyes, and rather than ferocious and energized, he just felt exhausted and sad. The search for Lucifer was going nowhere; people were still dying; it was hard not to be dispirited.

But when one heard a shout, and the sound of a body hitting asphalt, one tended to find a reserve of energy. The noise of the fight was unmistakeable, as was the fact that it was a brutal one; as such, he didn't even take the time to call the police, simply turned the block and ran full-out towards the source of the noise.

The scene was brutal indeed. Some five bodies on the ground of the parking lot, and crouched over them a masked woman. Edgeworth could tell just by the way she held herself that she was a fighter, and that she had hurt these people. Edgeworth didn't hesitate: he pulled out his cell phone, and held it visibly, and barked at the woman -

"Back away from them. I'm calling the police. Everything you have done will be held against you in court; any further harm to them will magnify the charges immensely."

Oh, brother.

It was getting tedious, running into imPort after imPort in the middle of the night. And luck isn't quite on her side lately between Bucky and now Miles Edgeworth, whom she recognized from the network alone. A man trying to do good, but too preachy for her own tastes.

At least he hadn't drawn a gun on her. She had her escape route planned from the get go before she surprised the gang.

She hesitated initially, but not out of some fear he would carry out his threat. Rather, she didn't want (or need) him thinking she was about to pull out some concealed weapon from her belt.

"All yours."

She gestured to the van, if he dared to come closer.

He watched her warily, eyes unblinking behind his glasses, mouth set in a firm line. But he did move when she said that - not looking away from her, lest she try to escape or try to attack, but drawing near the first of the victims, a small woman with her hands bound behind her. Several of the others were visibly still alive, but this woman was impossibly still. He reached down, looking away from the masked woman for the scantest moment to check this woman's pulse -

Still alive. That was some blessing. He looked up again.

"What is this, then?" His voice was low, fierce. "Some attempted kidnapping?"

Though hidden beneath her mask, she arched a brow at the suggestion. She didn't move closer toward the van or Edgeworth, hands kept down at her side as not falsely alarm him into thinking she would strike him when he least expected it.

On the ground, several feet from them all was the knife the woman had attempted to stab her with. Far from anyone's reach. There was also a wrench kicked in the opposite direction, dried blood could be made out along the edges of it.

"There are quite a few people who would like their belongings returned," she said, her own voice steady.

Behind the driver's seat was a small pile of stolen goods, ranging from wallets and watches to expensive phones, a couple of tablets, and jewelry.

At that comment, Edgeworth looked briefly away from her; he glanced at the scene, toward the physical evidence beyond these unconscious young people. He saw the wrench, saw the knife; this, then, was not something that had occurred without a fight.

Suddenly, things made quite a bit more sense.

Yet in spite of his realization, his expression didn't get any warmer. The intensity just changed, with wariness turning instead into simple disapproval.

"So you're one of our vigilantes. Correct?"

It had been some time she had invoked such strong feelings from anyone. The last time had been years ago from her, when she had barely been able to to convince Maggie Sawyer that she was hardly a detriment to the Cutter case. Some of Gotham's finest still hadn't and wouldn't accept outside help.

She knew where this was going, yet she continued to regard him calmly. She had seen enough of him around the network to know where he stood on the matter. They would never see eye to eye, she concluded before he could add anything else.

However, her main concern was the fact he had spoken with Harvey Dent.

"Save your breath, Mr. Edgeworth."

He wasn't expecting her to know who he was. That comment, therefore, was met with an increase in tension - with wariness creeping back into his expression, with defensiveness. But he didn't question her knowledge; while he wanted to know why she had taken note of him, demanding how she knew his name would make him seem skittish, nervous. No; he wouldn't ask.

The thieves, the criminals, were unconscious, but their lives were not in danger. And his observations on this scene would be worth nothing; after all, the fools in the government were perfectly content to accept the testimony of these vigilantes as worth as much as a common witness' - no matter that these people might well act out of spite, hatred, psychosis, a desire to subvert the path of justice.

So instead, he straightened up to address her directly.

"Of course," he replied, sardonic. "I should never presume to ask any questions that might make you feel less than self-satisfied in your course of action." And then he lifted his chin. "What do you call yourself?"

An iron will, was it? She had to give him kudos for that. Though born a military brat and having to move from base to base over the years, Gotham had always been home in her heart and when she had finally settled back there, she had witnessed record breaking levels of corruption, only second to Hub City. The cops had been in the mobs' back pockets, the lawyers were incompetent, corrupt themselves... then there were people like Dent. Well, there used to be.

They weren't standing on opposite sides, she thought, but Edgeworth wasn't from her world and it seemed unlikely people like her were commonplace. He wouldn't understand and she had very little patience to explain her reasoning for why she did what she did.

Not that she would. Nobody knew the truth beyond her father.

"Not about self-satisfaction." Never. A soldier was part of something far bigger and greater than themselves. "Batwoman."

"Batwoman," he repeated. Frustration and weariness and deep-seated anger that could normally find no expression made him ruder than was his wont; normally, even criminals received some measure of politeness from him, but Batwoman was treated to a rare bit of bitter sarcasm. "I suppose that explains the get-up.

"Tell me, then." He crossed his arms. "If it's not about self-satisfaction, what is it? Since we're both here, presumably waiting for the police to arrive, we have a moment, and I have a burning curiosity. Why do you do what you do?"

She pushed her cape behind her shoulders, long locks of red swept behind in the same motion. The symbol emblazoned on her chest now clear to see, even under a dim street light and the van casting a shadow over the both of them.

Bright red lips parted for a split second in faint amusement: he really went there. It hadn't been the first time she had been asked and it would never be the last, nevertheless the inquiry had the tendency to surprise her. As if pouring her heart out to a stranger was expected.

And there was the fact the police were on their way. It was about time for her to skedaddle from the scene lest she had multiple guns trained on her. Bulletproof uniforms were handy, but still hurt to get shot at any range.

"Would it change anything?"

She finally shifted, maneuvering away from Edgeworth and hoisted herself up onto the roof of the van. There was a barely audible thud as her boots met solid aluminum and she crouched, gaze still focused on Edgeworth.

"It would help me."

He said that rather dryly, but truthfully...It would. This tendency in this world, this desire to fight crime outside of the law, frustrated and baffled him. At home, those who wanted to do good would follow the proper avenues for doing good. They would pursue careers in the law, as police or lawyers, and they would follow the rules, and they would help people bound by rules and procedure. Yet here, there were dozens who acted as though the mere thought of following the rules was absurd, as though submitting to a code of ethics bound your hands and prevented you from helping anyone, as though having a code to guide you didn't help people - Indeed, he was quite outnumbered, with fewer people respecting the law than respecting those who broke it.

It confused him. It angered him, too. And so, less sarcastically, more honestly, he said, "I don't understand your kind. And it seems that I need to in order to do my job."

It was gradually becoming apparent that perhaps Miles Edgeworth got more flak than he deserved from the other imPorts. There was a reason she did not participate in the ongoing debate of Registered vs. Unsettled ― for one, neither side actually listened to other. Logic and reason went in one ear and out the other. Secondly, she had more important matters to attend to, like keeping an eye out for psychotic fallen angels who may have had a penchant for arson.

She hadn't sprung from the roof of the van yet, observing Edgeworth with renewed interest, though that was difficult to discern when she wore a mask. However, the fact she hadn't bolted so soon had to have given away an actual consideration to explain.

"I can't speak for others." She worked alone and she didn't answer to anyone. She only stood by justice and the law ― when she wasn't breaking some of them for the sake of the greater good. It's hypocritical and downright dangerous, maybe arrogant of her to a point, but it was the only way she knew how to serve.

"Perhaps another time, Mr. Edgeworth." She rose, unhooked the grappling gun from her belt and launched the hook toward the balcony of a nearby building. "You'll have company soon."

That was more than he had expected from her. He'd assumed he'd get exactly what he got from the other vigilantes, from the likes of Kate Bishop - a sneering brush-off, a contemptuous word about his inability to understand. But the woman was looking at him, and there was something in her posture and the angle of her head that hinted that she wasn't looking at him with contempt or mockery or amusement; she was truly listening to what he said.

It was in response to that attention that Edgeworth made this offer. Perhaps it was reckless, perhaps it was foolish, but she was clearly about to flee and he was unwilling to lose contact with this, the sole vigilante so far who actually seemed willing to answer his questions.

"I live in residence 21, and I leave my window open." He looked at her with chin lifted. "If you're truly willing to speak, I wish to listen."

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