On the third night, the Catwoman—whom the people had placed such high hopes on—finally managed to talk another ally into joining them.
When Thea looked at the newcomer, all she could see was a small portion of her lips and chin, the only part of her skin visible—and even that looked burned. The rest of her body was tightly wrapped up in black-and-yellow armor. A large tank was strapped to her back, and she held in her hands a weapon that looked like something between a rifle and an industrial tool. A flamethrower?
Judging from the two pronounced shapes on her chest, Thea could tell this was a woman—at least, she couldn't remember any man in the DC world who had that kind of… feature on his costume.
Before she could ask, Selina had already begun introducing her—for Thea's benefit, of course, since all the locals knew who she was.
"This is my friend Bridget Pike, codename Firefly. She'll be helping us deal with Mr. Freeze."
Catwoman went on to briefly introduce her team and the two visitors from Star City, though Thea suspected Firefly wasn't even listening.
Well, whatever. The fact that someone could handle Freeze was already good news. Thea had always been a bit helpless against freezing abilities—after all, she herself had started with ice arrows. Having someone who specialized in fire to counter him was ideal. Water and fire—this might be a show worth watching.
Firefly Pike, for her part, didn't seem fond of talking. She just stood there, silent and rigid, as Catwoman spoke. Right when Thea wondered if the woman could even speak, a hoarse voice came out of the mask:
"Freeze is mine."
The subtext was obvious—you deal with the rest, I'll handle him.
Thea had no idea where Catwoman dug up this woman—or whether they were actually friends—but she shot Selina a look that clearly meant: You handle your own problem.
Catwoman knew Firefly's temper well enough. Ever since her burns, the woman hated seeing strangers. With a brief word to the group, she led her friend away to rest somewhere quiet.
⸻
Thea had wanted a few more days to prepare, but before she could even lay out a plan, Gordon and Felicity came rushing in.
"We have to move immediately," Gordon said, breathless from running. The old man was clearly exhausted from days of endless work, and when he saw Thea calmly practicing her archery in the corner, there was a flash of envy in his eyes.
"Yeah," Felicity said, clutching her trademark tablet. "More and more people are being dragged into Arkham, and none of them have come out."
That many captives? That could only mean one thing—something big was going on inside. No one was snatching up civilians for dinner parties. And it wasn't like Gotham needed that many people for construction work. There was only one reason for gathering this many… human experiments.
Thea wasn't sure of her own guess and turned to the local expert. "Commissioner, what would they need that many people for?"
"There's a secret laboratory beneath Arkham," Gordon replied after a pause. "The project was originally codenamed Indian Hill—they used to perform human experiments there. It was shut down years ago."
"What kind of experiments?" Felicity leaned forward, eyes shining with curiosity.
"Bringing the dead back to life," Gordon said slowly. "The results were… not good. They tried fusing different animal DNA into human bodies. Some of the subjects even gained powers because of it."
Superpowers? Thea's first thought was: Oh, hell no. They'd captured thousands—statistically, even a one-in-ten success rate meant hundreds of powered freaks waiting for them. If they all swarmed out at once, she'd be flattened.
"But those abilities were never strong," Gordon added quickly. "Back then, I could handle them myself, one-on-one."
He might have just been catching his breath, or maybe showing off a bit—but the dramatic pause made it sound like two separate sentences.
Hearing that, Thea's confidence returned. She glanced at the commissioner's aging frame and tried to picture him in his younger days. Okay, maybe he could've taken down a handful of them… If the so-called superhumans were only at that level, then maybe it wasn't so bad.
Still, twenty years had passed. Who knew how far the technology had come? Better to be cautious.
"Alright," she decided. "Gather everyone. We move today."
Even "quickly" took an hour. Thea stayed out of the spotlight—better to let Gordon, who wasn't afraid of publicity, handle all the organizing.
There was no way to hide a mobilization this big, but that didn't matter. There was no grand strategy this time—they'd rely purely on numbers and push straight through.
Over three hundred fully armed officers, plus around a hundred and eighty veterans and a few eager civilians. Ten elite agents from A.R.G.U.S. joined as well. Seeing the crowd assemble, Gordon actually felt a spark of excitement—but he kept it short, gave a brief speech, then waved his hand. "Move out!"
Five hundred people, thirty vehicles, helicopters in the air—the kind of force Gotham hadn't seen in years.
Thea, carrying her hoverboard, didn't fly this time. She sat quietly in the command truck with the others, studying maps and possible routes. Inside Arkham, with all those narrow rooms and corridors, her board wouldn't be of much use anyway. This was going to be a full-scale war—nearly a thousand combatants in total—and her best contribution would be taking out key targets, the named bosses.
"We should split up," Barbara suggested, her spirit back at full strength. "Hit Arkham from three directions."
Thea didn't even look up. She was too tired to argue, but that idea was so typical of Barbara—reckless and overconfident.
"No," Lyla said firmly. "We don't know the terrain. If we split up, they'll pick us off one by one."
Catwoman agreed; if anyone ran into Freeze without Firefly nearby, they were dead.
Thea, for her part, wasn't that afraid of Freeze. She'd seen how clumsy he was when he blasted the drone that day. His movements were sluggish—maybe a side effect of his condition. Even ordinary people reacted faster than that. As long as she was quick, she could shoot an arrow into his helmet before he raised his gun. The only question was how tough that armor actually was.
But since Firefly had already claimed him, Thea didn't bother arguing.
"Enough debating," she said finally. "They already know we're coming. We'll hit them head-on through the main gate. Commissioner, make sure we've got an exit route planned. If things go wrong, we need to be able to pull our people out in one piece."