Chapter 135: The Green Custom
"I've had enough of you!"
"I still think you should turn yourself in!"
It was, without a doubt, a fierce battle. Moves were met with counter-moves, offense and defense were exchanged in a desperate back-and-forth struggle... all between a man's own left and right hands.
Yep, Two-Face was fighting with himself again.
And everyone else left in the shop, whether it was the two remaining "hostages" or the henchmen who had been thoroughly chewed out by Two-Face, had all become a captive audience.
"So, is he always like this?" Orin Vale even started chatting with the robbers.
A muscular thug next to him lit a cigarette. "Not really. He's usually just crazy, often talking to himself, and sometimes arguing with himself. But never this bad."
"Hey, no smoking in the shop." Orin Vale pointed to the "No Smoking" sign hanging on the wall.
"Oh, sorry."
The thug smiled apologetically and extinguished his cigarette.
He seemed to have completely forgotten he was a robber.
Two-Face was still throwing punches and kicks at himself. Orin Vale glanced at the Old Wizard. "How are the test results?"
"You can't imagine." The Old Wizard's eyes sparkled with excitement. "This is a whole new direction. A single person, splitting into two personalities under extreme circumstances—one a demon born from hatred, the other an angel manifested from good intentions.
"Actually, perhaps most people are like this. If you could split a personality according to this standard, the good part would become a hundred times kinder, while the evil part would become doubly malicious.
"If this spell is successfully developed, perhaps I could even completely separate a person's good and evil! Why didn't I ever think of this before?"
This made Orin Vale draw a connection. He vaguely recalled a story arc in the original Justice League comics where the members' good and evil aspects were split into separate individuals. There was even a similar plot in the classic Superman movies from the last century.
So, could Old Wizard Shazam have been the first to discover this phenomenon?
In the middle of the scuffle, Two-Face's wallet flew to the ground, snapping open and dropping a photograph.
A photo of a woman. Fiery red hair, a slender figure, and a pair of high-beams so large and bright in the darkness they could blind a 24-karat titanium-alloy dog's eye.
Orin Vale raised an eyebrow, thinking she looked somewhat familiar...
Two-Face noticed, hurried over, snatched the photo, and stuffed it back into his wallet.
"What are you looking at?" he glared at everyone like a wounded beast.
"Nothing... Who's that?" Orin Vale asked casually.
"None of your business," Two-Face grunted.
But even if he didn't say anything, Orin Vale could guess. "Girlfriend?"
Orin Vale frowned slightly. His first thought was Rachel, the female lead from 'The Dark Knight' movie, but he quickly realized she was a movie-original character, so it couldn't be her. In Two-Face's original comic book origin, he did have a fiancée named Gilda, but she rarely appeared in later versions of the story.
In the old animated series, 'Batman: The Animated Series', his girlfriend was actually Poison Ivy. The two had even flaunted their affection in front of Old Master before Harvey became Two-Face. It was only after Harvey was poisoned that he discovered Poison Ivy had approached him with an ulterior motive. That was also Poison Ivy's first appearance in the animated series.
Wait a minute, speaking of Poison Ivy, the red-haired girl in the photo did bear a striking resemblance...
"Correction, she's *my* girlfriend," Harvey retorted.
"Oh, so *now* you want to draw such a clear line?"
"You're a thief and a killer, while I'm a lawyer," Harvey said righteously.
"So, doesn't that sound about the same?" Two-Face sneered.
And then they started fighting again.
Orin Vale pondered. It was hard to say if it was Poison Ivy, but he was certain he had seen the woman in the photo before. She had been in the shop earlier today, and she was clinging to that greasy, overweight detective...
Suddenly, he felt a bit of sympathy for Harvey.
He thought for a moment and said, "Alright, you two take a break. Stop fighting for now. How about something to eat? Do we have anything in the Kitchen?"
"We do."
The Old Wizard was very pleased with the inspiration he'd gained today. He grabbed an apron and prepared to cook.
"I'll make dinner. Anyone want to join?"
From his excitement, it looked like he wanted to take advantage of the crowd in the shop to test out his newly developed recipes.
The thugs looked at each other in dismay.
They suddenly felt that something was very wrong with a hostage cooking them dinner.
But Orin Vale stopped him.
"Not today. We still have food here, something simple will do."
And so, he brought out—
Lettuce, cucumber, mint-flavored cookies, and matcha-flavored cupcakes...
As far as the eye could see, it was a sea of green. Anyone who didn't know better would think they'd stumbled into the Amazon Jungle.
One of the henchmen couldn't help but exclaim, "You guys... always eat this healthy?"
"Not usually," Orin Vale sat down and said. "It's just that we have an expression in the East. If a friend of mine is cruelly betrayed by his wife, we say he is 'wearing a green hat'."
"That sounds pretty weird," the henchman mumbled. "Green hats are pretty normal around here. We even have a Green Hat Day."
"Local customs," Orin Vale explained. "So, if a friend suffers a similar betrayal, and I happen to find out, we often have a more subtle way of giving them a hint... for example, by showing them a lot of green things. They'll naturally get it."
"I see... Huh? Then aren't there a lot of green things here?" The henchman's eyes lit up, feeling like he'd discovered something incredible. "Does that mean... one of us has been... been..."
As he spoke, he glanced at Two-Face and saw the murderous look in his boss's eyes, nostrils flaring as if breathing fire.
Then his smile suddenly vanished.
"Ah... this..." The henchman was stunned.
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!" Two-Face angrily pulled out his gun and pointed it at Orin Vale. "You're lying!"
"It's the truth, I can vouch for it," the Old Wizard also spoke up. "I saw her too. Hard to miss. She's a real head-turner."
Even the little cat, Stryker, meowed from the side, as if to say, "I saw her too."
"Actually, I've had a faint feeling about this for a while, I just never said anything," Harvey's half of the face said sullenly. "Look at this monstrous face of ours... no normal woman could possibly accept it. It's only natural. I think deep down you probably guessed it too, you just refused to face it..."
"Shut up, just shut up!"
Two-Face punched his own right cheek again, then furiously took out his coin.
One side was scratched, the other was clean. Two-Face suffered from severe indecisiveness; he needed the coin's help to make any decision.
Two-Face stared resentfully at the coin. "If it's the clean side, I'll stab her to death."
"So if it's the scratched side, you'll forgive her?" a henchman asked cautiously.
He was promptly kicked by Two-Face, sending him sprawling.
"If it's the scratched side, I'll blow her away with a gun!"
Then Harvey started muttering again, "Why do this? She's a good girl, she deserves better. There's a kind of love called letting go..."
"To hell with that!" Two-Face cursed loudly. "No one betrays me! No one!"
"I can't let you do this!" Harvey shouted.
"Oh? You want to try and stop me?"
And then his left and right sides once again started beating the crap out of each other, much to the detriment of the head they both shared.
...
It seemed like a long time, but in reality, less than an hour had passed since they entered the shop.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Gotham, after dismantling one of Scarecrow's gas bombs, Batman had rushed over and finally arrived.
First, with a *snap*, the lights suddenly went out, plunging the shop into darkness. This was followed by the crash of shattering glass as Batman burst in through the window, landing in a cool roll before striking a fighting pose.
And then he saw Two-Face, sitting dejectedly on the floor.
"Oh, you're here?"
Two-Face lazily looked up, glanced at him, and then raised his hands.
"Just arrest me. And make it quick."
He had the air of someone who was tired of it all, ready for the world to end, and simply didn't care anymore.
Batman: "..."
This was possibly the easiest capture of a supervillain the Dark Knight had ever made since his debut.
No schemes, no resistance. The whole time, Two-Face had an impatient "just get it over with" attitude, as if he couldn't wait to finish the process and go rot in Arkham.
However, before Two-Face was led away, a thought struck Orin Vale, and he asked, "By the way, that woman... does she have a name?"
Two-Face looked up, the Harvey-side of his face glancing at him.
"Pamela," he said. "Pamela Isley."
Orin Vale raised an eyebrow.
Well, what do you know.
It really was Poison Ivy.
(end of chapter)