"What?" Pale Rider froze for a moment. He opened his mouth, his gaze falling on Natasha's red hair, then said, "Don't tell me that's how you got dragged into this too?"
"I was dragged in by Batman," Natasha said helplessly. "This isn't the time to talk about that. That thing is obsessed with red-haired women. I saw in the newspaper that a red-haired reporter here was arrested. She might be the person it's looking for. Whatever it wants to do, you'd better stop it."
"That's exactly the problem." Pale Rider frowned, sounding troubled. "It's not that we don't want to stop him. It's that we don't know what he did to get most of Congress to agree to a second referendum. Fiona is too young, and her words were too extreme. They caught her on that..."
"What did she say?" Natasha asked. "I only saw the news of her arrest in the papers. It said she made remarks about splitting the country?"
"Yes. You may not know this, but Gotham in our universe became an independent state, and the new tax laws that continued our policies brought decent benefits to most ordinary Gotham residents. Fiona's father, Willie, was a revolutionary and a fighter. His voluntary sacrifice helped build today's better situation. Fiona would never allow anyone to destroy her father's revolutionary achievements. So when Congress proposed a second referendum, she cursed the members of Congress and emphasized Gotham's independent status. But her wording was too extreme, and people took it out of context as 'she wants Gotham to secede from the Federation.' Naturally, she was charged with splitting the country."
Natasha hesitated briefly, then said, "So why not become independent?"
"What?"
"Why don't you plan to become an independent country?"
Pale Rider froze again. He pursed his lips and said,