17163/A Hat-itude Problem!

A Hat-itude Problem!
Date of Scene:	12 February 2024
Location:	Ryker Heights - Founders Island
Synopsis:	Barbara deploys all the tech and Tim gets punched in the face.
Cast of Characters:	Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon

---

Tim Drake has posed:
    Red Robin is out on his bat cycle riding the streets. It's Super Bowl Sunday, so he is expecting a pretty quiet night. And that's just fine with him. His bike thunders down the street leaving his black and red cape billowing madly behind him. Because it's an unseasonably warm February day, there is a higher-than-usual number of pedestrians out and about.

    After a few minutes he pulls the bike to the curb and steadies it in place with his feet firmly planted on the ground. He draws in a deep, slow breath as he looks around. His keen eyes take in many details.

    To anyone who might be listening on the encrypted comm system: << Things are slow. I'm not complaining. But sometimes a quiet night in Gotham freaks me out for some reason.>>

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara was not much of a pro sports kind of person. Combat sports? UFC and the like? Sure. But football? Not really. Thus she was poised to be ready for anything tonight, and as luck would have it she too was on the comm network tonight, with her Bat-drones pinging various team devices to let them know where she was generally located within the city, as she and her flock of aerial drones tend to move together.

"Come on now, don't let the smoke screen fool you." Babs' voice responds over comms. "The big game serves as one of the biggest distractions on the planet. I promise you, if you look closely, at just the right places... you'll see something nefarious happening. A free distraction, like the game, can't be passed over by the people we tend to deal with."

Where is she exactly? Who knows! What is she doing? She could be up in the tower acting as Oracle right now, or fully suited up, perched on a rooftop, watching over the city much like their shared mentor was prone to doing, either way, Babs was clearly watching from some vantage point tonight.

Tim Drake has posed:
    One corner of Tim's mouth tics upward. << Batgirl, it's always good to hear your grounding voice of reason when I start fantasizing about things like peace and harmony among humanity. >> He smirks a little. << Everyone here seems to be just chillin, on their way to something or oth...wait a tic. Batgirl, are you seeing this? >>

    Red Robin activates the transmitter in his diamond mask. It sends out an image of a dozen or more men emerging from an alley. They are all wearing the same thing: green overcoats and tall, green top hats. They disperse into the crowd, each politely grabbing the brim of their hat in a polite gesture and wishing the nearest pedestrian a good evening. If it wasn't so damned strange it would almost be charming in an old world sort of way.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
There is no response from Barbara for a few moments, as she is just observing what Tim's mask is transmitting to her own display. When she does speak up, there is a dry sarcasm tone laced to her feminine voice. "It looks like you've definitely found some kind of eccentric street performance tonight, Red Robin. Not necessarily... criminal activity, save for the garish color of the outfits. Maybe they're just warming up for St. Patrick's Day next month?"

There sounds like some motion over Barbara's comms, as though she's moving against the wind.

"Track them, though, see if they let you in on where they're headed. It's either that, or I'll share with you some of the funny tv commercials airing tonight."

Batgirl's drones are rerouted toward tim's position, coming down southward from the Narrows area of the city.

Tim Drake has posed:
    One of the "street performers" approaches Red Robin and politely tips his hat to the young hero. In a relatively good mood this evening, the black-and-red-clad vigilante actually smiles with one part confusion and one part amusement. << Well they certainly are...quaint. >>

    Then in a flash, the man removes his top hat in one smooth motion and attempts to put it on Red Robin's head. Muscle memory, reflexes, and endless training combine, which results in the oddly clad man getting a punch in the mouth. The hat falls to the sidewalk.

    "What the hell are you doing, man?" Red Robin snarls. But then the vigilante's draw drops as he notices that all of the other green-clad strangers have likewise put their hats on the head of a pedestrian. Those so be-hatted have stopped moving and are staring straight ahead blankly.

    << Shit. Batgirl, tell me you're seeing this. >>

Barbara Gordon has posed:
It takes a few seconds, again, for Batgirl to respond as she is likely trying to decipher what is happening through the vision of another. "I am." She calmly responds, though. "Good thing you avoided that hat. Either this is some kind of spontaneous viral video that you've stumbled in to the middle of, or something... all too familiar, and all too whacky, is taking place tonight."

Overhead the buzzing of near-silent drones can be heard as about eight of them sweep across the sky above.

"I'm close. Try to get some distance between you and the green ones. We gotta suss out what is going on here before we throw anymore punches."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Next, each pedestrian who is wearing a hat takes it off. That does nothing to alleviate the blank, hypnotized expression on their faces. They each quickly turn to another close-by pedestrian and put their hat on another head. There were 14 of the original green-clad assailants. One is clutching his bleeding face. The other 13 created 13 hypnotized pedestrians, each of whom in turn made 13 more. And all of that in less than 15 seconds.

    At Batgirl's recommendation, Red Robin was about to start up his bat cycle to put some distance between him and the strange occurrence but he realizes that time may now be of critical importance. << Batgirl, this is no viral video stunt! >> Red Robin leaps off his bike and starts attempting to grab hats. But the hypnotized citizens move to block him while their counterparts ready for another round of hat spreading.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
"And you were worried the night was going to be boring." Batgirl quips with a continued dry undertone to her humor. Meanwhile, the Bat-drones above begin to swirl, and circle around one another, some of them moving in a clockwise pattern, while others counter it in the opposite direction.

"I'm rerouting traffic lights to keep incoming vehicles from getting close, and I'm putting in a alert to the GCPD that something is happening at this address." Her voice relays, as the lights up and down the street begin to flash, and lock in to specific colors to manipulate the flow of traffic away from this active situation.

"I'm going to drop some cover, it should push those who haven't been effected away too."

Seconds later, smoke puffing pellets drop out of the sky, clacking to the pavement below, as the bat-drones begin peppering the area with a air drop of smoke. The pellets begin actively spouting geysers of white smoke out in all directions, rapidly creating a more chaotic environment, one meant to make it harder for the Hatters to place their top hats, and also a measure of chaos sewn to get people unaffected to flee from the area!

Tim Drake has posed:
    << Showoff. >> Red Robin quips to Batgirl over the comm system.

    Grabbing a portable breathing device from his utility belt and popping it in his mouth, Tim manages to grab two hats, which he stops on the ground. Then the hypnotized citizens closest to Red Robin start throw themself on the vigilante, attempting to bear him to the ground. He struggles to get one hand down to his belt to activate the electrical deterrence defense in his armor, but to many assailants are on top of him.

    Meanwhile, the green-garbed Hatters are using the chaos and the smoke screen to make their escape.

    Fortunately, Batgirl's distraction has its intended effect. The remaining unhypnotized pedestrians have fled the immediate area.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
The Bat-drones continue to fire off pellet-rounds from their undercarriages, streaks of smoke shooting down from the sky above. Batgirl liked showing off, you could say, as she'd worked on her various tech-toys for an entire decade leading up to now, and in the past few years she's really been putting her ideas to the test. Even her neural-implant that gave her the ability to walk again, now allows her to communicate with her tech through a telepathy-like interface. 'She's more machine now than man.' is a quote she's had thrown at her a couple times lately.

The fleeing hatters are greeted from an alleyway they are attemtping to run down, a handful of them at least, by the sudden burst of high-beam lights from a vehicle resting in the shadows of the alleyway. The super bright head lamps shine upon the men, as the rumbling of an engine reverberates the entire alleyway itself, and the people close by to it!

Is it Batman? Nope, it's the lighter variant of the Batmobile, the one Babs created for herself! The black armored car heralds the arrival of Batgirl, but she's not inside of it..

As all eyes look toward the loud car, Batgirl arrives from the sky in the opposite direction, slamming down in to a pair of the people setting down upon Tim.

"It's all about theatrics." Babs says, fully armored in her black and gold bodysuit, her red hair draping over her left shoulder, her cape billowing out in the wind behind her, as she starts pulling bodies away from Tim, leading toward dropping him a hand to help him up, gloved in that same orange-gold hue as her boots and the bat-symbol across her armored chest.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The angry sounds of rapidly approaching police sirens pierce the darkness and the smoke alike.

    When Batgirl clears the hypnotized citizens off Red Robin, he takes her hand and accepts the help up. "I had it under control!" he snarks with a half smile on his face.

    The fleeing Hatters decide that the Batmobile is more than they want to deal with, so they change course and head down an alley, and right into the path of an oncoming GCPD car. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

    "We gotta bring some of these hats back to the Bat Cave for evaluation," Red Robin notes. Then, suddenly, one of the hypnotized citizens who was kneeling down and appeared incapacitated suddenly sucker punches Red Robin. His training causes him to roll his head with the punch to limit its impact. He is unhurt. "Dude!" Red Robin says as he glowers at the unwitting attacker. "Seriously?"

Barbara Gordon has posed:
In truth, Batgirl didn't want to hurt any of the hypnotized people, as they were entirely innocent civilians who were just looking to enjoy a night in the city, right? But some bumps and bruises were bound to happen, if it meant someone in her team didn't get seriously injured by whatever brain manipulation the hats had caused inside the people.

"I believe in you, Peter Pan." Batgirl fired back at Tim in good-humor before she was moving her eyes toward some of the hats strewn around them. She's reaching up to bat one off of one of the citizens that she'd dazed by tossing them off of Tim, clutching the hat in her hands now, before she caught the punch out of the corner of her eye.

Smoke still moved in thick clouds around them, the unseasonbly warm winds moving the cover of smoke this way and that, as the GCPD blues-and-reds filter through it.

"My drones are splitting off, to try and track where the Hatters are headed." Batgirl says as she sweeps a restraining cuffs set from her golden belt, while diving forward to latch it to one of the wrists of the citizen who'd punched Tim.

Spinning them around by their wrist, Babs drops them face first toward the ground, but halts the fall moments before they'd possibly break their damn nose on concrete... as this isn't her first rodeo... Babs has been in all forms of martial arts training since she was a little girl, and with her strength enhancing exoskeletal armor she's clad in right now? She's a force to be reckoned with by your average city dweller!

Crouched down on the ground over the civilian, Babs latches the cuffs on to their wrists, and looks up toward Tim.

"Did any of the Hatters say /anything/"" She asks him.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Once the hats have been removed, the hypnotized state converts to just general confusion after a few minutes. The GCPD officers on foot start to get the immediate local chaos under control. Some of the Hatters have even been taken into custody. Hopefully Barbara's drones can run down the rest of them.

GCPD lieutenant Amanda Cole approaches Batgirl and Red Robin carrying one of the hats. She doesn't even bother asking if they're okay. It's the Bat Family. Of course they're okay. She flips the hat over, and hand stitched on the underside of the brim is 'Property of Jervis Tetch.' "What do you guys make of this?" the police lieutenant inquires?

    A pained and knowing look crosses Red Robin's features, but to be sure he starts to key in a search query into the keypad on his left gauntlet.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Batgirl rises up to her full height of around six feet, her eyes upon the Lieutenant as she approaches. She knows the woman's name, as she is rather familiar with most of her father's higher ranked officers, but she doesn't address her by name, as there is no reason to further give hints as to her true identity. With smoke rolling around them still, and more of Batgirl's drones splitting off in different directions to track the fleeing hattermen, Batgirl steps over toward Tim to glance at what he's reading, before she reaches out for the hat from the GCPD Lieutenant.

"Make sure none of your people put these things on. I'd like to take two of them, if I might, to try and figure out the nuances of the tech. It's possible that I could create something to counteract whatever is being used here to create these mind altering fields. It doesn't appear to be any manner of drugs, or hypnotics. Seems to be some manner of advanced signal emitter, perhaps sound waves..."

Jervis Tetch...

Babs shares a glance with Tim, her face still covered in the half-mask of her cowl, but her green eyes conveying a troubled look toward him.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Of course, Batgirl," Lieutenant Cole responds immediately. She turns and starts walking away as she keys the shoulder mic of her police radio. "Make sure nobody puts any of these hats on their head. Secure /all/ of the hats. And make sure Batgirl and Robin get two of them." Red Robin, actually, but there's no real point in correcting the lieutenant.

    As the mini bio of The Mad Hatter comes up on Tim's gauntlet he shows it to Barbara with a sigh. "This is going to get worse before it gets better," he says to his fellow Bat Family member. "Batman's gonna want to hear about this."

    Red Robin stands his bike up, which had fallen over in the melee. There are gashes and scratches down the side of it. Tim frowns.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Batgirl accepts two of the hats brought over to her by a patrolman. She thanks him for them, as he stutters out a nervous 'You're welcome, Batgirl' back to her. This earns a slight grin from her as she gives a visual once-over to the hat, both its interior, and the lining within it. When she turns around, she's holding them brim to brim in her left hand, and glancing toward Tim recovering his bike. "I'll leave it up to you to let him know." She says with a slight smirk. "If you need help fixing the bike, you can bring it to my garage. We can get it fixed up, if needs be."

From the alleyway, the armored 'Babsmobile' rolls out on to the street, looking like a Formula-1 racecar on steroids, the black vehicle rolls up toward where they're gathered, some of the Cops eyeing it wearily before they glance toward Batgirl.

"Let me know how it goes, Red Robin." She calls out before stepping up the side of her car, and gracefully slipping down in to the cockpit-style interior.