13078/Harley Quinn and the Joker's Gauntlet

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Harley Quinn and the Joker's Gauntlet
Date of Scene: 29 October 2022
Location: Tricorner Island
Synopsis: The Bats and the Birds put Harley to a bit of a test of will to get through a Joker-themed gauntlet to save her friend from certain death! Or... from plastic TNT under her chair. Certain boredom? Who knows! Batman attends, and isn't real pleased about the methods, but in the end... maybe it will pay off?
Cast of Characters: Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Harley Quinn, Zatanna Zatara, Phoebe Beacon, Helena Bertinelli, Austin Reese, Stephanie Brown




Barbara Gordon has posed:
"I know this is a bit radical." Barbara says. "I know that it's a bit risky too. But this is what we have to try to see if she can overcome that anxiety, that 'hold' that he had over her. She has to face her fear. She has to realize that her confidence is stronger than his control."

Barbara had witnessed Harley running away from the Joker recently, and it concerned her. She'd been working on a plan to have Harley find a way to get past that hump in her ability to perform as a vigilante able to be relied upon by the Birds of Prey when they may need her most...

Babs hates the Joker too.. even if she hides it fairly well...

A warehouse in a pretty quiet part of the city was rented, and its main floor turned in to a office-space-maze where there are many doors, hallways, and ultimately a final 'dock room' where the last confrontation would take place.

Batgirl? She's above it all. The high-up second floor of the warehouse, is really just an observation office once used by the warehouse's CEO. A meeting room, a kitchen, and a couple offices reside up here. Babs is in the meeting room, looking out the windows down toward the first floor where the faux-office areas are setup.

None of them have ceilings... they're like a proper maze in that regard, and thus the view from above allows full sight of what is happening down below.

If that were not enough, Babs has cameras setup in the meeting room too, showing on screens everything inside and outside.

"The guys I've hired are stunt men, they're fighters, some of them are jiu-jitsu masters too. They all know they're not here to 'hurt Harley' they're just here to help her. They're padded up too, armored up even, just incase she really tries to hurt any of them." Babs says, standing there in her own set of Bat-themed armor and cape, though she is not wearing her cowl. It rests on the oval shaped office table in the meeting room behind her. Babs looks to those with her up here tonight.

"We have motivation, for Harley too. A volunteer..."

Downstairs all the offices are filling up with different versions of The Joker. Different styles to his look, and costumes. They're all walking around with briefcases, and dressed up in purple and green suits... they look like standard office workers, save for the Clown themes...

And in that far off dock space a group of them are gathered around someone, who is tied-up in a chair.

"Her name is April O'Neil. She's been Harley's roommate for the past few years, and she's been helping Harley get better, more settled in to a normal life. She is here because she's concerned for the Joker's influence too."

Babs exhales then, as she checks her phone. She's created a system that allows her to send Harley texts AS April, and the last one was April sending this address to the Clownette, and saying that she's been captured by the Joker's men.

"She should be on her way here..." Babs says grimly.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"It's dangerous and reckless," Batman intones, standing back and away from the window, "If she doesn't fall the way you're intending, then we've given the Joker another weapon ... and one that's already at the throat of groups that aren't prepared to fight him."

Bruce hadn't been quiet about his misgivings. He had been among the last people to accept that Harley had reformed herself, and the idea of confronting her fear like this was something he'd warned against. But then, he trusted Barbara even if he didn't say it. It was implicit in the way he had made no effort to stop the process.

And he hated the Joker, too. If he could someone else's fear into aggression and hate then that's what he'd do. They were far better weapons.

Harley Quinn has posed:
Harley had been putting all those Joker meetings out of her mind as of late. And that usually translated into Dawson's Creek re-runs, or some good ol' ice cream sharing with April at the couch, or working on her special channel! Or bounty-hunting. You know, being a busy clownette!

Oh, and getting her taco truck fixed. Which yay, it was! Which is why she was in Gotham today and most likely why they had chosen this day for this kind of EVILNESS. Getting the poor clownette in a fight against her own demons.

Demons she's running from for a few years now.

That doesn't stop the sound of a large vehicle approaching at speed. Then the sound of wheels screeching as the brakes hit and it comes to a stop next to the building. And then Harley is exiting the truck. She has a baseball bat hanging on her back and begins walking to the entrance.

"I'm coming, April.." she murmurs.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
There is a place for magic. Desensitization training doesn't strike Zatanna as the time or place for her to be casting spells. So, the magician has ensconced herself in a comfortable chair next to Oracle with a Bird's eye view (yes, Bird's) of the maze below. Zatanna hasn't voiced her ambivalence about the plan since the first day she heard about it. Trust in Bab's good judgement and a desire to see one of the Bird's overcome a potentially dangerous obstacle have kept her silent and pensive.

Besides, who doesn't dislike the Joker. She amends that thought, going for something that matches her feeling. Hate. Who doesn't hate him? Who wants to see someone suffer at the mere notion of his existence. She fervently hopes none of this boomerangs on Harley.

Leaning forward in her chair, looking down, she gives Babs a sidelong glance, "Is this going to be like a pop-up obstacle course, Barbara?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "This *is* a pretty diabolical idea." Phoebe comments over a comm system, voice still a bit rough in getting back into use. She's in her own outfit, less Bat and more street mage in an oversized hoodie and torn jeans. She's only on hand to handle any injuries on the quick, her domino tucked into the hood, which was down at the moment and showing the carefully braided cornrows that were keeping everything neatly in place. She's fretting at a multijointed, rainbowcolored silicone slug and slowly turning in an office chair set up on a catwalk in order to get anywhere she needs to fast, all nervous energy as the healer waits on the news that the dame of danger is in the building, a bright pink Gotham Sirens baseball cap looped to her side for Good Luck.

    "... but if anyone's looked over all the angles, it's you."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Helena Bertinelli had no extended experiences with Harley. Sure, she is aware of the history, but the Harley she has known since joining the Birds of Prey has contributed on a numer of operations the team has run. If there was a way to help then why not give it a try? There was risk but what about this life is without them?

The Place To Be of the moment is the control booth, apparently, so Helena is standing a bit behind Barbara, watching her work her digital technomancy over this elaborate set up. She was dressed in her armor, but holding her mask for the moment.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Of course, Babs is primarily watching Batman's response to this, as his opinion might hold more weight with her than anyone else's on the planet, maybe even more so than her father's.

"We're supposed to confront our fears in order to get past them, right?" She asks softly, staring at him. "We've tried traditional methods. We've tried to ignore it and hope it goes away. We've tried to let her have a normal life, to find friends, and loved ones, who can help her move past it... But, I think it's time for something more drastic."

Babs then glances out the windows, where there are a number of catwalks spanning around the large warehouse building overlooking that office-setup on the main floor. Most of the offices are all filled with various 'Jokers' doing their best office-worker impersonations. It'd be creepy, if it weren't... okay, it's still creepy.

When Harley's truck arrives outside, Babs looks over to the monitor that blinks at the indication of it, the AI 'Oracle' sounding out that Harley has arrived in a smooth and calm tone of voice.

"Well." Babs says to Zatanna. "Harley is a bit hard to plan a fully prepared 'course' for, so we're going to kind of play this as she..." With her green eyes on the viewr, Babs nods softly as Harley moves toward the building. "Looks like she's going for the front door. That's good..."

The door is not locked, there's even a guy standing outside it who is smoking a cigarette and he looks up to the approaching Harley. "Yo, you sellin' tacos lady?" The man asks her, puffing on his smoke.

"Be ready." Babs says to everyone, glancing toward Helena, and then to where she sees Phoebe. "This hopefully won't go sideways."

Down in the far room from the main entrance, the three Jokers who have April O'Neil tied up are walking around aimlessly, one of them smacking a baseball bat in the palm of his hand... The others throughout the building are just milling about, some of them just staring at their phones, because of course...

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"There's nothing normal about Harley's mind," the Bat says in response, "Reformed though she might be, there's a fundamental sickness there that can't be cured. It's what drew her to the Joker in the first place. You can't treat this like standard immersion therapy, her mind doesn't work that way. This has to be crafted for her."

And it is, or at least it appears to be. He seems to pay no attention to the others in the observation room, though when Phoebe speaks up over the comms he responds to her via his own sub-vocal microphone.

"Keep alert, Balm. If there's trouble, you're my fire support."

It's clear the Dark Knight has a contingency plan in place, though perhaps not one that the present Birds would find acceptable.

As Harley arrives, his attention shifts to the monitors and becomes laser-focused.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Twisting in her seat to look back at Batman, Zatanna comments, "Ever the bright view of things."

Adversarial might be the word to typify their relationship of late. What she doesn't say aloud is that he is -often- right. Still, no need to butter him up or give him a more inflated view of himself.

She returns her focus to the front of the room, saying to Babs, "It's her strong suit being unpredictable, isn't it?"

Harley Quinn has posed:
Proof that perhaps Harley wasn't thinking fully straight where it came to Joker (and perhaps a little with April too) was that she had not called for the help of the Birds. In fact she had just droven here at SPEED. While texting back at April asking for all kinds of details. Like a hundred texts. Minimum!

And look at that. One of Joker's minions outside! Selling tacos. Pffttt. "Yea.." she answers the guy, reaching inside her pack and bringing out .... Is that a portable grenade launcher?

"Have one."

Is she about to grenade someone?! When she shoots it's a ball that hits the man on the chest, making him topple to the ground. It won't hurt for -that- long but it's enough to take the guy down for a minute or two. "On the house!"

Wrong place, wrong time. But she clearly seems to have mistaken him for one of Joker's goons. She reloads and kicks the front door down, reloading her not-really-a-grenade launcher.

"Listen heah, you primitives..!" she calls out to whoever can hear her inside the place. "No one kidnaps my April but me!" and then she starts barging through the labyrinth!

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Out on the catwalk of the office maze, Phoebe lifts her gaze to the office, looking from Babs to Helena, to Zatanna and particularly Batman's form. She brings two fingers from her right hand up, and then lifts herself up and off the office chair, leaving it slowly spinning as she launches a line higher into the rafters and disappears into the shadows there to keep an eye on things.

    <Calibrating medical scans. Synching to local monitors. Holy cow that is nonleathal but terrifying. Hope none of the hired muscle has a heart condition!>

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Helena Bertinelli glaces over at at Batman's comment. The last time she'd seen him was the night he promised her there was a better way to doing this than killing. "It's so good to know there's this much faith in us black sheep" she mutters more to herself.

When Barbara speaks to her, she nods, moving a step closer, her hand gently resting on Barbara's shoulder. "Just say the word and I'll get down there."

Her dark eyes look from the video displays to the warehouse Harley-Maze and looks for any glimpse of their Concrete Blonde in action.

Austin Reese has posed:
Austin hadn't liked this idea at all, he was solidly in Batman's corner with this one. But he also knew that Babs wouldn't put people in harm's way without a damn good reason. As soon as Harley shows up on the monitors, he turns around from where he had been looking over the course and up at the monitor, just in time to see Harley blast some poor dude in the chest with a non-lethal 40mm shot, "Well. That's probably not the best start." He muses.

He moves closer to where Barbara is at, "I don't think that guy was wearing armor. Should I head out there and check on him, or would that blow the whole thing already?"

Barbara Gordon has posed:
"It's one of them..." Babs says back to Zatanna before she looks to Batman. "I'm hedging my bets here on Harley caring more for the safety of her roommate than she does for the fear of the Joker. I believe she'll... make the right choices." She hopes.

Her eyes dart to Helena, and she nods once. "Just drop in if she gets too violent? Tell her you're there to help cover her back and remind her not to... get murdery." The redhead says with another grim expression. She looks then at the viewer as it shows Harley going inside, and leaving the man on the floor.

"That's Mike, he was one of the drivers. I don't think he was in armor, so you can slip outside and help him get out of the way. He wasn't supposed ... to be out there. She was supposed to have a free ride right inside." Hiccup number one.

Once Harley is inside, though, and calls out loudly, she'll have several doors open up, and... that's when it might start to go south. Because Joker faces all peer out at her.

And... a Joker synthesized voice comes over the loud speakers inside the building...

"Harley, my dear sweet baby girl.." The Joker says. "I've got you a present. All wrapped up and waiting for you, if you just come back to me. She can be yours!" The unstable pitched voice says, even growling a little here and there throughout his words.

The men in the Joker costumes step out of their offices, each of them holding different types of melee weapons, from a bat, to a crowbar, to a golf club.

"They're trained fighters, and they were told not to hurt her. Just try and scare her." Babs says to the others who are still here watching.

The Joker-themed men start to smile as they step out of the offices and stare Harley down.

"You gotta prove your worth to the big man first though." One of them says in a gruff voice.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Batman offers no response to Zatanna, not looking up from monitor he's staring at critically. Sarcastic distaste of his methods has been a mainstay of his experience with other 'superheroes' for the last two decades and by this point it washes off him easily.

"Should've cleared the area of civilians," he says gruffly, performing triage from his vantage point all the way up here and holding up a hand to stay Austin in place, "Non-lethal, no permanent injury. Keep going."

Did Barbara need his approval to keep it in motion? Probably not, but he offers it anyway.

After a second, however, he turns his head to meet Helena's eyes.

"I'm here and so are you. If you think this is a lack of faith, you should reevaluate your definition of the word."

Turning back to the monitors, he speaks quietly to Barbara: "It's not them hurting her that concerns me ... "

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Ooooh," Zatanna says under her breath. "This is starting with a boom. The woman is hair-trigger."

The room has a hushed expectant air to it. Zee is on the edge of her seat, her shoulders and face tensing at the sound of the Joker's voice.

On the end of a long exhale, "Wow, perfectly pitched, Babs. Scary. I'd want to kill him. This will be wild."

Harley Quinn has posed:
Life is full of wistful thinking. Like believing Harley might make the right choices. Perhaps she -could- make those if only she had full control of her psyche and her fears. It's been a work in progress, and she's leaps and bounds apart from how she was when she evaded Arkham Asylum for the last time.

Yet where it comes to Joker....

She slows down when all those heads peek out of the offices. Baby blue eyes wide. But this won't stop her. They are goons. Not until the voice ..., that damn voice. She freezes in place, unable to move. For all her bravado this scares her. She imagines April swinging close to one of those chemical vats. The kind she was thrown into in the past.

But then who would watch Harley's silly series with her, or tease Harley about having domesticated her, or going into crazy Themysciran adventures with her or, or ..., just treating Harley like an actual human being.

She stops on her retreat from the men, breathing hard.

"No."

She shoots the N-R-a-G launcher at one of the armored goons. "No!" and she begins running at them, full power, full force.

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Helena Bertinelli has plenty to say to Batman. She's Italian. The miracle is that she says nothing, instead focusing on Harley's progress and waiting the word to go from Barbara. A nod in her direction. "I will." When and if. Good money would be on 'when' but she's choosing to focus on the 'if'.

The Joker voice is unsettling, as it is supposed to be. Her heart rate increases and she clenches her jaw even though she knows it's simulated. It... is right?

Please say this isn't getting party crashed in the worst way.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    <I'm in the wings, Austin.> Phoebe's voice comes over the subvocal, keeping abreast of a situation most fowl, and up above, where she was wedged in the shadows, her domino down and her hood up now, she purses her lips as she lsitens to That Voice. Everyone in Gotham knows That Voice, none has such a weakness -- understandably so -- as Harls... but you grow up afraid of certain things living in Gotham.

    And her gloves squeeze a little harder on the riveted metal of the rafter she's clipped to for the moment as she watches Harley's pause, measuring the tense muscles and moment in heartbeats before Harley goes to launch at one of the goons.

    <This is gonna hurt.>

Austin Reese has posed:
"On it." Austin replies to Barbara, about to move until Batman puts up a hand and stops him. He nods and takes a step back, moving around to get a better view of the monitor currently showing Harley.

"Yeah. That sounds just like him." Austin has only had one run-in with the clown, and it was before he even earned a suit, but he's heard that voice plenty living in Gotham.

"Well she does think someone she cares about is in danger, I can understand wanting to go in guns blazing." Austin offers in response to Zatara, though he just nods in response to Phoebe's voice, eyes focused on the monitor, and on Harley's reaction. At least she's still using the non-lethal grenade launcher.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
The door opens and another person wearing the Bat emblem steps inside. The costume is a different style than the red-haired Batgirl's, with a garter version of a utility belt, and some differences in the gloves. Though the blond hair showing is enough to make the differences obvious enough.

Stephanie Brown doesn't say anything yet as she closes the door behind her. Her arms cross under her breasts as she views the assembled group in the observation room, and then focuses her attention onto the monitor itself.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
After the voice speaks up, and others comment on its accuracy to the villain himself, Babs just exhales softly. "Yeah, after doing a search online, I did a bit of reading on how to make AI generated voices sound like the real thing. It wasn't very hard with him, considering how many times he's put out public messages for all of us. Recordings, and so on. The files were pretty easy to put together..." She likes to talk about her work, but is a bit distracted now with Harley reacting to the Joker voice, and now the three men in the main hallway of the faux-office down on the main floor...

The three men move toward Harley, all wielding their weapons as they too attempt to take her down.

"I have a dossier on each of the actors too." Babs says, pointing to one of the view screens on the wall, where it is now displaying faces and rundowns of each of the men downstairs dressed up as a different version of the Joker... "Some of them are ex-cops too, just looking to help out how they still can. A lot of them are fans of the Bat-method, you know." She says, sparing a glance toward Batman, and a small smile for his benefit.

Downstairs... the men rush Harley, and try to knock her down, while the Joker's voice speaks up again.

"Harley. Oh, dear so sweet Harley. I've been absolutely lost without you! My stomach has been in KNOTS! KNots, I say!" He says dramatically, before laughing softly. "I can't find my tummy medication... You were always in charge of where to keep those wonderful acidic reducing pills."

"The AI is getting oddly specific..." Babs mutters then.

At the end of the hallway that Harley finds herself in now, two office doors spread open and one large muscled Joker now stands there with a pair of boxing gloves on. He moves out toward her to try and stop her also.

"If they're going to pile up, we might need to send down some backup... They all know we're here too, so they should play along with surprise." Barbara adds as she shows a smile to the arriving Stephanie, fully outfitted in her black and gold, she's just not wearing her cowl, so her features are fully visible.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Remember, Batgirl," Bats speaks up, stepping forward to stand alongside his former protege, "This isn't just about overcoming her fear. If she kills him - if she tries to kill him - she's failed. She needs to be able to look her fear in the eye without giving in to her base instincts."

Batman clicks his tongue in distaste at the emulated rendition of the Joker's voice. He spots the differences, the subtleties, but he's known the man even longer than Harley - and he's not in the same grip of fear and anger. Regardless, he can't fault Barbara's skill. He makes a note to obtain the technology for himself.

Barbara's compliment on behalf of the ex-cops down below doesn't appear to register with him, his eyes still fixated on events as they unfurl.

"Send Balm and Osprey," he suggests. Seems like a perfect, relatively-safe opportunity to test the younger members of the Family.

Harley Quinn has posed:
Newfound courage to supplant her fear of the Joker doesn't mean Harley is fine now. She's out swinging. Wild. Screaming at the padded 'goons'. One gets a punch to the chest that sends him reeling. Another gets a roundhouse kick. The third? He pushes her off after seeing the other two get taken out. All about making it more real, right? And then comes the big muscley guy. "I have told ya, puddin'..!" she's screaming now, "..., I am tired o' your shit so it'd be all laxatives from now on!" that's break-up material right there. Tragic.

Yet right now she is a clownette with a mission. To get April out before the fear returns again. Before the bad memories can supplant the good ones.

Another push and she crumples back against a wall, "Out of my way!" she tells the beefed-up goon. Breathing hard. She reaches for her launcher...

And realizes she dropped it back there. Crap! She may need some backup NOW!

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Stephanie Brown watches from her spot over by the door for a little while. Her arms tightening about herself as she does. Finally she moves over towards the rest of the group, steps slow as her attention is mostly on the monitor.

She stops beside Barbara, looking over to her friend and mentor. The smile Stephanie is given gets a tiny nod back rather than the kind of bright warm smiles that Stephanie would normally give to her, as Stephanie's thought are occupied. The blonde's eyes quickly go back to the monitor then.

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Helena Bertinelli snorts quietly at Batman. "No." With a defiance in her voice, she puts her mask on. With a squeeze to Barbara's shoulder, she steps for the door. "This is a Birds of Prey mission. We take care of our own and we don't need permission to do so." With that, Huntress cuts past Osprey for the doorway.

With the open ceilings, there is just enough room for her to fire a grapple bolt and cut across a good portion of the layout. She drops into the maze two rooms behind Harley.

"Harley. Huntress here. Backup is here."

Austin Reese has posed:
"On it." Osprey replies, as watches Harley getting rushed, though before he can even make his move, Helena rushes down past him. He decides to make his entrance a little bit differently, as he hops over the railing from the catwalk and drops down into one of the side rooms, landing right behind one of the armored fighters that they were working along with, "Hey, I'm about to save you a world of hurt. Just play along."

From Harley's perspective, one of the goons comes flying through the door from that office, the door flying off its hinges as the goon crashes through to the ground, staying down like Osprey instructed.

<"On point for you, Balm."> He says over subvocals, before moving towards where Harley was being swarmed, and grabbing the guy holding her against the wall, hip tossing him to the ground and planting a knee across his back, "Heard someone was in trouble and I was already nearby. There's others moving in too."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    <Hooboy.> Balm's voice comes over the coms. <Oz, Thanks for taking point, I'm still waiting on the third round of toxology reports to try to explain why Mel Blanc's lagomorphic persona was giving me life lessons last night.> Phoeb states, and she unclips herself from the rafter she was on and drops down into the room to the left of Quinn, extending her staff with a flick and banging on the ground and wall a couple of times before she errupts through the door, baseball-sliding and tugging it closed behind her as the 'magic' baby bat comes in to aid the Clever Clownette!

    "Did someone say there was a party?" she questions, and spins her staff. "I heard there was a pinata around."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara glances over to Steph, and then over behind her to watch Helena head out. "Mmh." Barbara mutters softly before she just nods to Austin, and then looks back out of the tinted windows that are overlooking the faux-warehouse below.

There are more office doors bursting open, as more of the men that Babs had hired are getting their exit triggers, especially with others of the Bats and Birds coming in to play.

Soon, there is a whole hallway filled with Jokers ready to do a bit of hand to hand combat, grappling, and general rope-a-dope with the masked vigilantes that have come to help Harley.

"Oh, come now, Harls..." Joker's voice says through the AI machine that Babs has operating. "I brought your friend here tonight to help re-unite us!"

Televisions throughout the hallways come on then, and show April to Harley for the first time, with the main Joker-villain here tonight, standing beside her. The camera doesn't linger on him long, as he delivers a backhanded slap to the tied-up reporter. She takes it across the right cheek, and her head shoots to the side.

The Joker's voice then starts to laugh loudly. "Come on, Harley. Lets play like we used to."

Harley will see the doors to that last dock room open up at the end of the hallway, on the other side of the Joker henchmen, now fighting the Bats and Birds throughout the hallway...

She just has to get through all of that, to go be with the Joker, or to save her friend...

Bruce Wayne has posed:
The Batman does not roll his eyes, but if he did, he would.

As Osprey departs, cut in front of by the Huntress, the Bat finally turns away from the monitors. Moving towards the back of the room, a glance in his direction will reveal he's vanished. Moved elsewhere to watch from another vantage.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Stephanie Brown continues to watch quietly. Her lips are pressed together as she continues to stand with her arms tightly folded across her body. The girl's blue eyes move to follow Huntress and Osprey out the door before looking back to the monitor.

The young woman watches as the goons fill the hallway, and Harley's backup arrives. Stephanie clears her throat and then looks over to Barbara. She asks Barbara quietly, "How is she doing?" She was at the row at the ACE-turned-ACME chemical plant as well, saw Harley's reaction to Joker being there.

Harley Quinn has posed:
Harley is seriously getting aggravated with these guys. And what's with all the padding?! So she's getting knocked around a bit ..., all until backup starts coming from everywhere! Some of the henches getting pushed back. "Hey!" she greets the newcomers. "You guys got a text from April too?!" Come on, Harls!

"Hey, Huntress and ..., hey, you are new.." she says to Osprey, then to Balm, "And you ..., oh, I know ya and ..." she spots the hat. THE HAT. "Hol' up..." she squints her eyes, "Is that ...." she is reaching for the hat when those TVs show what's going on inside the room. And the slap.

And that's probably when the Joker knew he had f'ed up.

Or the faux-Joker in this case!

Because the next moment there's a clownette rushing through towards that last room, using that immense strength to push and punch goons out of the way. "April!" she points at the Joker and the rest of them when she gets in the room. "You better let her go. No more playin'" she is sounding oddly serious right now, those baby blue eyes 'shooting daggers' at the 'bad guys'.

It's perhaps good that she is so mad and doesn't realize this isn't Joker. At least not just yet.

Austin Reese has posed:
"Osprey." The grey suited Bird replies to Harley before she is able to run off, "I'm sure there'll be time for proper introductions later." He spots the TV screens and the Joker slapping April. He hopes that guy isn't taking it too far.

He turns around to one of the other goons, ducking a punch and returning with a counter-strike to the chest. He's definitely pulling his punches, but in the chaos it'd be hard to tell.

He goes low on another goon who was trying to intercept Balm, taking him out at the knee and kicking him off to the side. It probably looks way worse than it actually is from the way he lands the kick.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Balm." Phoebe introduces herself again, and as Harley looks down, Balm just looks down at her side, where the pink Gotham Sirens hat (it never did get paid for) is still looped to her side.

    And then the slap rang out. And Balm takes a deep breath as she dashes in to follow Harley Quinn.

    Of all the things that could happen, a hallway full of crime fighters and crime also fighters fighting each other for the sake of a true-to-life LARP.

    One thousand percent what she can get behind.

    Luckily, Balm's opponents probably fare the best out of anyone. She's in full Aikido mode and just throws her combatants left and right, slamming her staff into the wall for the satisfying BOOM sound, and as Osprey takes out the one going low, she goes High with a gentle strike with the back of her padded glove against another guy coming to punch Austin's shoulder.

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Huntress closes on Harley's room in moments. <<You've got this Harley. We'll keep some of these guys off you.>>

She enters the corridor just after hell lets out of recess, bringing the flood of 'hired' goons. Stepping in she engages the one closest to her. If Harley were paying attention, she'd surely notice that Huntress is not going full on with these goons. Her blows are just a bit more than practice strength. Enough to counter and take them down. Landing her first man, she drops with him and murmures off-comms. ".. stay down. Things are going like they should. Don't blow this for her or I _will_ be back..."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
"Well, she hasn't run away this time..." Babs says back to Stephanie. "Of course, will any of this actually work? I don't know. I'm not a clinical psychologist. I just feel like she needs to push forward, and not fall backward." The redhead says while watching what is unfolding down below. She sees Harley make it through the hallway with the help of the Bats and Bird. "I mean... that's progress, right?" She asks, now glancing between Steph, and the others still in the observation office with her high above.

Down below when Harley storms in to the room, April is tied up to an old wooden chair, her yellow leather jacket on, a black hoodie over a Michael Jackson Thriller shirt beneath. She's got duct tape over her mouth, but her own blue eyes are looking around rapidly at the men who advance on Harley, with the 'look alike Joker' standing beside April, a big dopey smile on his face.

He talks in to a comm. "What am I supposed to do here?" He says through gritted teeth.

Babs raises her comm unit up on her left gauntlet. "She's made it to you now, which is what we wanted. See if she can get you in a bit of a fight. IF she can disable you, then she's doing her thing, and we'll drop in and end it before it gets out of hand." Babs says back to him.

In true Truman Show fashion, once the men are taken down to the ground, and the Bats and Bird move to follow Harley, they just scoot out of the way and don't fight back any further. With Harley out of sight, they have no need to, right?

In the room with the Hostage Reporter, the 'main villain' faux-Joker just shakes his head, and starts to run at Harley! He even screams and tries to do a wild laugh, though it's not very good, like some kind of dad drunk at Halloween...

Never the less, he rushes Harley and tries to scare her, tries to make her fleet, all while the damsel in distress is tied up to that chair, with ... of all things, a bundle of red sticks beneath her chair with 'TNT' marked on a label in some red ink... spare no expense here folks.

"Okay, I'm heading over there." Babs says as she brushes past the table, and toward the catwalks..her cowl no longer on the table where it had been resting this whole time.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Stephanie Brown's response to Barbara's voicing the thoughts behind it all, and whether it's progress, is a quiet grunt, and the muscles of her jaw looking tense.

The rush towards the room holds Stephanie's eyes to the screen and she sways a bit as she stands watching, a tiny shake of her head given.

Stephanie lets her arms drop from where they are crossed though. "Hope you got a dozen tazers or a tranq gun or something if she decides to exact revenge," Stephanie says quietly.

Much more quietly, under her voice where only she can hear it, Stephanie says to herself, "People don't ever really change."

Harley Quinn has posed:
It doesn't seem as if Harley noticed they are holding back punches. In fact her eyes have pretty much been on April this entire time. And then on the Joker. Specially when he starts charging at her! Puddin' never did that before. It's strange but ....

No real time to process it!

So she charges back! Shoulder tackle too! Right to the solar plexus too. If only the man wasn't all padded up. It's enough to send him flying back though...

She lifts one arm up afterwards, fist forming into a punch. She considers running over to punch his face out. He deserves it, doesn't he?

But then she sees April there too. All tied up. And she runs to her instead. "No one gets to tie up April but me." wait, what? "The bats are here and they are gonna arrest you in a moment, Mistah J!"

Hands start working on the ropes to untie her friend. "Are you okay, April?"

Austin Reese has posed:
Osprey takes down several more goons in really believable ways, maybe he should look into moonlighting as a professional wrestler. It wouldn't be the weirdest side-job for a vigilante.

With the guys scooting out of the way after being taken out, Osprey soon finds himself standing behind Harley as she gets ready to attack the 'Joker'. He's ready to step in if it gets out of hand, but once Harley takes him down and then immediately goes to help April, he grins faintly, glad to be proven wrong.

He then quickly moves over to put his knee on the downed clown's back and put him in a pair of zipties, leaning down to whisper to him to just stay put.

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Helena Bertinelli finishes working through her share of the hired goons as Harley erupts into the final room. The view through the doorway gives Huntress pause. How will Harley handle this?

When it's clear that she isn't going for deadly force, Huntress slows up and lets Harley finish up and reach April. Stepping into the room finally, she looks around, then back to the corridor to make certain there are no goons who failed to get the memo that things are winding down.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe had indeed helped a couple of the guys who had to take a harder blow off to the side quietly, but now that the main villaim was there, she felt her heart go into her throat, her blue optics aglow as she looked over to Osprey, and then to Huntress, and she stepped forward, and 'helped' Osprey apply zipcuffs to the badguy.

    She's checking him over for injuries and letting Harley have her moment with April.

    She's not going to touch on the statement about rope earlier.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
No deadly force.

That really was the bet that Babs was playing for here. That Harley had gotten to a place where she didn't need to do such a thing to preserve what she cared about, in this case, her roomie, and bestie.

AS Harley works on those ropes, they kinda just fall right off, but the duct tape over April's mouth is totally real. When it gets ripped off, the young Reporter flexes her mouth, and lets out a "Ouch, damn... that hurts..."

She then focuses her eyes on Harley's and reaches up to hug her! "You did it!" She says happily.

It's then that Barbara appears out of seemingly no where, standing just above, and near, to that of Huntress, and Osprey, a bit of shadow falling over her as she's out of the room's main lighting.

"Harley." Babs speaks up, interrupting her happy time with her friend.

Barbara steps down off of the wooden box and on to the concrete floor of the dock room.

"We have to talk, about all of this." She says, letting that linger.

April stops the hugging and looks over to Barbara as well, before she bites down on her bottom lip and looks back to Harley also. She nods her head two quick times. "Yeah. We gotta talk to your scary bat-friend." She says before cracking another smile.

Barbara looks over to Helena, and places her gloved hand on the woman's right shoulder. She then looks to Austin, and Phoebe. "Good job, you two. I appreciate all of this, more than words can say. Let Batman know that we're wrapping up here, and that I think it went well, would you?" She states, knowing that the Dark KNight of Gotham is already gone from the site.

Babs looks back to Harley then. "Come on, bring your friend." She tells her, as she glances to Helena. "Help the guys down here?" She asks. "Make sure they're all okay?" She says with a quick smile giving to her before Babs motions for Harley and April to come with her...

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Aaaand we're left at the kid's table." Balm jokes, turning to Osprey.

    "I'd offer to bust heads, but I should get back to the medlab and tripple-check the report. Wanna stop at Planted Evidence before we head back?" Balm inquires to him, giving him a light punch to the shoulder, and she gives a friendly smile to Huntress, and an upnod of respect as things wrap up.