Comfortable in broken-in jeans and a soft leather jacket, Faith unloaded her personal effects from the box in which they had been stored. She strapped on her watch, stuffed cash, driver's licence (complete with false name but, tragically, bearing her real, just-too-young-to-drink, age), and presumably useless credit cards into her wallet and dropped it into one hip pocket, stuffed her keys, which presumably opened no locks in this world, into the other, settled a stake in the back of her belt, sheathed her knife on her left hip, tucked her other knife into her right armpit, slid her other other knife into her boot, and tucked her lighter into her jacket. She was ready.


Faith paused a moment, glancing over the names on the other property drawers. Arkham clearly had some very, very odd occupants, but nothing sprang out at her as likely to be useful.


'Yo, blondie, you ready?' She said, loud enough to be heard around the corner.
A slim figure stepped into view and strutted delicately towards her. Faith stared.
She managed not to laugh out loud, but it was a struggle. The young woman was clad in possibly the most bizarre costume she had ever seen, including everything Willow had ever worn.
On the other hand, black and red were definitely her. She wasn't sure about the makeup, though, which was even heavier than how Faith herself used to wear it.
'Who are you supposed to be? The Crow?'
And then there was the hat. The hat just…
'Harley Quinn.' And there was the smile again, sweet and kind with undertones of insanity, and Faith couldn't help but smile back. The blonde gestured towards the exit. 'You wanna?'


Harley moved fast and, surprisingly, didn't seem to talk much. Which isn't to say she was silent; the woman was actually skipping along, humming to herself. Faith was fairly certain she should be irritated, but there was just something about the blonde that…
And then two guards walked round the corner and right in to them, and rather derailed that train of thought.


Faith reacted fast, grabbing the nearest guard's shotgun and using it to jerk him towards herself, delivering a brutal head-butt. She felt his nose break, and then hit him in the chest with an open palm, sending him hurtling backwards. Faith registered his landing, hard on his back, out of the corner of her eye as she whirled to deal with the other guard.
Who was slumped on his knees, swaying slightly. Harley hit him again, and he folded over and stopped moving.
Harley had hit him with the biggest mallet Faith had ever seen. She promptly whipped it behind her back.
'Where did that come from?' Faith asked.
'Where did what come from?'
'That hammer.'
'What hammer?'
Faith looked for a moment into clear, guileless blue eyes. Then she shrugged, slung the shotgun over her shoulder, and turned away.
'So how far to the exit?'


It was later. The Popsicle stand had been well and truly blown, the four screaming police cars that had been pursuing their stolen ride had been shaken off long enough to go to ground, and a manhole had been lifted, allowing the two fugitives to slip down into the dark and labyrinthine undercity of Gotham.
Faith leaned back against the brick wall or an access tunnel and smiled. Not a bad evening. Four rather ugly demons dusted, a new world visited, lots of sex with a hot blonde, an escape from prison, and a car chase. The car chase was actually a new experience for her, but she reckoned she could get to like it.
'So. What now? She asked. Harley was a little further down the tunnel, standing on one leg. Faith wasn't sure why the girl was standing on one leg, but she seemed to enjoy it. 'You going to find your Mr J guy?'
'Naw. He's probably kinda busy.' Harley flipped forward, and stood on one hand. 'I figure I'll look up Red instead. You wanna come?'


Meanwhile…


Batman was busy on Justice League business. Azrael was doing whatever it was he did when he went off on his own; Tim just hoped he wasn't talking to St Dumas again. Batgirl was dealing with Harley Quinn's latest breakout from Arkham. Nightwing was over in Bludhaven, safely on his own territory. Which meant that Robin had been stuck with this particular duty.

Tim Drake closed his eyes for just a moment, and thought soothing thoughts. Then he opened them and looked anew at the young woman he was talking to.
'I'm sorry, Miss.' He said, his tone carefully polite. 'But could you please just run that by me one more time?'
'Okay. I'm a witch from an alternative reality…'
'I got that part.'
'I'm here looking for a Slayer named Faith.'
'And a Slayer would be?'
'The One Girl in All the World, except that there are loads of them now.'
'I see.' It wasn't technically a lie; Tim hadn't specified exactly what it was he saw. 'And she's superhuman?'
'Yep.' The woman nodded enthusiastically. 'Nothing like the people you have here, but still dangerous. Did I mention that she's psychotic?'
'I thought you were on her side.'
She frowned.
'Faith's pretending to be one of the good guys these days, but she's still a psycho. She doesn't respect other people as human beings. She thinks she can do what she likes, to anyone, without ever asking permission. Also, she occasionally kills people.'
'Occasionally?'
'Yeah.' She smiled; Tim supposed the expression was supposed to be endearing, and to be honest she was kind of cute. But the last thing he wanted was to become the second Robin to get involved with a redhead five years his senior, even if this one did dye her hair. He was enough like Dick as it was, and Willow Rosenburg had even materialised carrying a heavily customised laptop computer.
'What stimuli provoke her to homicidal behaviour?'
'Oh, Faith doesn't need to be provoked. She just likes to kill people.'
Okay, maybe not that much like Dick. Barbara at least had intelligence enough to see things from another person's perspective.
'I see. And do you have any idea why she likes to kill people?'
'Because she's psychotic.' Willow sounded like she was explaining something to a very small child. Tim frowned behind his mask. He had a feeling this was going to prove… trying.
But Bruce had told him to deal with this situation, which meant it had to be dealt with.
'Do you at least have a picture of this girl?' He asked.