4004/April's Apartment : Multiversal Temporal Nexus

April's Apartment : Multiversal Temporal Nexus
Date of Scene:	02 November 2020
Location:	April's Apartment
Synopsis:	April's apartment is a temporal nexus as well as a multiversal one. After it gets wrecked the three go back in time, to save the Joker!
Cast of Characters:	Spiral, Harley Quinn, April O'Neil

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Spiral has posed:
It's mid evening, Spiral is actually chilling for a change, eating gumbo in Belle Reve. When all of a sudden, she feels a terrible quake in the fabric of space and time around her. The gumbo goes flying, she gets up... nobody has noticed it but her, but that's not too surprising, the human ants are oblivious in ways she is not.

She dances while the guards watch on in bemusement - but not that much bemusement as they know her by now - tracing out paths in space and time to the source of the disturbance. And then... the 'space' part, she teleports. Appearing suddenly in April's apartment.

Whereupon she stalks around like a caged animal. After noting the apartment is occupied, she does at least speak, but she doesn't actually look at them or react to them aside from speaking - instead she's hurriedly running around the apartment, looking at the walls, looking at the windows. "Spiral is being torn in two pieces, one going one way, one going another! The timestream is being ripped asunder, and it has brought me here! We have to get ready.".

The feeling only she can feel suddenly gets a bit more imminent, a bit closer, and she staggers, as if struck by an earthquake that only she can feel. "Too many reflective surfaces!". She draws her swords, and the nearest window to her is shattered by a sword stroke, as she turns around to see what else is in here that catches the light.

Harley Quinn has posed:
Harley is indeed chillin' like a villain today.. Dressed in her yellow PJs, her "Mr. Snuffles" slippers on. Oh yea, she is ready for a chill night. She is sitting on that big couch with her hyenas near her, one of them sprawled over on her lap like she was a twirly moustache villain and this was her pet cat. She is stroking it's head and talks to April. "I am tellin' ya.." she is continuing some tale..., again. It's a bit of a wild one. Apparently Batman himself was at the antique store a couple of nights before! "We need ta reinforce the place! Metal bars, traps. Machine gun mounts! I didn't want those Bat people ta come find me heah! But at least they didn't take me back ta Arkham..." she sounds a touch relieved, a moment of pause before adding. "He even sounded a lil ..., human.."

It's when a wild Spiral just pops in. Harley blinks. "Spispi!" a wide grin. "What a surprise and ---" she looks at the six-armed wonder just start to roam about and cranes her neck over to peek at her. "Ya seem a bit excited.., what's goin' on?"

She rubs at the back of her head as the hyenas start to sniff about, a bit agitated at the wild Spiral moving around the place. When she smashes a window Harley gets up! "Hey! This is Apes place ya can't be breakin' it up like that! Besides, swords are mighta ineffective foh that!" she knows a thing or two about blowing places up.

Though she is getting a bit more worried so she moves to get a baseball bat she usually leaves nearby. For convenient head bashing just in case April's tinder stalkers come up here!

April O'Neil has posed:
April is on the sofa wearing a white tshirt with a picture of some of the characters from Avatar on the chest. She's got a pair of yellow and white exercise pants on, and white socks on her feet. Her legs are up on the sofa and she's holding a large drawing sketchpad on her lap. She's actually facing Harley, and drawing a picture of her with her selection of artist pencils and tools resting on the table just beside her next to the sofa.

"Batman was here?" She asks, pausing her drawing of the clownette, "We're not putting machine guns and bars on this place, Harley." She smirks. "That'll just make is super sus to people /like/ Batman." She's still not sure if Batman was here though, that seems... far fetched to her for some reason.

Spiral's arrival makes April shoot her eyes over to the six armed woman, she watches what the scary lady does and her eyes just get big. "Woah, uh... hey? Hello?"

Spiral has posed:
Turns out six arms and two swords with some genetically augmented muscles behind them can wreck things quite quickly. The window goes, a couple of hanging picture frames quickly follow as she pulls them off the wall. "This place is an eddy in the time stream, an intersection of past and present! I must trace it.". She dances a bit, hopping from one leg to another while leaving a trail of destruction in her wake, smashing anything shiny as she goes.

She's heading for April's huge TV, but the TV apparently has ideas of its own, as it suddenly lights up with a bright yellow glare, like a portal in space and time, and then two grey vaguely metallic arms, crackling with power, reach through it and suddenly there's an eight foot tall, shining, crackling elemental of some sort standing in the middle of the room, reality itself rippling around it like a heat haze. It looks around malevolently - more focused, unlike Spiral, on the living things than the shiny things.

Harley Quinn has posed:
Harley looks pretty serious when she is talking about Batman being here! (As serious as she normally is during one of her wild tales). "Theah was even Shorty heah too! I mean, Robin Junior.., Dunno how many awhe theah, and Spoilah too!" but Spiral just continuing on her rampage throughout the apartment just seems to ruin her perfectly plausible tale to April..

She finally finds that baseball bat, holding it up and making her way to jump right into the front of the TV when she sees Spiral make her move for it. "You will not get the TV! Only ovah my dead body!"

Which is right when that portal opens behind her and the elemental starts coming out. She is all ready to tussle with Spiral but then ....

"Theah's somethin' real big behind me, ain't theah?" She asks, that 6th sense of knowing something is *really* wrong. Of course that it makes her rather vulnerable to whatever is behind her right now.

The hyenas start noising it up, looking aggressive towards the elemental, snarling and baring teeth.

April O'Neil has posed:
All of this is completely out of the Reporter's element. Sure, she's seen a lot of weird stuff, especially in the past year, some of her best friends are turtles after all, talking turtles, that eat pizza. But, this is really starting to amplify the madness that is April's already wild life.

Harley goes to valiant protect the tv, and maybe someday in hindsight April will commend her friend's bravery, but today? April just has HUGE EYES.

"What is that?" She asks, pointing over Harley's shoulder-- almost like you'd do if you wanted to play a trick on someone and make them look --but when Harley looks, she'll see it's definitely not no trick!

"Seriously. This is a peaceful household, we're not a ... dimension, or, whatever." She sighs and motions toward the kitchen. "It's taco ight..."

It's true, she and Harley were going to make tacos in like an hour, and then watch the Mandalorian. "And baby Yoda night..." The reporter meakly tacks on.

Spiral has posed:
Spiral leaps past Harley, two arms trying to push her out of the way, as the swords slice at the beast. "Plasma wraith!" she yells. "Drawn by the temporal locus! Cover up any reflective surfaces!". The wraith hisses as a magic sword slices through an arm, which just vanishes rather than being severed like an ordinary arm, leaving a stump that fizzes sparkling energies.

But it returns the favour with a massive sharp looking claw, which Spiral deflects with her metal arm - despite it being metal though it still gets noticeably scratched, and Spiral is driven back a bit. Though she finally remembers the baseball bat gift on her back, and another arm draws that.

Harley Quinn has posed:
Harley is sorta strong, but she is still pushed out of the way when Spiral just rushes past, clattering against a table and making a nice glass vase fall to the ground and break up. One less reflective surface! Or perhaps it just transformed into a million reflective surfaces!

But now she is at least taking this seriously, her eyes are as wide as April's. She is a clownette out of Gotham! Used to explosions, walks in the moonlight dodging Bats with a little insanity in the mix. Not temporal problems! Someone should get Doc Brown in here.

"Alright, that's it. Noone gets between baby yoda, me and Apes." She looks at the elemental with that look of someone who's ready to rumble, squeeeezing her hands around her baseball bat. "Bud..., Lou. Get 'em!" the hyenas promptly jump forward to start biting out at the thing's ankles if they can reach it..

As for Harley, she magnificently runs and jumps towards the large elemental, baseball bat held high and she swings it mightily at it's head. It's not a magical bat though. Unfortunately!

April O'Neil has posed:
It's not exactly a situation that you just fall in to and understand what to do, even if you play a lot of video games that have whacky scenarios in them like this one. "Reflective--oh, oh kay..." She says, as Harley shatters the vase that she got on her sixteenth birthday from her aunt, Terry's mother, it makes her reflexively gasp, but she grabs a throw-blanket off of the sofa and just drapes it over the 20 or 30 pieces of glass that just lay there on the floor.

As Spiral, and the Hyenas now, start to do their thing, April rushes to start to grab the curtains to pull them closed over the windows, they're lightly reflective after all, right? "What if we just turn off the lights?!" April shouts. "There's no reflections in the dark!" She doesn't know what the hell she's talking about, to be honest, she's just trying to help before her whole damn apartment turns into a aftermath scene from a Braveheart battle.

Spiral has posed:
The plasma wraith doesn't particularly require magic swords to tear it up - though the hyena's poor mouths probably get electrocuted a bit if they are trying to attack it. With four creatures attacking it (and maybe Spiral counts as 2, or 3) it ends up hacked to pieces, and eventually discorporates completely, leaving just a black mark on April's carpet.

Spiral seems to have got a hold of herself a bit - quite hard to do when you perceive yourself to be torn in two, colocating with yourself - and rather than smash the TV, takes it off the wall, and lays it down. And in response to April, she turns off the lights quickly.

It all goes still. "Harley, get whatever clothes you wore in 2018. April... get whatever clothes you wear outside. They might come back, and we need to deal with this soon. Someone has interfered with the timestream, this one is splitting into two halves, and splitting me with it.".

Harley Quinn has posed:
"Spiral. I am a gal of the 21st century. Do I look the type ta keep clothes from 2018?!" Harley is a bit affronted that Spiral would even think that! Really, the nerve. But then she remembers her friend comes from a different dimension ... She gets a discount.. "But what the heck just happened heah?!" she then asks in an higher pitch..

The hyenas whimper after the deed is done, their mouths feeling weird and in pain. They go curl up in a corner.

"And I mean ..., theah is ONE thing I keep from that time but ..." she dreads to even think of dressing that again, swallowing hard. She casts a look towards April in the dark, "Well shit, I think we gonna go in an adventure.." before she adds a bit lamely in the end. "Sorry about the vase ..." it is VERY likely that Harley knows the history of that vase ... So she is now a rather sad clownette.

April O'Neil has posed:
So with the lights out its way more dim inside the apartment, espeically since the windows mostly face another building across the alleyway, and with the sun mostly down its just a dim blue glow outside with city lights obstructed by structures.

April doesn't really question things, she DOES mutter some stuff, but she goes in to her room and listens to Harley and Spiral out in the living room.

When she comes back, she's got jeans on now, a pair of black boots and a black motorcycle jacket on over her white tshirt, she's holding one of Casey's bags of melee weapons too that she puts over a shoulder.

"Don't worry about the vase, Harley. My aunt doesn't really like me anyway."

"So where are we going, and who do I have to beat with a--" She glances over her shoulder at the bag. "A hockey stick and a baseball ba-- Ew, there's blood on it." She grimaces at the sight of it.

Spiral has posed:
"I'll give you some cash." Spiral says impatiently. "I have lots of money. From some mafia guy.". She waves a hand dismissively - she doesn't do things for the money really, but she needed it, and she got it, a lot of it! "I think he pays me now no matter what even goes on.".

"Damage has been done to the timestream, we need to fix it before an alternative Earth forms... not that you would notice probably, but I notice! A bomb was planted in Gotham City by time travellers of some sort. A bomb that kills The Joker. Who has had a major impact on the timestream. We need to undo that... delicately. So the timestream can heal and more or less be where it was.".

"Get your things, we need to get going.". Spiral is already dancing!

Harley Quinn has posed:
Harley lets out a big sigh... So she will have to do it... She runs off to her room and some time later she comes out.., dressed as the harlequin. Tight outfit to her form, black and red with diamond shapes in it, black boots. On her head is of course the jester's cap and she bring Smiley with her (her hammer). Yes, very much old-school, and the terror of Gotham for years. But if we are talking about 2018 that's mostly what she wore. "I am both proud and sad. Proud cos I can still fit in this thing.." she looks over her shoulder to check on her behind. "And sad that I have ta wear it again!" but still more proud than sad. Because damn she looks fine in that thing!

"So ya tellin' me Casey doesn't wash his stick?" Woah Harley! But soon enough she is looking back to Spiral, specially when Joker is mentioned. She blink-blinks a few times at a bomb to kill Joker. "That's good right? Kill that bastard!?"

"Wouldn't da timestream just be betta with him gone?!" Oh, who is she kidding with?! She wouldn't want Joker dead! Probably ...

April O'Neil has posed:
April just listens to what Spiral lays out for them on all of this, and in natural fashion her own realy feasible response is simple. a deadpan stare and a exhaled response in a partially stunned voice. "Woah, that's heavy." A natural response to any time-related dramatics, right?

April looks over to Harley and flutters her eyelashes several times when she sees her friend wearing that old, iconic(?), attire. "Wow, nice. I mean, revealing, but hey, you're pullin' it off." She says with a grin to her roomie and friend.

April motions then toward Spiral. "I'll do my best to help, but this all really sounds like its outta my league, if I'm being honest with you. I've done a few martial arts training sessions with Leo, but I'm like still on the 'hot cross buns' stage of learning to play piano, so... to speak." She says, nervously adjusting the bag on her shoulder and smirking at HQ's Casey joke. "No comment."

Spiral has posed:
Spiral gives Harley a Look. Well, in truth maybe from Harley's point of view no, but Spiral doesn't want to be cut in half, or be cast adrift into the timestream as this timeline splits in two. She is uniquely vulnerable to this sort of thing, being the Time Dancer.

What she says, is a bit different. "The Joker has a huge impact on history, so there's no telling what will happen if he is removed from it. He has his own destiny as does everybody else. No retroactive abortions!".

She shakes her head at April. "You are excellent, it is probably why the locus is here. I will defuse the bombs. Harley will delay Joker to give me time. You, April, will delay Harley to give Harley time.". She tilts her head. "Clear? The old Harley. You know Harley better than anyone.". She bleahs a bit, that's a lot of Harleys.

Harley Quinn has posed:
The Harlequin points a finger to the hyenas. "Bud, Lou. Guard the fort while momma is gone!" She says it in a way as if they would understand her. She is a veritable hyena whisperer afterall! Attention is then back on the other two. She looks damn excited right now, in that wild manner of hers. Time travel shenanigans?! Crazy atop crazy. So it's right on her ballpark.

Yet all this mention of Harleys makes her frown. "Theah can be only one." hopefully without heads being chopped off! But the plan being laid out to her just makes her blink. "I can whack the otha Harley in the head! What's the problem with that?" she asks, perhaps not aware of all the PARADOXES! And maybe ..., a bit fearful of having April see her old self.. It could be a shock!

She lets out a big sigh, "The things we do foh ouuh reality, eh?"

April O'Neil has posed:
April puts the bag with the melee weapons fully over her head so its cross-slung over her torso, then she tightens the strap so it's smaller and more securely fastened on her much smaller frame than the person who normally wears it. When she gets the compliment quickly thrown out at her about being 'Excellent' it makes April smile all flattered and blush-y because, well, compliments like that are nice.

"That's so sweet, I mean... I try--" But she has to focus! So she shuts up and looks between the two others. "Another Harley?" She repeats, thinking to herself 'Can the world handle two of them?'.

She strikes that thought from her face, before it becomes evident what her tone there was...

"I mean, sure, yeah... I'll, try. Hopefully she doesn't, ya know, SMASH MY HEAD IN!" April states then, following that up with a rapid nervous laugh before she clears her throat, composes herself, and puts her hands on the front of her thighs. "I mean, I'm ready. I think. We'll do this, and... save the Joker?" What the f---? Her eyes narrow for a moment, but, this is her life...

Spiral has posed:
"No, no no. The old you can't meet the new you. Nobody from 2018 can suspect anything. There are no ...". Spiral narrows her eyes at Harley, and shrugs. "It would be bad." she eventually says. "It would be best if April delayed Harley through something subtle and forgettable rather than us all beating the crap out of her. Which you..." she points at Harley... "... would then remember, casting us into an another dimension most likely.".

"Two Harleys is the main danger, unless April was in Gotham City in 2018. And there will be three Spirals, but I am smart enough to ignore myself.". She laughs a bit maniacally. Being Spiral is 'fun' indeed.

She's been dancing all the while, but now everybody is ready to save the Joker, she does a final twist and casts them all into down the years... until the three of them end up on a rooftop in Gotham City, the green lights of Aces Chemicals clearly visible not too far away...