Crisis at the Literature Club

by Honeybarry Cutiedoobles

Following a special arrangement made by their fathers, Jon Kent and Damian Wayne are now attending Gotham High, together. They soon find themselves joining a Club all about Literature, meeting four unique girls in the process. What could go wrong?

1. Prologue: Origin Story

Warning: This story contains depictions of mature and serious subjects from a writer who has none of the maturity or seriousness required to properly write about said subjects. If you are at all offended by this, it is suggested that you ignore this content and leave the rest of us to have some fun in life.

Thank you.

Monika should NOT be out on the streets this late.

It was a sad fact that every parent did their best to nail into their children's heads, until the knowledge became second nature, the same way everyone knew you shouldn't take candy from strangers, trust a man in a big white van, or approach clowns.

Gotham City was dangerous.

Even discounting the various costumed super-criminals, which were as popular talking points amongst tourists as the gargoyles littering the rooftops of the city, there were plenty of "normal" criminals as well, who were a little less eye-catching, but just as dangerous. Mobsters, gangs, or just your typical lowlife down on his luck with a gun in his hand that could ruin your entire life with a simple pull of the trigger.

Sure, it was risky for the criminals to be outside at night, too, and it was a fact that there were much less crime in the city than a few years ago allegedly because of the actions of a man more infamous than the city itself. But still, Gotham was a big city, and the Batman was only that- one man.

Monika did know all of this, of course. She perfectly understood the potential dangers this city offered, and knew that she really should have went home much sooner. But at the same time, she'd lived here all her life, with no incidents at all. Sure, she'd seen the news like everyone else, about toxic rain in the Industrial District unleashed by Doctor Death and killer birds terrorizing Park Row because of some nefarious scheme by the Penguin, and who could forget the bi-weekly Joker victim that constantly made the headlines?

And Monika did feel sympathy for all those less fortunate people caught up in that stuff, but it just seemed like it was stuff that always happened to other people, and not her. Which still made it awful, of course, but it didn't make her rush home as fast as she could in fear of something terrible happening the next minute or so, because that stuff simply didn't happen. The chances were so laughably low, they weren't even worth considering.

And she had much more important stuff on her mind than the invisible boogeymen supposedly haunting the city. School stuff, to be exact. She had done it, accomplished one of her biggest dreams since middle school- she'd started a club! A real club, with real people meeting up for real and discussing real things! And it was hers. She was the President of the club! She could hardly believe it herself. And best of all, the subject of the club was one for which she had great passion: Literature.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, though. Things rarely were. There were a few kinks to work out, such as scheduling, finding out what exactly they would be doing there during club hours, and most importantly, finding more members.

It wasn't solely on her to do all these things. There was a wonderful girl who'd helped her make this club a reality, a real ray of sunshine whose overwhelming positivity towards everything and everyone went a long way in convincing the Principal to approve the club. It had been a hard sell, Literature wasn't the most appealing-sounding thing to make a club out of, and the Principal was worried it'd end up a club for two people only.

But after much negotiation, they had finally brokered an agreement with her: If they managed to get at least three more people to join in the next two weeks, the Principal would approve of the club, and make it official.

They'd taken it, thanking her profusely, and immediately set out to hunt down potential members by stopping random students in the hall and asking if they'd like to join.

It turned out the Principal had been right in her prediction that a club all about literature would be a hard sell. Students not already committed to more interesting clubs like the Art Club or Music Club would be intrigued at first when they'd approach and start pitching, but would typically start looking for escape paths the moment Monika brought up what it was actually about. They'd stayed for about an hour after school, just looking for candidates, but without getting any takers.

Having been a bit let down at this turn of events, her partner had cheered her up by putting a hand on her shoulder, telling her not to lose hope in the club. It was Friday after all, and most students would be leaving school as quickly as possible to celebrate the fact they'd survived another week of hard gained education, and would prepare to lose it all again in the upcoming weekend. She'd guaranteed there'd be more takers next Monday where they'd be a bit less swift to leave.

Monika had smiled at that, she could see the logic behind her new friend's words. They'd hugged, and the girl had assured her that they'd make this club a thing, no matter what it'd take, she promised. Monika had been touched at these words, giving her thanks, promising that she'd be made Vice President if they managed to make this happen. The girl's eyes had lit up at that, and they'd hugged again.

The girl had then said that while she had to head home now, she would be making a few calls over the weekend. She knew some people attending the school she thought she would be able to convince, particularly two girls she'd seen around a few times. One of them always had her head buried in a book, so she must at the very least have some interest in literature, and the second knew how to bake the most delicious cupcakes she'd ever tasted, which would be a big sell to get other people on board.

Monika had frowned slightly at that, asking if that wouldn't be considered bribing?

Her partner had laughed slightly nervously, pressing her fingers together awkwardly, and said that as long as it got results, who cares how they made it happen, right?

Monika hadn't been able to think of a good counterargument to that, and had merely accepted, thanking the girl again for her contributions.

Before departing, the girl had said that this club was her dream, right? And everyone deserves a shot at their dreams.

Monika smiled as she remembered those words. She was truly lucky to have found a friend this pure.

The club would be hard work, but Monika appreciated the challenge, and would face any potential problem head on, like a true leader.

After giving up on finding other members for the club, at least for today, Monika had looked at the clock, and figured she probably had time to get some piano lessons in. Normally, students weren't allowed to stay at Gotham High after hours, but Monika had earned quite a bit of respect amongst the staff for being one of the top students in class, always punctual, polite and, not to toot her own horn too much, incredibly smart. They'd trusted her with spare keys to the facility so she could stay after class to get in some extra studying whenever she needed, or in this case, practicing piano.

The piano practice was a recent thing she'd started. Despite her already busy schedule, between homework, chores at home and soon, hopefully, the Club, she'd realized that she really wanted to learn to make music, and the piano just seemed like the most elegant instrument. She wouldn't say she was very good at it, but she hoped she were at least steadily improving with all the hours she put into it. Like with all other things, she preferred to learn it by herself, feeling that was by far the best way for her to ever improve. She was her own best critic, after all.

She'd gotten in a solid hour before noticing the sun setting, and decided she should probably head home for the day, so she'd departed the school, locked it down, and walked home in the twilight of the city.

She lived quite a bit away from the school, so the trip would take some time, but she didn't mind. It was nice to just walk with nothing but your own thoughts to keep you entertained. She briefly wondered if an attitude like that was why she still didn't have a boyfriend.

"Excuse me, miss?" a shrill, slightly croaky voice came from the inside of a dark alleyway Monika was about to walk past, and she stopped, glancing in.

"Me?" She asked.

"Yes, my dear." came the voice again, and Monika squinted, trying to see the owner of the voice. "I'm in a spot of bother, and I could use some assistance, if you wouldn't mind helping an old woman."

With effort, Monika saw the silhouette of a small figure, seemingly wearing some heavy drapes, slightly bent over, holding a cane in one hand. What appeared to be a large hat obscured her face.

She took a tentative step into the alleyway, far enough for her to be able to see a little better, but not far enough that she couldn't bail and run at the first sign of trouble.

"What seems to be the bother, Miss...?" She asked, with an inquisitive inflection on the miss, in order to learn the elder woman's name. She always thought it built a great sense of trust between two people after learning their name.

"Jenkins, dear. Suzie Jenkins. If you would please come closer, I can show you what my problem is." The lady said, making a hand gesture, beckoning her to come forward.

Monika hestitated. The whole situation, with the dark alleyway and the strange woman, and having to come closer seemed like the exact situation you always got warned against, and she was tempted to just turn her back on the woman, but... the idea of leaving a helpless woman in need to fend for herself, especially in a city like Gotham, just seemed incredibly selfish and ill mannered of someone who was supposed to be an honour student at her school, and soon-to-be President of a new Club. Could she really allow herself to turn down this plea for help, from a senior citizen?

"Please, dear. My back is not what it used to be." The woman apparently called Jenkins, said.

No. She couldn't.

"Be right there, Miss!" Monika walked into the alleyway, convincing herself that there was nothing to be afraid of. She moved past two medium-sized dumpsters, and saw no hidden assailants hiding behind them. She took a deep breath, getting a peculiar scent of something floral she didn't recognize. She took in the appearance of Jenkins, now seeing a feminine jaw sticking out from beneath the large shadow of the hat. She looked very pale, and her lips, darkened to the point of being black with lipstick, turned upward into a grateful smile.

"Oh, thank you, dear. I was beginning to think my situation was hopeless."

Monika smiled at the woman. "Not to worry, Miss Jenkins. What can I do for you?"

"So polite! My my, you'll do nicely." Jenkins took a step forward, pointing at the ground. "I was walking through here, when I noticed my glasses were starting to get foggy, so I took them off to give them a polish. But my grip is not what it used to be, my dear, so I dropped them, and now I think they're under this dumpster."

She pointed a gloved finger at a trash compactor.

"Could you be a dear, and bend down to pick them up for me? I'm afraid I'm as blind as a bat without my glasses."

Monika didn't miss the weird inflection the woman put on the word "bat," but chalked it off as purely coincidental. She'd experienced her own voice cracking at really awkward moments when she'd rather it didn't and could only hope that people would be kind enough not to point it out to her when she did, so she kept silent about it.

"Not a problem, Miss." She said, even as she cringed at what she was about to do. She felt a little bad doing that, as it really wasn't that big a request, and it would really help this woman, but as per her own words, she wouldn't be able to see her disrespectful expression anyway, so she didn't feel too bad.

She tried her best to bend down on her knees in a presentable manner, reaching behind and making sure her blue skirt, which was mandatory for students of Gotham High, covered everything. She really thought the skirts they issued were way too short, and she made a mental note to bring it up to the staff at the next student council meeting.

She suppressed a sigh, and reached under the dumpster with her hand, feeling around for the woman's lost glasses. She really didn't like doing this, feeling that at any moment she might touch something slimy, hairy or, worst of all, alive.

If I touch a rat, I'm going to scream. She thought, closing her eyes, as she mentally prepared herself, taking a deep breath.

The floral smell was getting more intrusive, and she briefly wondered if someone had dumped a weird kind of chemical into the dumpster. Maybe it just hadn't been changed in a while, and someone's vegetarian dinner was really making itself known.

She felt something hard and thin at her knuckles, and closed her hands around something that was almost certainly the frame of a pair of glasses.

"I think I got them!" She declared triumphantly, as she pulled her prize out from underneath the dumpster, and rose to her feet again.

"Oh, how wonderful!" The old woman exclaimed. "Now, if I can trouble you for just a second more of your time, can you check if they're damaged? It was quite a fall they took, after all."

"No problem at all, ma'-" Monika stopped midsentence as she looked at the object in her hand, and took in what she was seeing. They were glasses, alright. But she doubted the lady would be able to see any better wearing these, as they didn't have lenses.

Instead, the cheap plastic frames sported exaggerated cartoonish eyebrows sticking up from the top of where the lenses should have been, and underneath the empty frames a large plastic nose went down, ending in a moustache made in the same way as the eyebrows.

They were those classic gag disguise glasses, often seen in very old cartoons and comics.

"Is- is this some kind of joke?" Monika asked, staring at the old lady whose smile had widened.

"Yep! Boy, I got ya good there!" The lady's voice had lost the croaky tone, instead taking on a higher pitch, sounding... younger. Almost child-like. "Now, dearie, come closer. We still haven't reached the punchline yet!"

Monika went pale, dropping the gag glasses. The floral scent was overpoweringly strong now, and it seemed to cloud her mind, making the whole alleyway spin in front of her. She turned around to run away, but something caught her leg, and she tripped, landing face first on the rough pavement.

"That's kinda rude! The least you could do is laugh!" The woman Monika now suspected wasn't as old as she claimed, shrieked from behind her.

Monika turned her dazed head, attempting to sit up and examine what had tripped her, since it seemed like it wasn't letting go.

"To be perfectly honest, it wasn't really that funny, Harl." Another female voice, this one deeper, talking more slowly, heavier. Monika glanced up and noticed another silhouette coming forward, behind the not-old lady. Monika fumbled manically at her leg, trying to find what seemed to be growing tighter around her ankle.

"Eh, everyone's a critic." Jenkins said, dismissively.

Monika's hands made contact with something long, smooth and... moving, slithering up her leg. The sensation made her stomach churn.

A snake? She thought, starting to panic. But as she began struggling to stop the constricting tentacle, she soon realized that it really didn't have the texture of any animal she knew of.

"I'd suggest you stop struggling, because you might accidentally hurt my baby." The other woman, with the heavier voice said, a threatening undertone ringing clear. "I've told it to restrain you harmlessly for now, but I can just as easily make it grow thorns."

It's a vine!

Monika abandoned her hopeless attempts to claw off the plant, and tried crawling away instead, even as the vine constricted tighter around her leg, and, if she wasn't completely losing it, seemed like it was pulling her slowly backwards, towards the two women. She inhaled more of the all-consuming floral scent, feeling her arms and legs grow heavier, until she simply couldn't move at all anymore.

She tried screaming for help, but only a tiny croak escaped her lips before her head too started becoming heavy, and fell to the ground as well.

Monika's last thought before losing consciousness, was that she really shouldn't have been out on the streets this late.

---

"...should be starting to wake up now."

"Well, let's speed that process along!"

A wave of cold liquid splashed over Monika's face, awakening her as she sputtered and gasped for breath. She opened her eyes, squinting at the sharp light, still coughing, trying to get the water out of her throat.

She tried moving her hands to wipe away the water dripping off her face, but realized soon enough that both her arms and legs were restrained, tied to the cheap wooden chair she was sitting uncomfortably on.

The rest of the room soon came into focus, every thing she saw in it making her panic more.

It was a big, open room, with sharp industrial lightbulbs scattered all around, bathing the room in unnatural light. There were no windows anywhere, making it impossible to tell what time it was, and Monika noticed the same floral scent in the air, although to a far lesser extent than in the alleyway.

From what she could tell, she was in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse, littered with plants of all shapes and sizes. Vines reached down from the ceiling, all the way down to the floor, like dead snakes. Bushes and trees were growing all around, sporting many different varieties of fruits and flowers in all possible colours. There were also a bunch of plantlife she'd never seen or heard of before, the most noticable one way off in the corner, several feet high, a bolbous purple head swaying dangerously on a comparatively thin stilk, and disturbingly, if she wasn't much mistaken, it seemed to have sharp teeth sticking out from a slit in the middle, giving it the appearance of a perpetual, sharklike smirk.

Monika shivered, both from the cold water running down her face, soiling her clothes, and from looking at the monstrosity in the corner.

A sharp noise made her look to the middle of the room, seeing one of her assailants snapping a finger in her face to get her attention.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she recognized the person. She was wearing a skintight outfit which hugged her body, showing off her generous curves. The outfit alternated between red and black colours, red and black diamond shapes plastered at random parts. Her face was chalk white, a black domino mask highlighting some very blue eyes behind it, and an oversized jester cap covered the top of her head, with bells on each end jingling slightly every time she moved.

Her lips, painted with black lipstick, stretched into a smile when she saw Monika's attention on her.

"Morning, sleepyhead! We were worried we pumped too much knockout gas inta ya noggin!"

Monika flinched as Harley Quinn folded her hand into a fist, knocking at the student's head a few times as one would a door.

"Wh-where am I? What happened?" Monika's voice was hoarse, and her heart was pounding out of her chest. She'd heard of this criminal before, it was hard to avoid hearing about the self-proclaimed girlfriend of one of the most notorious murderers in Gotham.

She could remember when she was five years old, and was sitting in the living room, watching cartoons on the TV. Suddenly, the feed was interrupted, replaced by a pale man with an unsettling smile on his face, rambling on about some kind of fish. She'd thought she'd accidentally changed the channel, but when she'd picked up the remote and pressed a few buttons, she'd realized it was on every channel. She hadn't really understood alot of what the man was saying, her being very young, but it had made an impression on her when she'd seen Harley, cartwheeling into frame and presented the fish the pale man she now knew as The Joker, was talking about. She'd thought Harley was funny back then, stumbling over her lines and looking into the wrong cameras. She'd even laughed when The Joker had stuffed a fork with a piece of fish into her mouth, despite her saying moments before that she didn't like fish.

That was when her mom had come in, and, seeing what her child was watching, promptly turned off the television, much to the despair of 5 year old Monika. Her mom had lectured her afterward, saying that those two on the TV were very bad people, and if they showed up on the TV again, she should turn the thing off at once.

Monika hadn't really understood it back then. They'd been funny clowns talking about fish on the TV, how could they be bad? Only after years of growing up, reading horrible news article after horrible news article had she learned that her mom had been completely right to have turned off the TV. The death toll those two had been responsible for racked up in the hundreds, maybe even thousands, and in every video clip Monika had seen of them, they'd just been smiling and laughing with no hint of any remorse for what they'd done. There were many colourful criminals and killers in Gotham, but none of them were as attention grabbing and in your face as Joker and Harley.

They weren't funny. They were heartless monsters, and one of them was staring down Monika right now, the same psychotic grin on her face.

"Ya have the honour of being the first ever kidnapping victim to visit the Harley an' Ivy Top Secret Hideout numbah 68!" Harley announced, clapping her hands enthusiastically, then leaned really close to whisper into Monika's ear. "To be honest, I'm kinda hoping for the Bat to find this place quickly. Just to move on to the next number."

She turned her head, looking at Monika expectantly, who simply stared back with wide, fearful eyes. Harley frowned.

"Aw, come on. Yer a young high-schooler. That should have made you at least crack a smile."

Monika kept staring at the costumed woman, who sighed.

"Anyway, to answer yer next question, ya fell for the ol' Woman-Lost-Her-Glasses-In-The-Dark-Alleyway gag." She bent her knees, and her back, lowering her face to be at eyelevel with the chairbound Monika. She put one hand on her crumpled back, and seemed to grasp an invisible cane in her other. She then spoke, a shaky croaking creeping into her voice.

"You shouldn't trust old women, my dear. We're all witches trying to lure you into our gingerbread houses!"

She straightened up again, a mocking laugh erupting from her, echoing in the massive warehouse turned greenhouse.

"Man, we got ya good!" She said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.

"Entertaining our houseguest, Harley?" A heavy, feminine voice came from a few feet away, and Monika turned her head to identify the source.

She blushed when she saw the owner, and averted her eyes to the floor. And she'd thought Harley's outfit was risqué.

The most eyegrabbing part of the woman's appearance were definitely the unnatural greenish skintone she was sporting, and the fiery, crimson hair on her head which looked light as air as it seemed to flow softly from her head, like a jellyfish's tentacles in the ocean. The second most noticable thing about her had to be the clothes she were wearing, or, more accurately, the lack thereof.

She was one of the most voluptous women Monika had ever seen (not that she'd seen alot.) Everything about her, from the way she walked, hips swaying hypnotically from side to side, to the way she looked at you, with heavily lidded eyes, just oozed sexuality. From the brief look Monika caught of her before turning away in embarrassment, she could see that the only things keeping her from being completely exposed to the world, were a small number of strategically placed leaves and flowers, covering parts of her impressively sized breasts, and crotch area. Still, it left very little to the imagination.

Not that she was imagining her naked.

She'd already pretty much guessed who Harley's partner in crime was, seeing the decor of the warehouse, but her appearance here confirmed it: Poison Ivy.

"I'm trying, but it's a tough crowd out here!" Harley said, crossing her arms and extending a tongue at Monika, mock insulted.

"I see. Maybe I can get her to, ah, relax."

Monika flinched, feeling Ivy's fingers brush lightly against her shoulder, as she came up from behind her. She'd heard news about her too, about how just being in her near vicinity was enough to get infected by whatever toxins were on her. How a single glance from her was enough to lose your will to her. How a single touch from her on your skin was enough to make your whole body wilt in a matter of seconds.

They were all rumors of course, and she'd never bothered to read official reports on the full nature of her powers. Hell, maybe there was nothing supernatural about her, and she was just an experienced chemist with a flair for botany. Not that that would make her feel any better in this scenario of course.

She felt Ivy's presence in front of her, and kept staring resolutely on the floor to the side, scared to even breathe. She felt her getting closer, could see the hint of a green face out of the corner of her eyes, and felt as thin strands of scarlet hair brushed up against her cheek.

"Hey..." Ivy whispered softly, and Monika felt like she was gonna cry as she felt a finger stroking her chin, softly pulling her head towards facing forward.

"Don't be scared... I'm not going to hurt you..."

Ivy's face was centimeters from Monika's, a strong odor of roses emitting from her. Monika looked into her half-open eyes, which looked like a sea of emerald water, easy to lose yourself beneath the waves.

"You have pretty eyes..." Ivy whispered quietly, staring into Monika's own green eyes, which she'd always been proud of. "I like the colour... do you like mine...?"

Ivy's hand travelled upward to stroke Monika's long, auburn hair, and played a bit with the white bow that served to separate the front of her hair from the ponytail behind her.

It was too much for Monika.

Tears dripped from her eyes and she sobbed in despair. All this touching from the supervillainess was pretty much a guarantee that toxins were already traveling through her bloodstream, destroying her from the inside. And even if that was only rumors, she doubted it mattered. They were both killers, and she was sure they both had a variety of creative ideas on how to kill her.

"P-please." Monika said, voice breaking as she sobbed harder. "I-if you're gonna d-do something, c-can you p-please just d-do it and get it o-over with?"

Through watery eyes, she saw Ivy's eyes open slightly, giving her a surprised look quite unfitting her previous seductress attitude. Then, the corners of her mouth moved downwards to a slight frown.

"Disappointing." She said, and moved away from Monika

"What happened, Red?" Harley asked, putting a hand on the redhead's shoulder. "Why isn't she going all gah-gah for ya?"

"It seems our guest isn't into members of the same sex." Poison Ivy said, an annoyed undertone in her voice.

"What? That's a requirement? It worked just fine on Catwoman, that one time." Harley said, a disbelieving tone in her voice.

"Are you surprised? Selina did always like playing both sides." Ivy said. "My pheromones can only get to people if they already feel some level of attraction towards me already. It seems that she," Ivy shot a glare behind her at Monika. "...does not."

"Hey!" Harley yelled, taking some heavy footsteps towards Monika, and jammed a finger between her eyes. "Are ya saying my friend Ivy is ugly?!"

"I-I'm s-sorry!" Monika said, unable to stop crying. "I-I d-don't know w-what's going on!"

Ivy put a hand on Harley's shoulder, smiling gently at her.

"Settle down, tiger." She said, reaching over to pull her hand away from Monika's forehead. "It is possible that she's just heterosexual."

"Really? In this day and age?" Harley asked, as if the very concept was foreign to her.

The jester-themed villainess crouched in front of Monika looking up at her face quizzically.

"Yer telling me ya never even considered going for the other team? What are ya, a freakin' nun?"

"I'm sorry?" Monika said, not having expected to have her sexuality of all things judged when she'd been kidnapped.

"Eh, whatever." Harley said dismissively, and got to her feet again. She turned to look at Ivy who was looking herself in a hand-mirror, adjusting her look to fix some non-existant flaws on her face.

"Whadda we do now? We can't bedazzle her to get the information we need!" Harley said.

"Well, if the pleasant way to get her to talk won't work, there's always the rough way." Ivy turned her head slightly, letting Monika see a smirk of schadenfreude on her face.

Her blood ran cold.

Oh no.

"I-I'll tell you anything you want to hear!" She burst out, desperately. "You don't need to do anything! I'll talk!"

"Aw, man." Harley said, rolling her eyes and sighing, disappointed. "They always do that. Why can we never find someone like in the action flicks who goes all 'I'll die before I talk to you!' in these situations? At this rate, I'll never get to use the torture kit I got for Christmas!" She pouted, crossing her arms. Ivy patted her on the shoulder.

"Look at it as a compliment. They clearly think we're pretty scary if they always choose to talk before we even do anything to them. It's good for our rep."

"Ugh, I guess." Harley threw her hands up in an exasperated manner. "I just really wanna try pulling someone's nails out. It's like, top five on my wishlist."

"Bit weird thing to want to do, but alright."

"Hey, no judging!"

Scared of where this conversation could potentially go, Monika spoke up despite her fear.

"Uh, so, uh, what would you like to know? I'm not really that learned, I mean, I'm still in high school, but I'll do my best to answer."

They looked over at her as if they'd forgotten she was even there.

Harley spoke up first.

"Well, fer starters ya can tell us if yer family is loaded."

"Loaded?" Monika tilted her head, confused.

"Oh fer chrissakes." Harley said, pinching her nose. "Loaded! Rolling in dough! Raking in cash! Are yer parents filthy rich or nah?"

Monika blinked.

"Oh! Uh, I live in a mansion, so I guess so?"

"A freakin' mansion?!" Harley looked excitedly over at Poison Ivy who shared a smile with her, giving two thumbs up. "Jackpot!"

She did a backflip, landing on her hands and pushed herself off the floor to land right next to Monika. Harley bent her knees, and threw her arms around the bound girl.

"I had my doubts about ya, but turns out ya was worth the trouble!"

Monika smiled nervously, not knowing how to respond.

Poison Ivy walked over as well, smiling at Monika.

"Do you think your parents will be willing to pay a generous ransom to get you back, child?" Ivy asked.

Monika frowned, taking the question in.

"Uh... yes. Yes, I believe so."

"Hooo, wee." Harley said, unclasping her hands from Monika again. "There was a lot to unpack in that sentence. If we weren't on a deadline, I'd love ta pick yer brain as Doctor Harleen!"

Monika wasn't sure she liked what the woman was insinuating with that.

"Anyhoo, lemme get the phone numbah. I'll make the ransom call right now. Hey Red, hand me the voice disguiser!"

"Why do you need to disguise your voice? We never do these things anonymously. Them knowing who they're dealing with is the reason they take us seriously."

"Red! Voice disguiser! Now!"

Ivy rolled her eyes, as she began walking away.

"One filthy old rag, coming up!"

"Yer the best, Red. Now," Harley pulled out an old cellphone, and punched a few buttons. She then looked excitedly over at Monika. "Tell me their number. Oh, and if ya can begin crying again to tug at their heartstrings, that'd be awesome!"

"Uh." Monika gave her best apologetic smile. "They're sort of... not available at the moment." Harley's smirk vanished from her face.

"Whaddaya mean, 'not available?'" Harley asked, raising an eyebrow.

"They're on one of their business trips. I'm... home alone at the moment." Monika said.

"But... surely they must have left ya some way ta get in touch with them, right?"

"I'm afraid not. They prefer not to get interrupted while they settle deals." Monika said.

"Alright, alright." Harley said, bouncing her phone in her hand in order to think clearly. "Do ya have any idea when they're gonna return?"

"Uh, they never give me a precise timeframe, but they left pretty early this month, so they should return in about two months or so."

"Two months?!" Harley yelled, startling Monika. "We don't have two months, we need the money now!" She let out a frustrated yell, and Ivy hurried back into the room triumphantly holding up a washcloth covered in stained black marks.

"I got the rag! Are we ready to- wait what's going on here?" The plant lady raised an eyebrow at Harley stomping around angrily.

"What's going on!" Harley yelled, shaking her fists at her partner in crime. "Is that we ain't getting a cent from this caper!"

"What?" Ivy's eyes widened.

"So typical!" Harley continued ranting. "The first student we pick for kidnapping just so happens to live inna mansion, be easy to drug and transport, AND has pretty eyeballs, but she just has to have toxic abandonment issues with her parents, so they aren't even able to pay the GOD DAMN ransom!"

"Hey, I don't have toxic abandonmmphf!"

Monika was interrupted when Harley snatched the disgusting rag from Poison Ivy's hand, and without ceremony forced it into Monika's open mouth. She tried hard not to gag, and ignore the various taste sensations her tongue was picking up. She really didn't want to throw up right now.

"So what do we do now?" Ivy asked, exasperated.

"I dunno! It's the weekend, there aren't any students walking around outside any longer!" Harley yelled, raising her arms and letting them fall to her sides with a sigh.

Poison Ivy turned her eyes to look at the bound and gagged Monika, still trying her best to ignore the rag in her mouth. It was a look of complete and utter apathy.

"Well, I guess we can't use her any longer."

Monika stopped her struggling, turning her attention to the women who were both looking at her now.

Harley sighed.

"Yeah, I guess not." She withdrew a knife from somewhere on her outfit. "Sorry, kiddo. Ya seemed nice."

Monika's eyes widened, and she started struggling against her binds, but they were too tight. She tried spitting the rag out of her mouth, so she could plead for her life, but it was too tightly wedged in there.

"It's nothin' personal. We just can't wait for two whole months and take care of ya at tha same time. Ya'd totally starve, and yer not getting Bud and Lou's rations!"

Monika couldn't believe what she was hearing. She watched Harley approach, knife in hand, and tried screaming, but it only came out as a strangled muffle around the cloth in her mouth. She tried struggling as hard as she could against the robes binding her, pushing so hard that the chair tipped over, and she landed sideways on the floor.

"Oof." Harley said, flinching. "Good try, but ya ain't breaking those bonds." She crouched next to Monika's head on the ground, stroking her chin gingerly. Monika's eyes welled up with tears.

"Look, I'm sorry it had ta come to this." Harley said. "But we just can't risk ya running to the police and tellin' on us. Surely you can understand that, right? Yer a smart gal."

I won't tell. Dear God, I promise I won't tell! Monika thought as hard as she could, trying to somehow mentally insert the words into Harley's mind since she couldn't speak.

"Shh, shh. It's okay." Harley wiped a few tears from her cheeks, petting her face, as if comforting a sick animal she had to put down. "I promise this won't hurt. I've done this many times before, ya know, and guess what?"

Harley lowered her face to Monika's eye level, flashing her a toothy grin.

"I haven't gotten any complaints so far!" She chuckled a bit at her own joke, as Monika broke down even further, closing her eyes as she awaited the inevitable.

"Aw come on, that one was good!"

"Can't you just get it over with, Harl?" Poison Ivy's voice.

Monika opened her eyes again, in pure desperation. Ivy was by no means a good person, but she felt as if she could relate to her better than Harley who was just... insane. Maybe, just maybe, she could break through to her?

She stared ahead of her, past Harley, focusing on the plant lady. She... had her back turned. She wouldn't even look at her as she was about to die?!

I'm... I'm going to die.

The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. In a few seconds, her life would be over. Gone. Poof.

She'd heard of near death experiences, how people said that their past life had flashed before their eyes. To Monika, it didn't happen like that. Instead of witnessing her past events, the things she now saw before her eyes were all the things she'd hoped would happen in the future, but now never would. Graduating. Her getting a job as a writer. Her playing the piano at a concert. Fame. Fortune. Getting married. Settling down with her husband. Having kids.

None of this would happen. She'd never write her own book. She'd never get to write a song. She hadn't made a lasting impact on anyone's lives. Next Monday, her partner at school would wonder where she was, and if they weren't supposed to get the Literature Club started.

The Literature Club.

Her first big achievement, the stepping stone for the rest of her life, would never see the light of day. Or worse, the girl would somehow find all the members necessary to start it without her, making her the Club President, making her the Club owner, all the credit and accomplishments from it becoming hers.

She would die, without anything to her name. No books, no songs, no club. No boyfriend.

It's not fair.

It was an all-consuming thought that made everything else around her pale in comparison, even the knife getting lowered to her throat.

It's not fair. It's not fair! IT'S NOT FAIR!

An indescribable feeling washed over her, erupting from her chest, and spreading, lightning-fast through her body, her arms, her legs, her fingers, her toes. Her head. It lingered there, and next came the pain.

Horrible, horrible burning pain surged all around her head, as if her brain matter was replaced with molten lava. She felt like it was exploding, she couldn't take it, she screamed and shook herself, no thoughts in her head beyond the insurmountable pain.

She found herself actually wishing for Harley to cut her throat, just so she could escape the intolerable experience.

And just then, as she was sure she was about to pass out, it stopped, as fast as it had come.

She breathed heavily, coming to her senses again, the rag still in her mouth.

"Jeez louise! What was that, a seizure? That's certainly a new way to prolong yer life by a few seconds. Red, ya seeing this?"

Monika opened her eyes again, remembering her situation. She felt the blade, resting on her throat.

"Just make it happen already, Harl."

Monika looked over at Poison Ivy, seeing her back was still turned to her, the exact same position as before the... thing happened. But now, she saw something new about her.

Words. Words floated around her body, slightly translucent, but clear enough. They drifted slightly, moving around like lazy butterflies, and underneath them were strange, green bars.

Well, some of them were green. Some were lighter shades of green, some were yellow, orange, even red. There was some sort of pattern there, the red bars being very short, at most a few centimeters, while the greener bars stretching onwards for at least a meter.

"Right-a-roonie! Say goodbye, Miss..." Harley paused. "Aw man, I totally spaced on yer name. Something with an M, right? Ah geez, this is gonna bother me fer the rest of the day. I wanna say... Monique?"

Monika looked desperately at the floating words, circling lazily around Ivy. Clearly, they meant something, but what? And could they help her in any way?

"Molly? Mona? Moira? Ah man, what the heck was it?"

She tried reading the words. Love. Hate. Fear. Joy. Anger. What did they mean?

"Harley!" Poison Ivy's sharp voice.

"Okay fine! Goodnight, Moana!"

She felt the knife being raised from her throat, and figured she had seconds before the madwoman would plunge it down. Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it now.

She found a word she liked. Compassion. She always did like longer words, and she could sure use some compassion right about now.

The bar underneath it was yellow, half the length of a bright green one. She hoped she had interpreted the lengths and what they meant right, and stared as hard as she could while she thought.

Go up. Go up. Go up.

And to her great surprise, it worked. The bar extended itself, going from yellow, to yellowish green. She felt her head hurt as she willed the bar to go up, but she didn't stop looking. A few more inches. A few more.

"Stop!" Ivy's sharp voice again. Monika blinked, thinking she was yelling at her, but then looked up to see Harley's knife, held inches away from her face.

"Huh?" Harley asked, looking at her partner, confused.

Ivy turned around, and walked briskly towards the jester, snatching the knife from her hand. Harley grinned.

"Ah, I getcha. Ya wanna off her yerself, huh? That's the murderous plant goddess I know and love!"

"We're not killing her." Ivy simply said, throwing the knife away, into some bushes.

"Wha- why not? Hey- what gives?" Harley yelled in a shrill voice as Ivy took hold of Monika's fallen chair, raising it upright, and brushed some debris from Monika's clothes.

"We don't kill schoolchildren." Ivy said, brushing some strands of hair away from Monika's face.

"You okay, Monika?" Ivy asked Monika with a soft voice. Not the soft voice she'd used to try and seduce her with earlier, but more like a concerned parent.

Monika couldn't believe it had actually worked. She wasn't even sure what exactly she'd done.

"Since when?" Harley half asked, half screamed, throwing her arms up. "We kill people all the time, how is this any different?!"

"Please, keep your voice down." Ivy said, grasping her head with a pained expression on her face. "I can feel the beginnings of a migraine coming on."

"Oh, nah. Nah, nah, nah. No. Yer not getting off that easily." Harley said angrily, shaking her head.

Monika took this chance to focus on the Compassion word floating around Ivy again, the bar still green, but not in the same shade as other words, like Love. She wanted to raise it higher, but discovered that when she focused harder on the Compassion word itself, many more words started becoming more visible, each one with its own individual bar. These weren't names of emotions, however. They were just... names. She saw names that were short and red, like Batgirl, Batman, Bruce Wayne, Harvey Bullock, Harvey Dent, James Gordon, Jason Woodrue, and others still were green and long, like Acacia, Alec Holland, Birch, Cactus, Harleen Quinzel, Selina Kyle, Venus Fly Trap...

She blinked, and the names disappeared. She focused on Compassion again, and there they were. Were these... Ivy's levels of compassion for each individual?

"Harley, I'm serious. I think I need to lie down." Poison Ivy said, sounding tired.

"Fine! Then go lie down, get better. But I'm gonna go finish the job, and kill the bitch! Ya wanna suddenly grow a conscience, fine, good for ya, but ya can't expect me to suddenly follow along." Harley said, pointing an angry finger at Ivy.

Monika looked through the extensive list of names in the air in front of Ivy.

I need to find Monika.

And just as she thought that, the names scrolled past her eyes, until she was looking at her own name. She widened her eyes, surprised, then focused on the bar. It wasn't exactly the most amount she'd seen, the bar barely reaching a yellow tint. It was still higher than some, like Woodrue's.

"I... I don't know..." Ivy said, sounding confused, unconfident.

Well, here goes nothing.

She focused on the bar underneath her name, trying to make it go up. She felt the same discomfort in her head, like the worst migraine she'd ever felt, but it was working. The bar was steadily climbing upward, changing hue until it was green.

"Touch her and your mutts are dead." Ivy said, and it was like her voice was plugged into a megaphone, echoing all throughout the warehouse, scaring Monika. She looked past the words and bars, and focused on Ivy. Her hair was whirling around her head in a frenzy, and she saw her green eyes losing the irises, and if she wasn't much mistaken, glowing bright. Around her, it seemed like a wind was raging, except it only seemed to affect the plants, the trees and bushes swaying dangerously, flowers shaking, fruits exploding into paste. The monstrous plant by the corner opened its slit-like mouth wide, and yellow sludge billowed past its teeth.

"Wh- what are ya saying, Red?" Harley asked, a nervous stammering entering her voice, as she looked at Ivy, fear in her eyes.

"You are not to hurt so much as a hair on Monika's head." Ivy said, her voice still echoing all around them. "I'm tired, my head hurts like you wouldn't believe, so I'm gonna go into my pod to recharge. You can guard Monika, but if she's hurt in any way when I wake up again, your rotten hyenas will have peed on their last plants."

"Don't hurt the kiddo, I gotcha!" Harley said, closing her eyes as she smiled nervously at the angry plant lady. "Ya can count on me!"

Poison Ivy's eyes stopped glowing, and her hair settled on her shoulders again. She looked absolutely exhausted.

"Just keep your voice down, please." She mumbled, as she walked off.

Harley made a zipping motion on her mouth, to show that she would be quiet, and flashed a thumbs up. As soon as Ivy had walked to the edge of the room, and closed the door behind her, Harley sighed heavily, and leaned up a nearby tree.

"What the heck?" She mumbled to herself, confused.

Despite the hammering pain in her head, Monika couldn't help smirking slightly. She didn't know what exactly was happening to her, but she knew how to use it.

---

"So, what's yer opinion on Bane?" Harley asked.

If Monika could sigh around the rag still in her mouth, she would. At least she was getting used to the taste.

"Pers'nally, I think he's a bit overrated. Like, B-Man already has a strong guy in his bad guy gallery, y'know?" Harley took another handful of peanuts, popped them into her mouth, and munched on them for quite a while before continuing. "Ya know Killer Croc, right? Well he's essentially Bane, but cooler. I mean, the guy's a crocodile man. Freaking awesome." She took another peanut break.

"Like, I'm pretty sure Croc was there first. But then this Bane guy comes from outta nowhere, and even kicks Croc's ass, and suddenly we're supposed to treat him as the newest, biggest, baddest deal? I'm sorry, but in my book, crocodiles are cooler than luchadors. I know yer supposed to treat him as like, being super smart and stuff, so he's like as much a mental threat to the Bat as a physical one? Which would justify him as a foe totally unique from Killer Croc. But, I mean, how smart can the guy be when everytime they fight, it ends up with Bats snipping his Venom tubes, he screams a bit, and then goes out like a chump? At least with Killer Croc, he has to get creative in order to beat him."

She seemed to think hard about the stream of words she'd just said, before shrugging.

"I dunno, what do ya think?"

Monika, unable to speak, simply stayed silent as she'd done the twenty other times Harley had asked her for her opinion on various costumed people in the city. She wondered if the woman had forgotten about the rag she herself had put in her mouth, or if she just loved the sound of her own voice, dragging on.

Somebody has to, I suppose.

She would admit to being more irritable than usual at the moment. Ivy had rested for a while now, and Harley had apparently meant it when she said she'd guard her. But of course, she couldn't do that quietly, she had to engage in this one-sided, endless conversation.

Monika was tired beyond belief. She had no way to tell the time, but she had to have been sitting here for at least a few hours. Her body ached from being forced to sit in this position for so long, the robes binding her wrists and ankles were really starting to dig into her skin and her head still throbbed from heightening Ivy's compassion.

At one moment, Harley had left the room, giving her hope for just a few minutes that she could finally try to get some sleep, uncomfortable as though that seemed, sitting in this position, but that hope had been dashed when Harley had returned to the room, now with an oversized bag of salted peanuts, adding the crinkling of the snackbag and periodic munching to the endless stream of noise.

Still, at least I'm alive.

It was a fair point, even though she didn't exactly feel like looking at the few positive sides that remained. She turned her gaze to the things that had saved her from certain death.

Words and bars were bouncing around Harley's body, sitting next to her, resting against a small bush as she rambled on about another costumed criminal. She had been surprised to see them on Harley as well, initially thinking Ivy was unique. She wondered if she could see them on everyone in the world, if she ever got out of this mess.

She had dubbed them "Sliders" in her head, picking the name from the MMO's she'd played in her youth, specifically the character-creators. Where you could "Slide" certain bars to customize your character, to determine their height, thickness, skin hue, and many other factors.

From what she could tell, it was an apt comparison, since it worked largely the same, except it affected their emotions instead of appearance, hurt her head when she used it, and, y'know, she could do it in real life.

If this is real life.

She shook her head to get rid of that thought. She couldn't afford to go down that rabbit hole again, especially not now.

She had refrained from using her newfound power on Harley's Sliders, since that would mean more pain in her head, and she thought that the best way for her to escape, would be through Ivy. She hadn't forgotten that showcase of power when she'd yelled at Harley, demonstrating that every plant in this warehouse was under her control, a personal army at her fingertips. Even if the police found her, it was unlikely they could get through all this flora. No, Poison Ivy was the biggest threat by far here, and if she was going to have any hope of escaping, it was her she should spend her effort on neutralizing. Even if she didn't know exactly how she was going to do that yet.

It wasn't all about not wanting to over-exert herself, or picking the right targets, though. She just didn't feel comfortable manipulating their emotions like this, snooping through their personal feelings.

She'd started going through the Love folder on Harley, simply looking for something to read to pass the time instead of listening to Harley go on about Kite-Man and how she thought he was overusing his catchphrase to stay relevant. Simply reading the words didn't cause any strain on her head, it was only when she tried to move the Sliders that the aching took hold. It made sense to her, in a way.

It didn't surprise her to find the Sliders on Joker and Pamela Isley to be long and bright green, but then she found a name that she wasn't expecting.

Sharon Quinzel. Slider, half full. Yellow.

She'd immediately closed her eyes, and collapsed the Love folder at that point, not reopening it and just tried her best to ignore the Sliders from that point on. Some things were just too personal, and she really didn't want to know about the family drama of the lady who wanted to kill her. Some things just felt wrong knowing about.

Man, her legs were really aching. If only she could move them. Maybe she could try making some noise, get Harley curious, and make her remove the rag, so she could tell her she needed to go to the bathroom?

She rolled her eyes, thinking that with her luck, the clown would probably think she was trying to chirp in on whatever rant she was going on about now, like how The Penguin should make up his mind about whether he wanted to be a serious, threatening gangster running the Gotham Underworld, or if he wanted to be a crazy lunatic like the rest of them with trick umbrellas going WAUGH, because it just made it weird when he tried to do both.

God, she just wanted to sleep. How long had she been awake now? Was it even still Friday? Did Harley never get tired?

A loud beeping erupted from her school uniform's pocket, startling her as she looked down. She'd known her phone was in there, but had given up hope on trying to get it to call the authorities, since her restraints were just too tight and secure. Still, she had held out hope that maybe once Ivy returned, she could make her so compassionate that she'd untie her, and then maybe she could stealthily send her location to the cops, warning them that two supervillains were holding her hostage.

Her heart sank as Harley stopped talking, turning her head towards the noise coming from Monika.

"Wuzzat?" She said, mouth still full of peanuts.

Monika could only watch as Harley got to her feet, and walked over to her, ran her hands up and down her body until she found the noisemaker, pulled it out of the pocket, muted it and inspected the screen.

"It says ya need to take yer medicine." Harley said, and Monika closed her eyes in exasperation. That meant the time was 06:00. She'd stayed up the whole night.

"Wowzers." Harley said, then stretched her arms, yawning widely. "Didn't expect ya to have a condition. What is it? ADHD? Wow, if so, sitting there like that must really be torture, huh?"

She giggled at that.

"Come on, tell me. I'm a Doctor, maybe I can get ya what ya need. Ya wouldn't have an alert on yer phone unless it was serious."

Monika thought that even if she was physically capable of answering, she wouldn't trust her with giving her so much as a vitamin.

"Is it blood pressure? Nah yer a little young for that, aren'tcha? Diabetes? I'd be happy to poke a needle or two inta ya."

That sounded mildly alarming.

"Not gonna answer, huh? Ooh, is it something yer ashamed of? Is it..." Harley held a hand in front of her mouth, fake gasping in shock. "...a mental illness?"

Monika really didn't feel comfortable with where her train of thought was going, and lowered her head so she didn't give anything away through facial expressions. Unfortunately, this seemed to have the opposite effect.

"Oooh, it is, isn't it. Come on, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. I've got like ten going on at the same time in here. So, yer a wacko like the rest of us, huh? What's the diagnosis? Sociopath? Psychopath?" Monika felt her get close to her face, to whisper into her ear.

"Nymphomaniac?"

Monika snapped her head upward, staring into Harley's face, eyebrows raised in disbelief over how she could even suggest that. Harley merely shrugged.

"What? Could be. Maybe it could even help ya a bit. Yer a student, right? Ya wanna climb up the ranks, get the best opportunities in life going forward, correct?"

She did, but she wasn't sure she liked whatever advice Harley was about to give her.

"In that case, ya should consider dressing less conservatively. I can see ya got some curves, but yer hidin' way too much of it. Lose the bra. Those legs won't do everything on their own."

Monika blushed, scandalized at what she was suggesting she should do, and looked down at the floor again.

"What?" Harley's amused voice. "It did wonders for my Doctor's degree. Eh, suit yerself."

There was a merciful silence for a bit, before Harley broke it yet again.

"Man, it really was an oversight that we didn't check fer phones before tying ya up. It looks a bit old though, so ya probably don't have the app where ya can share yer location with yer pals."

Monika chanced looking up again, to see what Harley was getting at now.

"Eh, better safe than sorry."

Monika's eyes widened, seeing the jester grab a baseball bat. She yelled and protested, the rag muffling everything, as Harley threw the phone high into the air, following it with her eyes as it surged upwards, then grabbed the shaft of the bat with both hands.

"Fore!" She yelled, swinging the bat upward where it made contact with the now descending phone, causing the device to explode in a cascade of electronic bits and glass, spreading all throughout the room.

Monika tried yelling no, but it came out as "MMPHF!"

"Ahh." Harley sighed, closing her eyes and smiling serenely. "I love breaking rich people's stuff. So satisfying."

She opened her eyes again, looking over at Monika's, filled with tears.

"Aww, cheer up, Moany. Yer can easily afford a new one. If ya ever get outta here, that is." Harley laughed.

And just in that moment, Monika felt something she'd never felt towards another living being before in her life.

Hate.

It made her forget about the discomfort that had been building for hours in her body, her aching head, everything else in the world. It simply burned all other feelings from her, to make room for a wild desire to see Harley die.

It wasn't just that she'd destroyed her phone, which she had valued greatly since she'd been 13 years old, taking great care not to break it despite her mom's prediction that it wouldn't last a month. She'd used it as a subtle way to rebel, showing her parents that things didn't have to be expensive to work.

It wasn't just that she'd robbed her of years of memories, in the form of her picture album, which she'd filled with hundreds of images through the years of her personal drawings, pets, Christmases, Birthdays, everything that felt like a momentous occasion, now forever gone, doomed to fall into the pit of forgotten memories.

It wasn't just that she'd destroyed her phone, laughing while she did it. It was because of everything she'd done to her since she'd called out for her in that alleyway.

She'd tricked her. Kidnapped her. Tied her up. Mocked her. Stuffed a disgusting rag in her mouth. Tried to KILL her. Kept her awake all night. Destroyed one of her most valued possessions. And what was she doing now?

Laughing. She was laughing at her.

And what had Monika been doing, what had she done to this woman that warranted her being treated this way?

Nothing. She'd done absolutely nothing to Harley, whatsoever.

And still she was laughing.

Monika hated her with every fiber of her being. Not just Harley herself, but everything about her. Her stupid skintight outfit, showing off her curves like a prostitute. Her stupid jester hat, constantly jingling every time she moved her head. Her stupid domino mask, she didn't even have a secret identity, what was the point. Her stupid, annoying, insufferably grating highpitched voice, like that of a cartoon character. She'd been forced to listen to that voice for hours on end, and she was convinced it wasn't even her real voice, just another front she put up, like her smile.

That damn, perpetual smile.

The way she put it up like a goddamn wall, as if it absolved her from her various wrongdoings. As if she could hide her real feelings behind it, take on any insults and criticism and keep on smiling to show that it didn't bother her, that nothing bothered her, and mocked anyone who would try to bother her, just by showing that smile.

But she couldn't hide her feelings from Monika. Not anymore.

And if Monika couldn't move, speak, or do anything else to make Harley feel even a fraction as bad as she'd felt the whole night, then at the very least she could remove that stupid, fucking smile from her face.

She looked at Harley, bent over, clutching her stomach, still laughing maniacally. The Sliders moved peacefully around her, their slow floating being a strange juxtaposition from their wild and energetic owner.

Monika focused in on the Joy Slider. It stopped floating immediately, sitting still to allow her to do what she wanted to it. It was green, because of course it was. Everything was just one big fat joke to this girl, wasn't it? They were all just entertainment to her, objects of ridicule that she could point her fingers at, laughing at the misery she created for them.

Let's see you laugh at this.

Monika could hardly even feel the pain erupting in her head as she lowered the Slider, the seething hate she felt deafening it. She watched as the Slider shortenend, changing hue to a paler green, then growing yellow.

The Slider was about at the half way point between full and empty, before Harley's laughter ebbed out at last. She was breathing heavily, a smile still on her face, but it didn't quite reach her eyes, which looked confused more than anything. As if she didn't know why she was smiling anymore.

The pain was making itself more known now, but Monika pushed through it, continuing to lower the Slider.

"Ow!" Harley yelled, grasping her head. "What the heck?"

So that confirmed Monika's ongoing theory that her Slider-adjusting affected the victims as much as it did her.

Good.

Harley's smile was gone now, a slight frown on her face as she looked around the room, confused. Like she didn't remember why she was even in this room.

Her gaze landed on Monika, who was still lowering her Joy Slider, it having gone all the way down to dark orange now.

"The heck are ya looking at?" Harley asked, an annoyed undertone in her voice.

Monika kept quiet. Really, what else could she do?

"Quit gawking at me!" Harley yelled, anger in her voice, as she walked up to the chairbound student. And was it just anger Monika could hear, or was there a slight hint of fear in the mix?

Nevertheless, she kept staring directly into Harley's eyes. She'd left the Slider just at the point before reaching red, the pain in her head simply being much too great to go on with it.

"Yer being pretty freaking rude, y'know!" Harley said, jabbing a finger hard against Monika's forehead.

It hurt like hell, but Monika didn't blink, keeping her stare up. It was downright therapeutic to see Harley this unnerved.

"Stop it!"

An impact to Monika's right cheek made her head turn sharply to the side, leaving a sharp sting in her cheek to accompany the thunderous headache she was having. She didn't realize what had happened at first, but when she turned her head back to investigate the source, she saw Harley's face, contorted in rage, holding up a flat hand.

She'd slapped her.

Monika started to laugh. It didn't sound quite right, coming out more like muffled clucking since the rag blocked alot of the sounds, but it was still clear what she was doing.

She wasn't sure why she was doing it, her head was on fire, her cheek was stinging, her whole body aching from being stuck in this position for so long. Maybe she was delirious from lack of sleep. Maybe something else. She didn't know.

All she knew, was that knowing she'd wiped the grin off of Harley's face and gotten her mad enough to resort to physical assault against her, all just from looking at her, was the most hilarious thing in the world right now.

She couldn't stop. It was actually painful to keep laughing, even discounting the headache. Everytime she stoppped to get her breath back she'd see Harley's confused and enraged face, which would get her started laughing all over again.

It was just so funny!

"Ya really are a freak, aren't ya?" Harley said, in a low voice, shaking with anger.

It only made Monika laugh harder. Would she die from lack of breath? How would that look on Harley? Would she brag to The Joker about being able to make people die of laughter without the use of toxins?

The thought made her laugh more.

"Screw this, and screw you. I'm going to bed." Harley said, turning around to head out of the door, walking briskly, as if she couldn't wait to get out of the room Monika was in. She slammed the door, hard, making the impact echo throughout the room.

After a few minutes, Monika finally got over her laughing fit.

She breathed heavily through her nose, and reveled in the quiet that had been left in Harley's absence. She relaxed her head, closing her eyes. She didn't have anywhere to support her head, so she just let it hang in the air. Add neck pain to the list of body parts that'd be sore when she woke up.

Her head ached, she was incredibly uncomfortable, and she didn't know what was going to happen to her when she awoke. Maybe Harley would be so angry that she'd disobey Ivy's orders and just kill her on sight. There wasn't a whole lot of positives to look at.

And yet, she couldn't help but smile as she drifted off to sleep.

I won.

---

"Here you go. How is that? Are you comfortable?" Ivy asked, a concerned tone in her voice.

"It's perfect. Thank you." Monika said, laying her head back into the soft flowers, enjoying the lightly fluttering petals on her cheeks. "I'm not hurting the plants or anything, am I?"

Ivy smiled.

"Not at all. I've spoken to them, and they've consented to give you a place to lay down. It's the least we could do after leaving you in that chair all night. Here, drink this."

Ivy handed her a steaming mug of... something, and Monika leaned up slightly to accept it in her hands. She took a careful sniff of the greenish liquid in the mug. Like everything else in the room, it had a floral smell, but nothing downright unpleasant.

She lifted the mug to her mouth, taking a sip.

"Oh wow." She said, taking another sip, then drinking deeply. The concoction seemed to spread thoughout her body, lingering at her sore joints, making the pain less intolerable. She'd never had something capable of relieving her pain this fast.

"This is amazing! What is it?" Monika asked, smiling up at Ivy.

Ivy smiled back, saying it was a special brew derived from the juices of a very rare plant that she'd convinced to give them this morning. It would heal all discomforts short of broken skin, in a matter of hours, as long as the subject remained relaxed.

Monika drinked the rest of the brew.

"I think a lot of people could benefit from having this type of medicine." She said.

Ivy chuckled a bit, taking the empty mug from Monika's hands, and carried it away.

"I'm sure they could. And, if humanity would stop cutting down forests and poisoning the environment, maybe the plants would give it to them."

Monika smiled nervously as she watched Ivy carry off the used cup. She thought it a good idea not to tell Ivy of her love for writing, which typically involved paper.

Although she wondered if that would make her raise as much as an eyebrow at her? She'd gone from one half of her kidnapping crew who wouldn't care if she died or not, to making her a downright luxurious bed of leaves and flowers.

All thanks to the Sliders.

Monika had wokened up, as sore as could be expected from the ridicoulus position she'd slept in, to find Poison Ivy exiting the door to what she assumed was her own personal room.

She'd found it very painful to even raise her head after letting it dangle for a good few hours, and had been alarmed when she'd looked to Ivy's compassion filter and seen the Slider below her own name having gone down.

Not that far down to make her fear for her own life, but still enough for it to be noticable. Even without the Slider telling her, she could tell Ivy's feelings weren't as compassionate as yesterday, when the plant lady had noticed her upright head and instead of wishing her a good morning or asking if she'd slept well, she'd simply said "Oh, right. You're here."

Monika had given a confirming grunt, rag still in her mouth, and had started willing the compassion towards herself to go further up again.

Always nice to start your morning by figuratively splitting your own head open.

After grasping her own head in pain and complaining about how her sleep hadn't helped her head at all, Ivy had looked at Monika again as if she was a totally different person from two seconds ago.

Her eyes had widened, and she'd asked if she'd spent the whole night like that, and Monika had given another affirming grunt. Eyes wide with concern, Ivy had reached into Monika's mouth, pulling out the rag now soaked in Monika's saliva, throwing it away.

Monika had thanked her, and Ivy had apologized for forgetting to retrieve it before going to bed. At this point, the Slider had reached faint levels of green.

Looking at her bindings, Ivy had made a sort of nervous noise in her throat, then told her that if she promised she wouldn't try to escape, she'd untie her. Monika had immediately jumped at the chance, reassuring her that she just wanted to lie down, on any surface they had available, even the floor would do.

Ivy did me one better than the floor though. She thought, closing her eyes peacefully as she let her body relax in the leaf and flower bed.

A loud bang from the other end of the room caused her to open her eyes, and sit up.

A door had been slammed open to reveal a young woman with loose, blonde hair in disarray, wearing an oversized white t-shirt and a pair of red and black shorts.

It took Monika a few seconds to identify her as Harley Quinn. That make-up and outfit really transformed her into something else.

She didn't need her Sliders to tell that the woman wasn't in a good mood, with the way she was scowling and keeping her head down, walking across the warehouse floor. It didn't appear as if she'd noticed Monika in her bed.

She wondered if she should hide before Harley saw her, but decided against it. Ivy was her ally for the time being, and she was literally lying in a bed of her soldiers. She doubted she could be better protected than she was now.

As the blonde came closer, Monika could hear her muttering under her breath.

"Need some damn coffee... gotta check if Red put any of that plant crap innit again... freaking head's killin' me... that little loser's gunna pay fer whatever she did to me..."

That didn't sound good. Monika looked over at Harley's Joy Slider, and noticed that it had actually gone up a bit since this morning. With both Harley and Ivy exibiting the same symptoms, it could no longer be chalked off as a coincidence.

Her changes weren't permanent. Eventually, she suspected, the Sliders would probably reset to the same level they'd been at before her tampering.

Good to know.

She wasn't really in a hurry to do anything to adjust it. She was still mad at her, and it didn't look like The Slider was climbing up at any alarming rate.

Harley passed by the empty chair Monika had spent the night in, oblivious to the lack of a person in it, staggering like a zombie towards a small table with a coffee maker on it. She began pouring coffee powder in the filter.

Then she suddenly did a complete 180 spin, spilling coffee powder all over herself, leaving her white shirt completely stained, as she stared with a wild expression at the chair she'd just walked past.

She began looking all around the room, scanning all available locations until finally spotting Monika in the flower bed.

Here we go.

She looked lost for words, which Monika thought was probably an unusual state for Harley to be in, but she quickly shook her head and made her way towards her.

"I don't know how ya managed ta get outta that chair," She said, anger clear in her voice. "But ya should have taken the chance to escape, cuz now Imma cut ya open and shove yer intestines down yer-"

"So, Monika, I was thinking that I'd give you this just to help your immune system against the toxins in he-"

Poison Ivy had exited the door to her room, holding what looked to be a syringe in her hand. She froze when she saw Harley who had also stopped moving towards Monika when Ivy had appeared.

"Ivy?" Harley's voice, disbelieving.

"Oh. Good morning, Harl. Sleep well?"

Harley ignored the question, and gestured towards Monika.

"The prisoner. She's escaped. And she's laying in yer babies."

Poison Ivy nodded.

"I'm well aware."

"Then why haven't ya murderized her?!" Harley screamed.

Both Monika and Ivy grimaced at the sudden volume increase.

"One, keep your voice down, please. Two, she's laying there because I let her."

"Ya never let me sleep in yer plants! I tried once, and ya screamed at me fer the whole day afterward."

"Harley, you have your own bed. I grew that bed, specially designed for her to lie there, so as to make sure both parties are comfortable. You went to sleep in my garden of very rare, very fragile, and very poisonous cacti."

"Excuses!" Harley yelled, and crossed her arms. "Why are we concerned about how comfortable she is? She's a cow fer the slaughter. It doesn't matter how she feels."

"I thought I made it clear last night about how we weren't going to kill her." Ivy said, a dangerous tone in her voice.

Harley sighed, and threw her head back, exasperated.

"Red. Please. Work with me here. What the heck are we gonna do with her? We can't keep her fer two freakin' months. We can't let her go, she'll go straight ta the cops."

"I really wouldn't." Monika cut in. "I would really just like to go home and try to forget any of this ever happened."

"Shut up!" Harley snapped, pointing a finger at her. "I can't stand yer annoying know-it-all voice."

Rich, coming from you.

Monika turned her gaze towards Ivy. She'd gotten an idea.

"Please, Ivy. Honey. Baby. Just let me kill her." Harley said, in a softer, pleading tone. "She was an investment mistake. These things happen, but we shouldn't let them fester on. Just lemme end this error, and let's ferget about it."

Ivy looked uncomfortable, and Monika could see why. Opening her Compassion folder, she could see that she was pretty much tied with Harley in the people Ivy cared about most. It must be hard to pick a side between the one you had actual, genuine feelings for, and the one who'd pushed herself into her life and forced positive feelings on her.

I could make it a bit easier to choose.

But could she really do this? Until now, she hadn't really done much to affect these people's personal lives. She'd done what she could to save her own skin from Ivy, and yeah, she'd made Harley a little less annoying, but she wouldn't say it was totally unjustified. She knew they were villains, but... wouldn't this cross a few lines?

"I... I don't know, Harley. She seems trustworthy. And she said she wasn't going to tell anyone. Can't we just let her go?" Ivy asked.

"Oh come on Red. Look at her. Ya don't actually believe that kinda crap she's spewing? She's a teenager, she's a student, and she's rich. Ya couldn't get a more accomplished liar than this if ya tried."

Welp, time to cross some lines.

With zero hesitation, Monika "searched" for Harley's name in Ivy's Compassion folder, found it, and lowered it considerably. She wondered briefly if she was causing internal damages to her head by doing this so much, squinting a little from the now familiar pain.

"Out of my way, Harley." Poison Ivy said, coldly, and walked against her so their shoulders collided, and Harley had to stand aside.

Harley had a look of surprised hurt on her face, as she saw Ivy bend down next to Monika, and started fidgeting with the syringe.

"Now, Monika, there are a few low level toxins in the air here, that I create naturally from my pores. They aren't that poisonous, but you might be affected a bit if you stay here for too long. This serum will strenghten your immune system, making you extremely resistant to most toxins, poisons and venoms."

"Wait, what?" Harley asked. "Isn't that the same thingie ya gave to me when we met and I crashed at yer hideout?"

"I believe so." Poison Ivy said, not even trying to keep the same warm tone of voice as she did with Monika. "What about it?"

"Y-ya told me ya d-don't give those ta just everyone. T-that it's only fer s-special people in yer life." Harley's voice was slightly breaking, and Monika could see her eyes were looking more shiny and wet than usual.

"I thought that was the case, too. But apparently I gave it to you." Ivy said.

Harley looked like she'd been stabbed in the heart.

Poison Ivy rolled up Monika's sleeve. Normally, Monika would be extremely hesitant to let a supervillain with "poison" literally in her name inject anything inside her (she even hated getting her shots at the Doctor's) but the Compassion folder on Ivy told her that she was now the plant lady's most valued companion, a good few steps above Harley, and she knew that Ivy would never hurt her. Plus, she really enjoyed seeing Harley's reactions to this. Did that make her a bad person? Maybe. But you couldn't say she wasn't justified, after the things they'd done to her.

Not wanting to watch the needle break her skin, Monika put on her best game face and looked unflinchingly into Harley's eyes as Ivy injected her. A single tear rolled down Harley's face.

Then, her brows furrowed.

"She's the one doing this." She said, in a dark voice.

"What are you rambling about this time?" Ivy asked, tired.

"Her." Harley pointed a finger at Monika. "She's doing something to us. Messing with us. I don't know how, but she's the only reason for why things have been so weird."

Monika raised an eyebrow. How would this unfold?

"Weird? Weird how?" Ivy asked absently, as she taped a small piece of cotton over the small hole where she'd pricked Monika.

"Are ya kidding? I've seen ya strangle dogs fer barking too loud at grass. Suddenly ya don't wanna off this kid? Ya gonna make her a luxurious flower bed? Can't ya see how out-of-character yer being?!"

Ivy turned around to look at Harley, a look of unconcern in her eyes.

"So what, this child is secretly some machiavellian scheming mastermind? Tugging on her strings to make us do her bidding? Even for your standards, it's a lame joke, Harley."

"I ain't joking." Harley said, scowling. "I haven't been able to since this morning. Ever since I guarded that bitch, I haven't been able to see the funny side of anything. I can't joke, I can't smile, I can't even laugh."

"Well then." Poison Ivy said, shooting a sideways glance at Monika. "My compliments to the chef. It's not a lot of people who can make Harley shut up, but you managed to do it with your spooky mind powers!"

She said the last part in an exaggerated, goofy voice, and Monika smiled, knowing now that she wasn't in any danger.

"Can you make her Hyenas stop barking next?" Ivy said, smiling back.

"I'll certainly try!" Monika said, playing along.

"The only way ya get to meet Bud and Lou is when I feed them yer corpse!" Harley yelled, angrily.

"Harley, be quiet. You know I've got a headache."

"The headaches, that's it!" Harley said, snapping her fingers as if she just thought of something. "Yer head started hurting back when ya refused to let me kill her, didn't it?"

Ivy rolled her eyes.

"I don't remember, Harley. You're really reaching he-"

"No, no, just listen ta me! She's about ta be killed, so she uses her weird powers to get ya to feel all sorry fer her. Then, she uses them on me because she's sadistic and won't let me have fun. I got a headache too last night! It fits! And now she's trying to make us turn on each other, by making ya act like a bitch."

"Oh, I'm a bitch now, am I?" Ivy asked, unimpressed.

"Don't worry. Once I kill her, and things return ta normal, I'll accept yer full apology."

"You will not harm her."

"It'll just take a moment and then we'll be best buds again..."

"Stop!" Ivy yelled, and Harley flinched.

"You seem to have given this matter a lot of thought, jumping through hoops to make this high school student the bad guy here. But did you ever stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, it's you who's the problem?"

Harley widened her eyes.

"W-what?" She asked in a small voice.

"I've dealt with a lot of crap from you. Crap that I've overlooked because I felt sorry for you. Your childhood. Your parents. Everything with Him. But I just can't do it anymore. You let your Hyenas run amok in my botanical gardens. You muck up my carefully calculated plans by 'going with the flow' when we try and rob someplace. You make everyone around you a walking target for The Joker just by being around them, you let him hurt and cripple you and your friends, and yet you STILL always return to him as his partner at the end of the day. I could be ruling Gotham, could have turned the entire city into my own personal jungle, if it wasn't for you constantly weighing me down!"

"Please, Pammie!" Harley pleaded, tears in her eyes. "This isn't like ya! Ya wouldn't be saying that stuff if she didn't make ya! It's all her fau-"

"Shut up. I can't stand listening to that voice of yours." Poison Ivy interrupted, in an icy voice. "There you go again. Blaming everyone for your problems in life except yourself. You're never to blame, are you? It wasn't you being dumb that made you drop out of high school, it was the education system's! If it wasn't for all the pervs at medical school, you wouldn't have had to sleep with your professors to get your degree! You didn't turn to a life of crime, The Joker made you! It's not your fault you haven't been rehabilitated, it's because Batman and Arkham has given you PTSD! It's not you being a toxic, attention seeking lost cause who ruins everyone's lifes just by being in them that makes me say all of this, nooo, it's the magical mental powers of this innocent school girl you kidnapped!

Harley was sobbing wildly, and walked forward to try to hug her friend, but Ivy took a step back, out of her reach.

"Don't touch me. This isn't going to be like those times where you mess up, and think you can fix everything by being cute. I'm done. Done with you messing everything up, done with letting you crash when The Joker kicks you out, done with you, and that creep constantly invading my life. I'm done being your babysitter, Harley." Ivy turned her back.

"O-okay, I-Ivy." Harley said, through tears and sobs. "I-I'm g-going t-to l-leave ya be, i-if t-that's w-what ya w-want."

"Good. Then leave."

"J-just one l-last thing to d-do." Harley said, wiping away her tears. Then, moving faster than Monika's eyes could follow, Harley had reached back into her shorts, and drawn a gun. She squinted, taking aim directly at Monika's face.

"Ivy!" Monika yelled, unable to move, staring down the barrel of the gun.

Ivy turned around, and a vine shot out from the ground, breaking through the concrete floor of the warehouse at an unfathomable speed. Before Harley could pull the trigger, the vine had wrapped itself around her arm holding the gun, and twisted itself, pulling Harley's arm in a whole other direction.

Harley yelled in surprise, and fired the gun.

A loud bang echoed throughout the room, and shocked silence followed. Then, an inhuman roar from the other end of the room.

All their heads turned, seeing the monstrous, purpleheaded plant at the end of the room shaking and trembling, before collapsing to the ground. Yellow bile was flowing from a small hole in its stalk. A few seconds later, it had stopped moving.

Ivy turned her head to look at Harley, her face contorted in pure rage.

Harley dropped the gun, letting it fall to the ground with a loud clang.

"I- I'm sorry Ivy, I didn't mean to-"

"You killed him!" Ivy screamed, her hair raising, billowing around her head in every direction, her voice amplified, her eyes losing their irises, glowing brightly.

Vines were shooting up from the ground, wiggling wildly, making their way towards Harley.

One made a move to grab her waist, but Harley jumped into the air, spinning around and landing on her feet a few meters away.

"Kill her! Don't let her escape!" Ivy was yelling, enraged, as she pointed her finger at her former partner.

More vines shot up from the ground, and Harley had to use every acrobatic jump she could think of to dodge through the attacking forest, jumping in hoops, curling herself into a ball, and weaving herself out from the vines.

The plants were fast, but it seemed like Harley was faster, making her way to a far away door, going through it, out of sight.

Monika rised from her bed, and her and Ivy walked over to the giant purple plant with teeth, laying pitifully in its corner. Ivy collapsed to her knees, sobbing.

Monika felt awkward, standing there with the crying supervillainess and the dead plant. She'd never been at a funeral before, but she doubted she'd know what to say in this situation even if she'd been at a thousand.

Should she take this opportunity to leave the warehouse?

No, all the compassion in the world didn't make up for the fact that she'd be leaving behind a mentally unstable woman who could control all plant life. Plus, she had no way of knowing how far Harley had gotten. She wouldn't put it past her to have a sniper ready to take her out the moment she was out on the street.

Better to be staying here, for now. Once Ivy had gotten over the death of her plant, maybe she could start convincing her to let her go.

"I'm sorry about... him."" She said, feeling incredibly awkward, as she sat down next to Ivy, looking at the gigantic plant. "Did... did he have a name?"

"I called him Alex." Ivy said, tears flowing freely from her eyes.

"How... how old was Alex?"

"T-two months." Ivy sobbed, hiding her face behind her hands. "I made him from scratch. He was the first of his kind. He... he was going to finally k-kill B-Batman!"

Her voice broke, and she made a bunch of half-choked noises.

Monika clapped her shoulder a few times. This situation was so weird to be in.

"I- I'm sure he wouldn't have stood a chance against Alex."

Poison Ivy turned her head, looking into Monika's eyes. Then, she threw her arms around her, and tightened her grip.

Monika tried resisting, thinking it was an attack at first. Maybe Ivy had realized she had messed with her emotions, and had come to the correct conclusion that it was her fault Alex had died, but no, it seemed like it was just a hug. It felt strangely... nice. She didn't have many friends, so it wasn't that common for her to receive hugs. Last one had been from her new friend at school.

She really liked getting them, and hoped her last one wouldn't be from Poison Ivy.

"Thank you so much for being here, Monika. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Oh boy.

How the hell should she respond to that? 'No problem Ivy, any time you wanna kidnap me and make me twist your emotions to make your best friend into your new worst enemy, I'm your gal!'

She supposed she could just use the first part of that.

"No... no problem, Ivy." She said, and clasped her own arms around Ivy, laying her hands on her bare shoulders. She really wished she would wear more clothes. This was so weird.

Eventually, after many tears had been shed, Ivy turned to the dead plant, and laid her hands on its lifeless, purple head. She began saying that she loved him, that he was taken from her too soon, and he would be remembered, before bending her head down, and planting a kiss on the head.

Soon enough, cracks started forming in the plant at a fast rate, before the entire thing withered apart, and what looked like white snowflakes floated from what now resembled a big pile of ash.

"Spores." Ivy said, gesturing towards the snowflakes. "They'll drift around the room for a week, settling themselves on the other plants, making them healthier, stronger. Alex c-can help them even though he himself is d-dead."

She started crying again, and Monika once again had no idea what to do.

She decided against altering her Sliders to stop her crying. She'd really messed things up today, and she wasn't entirely sure if it was for the better, or worse. Plus, she doubted she could handle more pain from manipulating them for more than a few milimeters, and that wouldn't be nearly enough.

She settled to just be a shoulder for Ivy to cry on for the rest of the day, wondering how on earth she would ever get out of this mess.

---

Monika was running across the grassy fields, a determined smile on her face as she rushed towards her goal.

The castle was off in the distance, spiralling brick walls towering up way past the eye could see. Inside, she knew the princess was waiting for her, captured by the evil menace who'd been plaguing this land for too long.

Monika jumped, launching herself several feet into the air, connecting her outstretched fist with a block floating in midair. The block glittered, and Alex, the giant carnivorous plant emerged from it, giving her a toothy grin before exploding, spores spreading all over the place.

Monika laughed joyfully as she landed on the ground again, extending her arms into the air to collect as many of the descending spores as she could, even sticking out her tongue to catch some in her mouth.

Tasted like candyfloss.

She felt their power surge through her, and moved forward, travelling several meters with a single step.

A speed boost!

She started running, and the world started to blur around her as she built up speed. She'd reach the castle in no time!

Reptilian monsters were guarding the castle, holding onto swords, hammers and axes as they watched her approach. She plunged her feet into the ground, sliding a bit as her momentum stopped. Some of the monsters hissed menacingly at her.

She smirked. Clearly, they had no idea who they were dealing with.

She leapt into the air, laughing ecstatically as the creatures stared up after her, dumbfounded by her sheer speed and agility. They didn't even move out of the way as she landed on their faces, making them explode into a dustcloud of glitter and confetti. A couple of them started running away, clearly unprepared for her raw power.

She looked on as she watched them slither away, their tails wiggling in panic. She raised her hands, aiming them towards the fleeting menaces. She couldn't let them escape. They were worth points.

Flames surged from her hands, as orbs of crimson ember shot out of her palms, bouncing along the plains as they made impact with the monsters. They screamed out in fear as the orbs connected with their bodies, but the noises quickly died out as they were consumed by the flames, and dematerialized into more dustclouds of glitter. Repeating the process a few times, she turned her gaze towards the only reptile left, a small one who hadn't bothered to run, instead leaning up against the brick wall of the castle, as if hoping she would somehow miss it.

Fat chance.

It screamed in fear as she raised her hand towards the creature, the glow from her palm reflected in it's wide eye, before it too, was obliterated from this world.

Monika heard a loud ding from above, and turned her head upward to see giant floating numbers, changing colours as they showed her score.

Satisfied, Monika pulled a lever embedded into the castle wall, releasing the drawbridge which revealed the giant dark doorway into the building.

Monika started proceeding inside, ready to get to the next level, but stopped when she saw slight movement in the darkness.

She squinted her eyes, trying to see through the blackness, and spotted a small, feminine figure, sitting alone on a chair in the middle of the room. The princess?

No. Not the princess.

She was dressed in a red and black court jester outfit, the white frills covering her neck littered with bells that jingled omniously even though the figure wasn't moving at all. Her back was turned to Monika, and her head was turned downwards, hiding her face.

Monika tried to say something, but found that her lips were glued together. She tried to move, but found a similar situation had happened to her legs. She could only stand there, and the loss of control sent cold shivers down her spine.

The figure turned her head slightly, not enough to reveal her face, but Monika noticed how odd her movements, no, her whole textures seemed to be. Like an early computer graphic animation, with blurry surfaces that didn't match the rest of the world.

"Is this all a game to you, Monika?"

The voice was scratchy, and seemed to come from far away, through the speakers of an old, busted radio, and yet it was right in her ear. She tried to scream, tried to will her body to move, to run away, but instead, she took a step towards the figure in the chair.

She didn't want to approach it. It was wrong, it would bring her harm, it would kill her if she got closer. But her body was moving towards it regardless, ignoring her panicked thoughts and pleas to turn around and run away.

She could move her lips again, and she struggled to say something, plead for her life, anything at all.

"I- I- I- P- p- pl- ple-"

She was so afraid, she couldn't even form words, instead stuttering meaninglessly.

The figure rose from its chair with weird, distorted janky movements. Monika saw that its limbs ended in sharp points, without hands or feet.

"You were never in control, Monika. They were."

The scratchy voice was louder now, yelling and hissing aggressively at her.

Then, it turned its head, and Monika's heart rose to her throat.

A pale white face without eyes or mouth, instead sporting only three black squares, pulsating, no, glitching wildly. It reached out for her with its pointed limbs, screeching at her.

She could move again, and quickly turned around, running as fast as she could, away from the creature, but after a few meters she collided with an invisible barrier, and fell.

Stunned, she got to her feet again, and held up a hand, feeling the glass wall in front of her. She curled her hands into fists, pounding at the wall, trying to scream, the creature would catch up to her any minute now!

The wall didn't budge, and no sound came out of her throat.

Static noise was growing louder behind her, and she looked around despite herself. The monster was standing in front of her, pointed limbs stabbing into the ground, black squares flickering madly around its face, but that wasn't the most horrifying part.

She could see its Sliders. They weren't flowing peacefully around it, instead zooming around at speeds so fast she couldn't even read the words, and the bars were going haywire, constantly refilling and emptying themselves.

"Look to your saviours, Monika!"

The monster pointed its limb behind her, and Monika turned her head, looking at the glass wall. She could look through it now, seeing a whole other world. A slightly lit room, with a giant silhouette of a person, sitting at a desk chair, observing her panic without even moving. The dark shadows obscured his face, so she couldn't make out any features. His hands were holding what appeared to be a massive computer mouse, and keyboard.

With crushing dread, she realized what she was looking at.

A screen.

And she was on the wrong side.

Monika yelped, and woke up in the flower bed covered in cold sweat, taking in quick breaths. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was, and why.

Kidnapped. Warehouse. Supervillains.

She sighed heavily, laying her head back in the soft flowers. She never thought she'd be relieved to find herself here. What a horrible nightmare. She'd been so scared, and yet now that she was lying here, able to think rationally, she was kinda embarrased at how nonsensical it had been. Why had her brain thinked up that scenario?

She turned in her bed, trying to lay more comfortably. Plants, although not exactly unpleasant, still made for an unusual bed, that she hadn't gotten used to yet. Oh god, she hoped she wouldn't be there long enough to get used to them.

It was really dark in the empty warehouse. Her nightmare hadn't faded enough, and her heart was still beating a bit too fast as she pictured the monster in her dream again. That face...

She tried to think pleasant thoughts. School. Piano. Books.

It didn't work. She was still scared.

She turned to her other side, hoping the movement would somehow distract her mind from her thoughts, and her eyes saw a red and black figure directly in front of her.

Her heart skipped a beat, and her blood ran cold. She remembered the creature from her dream, its janky movements, its feetless legs, its scratchy voice, its face... She kept her eyes trained on the lower torso. She didn't want to look up and see the face again.

She shut her eyes, hard. It was just a second dream, nothing more. A very realistic dream. Where she could clearly feel everything around her. And had clearer thoughts than in any other dream she'd had. And she knew it was a dream.

It's not a dream.

She kept her eyes closed. She should have run the moment she saw it. Called for Ivy. She could still do that, if it were still there. Maybe it had left? Had she fooled it into thinking she was sleeping? Why would that matter? Why didn't it just stab her with those pointed limbs?

She opened her eyes just to check. Nothing there.

She sighed, relieved. Just an afterimage from the dream. That was a thing, right? Things like that happened all the time. Totally.

She turned around on her back, closing her eyes and tried to relax. She should try to get to sleep again. Maybe tomorrow she could make some progress in escaping this pla-

A sudden blunt impact on her mouth made her eyes open, and see a white face staring at her from upside down. At first she thought it was the monster from her nightmare, but she quickly noticed that instead of black squares it was a domino mask behind which were the angry blue eyes of Harley Quinn.

Not much better than the monster, really.

The villain's hand was clasped tightly on top of her mouth, preventing her from screaming. She could see the Sliders around Harley's face, Joy being a slightly lighter shade of orange, and Anger being bright green.

She was in trouble.

"I'm going to remove my hand." Harley said, in a quiet, calm voice. "I have a gun. If ya try and scream, yer gonna die. I probably will too, since Ivy will awaken. But I will get ya first. So it's in both of our best interests to not make a sound, capisce?"

Monika didn't trust for a second that she wouldn't try to kill her regardless of if she stayed quiet or not, but nodded anyway, and felt the hand move away from her mouth.

"Gettup." Harley whispered, and Monika got out of the bed.

Maybe she could save herself by messing with the Sliders? She opened up Harley's Compassion folder, and searched for her own name.

Oh wow.

She could barely even see the thin line of red that made up her Slider. Bringing that thing up would take time, and it would likely knock her out from sheer pain.

"I know what yer thinking of, and lemme just warn ya." Harley said, pulling her gun out and aiming it directly at Monika's head. "I dunno how yer doing it, but if I feel any sudden mood swings or unexplainable feelings towards ya or anyone else, imma shoot ya. And I'm pretty sure I have bipolar disorder in the grab-bag of mental illnesses I've stacked up over the years, so ya best be really careful about yer next move."

Monika collapsed the Compassion folder, nodding to show that she understood.

"Great. Now move. Out the door by the end of the room. Careful ya don't touch any plants, or else."

Monika obliged, moving slowly towards the door, squinting in the darkness to make sure there wasn't any leaves or vines on the ground that she'd accidentally step on.

What was Harley's plan here? She'd said she was willing to die by Ivy's hands if it meant killing her too, but only if she alerted Ivy first. Was Harley going to make her go far enough out of reach so she could just kill her without dying herself? Should she really be resisting, call out for Ivy and making sure Harley took the fall as well? Would it help if she died, knowing her killer would face the same consequence?

It really was a lose-lose situation. She had to hope that a better opportunity would present itself in a bit.

They reached the door, and Harley waved her gun from behind, signaling for Monika to open it. Behind the door was a long dark, narrow tunnel with another set of doors by the end.

"Pam likes ta keep her domain contained to one area." Harley whispered. "Think of this as an airlock, making sure that our warehouse is isolated from the rest of the city. Now, move. We ain't got all night."

Monika started walking, hyper aware of the fact that she had no way of escape. She ran to the doors, Harley would shoot her. She couldn't turn around, because Harley was right behind her, and would shoot. She couldn't do anything with her Sliders, and fighting her head on was suicide.

Her heart pounded as she reached the other set of doors, and, getting approval from Harley, opened them.

Cold night air overwhelmed her senses, and she stood still, taking it all in. The air in the warehouse had been vaguely damp and moist, like that of a greenhouse. Even though it had probably been cleaner inside, the faint feeling of Gotham City's lightly polluted air felt good on her skin.

Well, at least if I die now, it'll be in the city I grew up in.

It was a very depressing thought, but she couldn't really do any better than that.

"Keep moving." Harley said, impatiently.

Monika stepped further outside.

She'd never guess they'd been here all this time. It was a bleary old construction site, filled with abandoned, half finished buildings. She looked behind her to see the warehouse, littered with grafitti, no hints whatsoever of the jungle inside.

She stopped sightseeing when Harley grabbed her roughly by her uniform's collar, and dragged her to the side. She didn't attempt to resist. What chance did she have?

A particularly hard pull from the jester send her stumbling, colliding into the wall of one of the half-finished buildings. She grunted slightly at the impact.

A primal yell from behind alerted her, and she turned her head just in time to see Harley's raised fist come flying towards her, and next thing she knew, she was collapsed on the ground, a dull pain on her cheek. She moved her hand up to touch the spot gingerly. It was wet. Blood.

She'd never been slapped or hit her entire life, and in less than a day, she'd tried both. By the same person. She preferred the slap, because while that had stung more, the pain from the fist was harder, and it lingered. Like an aftertaste.

She looked up at Harley, who was panting heavily, shoulders rising and falling rythmically.

"Do ya have ANY idea," She said, moving her leg backwards, before kicking it straight in between Monika's ribs, making her lose all the air in her lungs, and causing her head to fall down into the gravel on the ground again.

"...how bad a day I've had today?!" Harley screamed at her, and kicked her again. Monika gasped, struggling to breathe. It felt like she could only suck in the absolute minimum of air required.

"Everyone keeps telling me how bad Mistah J is for me. How he abuses me, brainwashed me, ruined my life. But if that miserable clown taught me anything at all, it was to smile when things got hard, to laugh when life deals ya shitty cards. And now, thanks to you,"

Another kick. Monika coughed wildly, and when she opened her eyes she could make out dark wet stains in the twilight, on the gravel in front of her face.

"...I can't even do that anymore!" Harley finished. "My life is a mess, but at least before, it was an entertaining mess! One I could think back on, and laugh! Now, everything's just dark and depressing and not. funny!"

She emphasized the last two words by kicking Monika's side twice. Monika just grit her teeth, and took the blows, waiting for her to fire the gun. There was no way she was getting away this time. This was her final stand, and if she had to die, at least she wouldn't give Harley the satisfaction of seeing her cry again.

"Is this how normal people feel? If so, I hate it! I don't dress up in spandex because I wanna be normal! What's the point of insanity if I can't even fucking laugh about it?!"

Another kick.

"But hey, at least I've got my best friend, Poison Ivy, to help me through this scary new part of my life. She's the shining light in this swirling sea of shit that ya turned my mind into. With her by my side, we can overcome everything, together!"

Harley took a deep breath, then screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Except ya had to take her away from me too!" She bellowed, her voice breaking. "It wasn't enough for ya to remove my happiness, the one thing I use to cope with this horrible world we live in, ya had to make the one person who could help me through it hate my guts!"

Three kicks to Monika's side.

Just get it over with already.

Harley panted loudly. Then, her voice became quieter, more level.

"Felt good to get that out. Alright girlie, now scram."

Monika looked up, seeing Harley's look of uncaring disdain on her face, wondering if she'd heard correctly. Was this a joke? She shouldn't be able to make those.

"W-what?" She asked, hesitantly.

"Ya heard me. Scram. Git. Leave, and never come back." Harley said. "I didn't kick ya too hard, so the internal bleeding shouldn't be that bad."

"Why-" Monika coughed. "Why aren't you killing me?"

"Believe me, I want to. More than anything else right now. If I thought killing ya would put an end to the things ya've done to me and Ivy's head, we wouldn't be having this talk right now. Heck, if I were still able to laugh, I'd probably just shoot ya because it'd be funny. But this thing ya've done to me is making me think differently than usual. It's making me think rationally."

She stuck her tongue out and made a gagging sound, as if disgusted by the word she'd had to utter.

"Ya made Ivy inta a member of yer fanclub. If I want any hope of becoming friends with her again, I can't kill ya. I can't cover my tracks well enough for her to not find out, and I can't lie to her if I want her trust."

She sighed.

"It's gonna be tough regardless. She was really proud of Alex. I'mma need to pull out all the stops for this screwup. Take the dishes for three months. Invite her to dinners. Some real romantic crap."

She looked at Monika, and the student saw tears roll down her cheek from behind her mask, staining her makeup.

"But I will make it up to her. I won't let the mind-whammy of some snot-nosed brat end the thing we have together. I will not let you decide the feelings I have. Yer a nobody, and I'm Harley fucking Quinn!"

Monika could see her Joy Slider go up at that, just a little bit.

"I hate ya. More than I've ever hated anyone else in my whole life, and I've met some real jerks. But yer so insignificant, I can't even be bothered to off ya."

Monika couldn't believe it. She was actually getting to live? She struggled to rise from the ground, coughing as she did. Her side was doing a real number on her.

Harley had turned her back on Monika, and was already walking back towards the warehouse.

"Oh, and Monika?"

Monika looked up, stunned. That was the first time Harley had said her name correctly. The Jester had turned her head, looking at Monika with a sideway glance.

"If I ever see you again, I won't hesitate. Not even a second. I will kill you."

Her voice was low, having lost the highpitched girly aspect, sounding almost... normal.

Monika swallowed.

"Noted." She said.

"Hurry up and leave already, before I change my mind. Bi-polar, remember?"

With great effort, Monika managed to get to her feet. She looked behind her, making sure Harley wasn't turning around, yelling "PSYCHE!" wielding a giant mallet.

She took a tentative step, grunted, and grasped her side as pain shot through her body.

Keep moving. Don't show weakness. Get home.

She started staggering off the construction side.

---

It took her a while to get to a street sign, finally discovering that she was somewhere in Amusement Mile.

She rolled her eyes.

Of course that's where they were.

She still felt the pain in her side with every step, but she could hide it better now. With a clear idea of where she was now, she started making her way home.

The streets of Gotham were almost completely deserted. She knew it was a very poor part of town she was in right now, and not many people came here, even at decent hours.

The thought of calling the police occurred to her, but she quickly dismissed it. She no longer had a phone, and no money for a payphone. Plus she'd probably had to be present for the arrest, and she just wanted to get home, and get some sleep.

She was so tired.

She had her head bent low, and as a result, didn't notice the woman right in front of her, colliding with her side. She was thankful it wasn't the side Harley had kicked.

"Oi, watch where yer goin'!"

"Sorry, didn't see y-" Monika paused mid-sentence, as she looked up at the woman.

Her hair was buzzed short at her sides, leaving a mo-hawk of sorts in the middle, a very cheap dye colouring it red. Her ears and nose were littered with piercings, and her face itself were covered in a very unappealing glitter-mascara. Her clothes consisted of a tight lowcut blouse that didn't even go down to her navel, showcasing a massive chest, which unlike Ivy's, left no doubt of their plastic origins.

Below the torso were some ripped shorts that started late and ended early, followed by some fishnet stockings and a pair of high heels.

A lit cigarette were resting between her fingers. It didn't take much guesswork to figure out what her profession was.

But it wasn't her appearance that made Monika silent. It was the Sliders.

They were floating lightly around the woman, the same way as the ones on Ivy and Harley had. Anger bright yellow, Joy almost as low as Harley's had been at the peak of Monika's tampering, Sadness a healthy green.

They really were on everyone, weren't they?

"Wot's with the staring?" The woman asked, looking annoyed at her. Monika couldn't bring herself to answer.

"Ya looking ta hire me for the night?" She asked, raising an overly long, fake eyebrow. "How old are ya even? Nevermind, don't wanna know. I'm not really into girls, so it's gonna cost ya extra. If ya got any booze, I'll give ya a discount tho."

Monika snapped out of her thoughts, realizing what she was saying. Disgusted, she pulled up the woman's Shame Slider, and made it go up.

Almost immediately, the woman held a hand to her head, and looked at her other hand, holding the cigarette. She dropped it on the ground, snuffing it out with the tip of her boot.

"Wot am I doing with my life..." She mumbled, walking away.

Monika grasped her own head.

Stupid.

Now she had both side pains, and head pains.

She reflected a bit on how easy that had been, messing a bit with a Slider and making the street walker reflect on her life choices, just like that. It didn't feel real. She hadn't seemed real. Like she was just an... NPC, for lack of a better term. A Nonplayable Character, simply added to give the world around her some flavor, to seem more realistic. With exposed stats that Monika were able to freely manipulate as she pleased. Were everyone else on the planet like that? Were they all... fake?

She caught some movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned her head.

She gasped.

She was looking at the window of a closed shop, seeing her own vague reflection. Her hair was a mess, and even in the faint light of a flickering streetlamp she could see the bruise near her lip from where Harley had hit her.

And she saw something else, too.

Did this mean...?

She shook her head, looking away from the reflective glass surface, and walked briskly away. She was way too tired to even begin thinking about what this meant for her existence. She looked upwards, spotting a neon clock perched on a building high above, accompanied by some gargoyles. 01:23. She really needed to go to bed. Tomorrow was a school day. First thing when she got home would be collapse in her bed.

A rank smell invaded her nostrils, and she raised her arm high, and lowered her head to sniff at her armpit.

She made a face.

Maybe she should shower first.

---

Author Notes:

Hope you'll enjoy this story! I've spent months thinking about this concept, combining two franchises I love so very much, and I'm excited (and terrified) to share it with all of you.

A couple of notes about this universe though: Despite what you might think, I am a human, so naturally I haven't read every single issue of DC Comics, so there will be inaccuracies, some of which are intentional, and some of which are ignorance. I'm not following any kind of specific canon, like New 52, Post Crisis or DCAU, but just sort of mixing and matching the parts I like from the comics, shows and videogames, as well as my own personal headcanons and interpretations.

That might sound like a weird thing to do, but in fairness it's a bit weird as well to combine the DCU with Doki Doki in the first place, so hopefully you can let it slide.

I promise I won't stray too far from the general well known DCU, like giving Superman a handlebar moustache. Or maybe I will, because that honestly sounds amazing.