Hardy quickly pulled Maroni in front of him as a shield, forcing the men to hesitate and hold their fire.
Sure enough, the men in suits faltered.
"Out of the way."
Hardy pointed the gun at Maroni with his extra hand.
"Let him through! Let him through!"
Maroni shouted.
The men in suits cleared a path.
"What the hell did you do to me? Why, why…?"
Maroni slurred, his tongue thick in his mouth.
"Are your limbs and tongue feeling weak? Soon you'll be dizzy, nauseous, paralyzed, have trouble breathing—that's the effect of cobra venom. It blocks nerve and muscle signals, causing muscle weakness and shutting down your body's functions. In the end, you'll be fully conscious as you experience death. With the dose I gave you, you've got two to three hours left."
"S-save me… I'll do anything you want…"
Maroni stammered.
"Tell your men to back off. And don't let anyone follow us, or I'll end your life right now."
Hardy pressed the gun to Maroni's head, his tone menacing.
Clearly, the men in suits had already alerted the others by phone. More and more people were gathering, but none dared act while Hardy held Maroni hostage.
"Move! All of you, move!"
Maroni shouted.
The men in suits opened a path.
"Boss!"
"Boss, are you okay?"
"Boss! What happened?!"
Aman, the accountant, and seven or eight other members of the Hogg alliance came running down the open corridor, guns drawn and watching Maroni's men warily as they called out to Hardy.
"It's nothing. Tie him up and get him in the car."
Hardy nodded to a henchman with a brightly dyed mohawk.
The mohawk guy understood and took off his belt, tying Maroni up.
"Ahem, Mr. Watt, causing trouble on my turf isn't exactly polite, is it?"
At the entrance, Penguin blocked the way with his men.
"He started it."
Hardy tapped Maroni's head lightly with the gun barrel.
Penguin smiled slightly, unmoved.
"One million dollars. Is that enough?"
Penguin looked like he was shooing away a beggar, holding up two fingers.
"Two million?"
"No, twenty million."
Hardy's lips curled into a smirk.
"Give it a while."
Hardy gestured at Maroni with the gun.
"This guy's worth a lot to Harvey Dent. Two-Face just robbed the Gotham Savings & Loan vault—he's definitely loaded."
Penguin hesitated.
"Hurry up. He's been poisoned. If you don't get the antidote soon, he'll die."
Maroni was already foaming at the mouth.
"T-twenty… million, I'll pay. Just give me… the antidote…"
Penguin finally beamed with delight and moved aside with his men.
*Bang!*
Maroni was shoved into the back seat of the car, watched over by the mohawk guy.
Aman got in the driver's seat, Hardy took the front passenger seat, grabbed a syringe from the glove compartment, and turned around to inject it into Maroni's neck.
...the vein.
"In five minutes, the toxins will be neutralized by the antivenom."
Maloney mumbled some incoherent words.
"What's he saying?"
Hardy frowned.
The guy with the rooster comb hairstyle leaned in to listen at Maloney's mouth.
"Boss, I think he's saying… something about not being able to hold it in?"
Suspicious, Hardy glanced downward.
A foul smell wafted up.
Turns out the muscle weakness caused by the snake venom had affected his sphincter as well.
"Open the window on his side for ventilation. And Aman, next time, switch my ride to another bulletproof car."
"Got it, boss!"
"Okay, bo—ugh! What on earth did this middle-aged bald guy eat? How can it smell this bad?!"
...
...
Gotham City, Southeast Burnley District, Central Warehouse.
This is one of Gotham's largest cold storage facilities, bought by Harvey Dent to house Mr. Freeze and his wife, and converted into a research base for the Titan formula.
"Is it really necessary to use that stuff?"
Two-Face asked Mr. Freeze, who was at the lab bench.
Victor dripped a bit of Titan formula onto the test platform and said,
"It's a special organic compound that triggers human steroids. The electron microscope you gave me doesn't have enough magnification to show the molecular structure directly, so I can only infer the molecular formula through chemical analysis.
But that's still not enough to determine the molecular structure. If you want to use a substitute, you'll need more related organic compounds to experiment with. They're not easy to get, and you'd need to conduct multiple live tests, which is another headache."
Harvey Dent scratched his head in frustration.
"I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on that electron microscope—still not enough?"
"You're a law graduate, so of course you wouldn't know that a high-end atomic-level TEM transmission electron microscope can cost over two million dollars."
Mr. Freeze replied calmly.
"But that's already the best electron microscope I could buy."
"Of course you don't have access to the right channels. These microscopes have to be custom-ordered from specialized companies. I suggest you send someone to try their luck at LexCorp in Metropolis. They might have some decommissioned ones, since I've heard they're already using even better sub-nanometer microscopes."
"I'll look into it."
Harvey Dent nodded, making a mental note.
"By the way, what about that Flash Walter from last time? He said after seeing Nora that he knew of a supernatural method that could repair cells damaged by cryogenic freezing and slow down nerve degeneration. Any news?"
Mr. Freeze poured the liquid from a test tube into a Petri dish as he asked.
"Not yet."
Harvey Dent shook his head.
"If he can really do it, I don't mind handing over the schematics for the freeze device. If Nora can be cured…"
Mr. Freeze said emotionally,
"For Nora, I'd agree to anything!"
Harvey Dent didn't reply.
He was actually quite envious of Mr. Freeze's equipment.
But if he could recreate the Titan formula, his own men could gain supernatural-level power.
Just then, Harvey Dent's phone rang.
"Walter? What do you want?"
Mr. Freeze pricked up his ears.
"Mr. Dent, I have Maloney in my hands now. Care to make a deal?"
Harvey Dent's breathing quickened.
"How much do you want?"
"No rush. This guy was sent by Falcone to turn me against you, and there's a traitor in your Two-Face Gang—someone who's been leaking our deals and even my information. That news alone should be worth a lot, right?"
"I'll just go rob the vault at Gotham's First National Bank this afternoon!"