"So how are things out there?"

A brunette GCPD officer answered the concerned voice in her personal phone with one word. "Worse."

Standing atop the dilapidated bridge overlooking the still vine-invested chapel, Detective Maggie Sawyer looked grimly at the building that had become the ground zero for Poison Ivy's latest crusade against humanity.

A building that was once holy, once a place for worship. For communion.

Now, it was none of those things.

Just another reminder of the mess Strange had left for them to clean up.

"Ivy's still not in custody?"

"Affirmative," Sawyer told her in a somber, sighing note.

"God, I hate that woman so much," groaned the female voice.

"Not as much as I do. And you know how much I love redheads," she added somewhat wryly.

"Mmmmmm, don't I. What about Gordon? How's he handling the situation?"

"He doesn't believe the Bat is MIA. Frankly neither do most of the guys here." The detective leaned against the railing, bright red-and-blue lights illuminating her weary face.

"What do you think?"

"...maybe I'm getting too naïve in my old age, but Batman's never let the force down. Not as long as I've been wearing the badge, at least," she sighed.

"You're not that old, Maggie," came the chuckling response of the other woman.

"I used to think that, but this city ages you a year in a freakin' day," the officer retorted with a smirk. "At least back in Metropolis, there was only one superpowered freak we had to deal with. Now, it's the whole damn circus, night after night. God, I swear the only worthwhile thing in Gotham has been you, Kate. I don't know what I'd do-"

A sudden whoosh of air from behind got Detective Sawyer's attention.

"-without you." Turning around, she saw none other than the Boy Wonder landing on the bridge, his masked expression stoic as his cape retracted from its rigid aerial form.

"I'll call you back." Pocketing the phone inside her police jacket, the officer crossed her arms as Robin stood to full attention.

"Friend of yours?" the young man asked.

"Fiancée," Sawyer told him with a casual shrug. "Commissioner says you're back to normal now. Are you?"

"I'm working on it," admitted the hooded half of the Dynamic Duo.

"Good enough." Sighing, she started to turn back towards the church. "You got something for me?"

"An idea," came his seemingly enigmatic answer.


Aaron Cash had had a very bad night so far.

Then again, he had many bad nights since first putting on the uniform.

Some nights were worse than others. Much worse.

The prosthetic hook in place of his left hand was an ever-morbid reminder of how this city makes monsters of men.

But this- this finally brought a smile to his face.

"Sir." Two officers, each carrying the opposite end of a sleek weapons case, went up the steps of the Solomon Wayne Courthouse and arrived where he was standing.

"The kid better be right on this," Cash murmured as the two set the case down, prompting the former security guard of old Arkham to approach.

"You sure you're gonna be able to use this thing, Aaron? Didn't exactly come with an instruction manual," one of them asked him while scratching the back of his head.

"If it has a trigger, that's all I need to know," he smirked, before taking a knee and unlocking the sealing hatches.

The two exchanged glances before turning around and passing by other officers who were setting up barricades along the street.


Guns were being loaded. Protective armor was being put on.

The GCPD was preparing for war.

Atop the two adjoining buildings, the rooftop was being occupied by perched snipers, all waiting. All ready.

Some officers had set up defense positions against police vehicles, assault weapons primed.

They were all guarding various loudspeakers that were set up, but augmented beyond their normal use.

And above them all, right on the top of the charred courthouse, Robin stood.

Watching. Waiting.

"Kid, I hope you know what you're doing," came the still skeptical voice of Maggie Sawyer in his comlink. "There's a lot of good men down here. Good men with families who need them. They deserve to go home after this."

"And they will, detective," he assured her. "This will work."

"Famous last words. Anyways, my tech guys are still making sure everything is good to go. From there, well, God help us all." She then signed off.

Crouching down, Robin continued to watch and wait.

"Tim, this is risky," came Barbara's voice now in another channel. "Very risky. I trust you, but-"

"What would Bruce do, Barb?" Drake pointed out. "Waste time or take action? We looked for her. She doesn't want to be found, fine. Well now she has to find us."

"Her and her army of man-killing monsters?"

"Exactly," he nodded, looking down at Cash who seemed to be familiarizing himself with his role in what was coming. "Barbara, this is our best shot. Maybe our only shot of ending this here and now."

"Or she could end you. Tim, Ivy is a psychopath but she's a smart woman, or whatever she calls herself these days. She'll know it's a trap."

"We don't have a choice. Either she comes to us, or we keep following her dead ends until it's too late to do much of anything," he also pointed out.

"...okay. How'd you come up with this anyways?"

"Wonder City," he started off. "When Bruce activated the Batmobile's sonic speakers, they emitted a frequency high enough to disrupt any plants in the vicinity. Even as brainwashed as I was, I could sense how rattled she was by it. Well I thought maybe, we can hurt her even more by multiplying that sound and concentrating it here."

"That's smart."

"About the smartest thing I've done all night, to be honest," he admitted candidly before reiterating the point. "This has to end here, Barb. It started because of me, and now I'm gonna make sure it ends before any more people get hurt."

"No one blames you, Tim."

"I do," he answered solemnly. "And if Bruce doesn't wake up, that's on me, too. Can you see how things are going with Dick about getting that cure?"

"Will do. Look, whatever happens, just be careful. I'll check back in soon." She signed off.

Robin took a sigh, remaining in his perch.

Just waiting…

"Alright kid, you still wanna do this? Commissioner's given the go-ahead," Sawyer finally reported in. "I certainly have my reservations, but I'm not about to question the chain of command."

This was the only way.

"Do it," he said.

"Here goes nothing."

The next second was pierced by a screeching sound that could bring grown elephants down to their knees.

Emitting from the loudspeakers all lined up around the courthouse, the frequency was louder than loud. It was debilitating…

…for those without the proper ear protection.

But the officers down below had insulated themselves with earpieces designed to filter out the sound.

The Boy Wonder, long trained to deal with hostile stimuli in the environment, could endure long enough.

And that he did…eyes narrowed and focus even sharper as he scanned the area.

He anticipated it would take some time for the soundwaves to travel through the closed city-prison, and to some extent he was right.

It, however, took even less time for there to be a response.

There was a low rumbling, subtle at first. But soon it was vibrating through the foundation of the building he was currently on.

"Get ready, detective," he murmured, standing up with his staff extending out.

The rumbling grew close. It grew heavy.

"Looks like we made Mommy angry."


Maggie Sawyer cocked her sidearm while feeling powerful forces shaking the earth under her feet.

Powerful and angry. Very angry.

She turned from left to right, seeing fellow officers also priming their weapons for battle.

The tremors continued to grow in intensity beneath them.

Above them, snipers had their weapons trained.

It was only a matter of-

SMAASSSH! The ground broke right in front of them.

Tendrils of green exploded from the underground and into the wide open- right into their sights.

With the piercing sounds still ravaging their serpentine bodies, it was even easier for lead bullets to tear through the mutated plants.

The experienced officers fired with ease, shooting the wailing, writhing vines as they futilely tried to lash out at the sound equipment.

Sniper fire from above cut down the rare vine that escaped the initial volleys, their dying wails ringing on the deafened ears of the GCPD.

Maggie took her shots as well, carefully and concisely as more vines emerged from the ground.

They all fired. Reloaded. And fired once more at the seemingly never-ending waves of furious, flailing flora.

No end was in sight…or perhaps there was.

Pushing a fresh magazine into her handgun, Sawyer started to take aim only to slowly lower her weapon.

There was nothing more to shoot.

Bullet-shredded carcasses of serpentine plants littered the cracked granite before them.

Fresh chlorophyll lined the streets of Arkham City.

If nothing else, they had gotten her attention now.

The other officers kept their guns up, anticipating another wave.

Maggie took a step forward, then felt it.

Something even bigger.

Leveling her weapon, she resumed a ready position just in time for the manhole covering concealing the sewers to be knocked into the air- from the inside!

The lid landed some feet away from her, with the center dented by a distinct fist imprint on the metal.

From the darkness now revealed, emerged a monstrous, green-veined forearm.

Digging its fingers into the ground, it dragged up a monster that was once a man.

With ivy venom pumping through his body, the behemoth climbed up out of the sewer and into the street, drawing the attention of the other officers.

Sawyer signaled with one hand then backed out of range as the former inmate turned acolyte for the plant queen, visibly incensed by the continuing sound, started towards them.

What initial was a stagger turned into a sprint- a sprint with murderous intent.

Stepping in front of her, a trio of officers produced tasers from their belts, switching from lethal force…

"AAAAIIEEEE!"

… to a very incapacitating nonlethal alternative as they all shot him with the disabling electrical discharge.

His charge was instantly halted as the man/monster, hit with the maximum voltage per the Boy Wonder's instructions.

Face wracked in even more pain, he managed one more step before ultimately pitching forward like a toppled statue.

His fingers continued to twitch as their electrical current surging through him ran its course.

Warily, the officers approached. Surrounding it with guns now drawn.

Detective Sawyer herself began to venture closer, seeing no other hostile plant life in the vicinity.

Right until she saw what was growing on his back.

What seemed like a whole field of small sacs growing on top of bare flesh. Sacs of pulsating, porous-

"Get back!" Yelling out, she threw herself back as the sacs suddenly exploded into a cloud of pink dust that enveloped them all.


Robin saw the trap coming only a few seconds before the cops on the ground did.

And in that process, he had already launched into the air, cape growing rigid to sustain his glide.

Just in time, he touched down and expanded his bullet shield right in front of the already cowering Sawyer.

Not a moment too soon as he shielded them both against the initial spread.

The thick radius swept around and over them, taking every other GCPD officer by surprise.

"Shit, I can't see!"

"I can't make out a visual!"

"What the hell?!"

The disorienting effects were immediate and widespread, fogging their gas masks and diminishing their line of sight.

"All units, fall back- now!" Sawyer ordered into her field radio over the still piercing sound emitting from the loudspeakers. "We'll set up a new defensive perimeter-"

"KILLLL!"

The roar was followed by a rumble underground, monstrous steps carrying a monstrous being up from below.

"Too late," Robin murmured grimly, activating his Detective Vision just in time to see another former inmate climbing out of the sewer and charging right into the cloud.

"Go!" He told Sawyer over his shoulder, and nodding she quickly made a tactical retreat.

"Oh God, it's another one!"

"Get another taser formation. We're gonna bring this big bastard down just like- arrgghh!"

That was the exact moment bodies started to fly.

Coming in with the momentum of a rampaging bull, the ivy venom-enhanced brute rammed right into unsuspecting officers and sent them airborne on first contact.

"Screw less-lethal, someone start shooting!"

"I still can't make out anything in this damn fog!"

"Just shoot, shoot- oh God, I think I see another one!"

Confusion and panic rippled amongst the GCPD personnel on the ground as one more monstrous apocalypse climbed out of the sewer to ravage their numbers.

"BREAK!" The sound of flesh smacking concrete hit Robin from all directions.

Collapsing the shield back into a staff, he remained in the literal thick of it, looking all around to see writhing men in uniform on the ground.

That was the exact moment the sound stopped being blaring.

He looked around through his infrared vision to see vines slithering around the now broken loudspeakers on the ground, the serpentine tendrils trailing from around the courthouse to exploit all the chaos and confusion.

Cursing, he turned back to help out the officers in nee-

"Ugggghhhh!" Only to find himself in need as five powerful fingers clamped around his throat, lifting him off the ground.

The hand belonged to a perpetually angry, seething monster of a man.

His eyes were bulging with green intensity.

"KILL...FOR...MOTHER!" He snarled, before suddenly throwing the Boy Wonder backwards with startling strength.

The hooded hero fell and flailed through the air before hitting the ground just before the courthouse steps.

Keeping his grip on the staff, Robin instinctively sat up but the behemoth was almost immediately upon him.

Rushing him like a wildebeest, he raised both closed fists up to clobber the Dark Knight's apprentice…

…and he continued to raise both hands as he suddenly became encased in a block of ice.

His murderous pose became literally frozen in time, courtesy of a well-timed blast by Aaron Cash.

Everything but his head was frozen solid as the one-handed officer kept his finger on the trigger of Mr. Freeze's signature weapon.

"I assume we're going with Plan B, then," the former guard remarked sarcastically as the Boy Wonder stood up.

"Thanks," the younger man nodded.

"Duck," Cash suddenly told him, leveling his weapon at Robin.

Or rather, what was raging and roaring behind him as the vigilante would duck down to avoid the second blast that captured the other ivy venom brute in solid, momentum-halting ice.

The brute bellowed his frustration but could not break through his icy captivity. And neither could the other.

Rising back to full height, the vigilante retracted and pocketed the staff.

"Thanks again," he sighed, turning around to see the cloud finally dispersing into the nighttime air.

But in its wake…


"Six officers down, total. Two in need of serious medical evac. Not to mention a total loss of department-issue sound equipment. Not cheap to replace, by the way. All that, and no Ivy." Finishing her report with barely concealed chagrin, Detective Sawyer turned to Robin some moments later.

Remnants of vines and bullet casings littered the ground that GCD personnel walked on all around them.

Sans mask now, the brunette senior officer crossed her arms, "We shook the beehive, kid. Queen bee was a no-show."

Robin mulled on that statement for a bit.

Then, came his response. "Maybe not in sight, but she's not far. We can still flush her out."

"Already ahead of you. Commissioner ordered a strike team. They're gonna go into the sewer and find her," the detective informed her. "With all that just happened, she's gotta be pretty damn close."

"Finding Ivy is not the same as capturing Ivy. We don't know what's down there," he pointed out.

"We don't know what's gonna be up here either. Whatever endgame she's trying to put into motion, we're on a limited window here to stop her from doing something that jeopardizes our lives and the lives of everyone we've sworn to protect."

"Give me five minutes. I'll find her. I'll bring her out," Robin vowed.

"No offense kid, but we'd wait for Batman. You're not Batman," Sawyer responded matter-of-factly before brushing past him.

Turning, Robin looked over the detective's shoulder to see a whole squad of officers decked out in tactical gear and gas masks surrounding the opened manhole.

He was about to call out after her when Oracle's voice piped in, "Tim, they found the cure. Dick's on his way back to the cave now."

Relief immediately took hold of the young man. "That's great news."

"How are things going with Ivy?"

"Where should I start?" he sighed, right as the first of the officers started to descend down the manhole ladder.

"Maybe start on why the seismic readings in your area are off the chart right now. I'm looking now and wow- something bad's brewing. You guys need to get to higher ground before-"

"Hahahaha!" Poison Ivy's laughter suddenly drowned out the hacker's concern, the external sound of mocking and malice coming from everywhere at the same time.

The other officers readied their weapons, but Robin's eyes only narrowed.

He was all too familiar with her mind games at this point.

"Was that your best effort to stop mother nature, meatsacks? Was that the pinnacle of your mammalian intelligence?" Her smug voice rang out again.

Robin felt the rumbling beneath his feet once more.

"There is nothing that can stop us! Not the Bat, and certainly none of you."

He turned to see the last member of the strike team disappearing into the manhole.

"If Batman's dead, we're all screwed," the Boy Wonder heard one officer bemoan nearby.

"But you're welcome to try. Come to me, and my babies will be nourished from the blood we'll drain from your bodies." That was followed by more cruel laughter.

Laughter that cut through the Boy Wonder's skin yet hardened his resolve.

He knew what had to be done now.

"Detective…" Approaching Sawyer from behind, he made her the first to know. "I'm going in. Those men don't know what they're walking into."

"They're cops, kid. We never know what we're walking into. It's part of the job requirement," came her dismissive response at first. "Look, we tried it your way. She didn't bite. Now, we're doing things by the book."

"Look, I get I'm not Batman, but right now I'm the closest thing you have to him. If I'm in there, I can keep them safe," he pointed out.

"I appreciate that, but-" Mid-sentence, the sound of gunfire crackled through her field radio.

"What was that?" she questioned. "Sentry team, have you made contact with the target?"

More gunfire.

"What's your status, Sentry team? Do you have her in sight?"

"...it's…not…her," came the frightened, fear-stricken voice of one officer before a blood-curdling scream cut off the transmission.

"Goddamn it," Sawyer groaned.

Robin was already on the move.

Sprinting then descending down the manhole into pure darkness.