How could these serious scientists tolerate this? Suddenly, even Batman was forgotten, and slogans to take back the city were forgotten too. Immediately there were roars from various villains echoing throughout, "Clean up your damned laboratory and put up safety rules! Hand sanitizer! Protective suit!"
This is why Amanda couldn't find a single noisy villain in the city. Everyone was busy cleaning up pseudoscience.
In the Spencer Family's underground biology laboratory, Harley Quinn sat on a chair, a lollipop in her mouth, watching Poison Ivy tinkering with various test tubes and complaining with a frown, "Ivy, are you serious about doing your experiments here?"
Poison Ivy sighed, looked at Harley Quinn and said, "I'm doing my experiments here to stop them from doing theirs. As long as I occupy the lab, old Spencer's insane nephew won't come here."
Just as Harley Quinn was about to respond, Poison Ivy interrupted her and continued, " His crazy plan to stimulate the madness of Gothamites by polluting Gotham's underground water to enhance the intelligence of the entire city should really be discussed with that madman, Scarecrow, not cooking up a so-called toxic potion in the laboratory — it's an insult to the art of poison!"
"Alright, alright." Harley Quinn waved her hand, her one ankle resting on the knee of her other leg, she swayed her leg and said: "It's a pity I don't have that talent…"
Before she could finish, the door to the lab was knocked and, after Poison Ivy gave her consent, a mob member entered, a grin plastered on his face. He addressed Harley Quinn, "Miss Quinn, there's going to be a fire in probably two days, can you predict the outcome…"
"Wait a minute." Harley Quinn waved at him rather impatiently, then stretched out one hand in the air as if trying to grasp something, supported her head and peered in a particular direction as though looking out a window and said, "No chance of winning."
"Alright, alright, thank you so much, don't let me disturb you!"
Poison Ivy laughed and said to her, "No talent, huh?"
"Don't you know? I can't stand doing this! Anyway, tell me what you're doing, I'm not always impatient to hear you jabber about your plants."
"You usually are." Poison Ivy lowered her voice, it wasn't a complaint. She sounded hesitant — an uncommon tone from her.
Harley Quinn noticed Ivy's hesitation. Rising from her chair, she moved to the other side of the lab table. Hands on the table and looking into Poison Ivy's eyes, she said: "What's wrong? Ivy, you can't be troubled by something related to botany and biology, can you?"
"Maybe a bit." Poison Ivy shook her head gently, she picked up a test tube next to her, staring at the liquid inside, she said: "I've extracted something from Gotham's plants."
"Is it some kind of darkness?" Harley asked, her words muffled by the lollipop in her mouth.
"Yes, the sight and sound from that sky fortress previously gave me some ideas. I always thought that the mysterious dark characteristics of the Gotham flora were due to the rain here that also contained mysterious power. Of course, that could be part of the reason, but not the entire reason."
"What do you suspect?"
"Soil." Poison Ivy put down the test tube, lost in thought, "If all the metals in Gotham are problematic and they form a huge magical stance, then the person who masterminded this would have set up a control room to control this stance, it's unlikely he would personally manipulate every piece of metal. They must have set up a master control room."
"And you think it might be underground?"
Poison Ivy nodded, seeming pleased that Harley understood her, but instead of sweet talk, she focused on the academic content. She said, "Listen, if there's a master control room responsible for gathering dark power buried underground, then it could influence both the underground water and soil. This can explain better why plants, second only to humans, were affected. Water and soil should account for most of the conditions for the survival of plants."
"So, you're trying to infer the location of the control room by measuring the concentration of darkness in the plants?" Harley caught on quickly.
"Just a thought." Poison Ivy calmed, she turned her head towards a row of test tubes on the rack, her voice steady "This is not the most crucial task at present. I guess those madmen have probably made some progress."
Just then, another mob figure walked in and said: "Excuse me, ladies, we just received an invitation. It seems to be inviting you to an academic conference."
"Here it comes." Harley Quinn made a "you're amazing" gesture to Poison Ivy as they both left the laboratory and headed for the agreed meeting place.
The conference was held in a meeting room at Gotham University. Almost all of the university's facilities were intact. Upon entering, they found that most of Gotham's notorious super villains were present.
But the host of this conference wasn't one of the familiar faces. Instead, it was a man dressed in an Arabian gown and wearing a matching white mask. His face was completely obscured. Harley Quinn recalled, whispering to Poison Ivy, "His codename is the Wizard, um... Felix or Felicks? It should be Felix Faust."
"He's a colleague of Constantine, rumored to be a wicked black magician. He was messing around with his evil plans in the Amazon rainforest and hasn't been back to Gotham for a while."
Just then, Hugo took control of the microphone and said dramatically,
"Today, I have invited you here to conduct a round of voting. The voting content is — should the residents of Gotham exercise their democratic rights and vote for secession from the United States of America and the state of New Jersey which it belongs to!"
Harley Quinn's eyes widened. "Wait, why would we... Ah, I mean... how?"
Hugo turned his gaze to Felix Faust, who was standing to the side.
From their position in a sky fortress synchronized with the Earth's orbit, the Robins looked at each other. Dick swallowed and said, "I've got a bad feeling about this..."
"How long until the people of Gotham find out…"
The next second, a black dot grew larger in their view. A large city, cloaked by a shield of dark magic, rocketed upwards.
Totally stunned, the Robins watched a major city on the East Coast of America, Gotham City, rise from the ground. At the highest point of the city, a new flag slowly rose.
Then came the cheers from millions of people —
"Hurray for freedom!!!!!"