"Things are getting messier, and I'm having a hard time keeping up." Constantine rubbed his temples, staring at the images on the screen. "Supreme Magician the Ancient One got a sinister-looking book from who knows where and deliberately left it behind in her study for Helen to find."
"No sooner had Helen found it than students began going crazy and hitting each other. They nearly hurt Harley, too. Well, not quite, but you get the idea."
"Next, peculiar texts appeared on the walls of the school's third floor corridor, alluding to some mysterious heir and the heir's enemy...
"How are all these clues related? Can we just conveniently have the world's best detective in the house to illuminate us?"
Even without Constantine's sardonic remark, everyone had turned to look at Bruce. Most people saw nothing but chaotic, disconnected clues amidst the quickly changing scenes, unable to piece them together.
"The heir and the heir's enemy." Bruce was the first to speak, his tone casual as if he hadn't sweated over connecting the dots at all. "This suggests the series of events may involve two parties or, alternatively, the writer of these texts deem them so. One belongs to the heir, and the other, the heir's enemy. What could possibly justify such demarcation?"
"What are they inheriting?" Zatanna asked, glancing at Strange sitting on the couch. "Surely it's not the position of Supreme Magician?"
"That sounds plausible." Pamela nodded. "When the heir in question is situated within a magic academy, it's natural to speculate the inheritance to be the coronation of Magic realm."
"But regretfully, ladies, I have no immediate plans for abdication, and I believe all students understand this."
"Then perhaps it refers to the throne of Asgard."
"Alas, Thor is still in his prime."
"Stop beating around the bush, detective." Constantine glared at Bruce. "Enlighten us once again with your startling revelations."
"Jennifer Maw." Bruce uttered a name.
In one corner of the sofa, Shiller, who seemed slightly intoxicated, raised his eyelids just a little to throw Bruce a glance. Each time Batman showcased just a fraction of his impressive detective prowess, Shiller found it astonishing.
"What about her?" Constantine asked.
"Have you noticed her in any shot that featured students?"
Bruce's question gave Constantine and Zatanna a chill. Zatanna shivered as it stirred her imagination. She asked, "You're not suggesting she's some ghost, are you?"
"She is clearly not a normal student." Bruce spoke. "Once you realise there's something off about her, reflect on the scenes where you saw her. Do you remember noticing anything extra?"
"Something extra..." Constantine suddenly froze, horror flashed across his face for the first time in years, distorting his features. "She had tentacles!"
Looking like he was grasping at straws, he asked the others, "How did the Jennifer Maw you see look like? Was she a normal girl?"
Pamela frowned deeply, then objectively described her observations, "Until Bruce mentioned that the girl wasn't normal, I had no objections regarding her appearance or behaviours. Only when I started suspecting her did I realise that even from the moment I first saw her, I had noticed the tentacles behind her. But I completely overlooked it as abnormal."
"If I had realized, I would surely have asked!" Zatanna raised her voice, likely trying to conceal her own fear. "How could I ignore such obvious monster characteristics? How could I believe it was normal? I'd seen them from the very beginning."
"And therein lies the problem. I realised something was wrong slightly earlier than you guys, and I experienced the exact same thing." Bruce lightly touched his jawline, and said, "We seem to have trouble assessing her, and it appears the students are experiencing the same issue."
"Based on my understanding of my other self in a different universe, if he had truly noticed the abnormality of the tentacles on Jennifer's back, he would have asked and taken measures. But he didn't, which suggests that he's been fooled as well."
"Reality manipulation?"
"Possibly targeting her specifically."
"Who could be behind this? The Ancient One?"
Bruce fell silent in response, while in Shiller's half-closed eyes, the center of the gray pupils housed clouds formed from mist, teeming with vibrant yet eerie life force - just like the perennial storm hovering over the Himalayas.
The snow grew heavier. Harley dragged her eyes away from the gray whirlpool on the first page of the Book of the Dead, revealing the dry, crimson ink underneath. It was precisely the same sentence that had appeared on the wall of the school building.
Harley wrote, "You're right, the madness is beginning to spread across the school. The school competition is fanning the flames of this insanity, but you still haven't told me what the root cause of it is."
"Equivalent exchange," formed a line in the mist.
"What do you want?" After a slight pause, Harley added below, "I wrote as you said, they all think I'm just a victim in a pitiful assault case who should be sleeping honestly in the medical room, so no one has noticed anything wrong."
"Helen suspects me. She might think I've read this book, but I've diverted her attention towards herself. My move was quick enough, so I don't think she's reacted yet."
"Astonishing criminal talent." Another line appeared in the fog.
"Tell me what you want, and then give me the answer." Harley's handwriting became deeper, it seemed the girl was getting angry, she said: "I think you can understand me, you must, Mr. Monster... you better."
"I can." The gray mist replied, the cursive letters appeared especially slowly, as if after careful thinking, another line appeared, "You can't accept a mediocre madness spreading in your living environment, as if soaking yourself in sewage."
"That's exactly how I feel, it's awful." Harley took a deep breath and began to write in large chunks.
"They can't understand where human madness comes from, but they scramble their brains and call it madness. This is a terrible and unimaginative imitation, the smell it gives off is nauseating, they must be taught a deep lesson.
Every Gothamite understands that madness has already eroded our hearts, but that's not divine manipulation, madness is the weapon we chose ourselves, in order to create a miracle of surviving and living in the darkest places in the world, the brilliant inspiration and philosophical musings about humanity and tragedy that madness brings to us, are the most beautiful art that can interpret madness.
Not infusing energy into other people's brains, making them unable to think, becoming mindless, only attacking others like walking corpses. His understanding of madness is all wrong, so wrong that it suffocates me, I will correct this error at all costs, you must help me."
"I will help you."
Everyone who saw this conversation through the screen was silent, it was Pamela who had been silent all along who spoke first.
"I do not intend to defend the Gothamites, but I fully understand why Miss Quinzel called this imitation---or a bit more radical--- plagiarism."
"How can you understand?!" Constantine was almost mad, he screamed: "Are you guys wrong? It's enough if you guys go mad, do you actually think it's a crime for other people not being mad enough?!"
"Not other people, but some kind of mysterious existence." Pamela pointed out immediately, she was unrestrained, and said with a firm tone: "Only humans can determine how humans go mad, Gothamites are the benchmark in this realm, not any monster that rushes out from anywhere can dictate to us, saying their things are the deepest madness."
"What's there to argue about?" Zatanna was also a bit fed up, she took a deep breath like she was covering her forehead on the couch.
"Of course it's best not to be mad."
Pamela's words became sharper, began to use a language style similar to Harley's when she was angry, people usually call this the babbling of the Gotham madman.
"But if madness is already a foregone conclusion, there must be a judgment of the depth, some mysterious existence that can drive people mad, if he hides in his dark cave and whispers, no one will care about him, but since he had to come here to compete, then there's nothing incomprehensible about us representing the deepest human madness, fighting, right?"
"I don't know how your brains work..." Strange shook his head and said: "What's this got to do with who's madder? Isn't this just a very simple case of a demon god controlling humans to attack others?"
"Not at all that simple." Bruce also stepped onto the chessboard, began to respond to the chess piece in front of him, he shook his head and said: "If he promised to give the attackers benefits, promised that as long as he kills a number of people he will give him a great power, then we will not care."
"But he made her mad."
The two jet-black chess pieces swapped positions, Pamela looked at Strange and said: "Mad without any characteristics, more importantly, there is no reason related to humanity, just as if you can pick up any race from the universe and they can go mad like this, then how can humans display the art they have learned from madness? That's part of our civilization!"
"Help me!" Constantine exaggeratedly stretched out both hands to pray to the sky and said: "Shiller! Shiller! Say something! Your two students are babbling again!"
Shiller seemed to have just been awakened, he slowly opened his eyes.
And when those grey eyes swept over the people present in the field with a desolate gaze, the argument eerily ceased.
"I heard someone mention art."
The morbid voice is always slower and heavier, like incense ash sinking to the bottom of an incense burner.
Constantine swallowed, tried hard to recline his body backwards, wanting to get away from there, but Bruce went up to sit beside him, and then began to recount the scene that had just appeared on the screen and their argument.
After listening, Morbid nodded slowly and said in a tone full of rich emotion.
"If you're asking me to judge, its crime is 'typical'."