Chapter 232: Not Running Away

The Mad Hatter's angry shouts echoed through the hall.

"Fools! What are you all doing! I told you to kill her!"

Yet the others in the theater still made no response to the Mad Hatter's words; whether ordinary people wearing hats or hatless gunmen, not a single one rushed forward.

"Stop struggling; you have no manpower available now."

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! I clearly had their final override authority; they couldn't betray me—I made hats that wouldn't betray me!"

The Mad Hatter could not comprehend the scene before him; he pulled a remote control from his pocket and frantically pressed the red button on it, yet this still proved useless.

Bang!

The sound of a heavy body hitting the floor rang out; the Mad Hatter then realized that a Falcone family gunman in a suit suddenly went limp and collapsed to the ground, his body writhing continuously on the floor, his expression appearing bewildered yet joyful, as if he had seen some wonderful hallucination.

This first fallen man was like a signal; after him, the sounds of bodies thudding to the ground one after another rang out, and everyone in the theater fell down in succession.

"Why do you think I wasted so much time talking to you here?" Poison Ivy asked. "Do you think the Riddler would simply let me come here to die?"

Hearing Poison Ivy's mockery, the Mad Hatter, furious, smashed the remote control in his hand; he reached for his hat, pulled out a submachine gun from inside it, and aimed it at Poison Ivy.

"What did you do!?"

Poison Ivy smiled.

"Of course you can't detect what I did; look around you. These were all arranged by your people, weren't they—cakes, soda, candy, and powdered sugar. They were all too sweet, numbing your sense of smell so you couldn't distinguish the floral scent in the air."

She gently stroked the strings of tiny flowers on her inner armor; at this very moment, originating from these flowers, a faint, hidden floral scent continued to spread and diffuse into the air.

"Beautiful flowers, aren't they? They are a special variety I developed; the released fragrance can produce a decent hallucinogenic effect, though it requires the target to stay in this floral environment long enough. I was originally a bit worried there wasn't enough time—fortunately, your drama was long and boring enough."

"You b*tch—"

The Mad Hatter pulled the trigger dead, and a dense curtain of bullets immediately sprayed from the muzzles of the two submachine guns in his hands toward Poison Ivy, only to be blocked by layer upon layer of vine walls. But he did not stop; he continued to pour fire on her while cursing wildly.

Of course, this could also be called impotent rage.

Seeing the Mad Hatter still able to raise his gun, Poison Ivy ignored his noisy cursing and instead raised an eyebrow in confusion: "Although I don't know what you just ate, this floral scent should have no temporary antidote. How strange; I clearly dragged the time out until now, so why haven't you fallen to the ground yet?"

She did not know that the Mad Hatter had taken more drugs up to now than she had smoked cigarettes; this madman had long ago, over these years, made tea bags from various chemical drugs capable of affecting the nerves and body, and drunk them: drugs to soothe the spirit, drugs to force calmness, drugs for emotional excitement, drugs to remove pain, drugs to enhance aggression.

To this day, what flowed in his veins was hard to call mere blood, or rather a mixture of medicines; drug resistance had become incomparably powerful through these daily routines of high-dose drug-taking day after day, so the floral scent capable of inducing hallucinations had very limited effect on him.

In fact, the fact that he could survive to this day under such high-intensity medication was already a miracle in itself.

"Miss Pamela, a person who is already mad cannot become madder."

At this moment, a voice suddenly came from the communicator on the Mad Hatter's chest; it was Mr. Freeze using the communication equipment to make a call.

"Victor? Your sense of smell is quite sharp."

"We are not stupid; we would never let the Mad Hatter manage a region without any surveillance means—as you can see, his mental state is quite unstable."

"Oh? Aren't you just a sober madman?"

Although speaking these words, Poison Ivy held nothing back with her hands; she raised her hand slightly and pushed the vine wall directly toward the Mad Hatter. The situation was no longer suitable for continuing to delay time and waiting for the floral scent to take effect—she had to finish the fight quickly.

"I might be a madman too, Miss Pamela. But in any case, I am not stupid; the moment I discovered something was wrong, I set out toward you, and now—"

As soon as the words fell, a bone-chilling cold current suddenly surged; ultra-low-temperature frost froze the entire wall beside the theater, and the building materials suddenly became incredibly fragile under this temperature.

Crack!

A large gap suddenly appeared in the wall, and Mr. Freeze, holding his freeze gun, walked in through the gap.

"And now, I have arrived."

At the same time, Ma Ma Zhaodi was sprinting on a bicycle through the night.

Man-Bat's roars came from behind him; the light of the flamethrower illuminated the night sky, and the high-pressure water jets sprayed by the Batwing fell from the sky like a rainstorm. But he completely ignored these distractions, riding the bicycle with all his might to escape.

His guns couldn't reach the sky anyway, so what else was there to say? If you can run, just run.

"Sol, how is the situation on your end?"

Penguin's voice suddenly came from the communicator; obviously, he had failed to connect with the Doctor's communication—which was not strange; just now, Man-Bat had been set on fire by flames, and his fur along with the communicator on his body had been burned.

So he replied in that controlled, indifferent tone: "I am retreating."

"?"

Penguin paused for a moment, then asked: "Where is Man-Bat?"

Ma Ma Zhaodi looked back; Man-Bat was currently engaging in a fierce brawl with the Batwing. Of course, its damage to such a hard iron shell was always zero. Meanwhile, Firefly took the opportunity to fly toward the outskirts of the battlefield.

"About to be defeated."

"Where is Firefly?"

"Running away."

"Then what are you doing?"

"I am retreating."

"What the f*ck am I asking? Why are you retreating! Also, why is Firefly running? Wasn't he about to defeat Man-Bat?"

"No, Batman is about to defeat Man-Bat; Firefly cannot beat the Batwing."

Penguin paused: "No wonder..."

He looked at the Joker beside him; the Joker sat in a chair with a gloomy face, the downturned corners of his mouth filled with "joy."

So Penguin turned back and said: "You cannot run, Sol; go back immediately to help Man-Bat."

But Ma Ma Zhaodi turned a deaf ear to this and continued to pedal the bicycle beneath his feet with all his might.

"My last order required me to act according to Man-Bat's commands, and I am executing a tactical retreat mission in accordance with this order."

"This is not running away."

(End of Chapter)