"Tick-tock, Little Bat. Whatever will you do?"
There isn't alot that can leave me with definitive conflict. My entire life, there's been a sense of simplicity when it comes to making my decisions. There's only the right choice and the wrong choice, and if I mess up, I only mess up in the worst possible way. So whenever I'm faced with a situation like this - where the stakes are high enough to end with someone dying - I usually know exactly what to do. Save the life. Break the jaw of whoever's threatening it. Then move onto the other limbs until I'm satisfied. But for whatever reason, this situation strikes me as... different.
"Dammit, don't worry about me!", Catwoman yells out.
"Just do whatever you have to and take him out!"
I want to tell her it's not that simple. There's a number of factors at play. The blade held tightly to her throat. The raving lunatic holding it grinning back at me, spouting off Lewis Carroll. His trigger-happy psychotic mess of a girlfriend held captive in my hands. Two obscenely strong assassins-for-hire lying on the floor, both anywhere from hours, to minutes, even
seconds away from regaining consciousness. And I'm not even sure I'd be telling the truth.
What if it is that simple? Catwoman's life hangs in the balance, and all I can think about is getting my hands around Mad Hatter's throat. It's like she doesn't even matter. But really, what's stopping me - loyalty? All I've ever done is save her, she's been nothing but a hindrance to me. Her value to me is practically non-existent. The sanctity of life? I can't imagine one more would make a difference. Hatter's probably murdered a countless score of victims.
No, I think I know exactly what it is. The same reason I haven't been taking any chances ever since I put this damn suit on. Haven't tried to honor the vow I made to finally start getting rid of the criminal element once and for all. I've been acting a shell of myself. And it's because of
him.
"Your 'queen'?", I growl, forcing the woman around and locking my arm around her neck.
"Why should I? Why should I let her live when you've killed innocent girls all over Gotham?!"
The Hatter only smiles, whimsically sliding the blade up and down Catwoman's neck.
"Such an aggressive discourse. I merely wish to preserve the order of things. You mean to inflict chaos on Wonderland?"
I grit my teeth. Even despite the circumstances, he's beyond dedicated to his role. Whether he used to work on the grounds or picked it up independently is beyond me. But somewhere along the line, he lost it.
"We're not in Wonderland. And you're not the Hatter."
Indicating the wall mural of the actual Hatter behind him, I watch him as he begins to circle. I don't take my eyes off of his wrist. A simple twist and he'd easily be able to cut through the material of her costume. Still trying to decide if that bothers me.
"Tell me where you're keeping the girls and I'll consider sparing her."
"**** you! **** all of you!", my captive screams.
"This was just a job! I just work security for this jackass, I don't know what he does with them!"
"Oh, dear. It seems you've gravelly misunderstood the levity of the situation,", he retorts to me, gripping the blade even tighter.
"You're in no position to negotiate. My playthings are mine to own. Mine, mine, mine. They are the property of Wonderland, and you? You're a simple terrorist. You and the Cheshire Cat are subject to execution..."
Angrily, I flex my wrist, adding pressure to the neck. The woman immediately begins to choke.
"And you've misunderstood the level of my patience! You're not in Wonderland! These are human lives! Real people, innocent people that you've killed with your insane delusions! And I won't allow it to continue!"
My methods for solving this are beginning to verge on the extreme, but if he thinks I'm bluffing when I say I'm going to strangle her infront of him, he's wrong. I will do whatever I have to in order to bring him down, and if that means taking a casualty, so be it. For the second time in my life, I can say for certain that this is no longer a matter of honoring anyone else's vows. There's no rule to adhere to. No law to answer to. This isn't him asking for penance or me trying to talk reason. This is staring down death in it's most raw, desperate form and seeing what a pathetic joke it really is. And unfortunately for him, I don't have any sort of pity to offer this miserable excuse of an existence.
I'm not Bruce Wayne.
"Killed?", he asks, almost quizzically.
"You would honestly believe I've ever hurt my playthings? They belong to me. I would never have put them in danger. I'm protecting them!"
I remain stagnant, keeping the pressure on. But he keeps going. Keeps trying to relay his insane rhetoric as if I'd even begin to listen. The blood on his hands serves as a contradiction to his claims. He's murdered the girls. If not the ones that he's kidnapped tonight, then others. Probably in a number of cold cases around Gotham that've gone unnoticed.
"My playthings are suffering. Suffering every day, in the wicked city of Gotham. Famine, disease, crime and corruption. Such vices have taken so many young and innocent faces and wiped them from the Earth. Many starve on the streets, neglected. Ignored by those who would protect them. It's enough to drive anyone mad, let alone a hatter,", he explains, his voice quivering with the thought. "Wonderland is a safe haven, and I only offer them the love they so desperately need. The affection of a special friend..."
He smiles in a way that looks not unlike a grimace. A true look of evil if I've ever seen it. It's enough to unnerve me. But that's when I begin to realize what he's talking about. And my grip on the woman suddenly loosens, my body overcome with shock. My eyes widened, stunned.
Oh my god. He hasn't been murdering them.
He's been...
"Jesus..."
"In Wonderland, it was said that a special little girl would come and set us free. A girl in a blue dress.", He whispers.
"I've been searching for her. Searching, searching, and searching. In the most intimate ways. Searching for an Alice of my very own..."
For a moment, I start to see white. Sights and sounds are eclipsed by an unfathomable, indescribable sense of disgust, overcome by a rage I've never felt. Logic and reason are nothing to me. My grip on the woman finally subsides, and I effortlessly toss her aside. Hands trembling. Breath shortening. More white. A bright circle of it, surrounding what I see. And I don't see anything else in the room - except him. Except the monster.
"You..."
I could swear that even he starts to take a step back, realizing what a grave mistake he's just made for even alluding to such an implication. Fully immersed in the uncontrollable rage that's set off in my mind like a spark catching fire, I reach into the back of the belt and start to do the first sensible thing that's come to me all night. Whipping out a batarang, I lunge forward and use every portion of my arm's strength to toss it out at point blank range. Had you asked me as I was throwing it, I wouldn't be able to tell you if I was even trying to miss Catwoman. What I could tell you was what my mind was screaming out as it left my palm.
Die, you sick, demented son of a b****.
Die.
"RAHARRRGH!"
With the most blood-curdling scream I think I've ever heard, The Hatter finally relinquishes Catwoman, dropping the knife and painfully clutching at the weapon that's now lodged deep into his right eye. A river of blood pouring of it as he cries like an infant, trying his absolute best to avoid going into shock from the pain. It's only a fraction of what he deserves. But watching him topple over, scrambling, screaming and helpless as any number of his victims - his poor victims, the amount of which I can't bring myself to think of at a time like this - it's enough for me breathe again.
I don't want it to stop. I want him to suffer like this for the rest of his life.
But he has to die by my hands, right here and now.
"You... You sick, demented little..."
In a move that I truly don't expect, Catwoman angrily stands over him, nearly as overcome with emotion as I was. At first, I think to myself that it's only because he had her at knifepoint. But one look at the reaction on her face tells the story. She's only enraged because of what he's done. With a swift, fluid motion, Catwoman drives the steel claws on her fingertips deep into his left cheek while he's still down, creating a likely permanent scar in the process. He rolls over and cries out in pain again, but it pales in comparison to what he was already going through.
That's when I get it. I mean, really get it. She wants him dead just as much as I do. That's what her part in all of this was about all along. He took someone from her, someone that means a great deal to her and not just another nameless kidnapped victim. Despite all that I told myself I'd have to do, knowing that it takes everything I've got left in me not to render him a dead broken mess of bone and flesh, I reluctantly grab Catwoman by the shoulder as she goes to lay into him further.
"Stop..."
She immediately turns to me, glaring back. Teeth grit.
"Stop?! What the hell do you mean, 'stop'?! Didn't you hear what this bastard just said?!"
I see her point. God, do I ever see it. But there's one thing that both of us had forgotten for a moment.
"The kids."
Grabbing her as hard as I can so that she'll listen, I bring her in close.
"We have to find the kids. They're still trapped somewhere inside."
She breaks away from me.
"If they're even alive! How do we know he hasn't already... I mean, what if he's..."
Turning around, she clenches her fists and stares out, trying to form a coherent thought.
"I know. I know it's difficult. But we have to make him tell us where they are. It's the only value he has to us. After that, then..."
Eyes burning with hatred beneath the mask, I stare back over at him. His face hidden from view, which brings me some small form of comfort. I don't want to have to look at that face right now. I'm afraid of what I'll do just as much as I'm afraid of letting him live.
"Then he gets everything he deserves."
With a pained sigh, she nods her head, unable to bring herself to even look at me.
"Do what you have to."
Not even bothering to wait for her permission, I'm already halfway to him by the time that Catwoman turns around. Grabbing him up from the floor, the blood literally pooling around him from the wound to his eye, I simply place my hand over his throat and lift him off of the ground. Any direct trauma and we'd probably lose him before he could talk.
"WHERE DID YOU TAKE THEM?!?! WHERE DID YOU TAKE THEM, YOU PSYCHOPATH?!?!"
He's finally stopped screaming. The color from his face having completely drained. Looks down at me with his one good eye, warm sweat and sour blood mixing over the right side of his face. He doesn't even try to struggle, despite the amount of pressure I'm fighting not to push on his neck.
"I-Is it time for tea already, Mr. Hare?"
Finally, I start to lose it, grabbing him and thrashing him hard across the face with the brunt of my fist. I've had enough of his dellusions. His games, his tricks, whatever the hell you'd call them. All I want to know is where the girls are, because when I find that out, I get to wipe this little smear off of the face of the Earth.
"ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW, YOU GODDAMN---!"
"P-Please! Please, I'll tell you... j-just stop."
In a show of a complete breakdown, he starts to cry.
"I can't take it any more. The voices. The images. They're all starting to close in. All taunting, all laughing at me. Laughing like a clown. An evil, evil clown..."
Beginning to raise my fist again, I watch as he flinches and raises both hands.
"They're in the D-Dutchess' Dungeon. On the other side of the park. God forgive me, they're locked in. We're all locked in."
Still holding him firmly in my grasp, I glance over my shoulder at Catwoman.
"Go. See if he's telling the truth. If he is, get everyone out."
It takes a few seconds for her to finally leave, racing down the hall as fast as she possibly can.
Turning back towards Hatter, I contemplate as to what I should do with him. A million methods of inconceivable torture running through my mind all at once, just to keep myself busy while she confirms his answer. He only silently cries to himself, having already gotten used to the pain of the batarang sticking in his now blinded eye.
There's a final piece of business that we need to attend to.
"You weren't working alone."
Startling him with that accusation, I begin to walk towards the wall, pinning him against it. Re-affirming my hold over his throat.
"The church is what tipped me off. You had to have someone verify the church for vacancy long enough to complete your 'deliveries'. Your informant, your White Rabbit, he had to be given a way in. This was calculated far too much to keep the church public at the hours you needed."
He doesn't seem to want to respond.
"You're gonna tell me who it was..."
I grit my teeth.
"While you can still breathe."
"B-But if I tell you, they'll... he'll..."
He'll?
"Spit it out!"
"The Knave of Hearts."
At first, I want to beat his face in for using yet another Wonderland idiom. But the expression on his face, the eye movement - he's not lying about this, or dressing it up by any stretch of the imagination. He really believes that a Knave of Hearts is out there in Gotham. Could easily just be code for someone.
"Who is it?! Who is the Knave?!"
He starts to answer, but before he can - and I only barely take notice of it - his pupil rapidly starts to shrink. It isn't long before they're diluted just like his hired help from before. Even Paul Dekker's were like that, when he was fighting me in the other hall. Hatter's expression changes. His bleeding lips curling up into a smile.
"My, my, my. You sure like to ask alot of questions, don't you...Hoodie."
Dropping him on the floor, I take a step back, shocked by what I just heard coming out of his mouth. Not so much the words themselves as the voice that took over. Because that wasn't an act. That voice was not Hatter's.
That was something... familiar.
Can't be...
He smiles as wide as he possibly can, then stops. His eye returning to normal.
Hatter's back, evidently. Because he's looking around, confused.
"W-What... what just..."
Just as I try to make sense of what's going on, Catwoman reappears in the entrance, taking us both off guard.
"They're down there. All of them are down there, even a few that've been missing for weeks. They're still alive."
I barely even acknowledge what she says, staring back at Hatter. Still hearing that other voice coming out of him. I could swear that the voice I heard was something familiar, but the first logical one is impossible. Because I watched that son of a ***** sink to the bottom of the Gotham Bay a long time ago. I put him there myself.
So it can't be him. So who the hell was it?
What the hell is going on?
"Batman? You hear me? What is it, what's wrong?"
"I think..."
Turning back to her, unsure of what I'm even saying is true, I take a step away from Hatter. Police sirens are already closing in from the distance, probably alerted by the gunfire. After that little display, I sure as hell can't kill him now. But I'm not particularly bothered by that. I don't even know how it's possible, but somehow, something worse is happening than what we've come across.
"I think something bigger is going on."