The following day.

Bruce is walking down the dirty streets of Gotham to clear his head. Passing a newspaper stand on his way. The title on the newspaper says: “pulling a bat out of a hat”

Bruce pulled out his wallet and paid for the newspaper to read it.

“after another bold attack by what the people are calling The Mad Hatter, the Knights ball held by the Knights family, the owners of the Gotham yacht club among many other activities held in Gotham, the body of the young Alice Knave was revealed, assumable, killed by the Mad Hatter. There was extensive genital damage done to the body in addition to strangulation wounds on the neck. In the confusion the young Alice Knight was kidnapped. There’s still four Alice kidnappings not accounted for in the recent weeks and all have been linked to the Mad Hatter. A public challenge made by the Mad Hatter was issued to Batman at the ball that as far as the police know has not been addressed. The strangest thing about the events last night however is that at the end of the ball all members of the Mad Hatters cult committed suicide including the Mad Hatter himself. The police think that the Knights-ball Mad Hatter was a phony. At the same time another postal attack was made. A Coca cola production building in downtown Gotham was treated with anthrax by one of the truck drivers in charge of the safe transportation. Those poisoned bottles and cans were then shipped to their appropriate stores and sold. The current sales are unknown as of yet but currently there are over 2000 people that have been hospitalized and no consistent number of casualties have been reported. The investigation assumes the Mad Hatter is responsible because the truck driver not only had the same playboy bunny pin but he also sprayed the side of the truck with the words “Madness is poison.” there are so many people flowing into the hospitals right now that there are people actually dying in line. They can’t keep up with everything that’s happening. And things are starting to shut down completely. It seems that the Mad Hatter is making a fool of Batman, the police and the entire city of Gotham…”

Bruce crinkles up the paper and stomps off.

Later on in the lower basement of Wayne industries.

Luscious Fox and Bruce discuss the events of the other night and how to deal with them. Luscious is typing something on the laptop.

“Hmm… well… the police reports I’m looking at here say they did the autopsy of the Mad Hatter and the gentle men with the tattoos already.”

“That’s fast, especially considering Gotham cops. What they find?”

“Well, it seems that the ‘Mad Hatter’ was a man named Mathew Addler. And there was a lot of surgery to his face to make him look like that…. Oh wow, a lot of surgery…”

Two pictures appear on the monitor. One on the right was the Mad Hatter, but the one on the left was a teenage looking black haired semi-asian person.

“That’s quite a big change. Expensive too. Why do you think?”

“Well you where a mask too, don‘t you? Why do you where yours?… Here, lets see what else they found… here’s something on those bunny pins of his… looks like there’s a speaker in the back. They think that the speaker plays subliminal messages. Each one has a different message on it and each one of the messages matches what happened at each attack.”

“He’s using mind-control bunnies?… Ugh… what next!?”

“Wait, it gets better. It seems that there were several drugs in the bodies of those playing card men. In addition to several judgment altering drugs there were also several chemicals that lower your self confidents and make you more cooperative. There were also several scar holes from what they deduce as syringe holes. He must have been forcing these people to take these.”

“Who would do that?”

“A sicko with mind-control issues… and this guy apparently…. Guys…”

“Guys?”

“There must be several of him. It can’t be just one guy. Way too much to do. Plus he already basically said he was dead but not gone. There has to be more of him.”

“How many do you think?”

“Impossible to tell. Who knows how long he’s been planning this for. He already said three so I think we should gamble on that but be prepared for maybe one or two more….”

“Great, 5 crazy people. As if one isn‘t enough…”

“So we have mind control serums, crazy bunnies, copy cats, and lunatic kids… this sounding just like the book isn’t it?”

“Unfortunately… is there anything we can do about it?”

“Not as we are right now…”

“Frustrating… I’m going out.”

“Are taking the car?”

“No, I’ll walk…”

Batman with massive wingspan glider flies through the city’s darkness. The bat signal glaring in the background. He slants to the right and drops like an eagle into the shadows. He lands silently and invisibly. Commissioner Gordon waiting by it like always. And in that angry garbled voice he always makes Batman uttered to him.

“Gordon…”

“I wish it were a pleasure. You know what the problem is I assume…”

“I do.”

“And I assume you know about the Mad Hatters challenge?”

“Yes…”

“What do you plan to do about this? He also apparently knows who you are.”

“I don’t see how he would know that.”

“I had the guest list for the Knights ball made police access only.”

“Good… do you have any information on the Mad Hatter that’s worth anything?”

“Yes, witch is why I sent for you. We have a tip off for the Mad Hatters base…”

A tenement in lower Gotham.

A black screen.

There’s a rustle ling and the screen lights up. A ‘rec’ in the corner and a voice saying:

“oh goodie! oh goodie! oh goodie! OH GOODIE!!! I can’t wait! I can’t wait!…. Crap…I forgot what I was- oh yes! My burger!!! McAwsome! My evil samwich! Can’t wait to make my burger! Eeeek! So excited!”

He swings his arm and the screen shakes and falls to the ground seeing only the ceiling.

“shit! I hit the fuckin’ camera!”

A rustling and a tripping noise followed by a duck quake before the camera sees the Mad Hatter again.

‘ah! Hu-HA! Got it! Now, back to my burgs… hmm… take off one bun… take off the other… oop, not that one, that ones gots the pickles on it… WHO PUTS CHEESE ON THE BUN!!!!??? DAMN YOU JOSE! DAMN YOU! YOU DAMN DIRTY APE! Ok, back to the num-nums… we take one double cheese burger.. With ANOTHER DOUBLE CHEESE BURGER… dab of hot sauce …. A bigger dab then that… …bigger… FUCK!!! grumblegrumblegrumble…”

He turns way from the counter and raises his new hamburger to the sky.

“ULTRA!
SUPER!

MEGA!

SPICY LIKE A BITCH!

COMPLETELY MAD!

QUADRUPLE STACKER-KER-KER-KER-KER!!!!!!!!! I love me!”

And he takes a massive chomp of the disgusting thing as a young man with after shadow a sleeveless madras walks in. On his should is a tattoo. The ace of spades. The young man turns off the camera.

“That thing is disgusting. I can’t believe you can eat that without gagging.”

The Mad Hatter turns to a mirror that was close to him looks at himself and says:

“But it’s beautifully disgusting… especially next to me! Ha-ha! And even better with Tea!”

And he pulls out a cup of tea from no where and chugs the whole thing at once and throws it across the room and smashes to pieces a different mirror then he was standing at.

“GAD DAMN CEASAR SALAD!!!!!!!!”

Breaking mirrors must have been easy in this apartment. They were every where. All along the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling. Not one consistent mirror. But hundreds of odds and ends of different styles and shapes and sizes. As if he collected them and didn’t know where to put them. The whole apartment looked crappy. Yellow floors with brown stuff on it. Tan paint with yellow stains on it. The whole place looked gross, with or without the mirrors.

“I still think your nuts…”

“NO! I’m Mad! HAHAHAHA!”

“Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, how could I forget.” in a sarcastic voice even a toddler would get.

“Well your forgiven. And besides, Mad people never go crazy. it’s the NORMAL people that go nuts!”

“And that’s the plan right boss?”

“No. no such thing. I hate normal people far too much to just kill them off. Ugh.. Normal people. HATE THEM! Speaking of: is Alice ready for me yet?”

“Sir… she can’t wait to meet you…”

“Good! I’ll invite her to my tea party!”

“Ha! More like an S.Tea.D. party…”

Hatter glances at him. Grabs him by the neck, levies him over his shoulder and smashes him through the window. He falls to the ground and lands with a CRACK! He’s not moving anymore.

“That was very rude… I hope you learned your lesson.”

He then turns with a jerk and sets off to the stair case. He watches himself as he goes by all the mirrors. Each with a different angle on him. He loves it. He makes cool poses to himself and dances a bit just to see himself do it. Even makes some funny faces. This is what he does when he’s bored. He’s ALWAYS bored.

He reaches the stair case and hops down three stairs at a time. Doing spins and more poses on the way down.

“Hya! Quah! Wooooyaaaa! I am ninjaaaaaaaa!”

He reaches the end of the stairs and opens the door to see Alice Knight tied to a chair dressed in a very ornate dress in front of a table with a white table cloth and a tea set on it.

And heart shaped crumpets!