Chapter 6

The Root of All Evil

Rain fell on the Gotham City jungle, drenching Harley and The Penguin as they trudged through it. The Penguin kept sneezing and looked miserable.

“Of all the times not to have an umbrella!” he muttered. “At least I still have my hat…. Ah-choo!”

Harley’s sword and lasso were clasped tightly in his hands. The three cheetahs stalked alongside Harley, keeping her from making a break for it—not that she wanted to. As it turned out, The Penguin was taking Harley right where she wanted to go…Arkham Asylum.

As in the rest of Gotham City, nature ran amok here. Enormous vines broke through stone walls. Tall grass swayed in front of barred windows. And strangest of all, moving topiaries—large bushes pruned into the shapes of animals—patrolled the jailhouse like green guards.

Seeing the lush, lethal landscaping confirmed what Harley had suspected as she crossed Gotham City earlier. There was no way Poison Ivy could have generated this much plant life on her own. Someone else must have helped. Harley wanted to find her friend more than ever. Their special bond pulled her to Ivy like a magnet. The only challenge now was ditching three big cats and a snob with the sniffles.

Passing through Arkham’s imposing gates, she saw rain trickling down the ivy twisted around the ironwork. Harley elbowed the leaves, changing the course of the stream—and dumping the water onto one cheetah’s head. It shook its fur, spraying droplets on The Penguin, whose allergies came back with a vengeance.

“AH-AH-CHOO!!!”

He sneezed so hard, the startled cheetahs took off in all directions, and The Penguin dropped the sword and lasso.

“Suffering cats!” he growled like Cheetah. “AH-CHOO!”

Now unguarded, Harley shoved The Penguin out of her way, picking her weapons up out of a puddle and sprinting headlong into Arkham.

The topiaries felt her footfalls on the sodden turf and converged. As they brandished their branches and raked their roots, lightning flashed like a strobe light, making the topiaries seem even creepier. Harley held them back with the flat of her blade but refrained from chopping them down, perhaps because of Wonder Woman’s compassionate influence—or perhaps because the shapes of the shrubs reminded Harley of her pet hyenas, Bud and Lou. She ducked and rolled, like she did on the obstacle courses she and her sisters used to run back on their home island of Themyscira—

“Those aren’t my memories!” Harley cried. “I don’t even have sisters!”

She scaled a rain-slicked wall by climbing the thick, gnarled vines that weaved between the stones. Once Harley clambered onto the roof, she tiptoed to a skylight, still reeling from her mixed-up memories. Through the skylight’s rain-spattered glass, she could see down into the prison. Every cell door had been pried open by vines. Now the inmates ran the asylum, which more closely resembled a greenhouse at the moment. Harley’s heart sank when she saw the two figures sitting on elaborate chairs fashioned from twigs and leaves.

Poison Ivy and The Joker reclined like royalty on their thrones, although neither of Harley’s former partners in crime appeared as she remembered them. Poison Ivy now sported a purple suit and a clownish countenance, while The Joker had donned a forest-green getup.

“With all these new trees, we should call this place Bark-ham Asylum!” Ivy joked. “What do you think of my new sense of humor, partner?”

The Joker, who no longer wore his trademark grin, said, “It’s…growing on me.”

He wiggled his hand, and a nearby vine tickled Poison Ivy behind her ear, making her cackle like a madwoman. High above them, Harley couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. Ivy, normally the sensible counterpart to Harley’s loose cannon, seemed unhinged, while The Joker, far from his typical mania, had adopted a serene and deeply unsettling demeanor.

“The only thing scarier than a wild Joker is a calm Joker!” Harley muttered to herself.

She returned her attention to the skylight as The Penguin entered Arkham. Cheetah and Solomon Grundy followed, towing their orange laundry bags full of loot.

“Kneel,” The Joker said to them.

The Super-Villains remained standing.

“Kneel,” he said again.

This time, The Joker gestured, and a pair of peculiar plants bloomed, peppering The Penguin, Cheetah, and Grundy with pollen. They dropped to their knees, strained smiles stretched across their faces. Poison Ivy clapped her hands in delight and said, “Combining our Joker gas and persuasion pollen was a stroke of genius!”

“It appears that Grundy and Cheetah succeeded in their mission,” The Joker said. “Mxyzptlk’s magic may have started to turn Gotham City into a justice-free jungle—”

“It sure was swell of that scamp to give us a heads-up, trickster to trickster, before he conjured his naughty spells!” Poison Ivy interjected.

The Joker, irritated by the interruption, continued his rant. “But we will now harness the Spear of Destiny to finish the job, taking over the rest of this city…and then the world!”

“Followed by a lunch break, maybe some Ping-Pong—oh, and finding and destroying the Batcave!” Poison Ivy added enthusiastically. “Time permitting, of course.”

Back on the roof, Harley pieced together everything she’d overheard. So, it was Mxyzptlk who was behind her role reversal with Wonder Woman—and who had orchestrated the overgrowth in Gotham City, turning it into the ghoulish garden Ivy and The Joker now tended.

“Penguin,” The Joker said, eliciting a tremor in the cowering crook. “You, however, failed to apprehend any and all crime fighters in the vicinity.”

“You don’t understand!” The Penguin said. “I had Wonder Woman right in my flippers—I mean, claws—when she…she…”

The Penguin’s argument lost steam as The Joker stepped toward him, a stern glint in his humorless eyes. Harley knew this meant trouble. Poison Ivy could be just as vindictive as The Joker, if not more so. Harley readied her lasso and sword. This would be her best chance to strike. If The Joker and Ivy intended to further Mxyzptlk’s magical mischief with the Spear of Destiny, then maybe she could use the same spear to reverse it altogether….

Just then, Wonder Woman skated in with a Harley Quinn sparkle in her eyes and a trouble-making smile on her face!

“Uh-oh,” Harley groaned. “She’s going to ruin everything!”