++++++ Please note that Baoying is only a short interlude between Kongxu and a still yet unnamed part three of the Shade Series. It's probably going to only be between 10 - 15 chapters.

And in case you're all wondering, River and Roy will be getting back together in Part 3. I know some of you are dying for that.

Please enjoy the chapter.

I do not own ++++++

Nine

I'd just stepped off the bus, bringing myself right out the front of the bookshop where I worked when my phone rang. I pulled the device out expecting to see an unrecognized number when I saw MOLLY flash across the screen.

"Hey, little sis," I answered with a smile.

Molly didn't reply. All I could hear on the other end of the line was the occasional sob, a woman telling others that everything would be alright and men shouting.

I held my phone out in my hand and ran inside the shop where Nancy was working on the laptop where she kept all her bookkeeping figures. "Nancy I need the computer!" I shouted, grabbing it out of her hands.

"Elizabeth!" Nancy shouted. "What are you doing?"

I ignored her and remotely hacked into the Batcave from her computer, bringing up the tracking program. I typed in Molly's number and waited for the program to track the number.

"What's going on?" Nancy asked. "What's that? Why is the Bat Symbol in the corner of the computer? Elizabeth?"

I looked down at the elderly lady as the computer pinged its completion. "Sorry, Nancy." Typing in the location, I sent the coordinates to my phone.

"I know that location," Nancy told me. "That's old warehouses by the river. Is somebody in trouble?"

"Possibly," I admitted. "Possibly." I looked at her and sighed. "Someone's going to come here very soon. Don't be scared. Just answer as honestly as you can." I held the phone up to my ear just as Molly screamed and someone grabbed the phone. "HEY!" I shouted.

"What do we have here?"

Harley.

I gritted my teeth. "Harley."

"And who are you?" she asked, her high pitched voice making me want to break the phone. She didn't recognise my voice, I wasn't wearing the voice scrambler.

"I'm that girl's sister," I answered. "You harm a hair on her head and I will kill you-do you understand? You and your precious Mr J. You got that?"

Harley shrieked with laughter and the call ended.

I slammed my phone down and removed my jacket. There was a biker bar across the street. I tied my hair back in a bun and stormed across the street, fiddling with the butterfly knife that was hidden in my boot.

I singled out a red and black bike with a black helmet hanging on the handle bars. The moment I climbed on and started hotwiring the bike, someone started screaming out for his mate. I ignored them and speed off with my illegally borrowed bike.

What did Harley Quinn and the Joker want with a buss full of Starling City School Students? I asked myself as I weaved in and out of traffic.

I picked up the trail near the warehouse district, choosing to go on foot instead of taking the bike. Searching the warehouses would take forever and a day alone, but I needed to see what was going on first. This was my sister-my sister and no one messed with my family like that. Not even a deranged clown and his little bitch.

"I can't believe we got guard duty again!"

"Be lucky we ain't inside. Angus pulled duty inside last week and he was killed by a flower full of acid."

I flattened myself up against a wall, waiting for two men badly dressed as clowns to walk passed me. Carefully and quietly, I picked up a piece of piping, using it to knock out the smaller of the two before laying into the big guy.

Sure I'd promised Bruce no more killing-but I wasn't wearing the suit-I wasn't a hero at this point. I was a big sister. I leant forward and grabbed the smaller clown around the collar, "Explain to me why the Joke is kidnapping a bus full of students," I ordered.

He cried out as I bent his finger backwards, snapping it in two. "He's experimentin' on them!" he sobbed.

I raised my pipe and hit him in the face, knocking him out cold. "I'm gonna fucking kill him." I cleaned the pipe off on the unconscious clowns clothing before heading the way they'd just come from.

Eventually I came to a large warehouse completely guarded by clowns with machine guns. I stopped and looked around. The warehouse next door had a broken window to slip in through. The selling point was that it was connected via the roof to Joker HQ.

Silently I climbed in through the broken window, landing on the dusty floor. As my eyes adjusted to the dusty darkness, I crossed the empty floor to the stairs that lead up to the supervisor's office as well as a ladder than went up to the roof.

In the daylight they would see me, sure as chips, if I wasn't careful. I knelt down and crawled across the empty gap to the roof of the next warehouse. Looking through the window I stared down at a funhouse replica, eventually setting my site on the school bus and the circle of scared children and teacher lying on the ground beside the bus.

"What is going on?" I muttered to myself.

"Those three!" the Joker laughed, waltzing into the open floor wearing a lab coat.

Harley forced a parent supervisor and two students to their feet and had the clowns separate them.

I cocked my head to the side as the Joker fiddled with something on the table. He turned around and jabbed something into the parent supervisor and shoved her down into a pit in the ground. It wasn't long before she started screaming, clutching her face.

Harley pushed the children into the pit and stood back to watch as the parent transformed into a giant hulking monster that reminded me of Bane from the BatFiles. I looked around for a hatch or a door that went inside-nothing. The only way I was getting inside was through the windows. If I didn't act quick-that monster would kill the children.

I raised the pipe, smashing the window, alerting the other's to my presence. I dove in through the window, catching a hanging chain that carried me to the ground inside the pit. With the knife in my other hand, I stabbed it straight through the monsters neck, severing the spinal cord, killing it instantly. They children ran behind me, using me to protect them.

The Joker started clapping. "You don't see that every day, do you? No one in this city has the balls to jump through a roof. What do you think, Harls?"

"We got ourselves a genuine hero, Mr J," Harley grinned.

"Get her boys," Joker growled.

Eight machine guns were pointed at me, forcing me to raise my hands in surrender. Something hit me in the back of my head, knocking me out and sending me spiraling into darkness.


I woke up with a sharp slap to the face.

Startled, I immediately tried to sit up, ready to defend myself but found myself strapped tightly to a table. "What the hell?" I muttered, looking around. Several things were wrong with this scene-I was naked and I had an audience.

"See that is a fine specimen," Joker told his men.

"Look at all them scars," Harley noted, poking the numerous scars all over my body. "She's ugly."

"Hey!" I snapped. "You try living on an island with psychopaths for five years with no medical help!" God forbid I was arguing with the psychotic clown. "Where's my sister?" I snapped.

Joker laughed. I couldn't see what he was fiddling with but I had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. He turned around and approached me, hands behind his back. The clown leant in with a smirk on his face. "S'ppose old Batsy gave you a rundown of Gotham's little family?"

"What are you talking about?" I lied.

He laughed. "It's they eyes-it's always the eyes that give 'em away. You've got those crazy hero eyes. And you're not Batgirl cause I took care of that." Joker smirked as he hovered over me. "What do you know about Venom?"

My eyes widened in terror.

Harley giggled. "Mr J fixed it up good and proper. It's not his fault those other rats melted."

I knew about Venom, the original formula that was highly addictive and only worked in sixty minute increments-it was Bane's poison of choice. There was Titan as well developed by a Doctor Penelope Young, it was more potent that Venom, only a small amount needed to be used to trigger a transformation. I watched as Joker produced a large needled from behind his back. I hated needles. "What the hell is that?" I growled, struggling to break free whilst keeping my eyes on the ironically purple substance in the needle.

Harley's eyes widened. "Bird-brain here has a point. It needs a name, Mr J."

He paused and leant back. "A good artist always signs his work…how about Hades by Joker? It has a pleasant lavender scent."

"Boss it doesn't smell like anything!" one of the clowns objected.

Harley shot him in the head. "No imagination."

Joker broke down in laughter. "Such a good girl, Harley dear. Prep the subject. These things go better injected into the brain stem."

"You touch me and I'll kill you!" I snapped.

They completely ignored me as Harley fiddled with a small section behind my neck. I felt a cold prick of a needle and a sudden sharp pain before everything was suddenly on fire.

My body burned.

I could hear the sound of gunfire through the sound of my screams.

"River," hang on. "We'll get you back to the cave. Nightwing, the blanket."

A rough blanket was thrown over me and I found myself lost in pain and terror and fear and fire.