Suddenly, the sound of fighting erupted.
Jay immediately aimed his gun towards the source of the noise.
In the dark, several people were grappling in a chaotic struggle on one side of the room. Three burly men wearing cardboard armor were wielding machetes and steel pipes, surrounding a masked person draped in a black cape and wearing pointed ears.
However, the masked person's movements seemed constrained and sluggish, as if something was pulling on their limbs, making their steps stagger as if they might fall at any moment.
A dozen people were gathered around. Several children, about seven or eight years old, were huddled together, curled up on the ground like balls. A few other soldiers in cardboard armor stood stiffly in the corner.
One girl, her face painted with a smiley mask, lay sprawled on a filing cabinet with her limbs stretched out.
"Selina?"
Before Jay could take a closer look, a thin, tall man with long rabbit ears on his head leaped in front of him. The man nervously pulled out a broken pocket watch from his coat and anxiously said, "Hurry, you're late. They'll cut off—"
Thud!
Jay landed a punch on the side of his neck. The man was no longer worried about time; he fell asleep instantly.
He shook his hand and yelled at the cloaked figure, "Hey! Need help?"
The person was slightly distracted, and a soldier's steel pipe slammed into his back with a dull thump.
He used the momentum to execute an over-the-shoulder throw, tossing the soldier in front of him away, but his movement was awkward, causing him to fall to the ground as well.
A soldier behind him raised his knife, but Jay rushed up with a side kick, sending the soldier flying into the wall.
"The front…"
The cloaked figure reached out and pointed toward the end of the conference room. "Be careful, he will… affect your… mind…"
"No, I don't have one of those," he replied casually.
Jay's gaze swept across the room, finally fixing on the head chair at the far end of the room.
Next to a woman playing the "Queen of Hearts," there was a gaudy, oversized high-backed chair, seemingly taken from a theatre. Sitting in the chair was the very person he had seen behind the observation window downstairs.
The man was small in stature, wearing an overly large Victorian-style suit, a ridiculously tall top hat, and a huge monocle clamped onto his face. His face was pale, staring intensely at Jay with a cannibalistic expression:
"Why! Why won't you obey my orders!"
His hands were frantically operating a complex instrument connected by countless wires and tubes. In the center of the instrument, a radar dish-like device was slowly rotating, emitting that irritating buzzing sound and intermittent drum beat rhythm.
"Nygma was absolutely right. You really are a dwarf."
Without a word, Jay raised his gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
He thought the shot was a sure thing, but the Queen of Hearts next to him suddenly leaped up, blocking the dwarf.
Bang!
A bloom of blood burst from her abdomen. As the Queen of Hearts fell, she struggled to utter her final words:
"Off with… off with his head!"
Everyone else remaining in the room turned their heads toward Jay. Their eyes were as vacant and unfocused as the two thugs downstairs, immersed in a forcibly implanted, insane dream.
But the next second, the dwarf suddenly shoved a few control levers, and the children, the two Alices, and the playing card guards all lunged toward him.
"This is trouble!"
Jay quickly ejected the magazine, cleared the chamber, tossed the pistol under a nearby cabinet, then turned and ran.
They are still kids!
While he wouldn't necessarily risk himself out of sympathy, if any of them were injured or killed by an accidental shot, the reporters wouldn't care about the circumstances. The next day's headlines would make him take the fall.
"Hahahaha!" The dwarf laughed maniacally. "Dance! Dance for the Queen of Hearts!"
"Dance my ass! You fake fan! The Queen of Hearts wasn't at the tea party! You don't know Alice at all!"
Jay yelled as he ran. His words made the dwarf stutter for a moment, then he screamed, "You're talking nonsense! I am the Mad Hatter, and I know everything!"
"You're not the Mad Hatter, you're a √2!" Jay took the opportunity to run next to the cloaked figure, kicking the side of a fallen soldier's face, adding him to the sleeping queue. "Help me!"
The cloaked figure elbowed the last guard down, took two small balls from his belt, and threw them out. The balls flew in two directions, connected by a thin cord.
He intended to trip most of the pursuers, but his aim was off, only hitting two or three targets. The others still lunged desperately at them.
Just then, hurried footsteps and shouts sounded from downstairs.
"GCPD! Everyone freeze!"
James Gordon charged in first, followed by five or six police officers wearing bulletproof vests. Each of them had a rather rudimentary-looking shielding chip stuck to the back of their necks or temples.
"Contain the situation! Prioritize subduing the hypnotized individuals! Be careful not to harm them!"
With the addition of fresh forces, Jay breathed a sigh of relief. He looked at the Mad Hatter on the high chair, a fierce smile spreading across his face.
"√2, now I'll play with you."
Using his height and long legs, he leaped over two police officers who were grappling with the Alices, and lunged toward the end of the conference room.
"The villain who ruined the tea party! The villain who ruined the tea party!"
The Mad Hatter's face instantly darkened. His eyes, magnified by the thick lenses, fixed on the microchips glinting on the officers' necks.
"A small trick! A crude imitation! It's mine! The mind is mine!"
He roared maniacally, grabbing the largest knob on the device and twisting it to the limit with all his strength.
"Since you came uninvited, then listen to the Hatter's final movement!!"
Wooooo—!!!
A piercing screech, loud enough to puncture eardrums, erupted suddenly. The radar dish-like device instantly flared with blinding white light, its rotation speed skyrocketing! The air seemed to ripple with a visible distortion wave!
"Ah—!"
"My head!"
"Ugh…"
Screams rang out one after another. The first victims were the police officers. The shielding chips on the backs of their necks instantly overheated, smoking, and burning out.
The powerful hypnotic pulse slammed through their conscious defenses like a tsunami. The eyes of the two closest officers instantly became as vacant as the other victims. They stiffened, then violently turned their batons and riot shields, attacking indiscriminately.
"John! What are you doing!"
"They're controlled too! Watch out!"
——————
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