The Universe's Mixer

OOC: Set after this.

The leprechaun known as Mad Sweeney was well and truly drunk. There was no argument. None from any in the part he patroned other than from the bartender who wasn't about to give the towering red-head anything further to drink, regardless of how belligerent he became. Sweeney did something a touch unexpected he assumed, instead of picking a fight with the man who had provided the intoxicating beverage thus far, he took to song. "Here's a Health to the Company... and One to my Lass..."

He stumbled a bit toward the door, not taking more than a moment's care that he had knocked into a few fellow patrons and toppled a chair over in the process. "Let us drink and be merry all out of one glass..." Sweeney's words slurred together making an already unpleasant singing voice even worse.

At that, his songs started to jumble together. "Let us drink and be merry, cuz there's whiskey in the jar... Oh Danny boy!!" Voice loud an obnoxious, the leprechaun stumbled into the street and took an immediate right. In his drunkenness, his feet more of shuffled along rather than actually stepped in any which direction. It was a hobble, a stumble... perhaps a swagger. It was anything but graceful.

"Oh Danny boy! I love you... oof." There was something on the ground. Something that in his towering height, Sweeney completely missed. It was a blockage of some sort, something not quite alive.

At least not anymore. "What's this?"

He bent over, tumbling to the sidewalk in the process and gripping the concrete with one hand (in case he fell off the earth) he used the other to feel just what it was he had tripped over. Human form... Female human form. Eyes squinting and fighting to focus, he stared blankly at the body that had tripped him. Was it dead? Probably since it hadn't made any sort of noise over a gangly beast of a man tripping over her. The hand pawed around just a bit, looking for a vein the neck.

Dead. There was no pulse.

"Oh gross, man. Nasty." Sweeney backed away, not at all entranced about happening upon a corpse.

It was one of those days.

Every day was starting to feel like one of those days to Jack. Nothing exciting happened in the City anymore. Batman was not gone, but he was all kinds of broody about his super butt boy being a statue. Jack had thought that leaving the statue out would have created some kind of ruckus. It had caused nothing. Absolutely nothing. No newspaper stories. No cops everywhere. Nobody had even come by the asylum to demand he account for his horrible deeds.

Life was just not worth doing anything but staring at the television when there was no real opposition. Nothing to fight for. Nobody to annoy. He was going to have to find somebody to replace Barbara, as well. As she was gone. He knew she was gone. He'd stalked her like nobody had ever stalked another living being before in the history of stalking. Or life. And she had vanished. No more going to work. No more clocktower. No more anything.

So a replacement was in order.

But who?

Who could fill the hole that the redhead had made when she'd fallen out of his life? Who could he destroy as thoroughly as he had done to her? Sure, it gave him fresh clay to work with, but he'd put so much into her, given such a large portion of life to her. She was a work of art. He could trigger her so very easily. The give and take had become easy.

He also had to replace his minions and partners in crime. All of them had vanished too. The fuckers. Left him with an empty asylum and henchmen who were so bored they were getting fat.

Finding new cohorts would be easier than replacing Babsy, he finally decided. So that's what he would do. Jack put on his best black pants, best white shirt, and best suspenders. Plus a fedora, complete with feather. Had to. Couldn't help it. Then he sauntered right out of the asylum and into the streets of the City, looking for somebody to be evil with.

It wasn't a spectacular party that he was going to be attending. Just some thing. Nothing special at all. He hadn't even bothered to wear a tux. Just a suit. Not even one of his best ones. Just a nice one. He really didn't care. There were other things on his mind. Like the witch, and if she'd managed to do anything to help Clark. Getting the city back in order, getting back into doing things that he should have been doing all along. Being alive again instead of in the half dead state of loss like some high school kid.

He was late, of course, so he had to park his car around the corner and walk past a very dark alley to get to the hotel where the party was going to be held. Something that didn't even concern him these days. Hadn't for a long time. Not since the dark alley he'd been in when he was a child. He knew there was danger in there, and knew that they were just ripe with criminals. And cliches.

So it was really no surprise to Bruce when he hears screaming coming from the back of the alley. He didn't even roll his eyes in response, because he'd kind of expected something like that to happen.

Bruce pivoted on his heel and went into the darkness, ready to encounter thugs robbing a poor woman. He was almost to the end when he encountered the sight. What was really going on. And that was nothing like what he'd been expecting.

There were two of them, alright. And a lady, too. But they certainly weren't robbing her. They weren't doing anything expected to her. Not even trying to rape her. Which would have been disturbing in it's own right, but Bruce would have been able to deal with that.

What he could not deal with was the fact that the two men appeared to be eating the poor woman. Alive. One gnawing on her shoulder, the other chewing on her lower leg. There was blood everywhere. The suspects themselves didn't look particularly normal either. Not that chewing on a human being was normal. But their skin was mottled. Cold looking. What corpses should look like, he thought.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, Bruce had no idea what to do.

There were many things that Hannibal could do. Many types of science that he could wrap his head around. What he knew well was done with ease, the things he didn't, he could pick up simply. He had very little need for outside help.

Of course, there were some sciences that hadn't been around in 1951. Things that he still hadn't had anything to do with in these new modern times. And unfortunately for him, he didn't have the time to sit down and learn. He needed information now.

A girl had come in. She'd been in a car wreck. Badly injured. She was so badly disfigured, that they'd had to find alternative ways to determine that she was, in fact, female. As unfortunate that all was, she wasn't the problem. It's what she had with her that was causing the issue. And it was his issue, because it had been handed off to him. Like he'd know what to do with it, other than look at it. He didn't even know what sorts of tests should be run, because he didn't know what he was looking for.

It frustrated him to have this road block. But people were demanding answers, and nobody was willing to be patient. Hannibal figured that it was dead anyway, so what was another week or so of waiting while he got the books he needed and studied them? They wanted the answers now. Whatever they could get right away. So he knew that he was going to have to call in somebody else. Some kind of help.

After some inquiry through various hospital channels, he discovered a name and a number. He sat in his lab and picked up the phone. It rang four times before it was answered.

"Yes. May I speak to Temperance Brennan, please?"

Karen giggled to herself as she thought of something that Jack had said. Which Jack it had been, she couldn't say for sure. They had blurred together in her mind temporarily. It didn't help that her Jack, Jackie Jack, had dressed up as a pirate once. Or that time he'd worn the eye patch due to the glitter incident on his show. Or that Jack the Pirate Jack now looked so pretty he could have been a slightly manly gay boy.

The fact that she was drunk and dosed up to the gills on something pink and something orange that she'd gotten off of a guy outside of her building didn't help matters much either.

She hadn't had proper dietary supplements for a long time, since that guy in the white coat had refused to give her anything. What had his name been again? Volleyball? Something like that. He surely wasn't any Pharmacist. Which was a shame. Karen vaguely remembered him being somewhat attractive. She could have used a nice cute doctor. For a lot of things.

Maybe she should try to find him and give him another shot at giving her the things she needed.

The thought faded, however, as she drained her martini glass with a final long sip. All the alcohol gone. And she'd already left the bar. That was a damned shame. Karen tossed the glass aside, and smiled as it hit concrete with a lovely tinkling shattering noise.

She turned to continue on her way.... to wherever she'd been going. But she immediately bumped into somebody.

"Watch where you're going, you!" She said, tone irritated, while she fixed the hair that had come loose during impact.