Gotham, 10:20AM.
A few tiny silhouettes in the skyline calmly made their way towards the city, and when the lead armed helicopter arrived over Gotham, the pilot couldn't help but let out a curse.
"This is fucking worst than Iraq!" A black agent turned his head to look out the window, and after taking in a sharp breath, he asked in disbelief, "Who the hell attacked this place?"
"Those lunatics have brutally assaulted their own minds." An older female agent said as she clenched a can in her hand. She waved to the others and said, "Get ready, we're heading down!"
Of course, Amanda wouldn't be foolish enough to have these agents jump out with parachutes, which would equate to certain death. The elite agents sitting in the first helicopter were mainly there to ensure the safe arrival of the passengers in the following helicopters - a group of criminals controlled by Amanda with explosive collars and internal micro-bombs.
While they were also classified as super criminals, most were unfortunate serial killers and terrorists who had exposed themselves.
This was Amanda's brilliant idea. First, send in some cannon fodder to test the waters. If the lunatics of Gotham were demanding her to send people, then nothing could kill two birds with one stone - it was a crafty way to eliminate troublemakers bound to cause a riot in the high-security prison, and to also satisfy the terms with the lunatics.
Amanda looked at the images of the cannon fodder parachuting one after another in the monitors, a triumphant smile touching her lips. Sometimes winning a negotiation wasn't just about being firm; it was also about having tricky strategies, something these lunatics with scrambled brains would never understand.
However, her smile soon froze on her face.
There were no lunatics, no negotiating parties, and not a peep from any super-criminal activity - only endless stray bullets and fragments from explosions.
The lunatics who had broken out of Arkham Asylum were gone, completely and utterly gone.
"They've all congregated to do something... find them!" Amanda roared into the walkie-talkie, "or find their bodies!!!"
With no other choice and threatened by bombs planted in their bodies, the cannon fodder began to scour the dangerous city for any signs of the lunatics.
Amanda generously supplied them with weapons and ammunition. She also dressed them in bulletproof gear to prolong their survival as far as possible, hoping they could accomplish more with their limited lives. But the problems were that the explosives in Gotham were not ordinary ones, and you couldn't expect a regular bulletproof vest to withstand shards flying from a super-bomb enchanted with a flame-16 enchantment. No Federal Bureau of Investigation protective measures had such potency.
Groups of five cannon fodder quickly began to suffer heavy casualties. Of the more than two hundred individuals Amanda had painstakingly gathered and sent down, a quarter were gone in an instant.
Sticking together on the battlefield was never a good idea, especially when these criminals lacked the resolve to take a bullet for their teammates, nor did they understand the necessary sacrifices required for a strategic retreat. Faced with the fear of death, they only knew to scatter in all directions.
Amanda and the elite agents were , trying to get them to come back and obey orders, but there was no difference between dying from an internal explosion or dying from an external one. Driven by fear, the criminals began to run instinctively, and with everyone scattering, Amanda couldn't kill them all.
Once again, Amanda was not the most capable person. This showed in all aspects of her character. Sometimes she was extremely arrogant and extreme, but other times too hesitant.
She couldn't accept that her beautifully packaged gifts had been placed under the Christmas tree, only to be destroyed all at once, ruining the face of the planner in the process. This operation wasn't being watched by her alone.
Especially if she was the one to give the order to detonate all the bombs, she would become the laughing stock of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for a long time. Although Amanda held a significant position in the Federal Bureau of Investigation at this point, obviously, she was not yet completely in control. She had her concerns and, therefore, did not dare act.
She hoped that those criminals could bring her some news about the situation in Gotham, even if it was just from one person's perspective.
But in the end, there was nothing. What was even more terrifying was that all the elegantly dressed gifts had vanished - not dead, not gruesomely blown to pieces, but suddenly gone without a trace and all completely silent. Even when Amanda ordered her subordinates to detonate a few bombs, there was not a sound.
The horrific City of Darkness had become like a whirlpool beneath an abyss, drawing in anyone who dares to gaze at it, leaving them without even a chance to scream.
Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy returned to Gotham City after parting with Robin. Harley dug out a giant hammer from somewhere and smashed open the wall of an abandoned building that appeared to be a café with a working clock on the wall.
Glancing at it, she noted the time to be around 9:30 in the morning. They still had an hour before the time Amanda mentioned for their arrival, so they leisurely strolled out of the scene.
Harley looked up and around, then pointed to the remaining tallest building in the skyline and said: "Let's head that way. If that stupid woman sends helicopters, they'll definitely stop there... something about a superior vantage point."
Poison Ivy turned her head. She recognized the implication in Harley's words - that the parachuters wouldn't be the agents. The agents would definitely be the overseers stationed at the highest point. Amanda was attempting to establish a strategic foothold from a superior location.
Poison Ivy sighed in her heart. Those lunatics were right, Amanda was so stupid it gave her a headache.
It wasn't a guarantee that aggressively seeking out every advantage would lead to progress. A lot of the time, that kind of extreme psychology would conjure up an illusion of superiority, but illusions were illusions, and bubbles were always going to burst.
Poison Ivy didn't care much about what would happen to Amanda, but she pulled on Harley Quinn's arm and said, "Doesn't it seem a bit too quiet here? If those crazies have escaped, their goal would be to lure Batman out, so they wouldn't keep things quiet."
Harley Quinn frowned as well, placing her hammer on the ground, handle pointing upwards, and looked around dubiously with her hands on top of it. Just then, a rotund shadow splurged out from behind the ruinous building.
Both Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn were startled, not because there were people around - Gotham City was teeming with citizens, and some confident ones still hadn't moved despite the chaos. What surprised them was this figure that appeared - shambling while strikingly well-dressed.
"Ladies! Beautiful ladies! Please stop! Anderson Hardro, please!"
Poison Ivy slightly puckered her lips and subtly rolled her eyes downwards, taking a glance at her own attire that was not too different from broccoli. Even in Gotham, it would be considered eccentric.
"I thought I was the one in a gown," Harley Quinn quipped with her arms folded, scrutinizing the portly man with curly black hair. "Who the hell are you?"
"Oh, good heaven, the weather today is really nice. It's my honor to meet two beautiful ladies here," the stout man wiped his sweat with a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and said, "Could I have the privilege of asking you something?"
Harley Quinn giggled at his tacky sense of humor, which she kind of loved. She then said, "Ask away, there ain't much I don't know about this city."
"Nothing too tough, just a slightly offensive question - have you two just come out of Arkham Asylum?"
"Well, in some sense, yes."
Poison Ivy answered cautiously. She thought he meant whether they had been held in Arkham Asylum over a longer period, and the answer was certainly yes. But if it hadn't been for Batman, the institution would have been nothing special; it might as well have been renamed Batman Fan Club.
But then, all of a sudden, the man let out a shriek, as if he had an epileptic seizure.
In an instant, a group of men clad in black emerged from seemingly nowhere, shoved the stout man aside, and cleaned up the chaotic café filled with construction debris with astonishing efficiency.
A red carpet rolled out from the door, leading right up to Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. A line of well-built mobsters wearing black suits marched in and stood steadily on both sides of the carpet.
A slick black limousine, polished as a mirror, slowly pulled up in front of the carpet. The stout man called Anderson squeezed in again, his chubby face crinkling into a cheer and then bowed slightly to Harley Quinn and Ivy, extending a hand towards the end of the red carpet, and said,
"Ladies, please!"
Even Harley Quinn seemed taken aback now.
She blinked her eyes and said, "Did I just step back into that dream where Bruce Wayne was pursuing me? If you dare say that your boss's surname is Wayne, I'll bash you up right now... I'm not the Joker!"
"Oh my, madam, you must be mistaken. It's like this - the head of the Lawrence family sincerely invites you to..."
Just then, chaos ensued outside; shouts and sounds of crashing, whizzing, and a series of screams echoed from the streets.
A group of even mightier men in black clothes jostled their way in too. The mega hulk who led them was at least two meters tall, his muscles seemed to be on the verge of bursting out from his suit.
"Anderson, you fat pig! Can't the Lawrence Family find someone more decent? Stay out of our way, don't ruin our Spencer Family's efforts!!"
After saying this, he took off his sunglasses; Harley Quinn could not help but exclaim, "Wow!" The suit-clad hunk bore a striking resemblance to Brad Pitt – broad shoulders, narrow waist, and a handsome face.
Poison Ivy flashed a smile, whistled lightly at him, and used her fingertips to tap her lips, casting seductive eyes at his waist, and said, "Looking good"
"Thank you for your compliment, ma'am. I must apologize for the impoliteness of that fat pig Anderson, but not all families are as desperate as the Lawrence family."
"What kind of stunt are you guys trying to pull?" An impatient Harley Quinn interrupted the man.
The muscular man quickly took a business card from the box a subordinate handed him, handed it to Poison Ivy who was closer to him, and said,
"The Spencer family sincerely invites you two special talents to join us. High salary, high position, generous benefits. We pool our efforts for shared benefits and grand plans!"