The Titan formula is metabolizing in the Joker's bloodstream, and he's back down to his normal lithe figure. The medical teams called in by the GCPD have been stabilizing him, but haven't bothered to give him anything for the pain caused by the stress of his body gaining and losing significant mass in such a short period of time. Batman has left the island after picking up an emergency call about Two-Face robbing a bank, leaving Commissioner Gordon in charge of the clean-up. Joker is strapped to a stretcher, with a portable monitor reading his vitals. He's twitching every now and then and making strangled groaning sounds, and his eyes are darting about the place.
- End Interlude
"Jeez, Pammy, you'd think someone that's half plant would be a little lighter. Lay off the tree trunk why don'tcha?" Harley muttered to herself as she cleared the last of the rubble and entered the main lobby. She poked her head around the corner, spotting two police officers near the exit. She gently set Ivy down against the wall and considered her options. Better play this one quiet, she thought, after all, it's not just my butt on the line here.
Harley spotted a chunk of plaster that had fallen from the wall, and scooped it up. She edged her way to the very corner of the hallway, eyeballing the cops. Winding up, she flung the plaster over their heads in an arc that landed it noisily in the opposite hallway. The two GCPD officers jumped and drew their weapons, nervously peering into the darkness of the hallway. One of them started to move towards it, and Harley slipped out of the shadows. She measured up the one still standing closest the exit before moving in and catching him in a sleeper hold with her hand over his mouth. "Shhhh," she whispered, lowering him to the ground as her sharp forearm cut off the blood to his brain. She couldn't help but emit a little giggle as he went slack in her arms.
"You say something, Pete?" the other officer asked, afraid to take his eyes off the hallway, his imagination racing at what manner of lunatic might come barreling out of it at him. He never saw Harley taking the gun from the fallen officer. She crept up behind him and pistol whipped him hard, dropping him to his knees, before hitting him again and again. When he stopped moving, she took his gun as well, slipping them into the belt in the nurse's costume she'd appropriated for Joker. Leaving the officers, she returned to Ivy, who was just opening her eyes again.
"Harley? Where are we?" Ivy rasped. Harley didn't answer, grabbing Ivy by the shoulders and slipping under one. They staggered through the lobby and out the front door of the penitentiary. The Arkham penitentiary is close to the docks, on the Southwest side of the island, where the docks are located. Harley took a hard right once through the main doors and headed for the stairs that led down to the docks when something caught her eye.
She nearly dropped Ivy as she ran to the railings and clutched them desperately. "No... Mister J..." she whispered as she saw him strapped to the gurney and being loaded onto a GCPD boat. The last GCPD boat. Harley hadn't been there when Joker had pumped himself full of the mutated venom that Bane had used, so she didn't see the monstrous form that he'd faced Batman with and still lost. All she saw was a husk of the man that she loved, strapped down in restraints and being loaded onto a boat with medical personnel and equipment. "What'd Batsy do to you, puddin?" she whispered, as she sank down next to Ivy.
Ivy turned her head with some effort and spoke lucidly for the first time since rescuing Harley. "Harley, we've got to go. This island isn't safe, and there's nothing here for us now," she said, looking at Harley intently.
Harley answered back, "There's no boats. There's no... no point. They've got him."
No comments:
Post a Comment