Of Savages and Kings (part two)
The low muttering of voices from the other side of the door reassured them that Harley had yet to reap her vengeance upon the seemingly helpless Jonas. That would not remain the same for long.
Emily, Erik, and Nightshade stood outside the closed door of the den watching as Batman struggled almost pitifully in vain to get the electronically sealed down open.
"You should stop; these doors are all electronically operated. You'll end up wearing yourself down before you do the door." Emily suggested.
"What?" Batman asked.
Emily sighed slightly annoyed as she placed her hand on her hip dressed in a tight black skirt, "What do you expect low-maintenance security in a place like this?" She asked waving her hand around at the elaborately decorated penthouse. "All of these doors can be sealed airtight if you wished. Unless you can change the current flow or short-circuit it somehow then there is no way in hell we're getting in." She said crossing her arms over her chest.
Batman stared in small shock having being told off, yet he was also amazed at how intelligent Emily really was. "Now I know where Harley really gets it." Nightshade said underneath his voice.
Batman looked at the two people standing uselessly behind him. "Give me some time and I'll have this door wide open."
Meanwhile inside the den/office
Jonas struggled to find a way to stall his time long enough that so he may find a way to survive his encounter with his ex-slave. His eyes locked onto her as she slowly stalked him in large circles vanishing and reappearing, slipping in and out of the shadows like a black panther hunting her pray. "Sneak, sneak, sneak. Stalk, stalk, stalk." She announced her actions her voice coming for all directions at once.
She laughed as she spoke to him, gloating as he had done onto her. "My how the tables have turned." Harley snickered crudely.
Jonas watched as she appeared to his left and vanished once again into the dark once again. "Harley it has been almost a full day since your last dosage. Your headaches must be brothering you fiercely right now." He said with mock concern as he inched carefully towards his desk.
"Like a bitch. I'm starting to see red now in place of colors. But I won't mind it once I see real red, like your blood." Harley's voice said from somewhere, though one could not see her face it was easy to actually hear the sneer in her voice.
Jonas picked out a small medicine bottle from his desk drawer. "Here, I have the cure for that." He said.
A hand reached out from the darkness snatching the bottle away from his hand, and then just as the hand had come a flying knee dug into Jonas's abdomen dropping him onto his knees.
Harley spun into the light transmitted by the aquarium glow giggling madly as she held the bottle of blue pills in her hand. "You can't use that old trick on me anymore. I built up an immunity for these little things by the second week you gave them to me. The only reason I'm standing now is because I drugged myself up on some Joker venom before coming here." She laughed opening the bottle.
Grunting Jonas stood onto his feet, "So all that time..." Jonas began but stopped as the reasoning of it all made no sense.
Harley smiled as suddenly her eyes went blank as if drugged then just as quickly returned to their lively glare. "So all that time you though you had me under your thumb I had the power to snap it off." She laughed pouring the pills onto the ground.
Jonas quickly got onto his feet and swung catching Harley once in the face. "Then why?" He asked swinging again missing.
"Simple master...HA master that's a good one." Harley smiled as she kicked him behind the knees forcing him onto the ground so that his face was on the floor with the pills. "It's a little something my beloved Red know and understands. I get bored of being in charge and independent. Main reason why I let him dominate in the sack. When I discovered the pills were useless I decided to play along." She said stepping on the pills grounding them to near powder.
"Play along?" Jonas asked looking up at Harley. His eyes were met with the barrel of Harley's infamous popgun.
"Yes, you see I wanted to be rescued by my red and green knight in jade leather. It boast his male ego, I got to spend time with my long absent mother, I got to do some cat burglary under an alias name which if caught I can't be arrested for because it was marionette burglary, and to boot my record is clean. So all this time you thought you were using me and it was you who was being used."
Jonas looked on in the expression only to be compared to with a deer trapped in headlights, almost horrified if it weren't for the fact he was slightly impressed. She had suffered through all of this after finding the most profitable solution to her kidnapping. It was so worked out and planned so that he took the total fall of many of the things she had done of her choosing. She had skillfully gambled the limits of her own mental stability and will power and turned his plan around into her own. Brilliant, through it had risky flaws, it was nothing but brilliant.
He swung out his hand knocking the popgun from Harley's hand and into a dark corner. "No wondered why I was attracted to you." He said grabbing her by the waist and body slamming her onto the desk. With a swift jump he straddled her waist pinning her arms above her head.
Harley beamed. "Sorry lil' fella, but I prefer to be on top." Harley joked, in a sudden jerk she rolled atop Jonas.
"Woman on top type uh?" With a hard push Jonas forced her off, forcing her to land on the floor in a graceful back flip. "But you do like it on the bottom with your precious Nightshade." He jumped down onto the floor ready to fight again.
"Yeah. You don't know how many times I felt like killing you whenever you tried to force yourself on me. Well you wanted this body, now you're getting it." Harley said catching Jonas with her knee then kicking him with her foot knocking him once again onto the ground.
Jonas scoffed as the blood trickled down the corner of his mouth. "Quinn did a good job with you. Tell me, what about the murders I sent you on."
Harley frowned. "Those murders were before I learned how to control myself and before I was use to the damn pills. That's the only thing you succeeded in with my mind control. But the rest, the failed missions, I learned how to time myself so that Batman could always stop me just in time." Harley cracked a lopsided grin. "Maybe I could wash their blood off my hands with yours."
Without warning Jonas jumped onto his feet slamming his shoulder into Harley. Harley tumbled backwards rolling up onto her hands then flipping onto her feet.
"Tsk tsk, such rough foreplay!" She squealed in an almost delighted tone. "Okay then, we'll play it your way." She said cracking her knuckles.
Harley was once over powering Jonas with her strong skilled kicking legs, but whilst in the middle of a spinning heel kick Jonas took hold of her braids.
"Aah! You fight like a woman." Harley hissed as the pain shot through her scalp. Jonas merely grunted as he swung her backwards into the aquarium.
Harley's back crashed brutally against the glass breaking the surface causing the clear water to rush out in a mad waterfall spilling fish and broken glass onto her fallen form.
To their side the door shook as a loud explosion erupted from the other side. Harley huffed heavily as she slowly crawled onto her hands and knees looking curiously at the door. Jonas watched also with his brow knitted with curiosity. After a long silence Harley spoke. "W-what...the hell...was that?" She asked in loud huffs of pain.
Jonas scoffed. "They tried to blast the door open. They'll have better luck breaking into Fort Knox."
~*~
In the living room Batman stared unbelieving at the scorched but still standing door. "I don't believe it." He said. "It stood up to explosives."
"Outta the way!" Emily commanded walking towards them with a blow drier in one hand and a large blow of water in the other.
Both Batman and Nightshade looked onto Emily flabbergasted, surely this wasn't the same woman they had seen before shopping as if her life depended on reaching the limits of her credit cards. Emily smiled as she plugged in the drier. "Hey when your baby's in danger you'll be surprised at how resourceful you can be!" She said in her defense.
From inside there came the sound of a loud crash and water slowly ran from beneath the small crack beneath the door.
~*~
Jonas was ready to punch again on the knee bent Harley. When suddenly her hand shot up catching his in a deadly grip. She lifted her head slowly, her eyes dark and full of demented mischief glared menacingly from behind the wet strands of hair. A small cut above her brow accented the frightful look. "Even us lowlifes know better than kickin' a man while he's down."
Slowly she stood onto her feet holding onto his arm strongly, with a dark giggle kicked Jonas in the back of his right knee.
"Ra-Aah!" Jonas cried out as his kneecap came close to shattering.
Harley titled her damp head to the side. "Such a lovely singing voice." Jonas swung to hit her. "Shall we try a high E?" She asked twisting down his arm until it came close to breaking.
She was just seconds away from completely breaking his arm when the sound of a blow dryer could be heard emitting from the other side of the door. "Now what are those sane people doin'?" She asked distracting herself from the torture at hand.
"Harley we're coming in!" Nightshade shouted.
"What is he-" Jonas stopped short as he realized what they were about to do. "They wouldn't."
Harley's eyes grew wide as she heard the blow drier's whirl drop down towards the floor. "Sh-t! They would!" She shouted, finding her fight with Jonas pointless she pushed him away then leapt into the air grabbing hold of the ceiling vent as Jonas leapt onto the table.
She looked down as the small volts of electricity could be seen racing through the water. The colors it cast throughout the room were completely breathtaking. An eternity of three minutes passed before the electricity aurora borealis ceased and Harley dropped down onto the floor.
When her feet touched down Jonas grabbed her by the neck and forced her out onto the den's balcony until she leaned half bent over the railing.
"Ready to fall to your death love?" Jonas asked pushing back on her as he continued to choke her.
Harley forced her laughter through her suffocating windpipe. "Don't you know? It's not the fall that kills you; it's that sudden stop at the end." She laughed hysterically as the pain of her earlier headache came back tenfold.
"Still the jester, where are the diamonds?" He asked.
Harley smiled through her pain. "You'll never get them. You'll never get them. You'll never get them." She sang the taunt.
"Let her go!" A voice shrieked. Suddenly Emily appeared at Jonas's side crawling at his face. Jonas released Harley and took hold of Emily and held her above his head ready to toss her over the balcony. Emily screamed for her life as she clawed at Jonas's hands.
Everyone in the room paused fearful of what he might do to her. "Don't you hurt her!" Harley sneered through her teeth.
"Where did you hide the diamonds?" Jonas asked.
Harley frowned; "I hid them in my music box, now put Emily down."
"Sure." Jonas smirked tossing her over the edge.
"Momma!" Harley screamed jumping out the window after Emily.
Batman and Nightshade rushed over to the railing where the two women had vanished over. Batman jumped over propelling himself quickly down as Nightshade touched his hand to the wall activating the many dormant plants he had set up around the building.
Galileo stated that no matter weight or size objects would fall at the same speed, meaning she could not fall faster than Emily could. Harley sneered, if the Italians can have a crooked tower that never fell then she was going to damn well do as she pleased. She flattened her body so that she had zero wind resistance and began catching up to Emily.
"Momma! Gimme your hand!" Harley screamed as the ground was becoming closer and closer to the pair. Emily reached out her hand to her daughter's outstretched hand grabbing hold. Harley smiled as she spun around flinging Emily up high enough for Batman to catch her.
With Emily out of the way all Harley had to do was worry about herself. She remembered thinking before how simple it would have been jumping from her window and making it down to the ground safely, but that was if she slowed down a bit and wasn't preoccupied with saving a life.
Harley smirked as a single thick green vine shot out of the building wall. "Red you're a doll!" She squealed as she flipped backwards until she fell completely vertically. As she fell by she took hold of the vine slowing down her fall until it strung her back into the air like a bungee cord up higher and higher until she could reach a net of ivy.
Batman descended onto Harley who was reclining in the net as if it were a hammock and she was on some remote beach. "Are you okay?" Batman asked knowing already that she was.
Harley merely smiled spreading her bleeding lip. "Get me a pina colda then I'll be okay." She laughed.
"Harley, you called me momma." Emily smiled from Batman's arms.
"Yeah, so you called me Harley." She grinned as the vines began hoisting her up back to the penthouse window. "Next stop top floor, lingerie, jewelry, and tighty whitey underwear!"
"Funny Harl." Nightshade commented flatly when they made it back to the top.
"You expected me to lose my sense of huma' ?" Harley looked around the chaos stricken room, "Where is the good doctor?" She asked.
Batman frowned. "He got away with the diamonds."
Harley smiled. "If you say so Batsy. Come on Chris; get me to a hospital before I have an aneurysm here."
***
Jonas Luminous walked victoriously into his private storehouse; it was perfect no one knew of it not even his little slave. He would leave Gotham by way of helicopter then he would leave the country by jet-plane. His crime was prefect, his hands were clean of all dirt and blood; he would could not be accused of anything while his puppet could be the only one blamed and if by chance she did then Jonas Vanderburg was in trouble and he was already dead.
His little cell phone rang in his jacket pocket. "Hello." Jonas said into his cell anticipating that is was one of his many buyers for the items he had Shadow steal.
"What's up doc?" A smooth female's voice purred from the other end of the line.
Jonas smiled. "Ah Harley how pleasant to know that you and your ditsy mother didn't bust your heads open on the sidewalk."
"And I thought you didn't have a sense of humor. It seems you got away with my music box after all." Harley said.
"Yes it's right here in front of me." Jonas chuckled as he opened the small red box. When the lid was up two little skeletons formally dressed danced around in a circle to a little tune he recalled Harley naming Love's Requiem. He reached in and removed the small velvet pouch.
The laughter on the other end of the line brought his mind back to the phone. "Silly doctor." Harley laughed. "When have you known one of my toys to serve only one purpose to me?"
Jonas's eyes widened as the music slowed at its end and the small skeletons grinded into a halt. "Oh sh-" BOOM!
***
"Bye bye!" Harley laughed manically at the sound of a dial tone from the earpiece.
Nightshade looked over at his girlfriend and smiled. "You're one evil biker jester, you know that right?" He asked.
Harley smiled as she wiped a tear from her eye. "You wouldn't have me any other way babes. Now I'm going to take a small nap wake me when we get there." With the last of her strength gone she passed out knowing her long running mission was completed.