It was another cold night. A light snowfall covered the air as Mercer walked down one of the very few bridges that hadn't been destroyed since it simply ran over a river through the city. His hands were covered in blood. Not because he had just killed someone, but because he was holding a large hunk of meat and almost let out an animalistic snarl as he took a huge bite. Along with feeling pain and needing to sleep for a few hours once a week, his body, being human again, demanded sustenance. He casually glanced at the harbor, expecting to find nothing of significance, but a lone figure caught his eye and he stopped walking. He slightly squinted his eyes and leaned forward to get as closer a view as he could without falling over the edge of the bridge. He had always hated water, and he still detested getting wet. In the middle of the water was a very rickety looking small boat, and standing on it was a person looking down at something. Mercer pondered in what to do for a moment, and then gulped down the rest of his uncooked dinner. He took a few steps back, and ran forward before leaping off the bridge and towards the boat.

"A little midnight fishing?" Mercer asked after landing on the small barge next to the man who was concealed by the darkness. He paid Mercer no mind and didn't even look up.

"You may be fast and strong, but clearly quietness isn't a strong suit for you." The statement was said by an all too familiar voice.

"I guess then that you and I are polar opposites Batman." He leaned forward and saw that the Dark Knight was rapidly typing on a small device. "What's that?"

"Security hacker."

"So what, this floating wreck has a security system in it?" He looked around and couldn't fathom why somebody would bother taking the precautions to make sure no one could access such an ancient looking boat. He was surprised the floor hadn't collapsed beneath them yet.

"Yes. And that in itself is enough to investigate." He continued to try and hack into the system, but to no avail.

"Let me ask you something. How long have you been standing here?" Mercer said eyeing a small square shaped portion of the deck that was about a foot higher up that the rest of the floor.

"About ten minutes."

"Can I make a suggestion?"

Batman looked up at Alex with a straight face, and that was enough for Mercer. He walked over to the square in the deck and looked back to his acquaintance. Then he reached down, put his hand on the square, and tore it right off. With a simple flick of his wrist the wooden polygon landed in the water two hundred feet away from the boat they were on. Mercer looked down to the symmetrical hole and saw that it was entirely empty beneath, a whole room was waiting for them down below.

"Well, we're not just going to walk away are we?" Mercer said looking back up at Batman. He took a step forward and allowed himself to fall into the hidden chamber. He landed and was surprised by what he saw. The room was long and narrow. It was filled with oil drums and glass cases filled with various bugs and rodents. Spiderwebs were spread out everywhere in the secret chamber. At the far end of it was a man sitting in a chair who was either dead or just asleep. Despite all he had seen and been through, he was still... disturbed by his current surroundings. He began to very slowly make his way across the room, not sure of what to do when he reached the other end. He heard Batman land in the same spot he had just moments ago.

"What... the Hell?" Mercer said, not knowing if it was to himself or Batman as he looked inside a transparent case filled with cockroaches.

"Scarecrow. He probably has bases like this all around the city." Batman answered as he too slowly made his way to the opposite side of the tunnel-esque room.

Mercer by then was almost standing in front of the unconscious man when he noticed a clipboard hanging on the wall. He grabbed it and read through it.

"Where does this freak get all his money?" Mercer wondered out loud. Before anyone could give a response, the sleeping man suddenly jolted awake and screamed. After a moment of shrieking, he stopped just as quickly as he had begun and fell back into the chair he was in. Mercer looked at him with a slightly surprised face while Batman walked over and put his index and middle fingers on the man's neck.

"He's dead." The Caped Crusader said bluntly as he pulled his digits away from the world's newest corpse.

"Well duh," Mercer said back as he tossed the clipboard to the floor. "It's just that I thought he was dead before we even came in here." He shook his head a few times and made his way back towards the gaping hole in the ceiling. Batman followed him. "Speaking of dead things, I got something to show you..."

XXXXXX

The two of them were now standing on the roof of the GCPD building with Commissioner Gordon.

"It's nice to finally meet you face to face Zeus."

"The pleasure's all mine," he replied giving him a respectable salute with his right hand whilst holding a white box in his left arm. "But on to the matter at hand. I know what it is, but... how do I put this? What exactly should I do with it?" He leaned down and carefully put the box in the middle of the space between the three of them as they formed a triangle. He then quickly removed the top of the box and jolted back up into a straight standing position. He didn't want to be around Dollmaker's "present" any more than what was required. The other two men looked down at the contents. After half a second, Gordon turned away and began to gag and dry heave. Batman just kept staring at it with an unreadable face.

"I figured you'd want to see this as well," Mercer said as he stretched out his arm to Batman with the note in his hand. Like Gordon, Alex couldn't stand even the thought of being around the thing inside the box.

Batman brought himself back up and basically snatched the piece of paper out of Alex's hand and carefully observed it up and down. "How did these come into your possession?"

"The Clown's freakish girlfriend just up and literally handed it to me. Said she didn't know what was in it."

"And for good reason," Gordon said after finally recollecting himself, but refusing to look down again. "Who knows how she would've reacted."

"So... about what I mentioned earlier..."

"What do we do with it." Batman repeated. "This seems a little more deranged for even the Joker."

"What, you mean he doesn't let some other psycho cut his face off every other week?" Mercer asked dryly as he looked back down at the large portion of flesh. It was perfectly intact and the mouth was still smiling at them. "So we just give it back to him or what?" He looked back at the other two men actually expecting them to answer.

"They don't pay me enough for this job..." Gordon muttered to himself.

"I say we hold on to it for the time being." Batman announced to them.

"What?" Gordon loudly and incredulously asked.

"I think I see his point," Mercer started. "We have no idea where he is. So what, are we just going to walk around town shouting 'Joker, you want your face back?' all day long? That'd make US look insane."

Batman stared at him in silence. "You have a very disturbed mind. You know that, Zeus?"

Mercer stared off into space, not planning on giving a response to that. He then put the lid back on the box and picked it up as if it was a bomb ready to explode right in his face. He then handed the box to Gordon who looked at him with bewilderment.

"If you think I'm holding on to that thing, you really are crazy," Mercer told him.

XXXXXX

Mercer and Batman were speeding through the streets inside the Batmobile. Like Mercer with Joker's face, Batman also claimed to have something out of the ordinary, and that it was even meant for Mercer himself.

"Is it like some sort of billboard or something?" Mercer asked with impatience. His arms were crossed over his chest and his scowl was deeper than usual. He hated being in such confined spaces, it made him feel almost trapped.

"Actually, it's this." Batman kept his eyes on the road while he reached back and then handed Mercer a very peculiar object. It reminded him of a trophy. It had a big metal base and out from it sprang a few tubes of green neon light that were bent to form the shape of a question mark. It was about a foot tall.

"What the fuck...?" Mercer muttered to himself as he bent his hand and wrist to give himself several angles of views on the strange object.

"It's a calling card. A challenge," Batman answered Mercer's unspoken question. "For the other players' sake I hope you're as smart as you are brutal..."