With Slade Wilson—the sharpest "scalpel"—serving as overall commander, the remaining recruitment work became, in Bruce's eyes, little more than a fill-in-the-blank exercise. Through heavily encrypted darknet channels, Alfred sent employment contracts to Deadshot, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, and other well-known "professionals," each accompanied by photos of Swiss bank cashier's checks bearing astronomical sums. Faced with numbers large enough to guarantee comfort for life, refusal was unlikely. Money remained the primary fuel behind ninety-nine percent of the evil in this world.
But for certain exceptional "talents," Bruce knew money alone would never suffice. You had to locate their weakness—then bind it with an inescapable contract forged from what they treasured most.
On the outskirts of Gotham City, Robinson Park had long ceased to be a place for leisure. Mutated, aggressive vegetation had overtaken it, transforming the grounds into a forbidden green zone no civilian dared enter. At its center stood a massive glass greenhouse—the sanctuary of Pamela Isley, Poison Ivy, the so-called Plant Goddess.
Inside, perpetual spring reigned. The air was warm and heavy with an intoxicating fragrance. Pamela stood barefoot on soft moss, clad in a tight suit woven from leaves and vines that traced the curves of her figure. Her pale feet pressed gently into the greenery as her fingers caressed a peculiar plant positioned at the greenhouse's heart. It glowed faintly, shaped like a crystal tear about to fall, translucent and luminous, radiating mesmerizing vitality. The last Tear of Eden on Earth—a mythical plant rumored to purify any toxin and cure any disease. Her treasure, her faith, her final solace in a poisoned world.
Without warning, the ultra-reinforced dome above slid open with silent mechanical precision. A black figure descended like a phantom woven into the night, landing without disturbing a single vine. Pamela stiffened instantly; warmth vanished from her eyes, replaced by razor-sharp hostility. She felt the suffocating aura radiating from him, as if life itself recoiled. Thick vines erupted from the soil, coiling like enraged serpents, their sharpened tips aimed at the intruder.
"Get out of my garden, monster!" she roared.
He did not react. Though the vines were strong enough to crush bone, he stood unmoved. Slowly, he extended one armored finger, and with a soft hiss, a concentrated orange-red plasma flame ignited at the tip—small, yet capable of molecular disintegration.
"Pamela Isley," his voice echoed with metallic indifference, distorted through a modulator. "I require your cooperation. You and Harley Quinn will work for me. The objective: protect Director Gordon and generate large-scale, controlled chaos throughout Gotham. Bane's escapees must be occupied."
For a heartbeat she stared, then laughed—rich and unrestrained, as if he had delivered the most absurd joke imaginable. "Batman… are you delusional? Why would I assist you—a symbol of everything that suffocates nature?"
His hand lowered slightly, aligning the plasma flame precisely with the fragile Tear of Eden. "Because if you refuse, this plant will cease to exist within half a second—reduced to ash, no viable DNA remaining. Slade Wilson will oversee global black markets and private collections. If another specimen ever surfaces, it will be eliminated immediately."
Her laughter died. Color drained from her face as the flicker of plasma reflected in her emerald eyes—not as light, but as annihilation. She saw no hesitation, no bluff. If she refused, he would erase her world without blinking. This was not a threat; it was a sentence already written. Terror and rage crushed her breath, tears spilling not from sorrow, but from humiliation and helpless fury.
"You demon," she whispered, each word scraped raw.
Bruce observed her reaction with cold calculation. Against an extremist idealist, destroying the ideal was more effective than physical harm. He extinguished the plasma. "Harley will finalize the terms. Compensation will be transferred to your environmental fund. Wayne Group satellites will conduct continuous thermal scans of this greenhouse. Any irregularity in the plant's biological signature—or any harm to Director Gordon—" He left the sentence unfinished; it required no completion.
A grappling line fired, and in an instant he vanished into the night. Silence returned to the greenhouse. Pamela collapsed to her knees, trembling hands gathering the Tear of Eden into her arms as though cradling her last surviving child. Beneath the glass dome, her broken sobs echoed softly—not of defeat, but of something far more dangerous quietly taking root.