Title: The Spirit and the Flesh (2/??)
Author: Allaine
Email: eac2nd@yahoo.com
Disclaimers: Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, along with the other residents of Gotham, are the property of DC Comics, the creators of "Batman: The Animated Series", and God knows who else. All other characters are my invention. And if you have a problem with women who love each other, then this story is not for you. Feedback: As always, greatly desired and usually responded to.
Rating: R Spoilers: I strongly recommend you read "Wrath", "It's Just Allergies", "Life Don't Have to be No Bed of Roses", and "Perfect Opportunity" first.
Distribution: If you want it, just ask.
Summary: Six months later, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn have finally returned to Gotham. Unfortunately, so has a legendary killer, one who preys on the guilty.
_______________________________
Chapter 2
"Years as the traveling socialite have not served you well," Talia said witheringly as she stood over Andrea. "You have let yourself become soft."
"Maybe if you let me wear the suit," Andrea muttered as she got up. Talia did not offer a hand, as usual, and by now Andrea wouldn't have accepted it if she had. She was sore in so many places, after three days and nights of intense physical training, that those few places that _weren't_ sore felt the strangest of all.
Talia smirked. "Oh, so now you wish to wear the suit?" she asked. "When we first arrived, you refused to don the mask again."
"That was before I wanted to kick your ass this badly," Andrea retorted, although she cringed inwardly. She _did_ want to wear the Phantasm suit again, but only because of the edge it would afford her over a woman who'd been fighting all her life. Still, did that mean she was regressing to that dark point in her life when killing was a simple little thing?
"Yes, revenge is an emotion that fires your blood, isn't it?" Talia asked quietly, and this time Andrea's flinch was visible. "Still, that is another reason why I cannot allow you to become the Phantasm in such uncontrolled circumstances. It wouldn't do if you were able to melt into smoke, would it?"
Talia then smiled. "My father's scientists explained that ingenious trick to me when they reinvented your disguise, complete with all its wonders and a few new ones. And I tried it once myself. And yet, even now, I do not fully understand how it works. But it does, and it is a wondrous thing to see."
"I can show you now, if you want," Andrea responded, not about to offer details. If a team of scientists couldn't explain it to this woman, she certainly wasn't going to.
Instead of answering, Talia spun on the heel of one foot and launched a kick toward Andrea's face that could have broken her nose if she hadn't instinctively put both hands up and blocked it.
"Very nice," Talia now said. "When it becomes instinct like that, you might have a chance. Maybe I can tell what my beloved saw in you."
"Stop bringing it up," Andrea said hotly. "And stop calling him 'beloved'. Christ, I'm sick to death of that word! Can't you call him something else? How about his name?"
Talia glared at her. "Obviously you could never understand a love like ours."
"Just stuff it, all right?" Andrea said. "You think he'll love you after I _kill_ a few people? You're like a cat bringing a dead mole to its owner! And let me make two things clear. One, Bruce and I are over, done. If you think I wandered the globe because I could take no pleasure in things as I pined for my love," she said melodramatically, "then you definitely haven't heard the expression 'move on'. Although perhaps you should."
The Demon's daughter looked bored. "And the other thing?"
"The other thing is he didn't love me because I was able to block a kick," Andrea pointed out. "Unlike some people, I wasn't brought up to be an assassin. He loved me, and I loved him, for those little things you obviously haven't heard of. You know, chemistry, common interests, being able to make each other laugh, enjoying each other's company. I realize your father is from an era when people just had their parents arrange marriages for them," she added, although actually she still questioned the concept that Talia's father was several centuries old as claimed. "Maybe what you need is couples therapy."
"Oh, so you weren't brought up to be an assassin?" Talia asked, sneering. "You did a pretty good job of it, you know."
Andrea would have flushed if she weren't already red from the exertion. "You're right, I did," she confessed. "And because I couldn't stop, I lost Bruce for the second time. I said we're over, but I'd be lying if I said I don't regret what happened the last time I left Gotham. Which is why the Joker is still alive."
Talia nodded. "Many believed he was dead. He was gone many days, but he's certainly there now."
"I wish he were," Andrea said. "I hate that man with every fiber of my being. I hurt him badly years ago, but for Bruce, I couldn't kill him." She rested her hands on her hips. "Speaking of which, who am I expected to kill anyway? I haven't been told anything."
"Well," Talia replied, "it's ironic you should say that you let the Joker live for Bruce. Because you're going to kill him this time - him, and every other freakish maniac in that city."
Andrea was thrown for a loss. "All of them? Your father is the maniac! Why doesn't he do it?"
"Batman has beaten my father's operatives again, and again, and again. Father has decided to try a different approach. Since it's something you have experience with, and since he believes you are dead, Batman may have less luck."
"But why?" she asked. "Your father is a criminal. He has more in common with the hit list than he does with Batman! What does he hope to accomplish? Eliminate the competition?"
Talia snorted. "Please, they are not my father's competition. They are not even in my father's league. It is merely a gift."
"A gift?!"
"Yes. It is those 'Rogues' who keep my beloved trapped in Gotham year after year, always saving the people there from their insane plots. With them dead, he can refuse me no longer when I offer him myself, and the inheritance of my father's domain."
From the simple manner in which Talia spoke, Andrea saw that she was telling the truth, and that she believed with a thousand convictions that it would happen.
When love was that crazy, it was called "obsession".
"So I'll do the killing, and you'll take the glory?" Andrea asked. "How positively Wagnerian."
Talia smiled peacefully, no doubt still captivated by the vision of a future with Batman. "I would do it myself, but my father would not endanger me so."
She wasn't ready for Andrea's kick, which doubled her over as it connected with her stomach.
"If you think I'm not dangerous, you'd better change your mind," Andrea said calmly.
Talia composed herself, and then laughed. "Excellent!" she said. "Tomorrow we can begin the plan in earnest."
Andrea didn't want to kill again, but she didn't want to go to jail. She hadn't wanted to wear the costume again, either, and now she did. How else might her desires change in the days to come?
_______________________________
"Don't get me wrong, I love orchids, and it's only proper that they be worshipped the way you do," Poison Ivy said into the microphone. "But have you ever considered what you're doing?"
"It's like Beanie Babies for them," Harley said over her shoulder, keeping three security personnel at bay with an overly large handgun.
Ivy picked up the book she'd taken from a display. "_The Orchid Thief_," she said as she stood at the podium before more than three hundred people who had gathered to hear an expert speak at the Gotham Orchid Show. Poison Ivy had not been the expert anyone was expecting. "The story of a man who uproots rare, defenseless orchids from their secluded homes so he can mass-produce them for you," she continued, pointing at all of them. "If some of them have to die in transit, well, that's the price orchids have to pay. You treat them like icons today, but the losses they suffer getting here!"
"You tell 'em, Red," Harley said cheerfully.
"I should just kill you all, really," Ivy told them, and an already nervous crowd stiffened. "I should kill you, liberate these flowers, and leave."
"But we're not."
"That's right, Harley, we're not."
The people looked as if they wanted to relax, but they weren't sure if they should.
"If I steal these flowers, everyone will say, 'Oh, Poison Ivy just had to have those orchids!' Then their value will double, and people will look harder than ever. If you love these flowers so much, can't you just leave them alone?" Ivy paused. "Thank you, you've been a wonderful audience, and remember, plants are people too!"
Then she handed the microphone back to the middle-aged woman she'd taken it from. "Let's go, Harley."
Harley fired at the security guards, and they were sprayed with multi-colored confetti that sparkled under the overhead lighting. "Now you can blend in widda moichandize," she said with a fake accent. She laughed gaily, tossed the gun aside, and kissing Ivy on the cheek, ran with her out the back way.
"That was naughty, Harl," Ivy purred as they stopped in a dark hallway, leaving behind what could only be a very confused murmur.
"Yep, that's us, sexy and naughty," Harley said, eyes twinkling.
"If that didn't overheat Batman's wiring, I don't know what will," Ivy said.
__________________________
"Let me get this straight," Detective Renee Montoya said. "When they burst in, Harley Quinn pulled a gun, and Poison Ivy took the microphone. Ivy then gave an impromptu speech, Quinn shot a bunch of security guards with harmless confetti, and then they escaped without taking anything?"
"She did say we deserved to die," the show organizer told her. "But then she called them a wonderful audience, too."
Montoya looked at Bullock. "What was this, a crime or performance art?"
"Who cares?" Bullock asked. "They violated their probation agreement, they broke into a zoo and tied up a guard, and then they pointed a gun at a bunch of people. We find them, we lock them up, easy."
"I know that," Montoya said, exasperated. "But how does Poison Ivy go into a flower show, and then not take any flowers? Okay, she's crazy, fine, but at least she's predictable."
"Would you be happier if they'd shot a few people?"
Renee sighed. "Poison Ivy," she muttered. "Wanted for speaking in public without a license."
______________________
"Ouch!" Andrea put her hand to her neck and felt the thin metal collar that hadn't been there before. She'd known being told to close her eyes while they were putting the Phantasm suit on her for her first extended trial was going to lead to something unpleasant. "What the hell is this?"
"I told you, we can't trust you not to try to escape with that," Talia told her. "If you disappear without reappearing within the confines of this room, this device will tell us where you are. It will also deliver a painful electric shock if I wish it." She pushed a button on a small metal rod in her hand.
The pain from that jolt was worse than the pain she'd felt having the collar put on, and Andrea screamed.
"Believe me when I tell you that I won't use this if you don't make me," Talia said.
"Who cares what I believe?" Andrea asked sarcastically. "I'm just the girl in the suit, right?"
Talia didn't respond. She just gave the rod to one of the DEMON agents who had accompanied them to this secluded base of operations an hour's drive from Gotham.
"Wait, where are you going?" Andrea now asked, surprised.
"It is now early morning," Talia said, "and I'm going to pay someone a visit."
"Beloved?" Andrea replied mockingly, but she would have preferred it if Talia oversaw the test run. These other men hid their faces with masks of their own, and she didn't trust them. She didn't trust Talia either, but after several days of physical and verbal sparring, she felt safer with her than with Ra's' goons.
Talia turned to leave, and Andrea would have said more - might even have asked her to stay a little longer, to be honest - but the mask was placed over her head and her speech was temporarily muffled. When her eyesight adjusted to the limited vision permitted by the Phantasm mask, she saw Talia was gone.
Andrea Beaumont was gone as well. In her place, from the reflection in the mirrors along one wall, was a dark figure that looked slightly out of place in the bright room. Someone dimmed the lights, though, and the Phantasm became a more fittingly ominous, even deathly figure.
She looked at the serrated claw fitted snugly over one hand and shuddered. How was jail worse than this?
The DEMON man with the zapper looked at her. "I do not think the great one's daughter likes you very much," he said.
"And I bet this is the first time you've held something so long and hard in your hand," she said in the Phantasm's voice, gesturing to the device he held in his hand.
He scowled. "I do not like you either," he replied before shocking her.
But it would not be for another forty-five minutes before a jolt (had it been the sixth or the seventh?) drove her to one knee.
_________________________
Bruce Wayne usually read the newspaper downstairs, but since he would be dining in his bed for a few reasons that morning, he went down to the library to get it.
"Beloved."
He was just beginning to bend over the paper when he heard the happy murmur from behind, and the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. He was rarely surprised from behind, but in his own home, he didn't expect it quite so much.
"Talia," he said, controlling his flash of anger as he turned around, clutching the paper in one hand.
She was beautiful. Bruce had never denied her that. He'd never denied any of her charms. But the love she offered with those charms became easier to deny when she betrayed him over and over again.
Considering the recent turns his life had made, the only reason he wasn't taking her by one arm - not even waiting to summon Alfred, who she had somehow evaded - and shoving her out the front door was the chance that she might have information about her father.
True, she generally allowed Ra's to spring his traps first, and only waited until Batman or innocent people were in danger before offering assistance, but he could be patient.
"It has been a long time, Bruce," Talia said. "You look well."
If she wasn't going to make a point very shortly, he was going to throw her out anyway. Ra's could play his games without him.
"Do you want something, Talia?" he asked, tired.
She smiled brilliantly. "I only wished to inform you that I am in Gotham again, and that if you wanted to meet some time . . ."
"Try a phone call, it's what other people do when they visit," Bruce said coldly. She was bothering him for _this_?
"Your butler is very formidable," Talia said. "When I call, you never seem to be home."
"Alfred has nothing to do with it, Talia," he replied, and for the first time she looked disconcerted. "If you broke into my home just so you could leave your card, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. And whatever scheme you're carrying out in Gotham, you'd better stop before you even try."
"Beloved, why do you speak to me so?"
Bruce saw her coming first, and he sighed. This was going to be ugly.
"So she still thinks you're the stars in a James Bond movie, huh?"
It was Talia's turn to be surprised from behind, and the look of pure shock written on her face was worth the morning to Bruce. So some things still got through to her.
Selina Kyle smiled coolly as she entered the library in - he had a robe for her to wear, so she must have chosen to come down wrapped only in a king-sized bedsheet for effect. "Which is it this time?" she continued. "Is this _Goldfinger_, when Pussy Galore sprays the troops with harmless gas? Or is this _Live and Let Die_, with you as Jane Seymour?" She walked over to Bruce and pecked him on the cheek. "You see, Talia, what you've failed to grasp is that when the bad Bond girl switches sides in the second half of the movie, she doesn't switch back after the credits roll."
Talia finally gathered her wits and rounded on Bruce. "How could you?" she asked. "Her, a common thief!"
"Instead of you, the common murderer?" Bruce said icily, and Talia looked as if she'd been slapped.
She mustered one last attack, however. "So she found out," she said. "Did she use that to get into your bed?"
The smile was wiped off Selina's face completely, and she took a step toward Talia. Bruce stopped her, though.
"It's better this way," he told Talia. "If I'd simply told you I was involved with Catwoman, you wouldn't have believed me. But now you see the truth, and you have no one to blame but yourself."
"Please," Talia said desperately. "You can't . . ."
"Go, Talia. The next time you decide your father's gone too far, contact someone else. Better yet, do something about it yourself," Bruce warned her.
Trembling not with rage, but with a concerted effort not to fall to the floor, Talia turned away and slowly walked out.
"You know," Selina said more calmly when she was gone, "the 'common thief' line stopped bothering me a long time ago. Like being a thief somehow made me less of a woman compared to the psychopaths and killers in the world, including her and her pops."
"Besides, you're an exceptional thief," he murmured, even though the Bat inside of him raised its eyebrows at that remark.
She patted his cheek. "You're so sweet." Her mood soured again. "For her to imply that I need to blackmail a man to get him into _bed_ - the next time I see her in my claws, I am going to - "
"Forget it," Bruce told her. "The next time I see her, unless she's doing something patently illegal, I'd prefer to walk away." He handed her the paper. "You wanted the arts page?"
___________________________
Talia was surprised she had been able to drive back. Her body was so numb, she wasn't sure she could feel her feet anymore.
She'd never truly believed the Kyle woman could be a threat to her. After all, she had the same handicap that Talia suffered from, a life of crime. Surely if Batman could ever look past that, he would turn to her, her who could offer him so much.
Surely not that cheap hussy!
Talia went to the training room where she'd left Andrea Beaumont (who she found it harder not to like - certainly that cat was a far graver danger to her than some girl he'd loved a lifetime ago), but found the suit there without her. "Where is she?" she asked another of her father's servants.
"The test was almost perfect," he said calmly. "Saheed took her back to her room."
She nodded. "Did they remove her collar?" she asked. It wasn't necessary for her to wear it "out of uniform". Perhaps if she applied herself to the work with sufficient vigor, and proved successful on her first few missions, they could forgo it entirely.
"I don't believe so, no," the guard said.
"Why not?"
"Saheed felt it was necessary to punish her," he told her.
She stared at him. "And why did _Saheed_ feel she should be punished?"
He paled under his mask, but his loyalty was to the great one and his daughter, not another lowly man like himself. "She spoke disrespectfully to him, so - "
Talia turned, her earlier horror washed away in rage. This was a very important mission, and one of her lackeys was going to damage the key to everything because his ego was _bruised_? She walked angrily to Beaumont's room.
As she put her hand on the doorknob, she heard a noise inside. It sounded like . . .
Now enraged, Talia opened the door so hard that it slammed against the wall and gouged a hole in the plaster.
Saheed stood over Andrea, his nose gushing blood. She was writhing on the floor. "M-m-my lady," he stammered. "She assaulted me, tried to escape. I found it necessary - "
Talia slapped him, and blood splattered on the wall. Then she took the rod from his hand and shoved him aside. "Andrea?" she asked, crouching over her.
The only reply she got was a whimper. Unlocking the collar and removing it, she was stunned at the thick red band around her neck, as if she had just come from a date with a hangman's noose.
"This," she hissed, looking at him and pointing at Andrea's neck, "could only have happened if she was shocked over and over again. How many times, you fool? Ten, a dozen, twenty?!" She went to the doorway. "GUARDS!!!"
Three men quickly arrived, joining their comrade Saheed, who looked shell-shocked. "Take him away," Talia snarled, "and shoot him until he is not only dead, but unrecognizable. Then find a place where the animals can feed off his flesh."
"No!" he pleaded as the other men instantly took him by the arms and began dragging him out. "I am loyal! I am loyal!"
"Why do you think we are here?!" she demanded angrily. "For a vacation? She is why we are here, and you have set us back who knows how long!" Talia turned from them. "I have no interest in anything he has to say. Do as I command. I trust some of you know how to obey."
She closed the door to muffle his shouts as he was pulled away. He could have been easily incapacitated, but it was better if he felt the bullets.
Talia glanced at the collar, then at Andrea. Impulsively, she threw the collar against the wall and stamped on it with her foot until it sparked and shorted out.
Then she went back to Andrea and helped her onto her bed. The woman was completely dazed, and Talia wondered how long those marks would stay around her neck. She wondered how coherent she would be when the sun set.
Sighing, Talia summoned her medical team. "So Bruce thinks he has 'moved on', as you put it, from both of us. It would appear," she said, looking at the woman who had mercifully passed out, and thinking of that shameless Kyle in her state of undress, "that we are sisters today."
To be continued . . .
Author: Allaine
Email: eac2nd@yahoo.com
Disclaimers: Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, along with the other residents of Gotham, are the property of DC Comics, the creators of "Batman: The Animated Series", and God knows who else. All other characters are my invention. And if you have a problem with women who love each other, then this story is not for you. Feedback: As always, greatly desired and usually responded to.
Rating: R Spoilers: I strongly recommend you read "Wrath", "It's Just Allergies", "Life Don't Have to be No Bed of Roses", and "Perfect Opportunity" first.
Distribution: If you want it, just ask.
Summary: Six months later, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn have finally returned to Gotham. Unfortunately, so has a legendary killer, one who preys on the guilty.
_______________________________
Chapter 2
"Years as the traveling socialite have not served you well," Talia said witheringly as she stood over Andrea. "You have let yourself become soft."
"Maybe if you let me wear the suit," Andrea muttered as she got up. Talia did not offer a hand, as usual, and by now Andrea wouldn't have accepted it if she had. She was sore in so many places, after three days and nights of intense physical training, that those few places that _weren't_ sore felt the strangest of all.
Talia smirked. "Oh, so now you wish to wear the suit?" she asked. "When we first arrived, you refused to don the mask again."
"That was before I wanted to kick your ass this badly," Andrea retorted, although she cringed inwardly. She _did_ want to wear the Phantasm suit again, but only because of the edge it would afford her over a woman who'd been fighting all her life. Still, did that mean she was regressing to that dark point in her life when killing was a simple little thing?
"Yes, revenge is an emotion that fires your blood, isn't it?" Talia asked quietly, and this time Andrea's flinch was visible. "Still, that is another reason why I cannot allow you to become the Phantasm in such uncontrolled circumstances. It wouldn't do if you were able to melt into smoke, would it?"
Talia then smiled. "My father's scientists explained that ingenious trick to me when they reinvented your disguise, complete with all its wonders and a few new ones. And I tried it once myself. And yet, even now, I do not fully understand how it works. But it does, and it is a wondrous thing to see."
"I can show you now, if you want," Andrea responded, not about to offer details. If a team of scientists couldn't explain it to this woman, she certainly wasn't going to.
Instead of answering, Talia spun on the heel of one foot and launched a kick toward Andrea's face that could have broken her nose if she hadn't instinctively put both hands up and blocked it.
"Very nice," Talia now said. "When it becomes instinct like that, you might have a chance. Maybe I can tell what my beloved saw in you."
"Stop bringing it up," Andrea said hotly. "And stop calling him 'beloved'. Christ, I'm sick to death of that word! Can't you call him something else? How about his name?"
Talia glared at her. "Obviously you could never understand a love like ours."
"Just stuff it, all right?" Andrea said. "You think he'll love you after I _kill_ a few people? You're like a cat bringing a dead mole to its owner! And let me make two things clear. One, Bruce and I are over, done. If you think I wandered the globe because I could take no pleasure in things as I pined for my love," she said melodramatically, "then you definitely haven't heard the expression 'move on'. Although perhaps you should."
The Demon's daughter looked bored. "And the other thing?"
"The other thing is he didn't love me because I was able to block a kick," Andrea pointed out. "Unlike some people, I wasn't brought up to be an assassin. He loved me, and I loved him, for those little things you obviously haven't heard of. You know, chemistry, common interests, being able to make each other laugh, enjoying each other's company. I realize your father is from an era when people just had their parents arrange marriages for them," she added, although actually she still questioned the concept that Talia's father was several centuries old as claimed. "Maybe what you need is couples therapy."
"Oh, so you weren't brought up to be an assassin?" Talia asked, sneering. "You did a pretty good job of it, you know."
Andrea would have flushed if she weren't already red from the exertion. "You're right, I did," she confessed. "And because I couldn't stop, I lost Bruce for the second time. I said we're over, but I'd be lying if I said I don't regret what happened the last time I left Gotham. Which is why the Joker is still alive."
Talia nodded. "Many believed he was dead. He was gone many days, but he's certainly there now."
"I wish he were," Andrea said. "I hate that man with every fiber of my being. I hurt him badly years ago, but for Bruce, I couldn't kill him." She rested her hands on her hips. "Speaking of which, who am I expected to kill anyway? I haven't been told anything."
"Well," Talia replied, "it's ironic you should say that you let the Joker live for Bruce. Because you're going to kill him this time - him, and every other freakish maniac in that city."
Andrea was thrown for a loss. "All of them? Your father is the maniac! Why doesn't he do it?"
"Batman has beaten my father's operatives again, and again, and again. Father has decided to try a different approach. Since it's something you have experience with, and since he believes you are dead, Batman may have less luck."
"But why?" she asked. "Your father is a criminal. He has more in common with the hit list than he does with Batman! What does he hope to accomplish? Eliminate the competition?"
Talia snorted. "Please, they are not my father's competition. They are not even in my father's league. It is merely a gift."
"A gift?!"
"Yes. It is those 'Rogues' who keep my beloved trapped in Gotham year after year, always saving the people there from their insane plots. With them dead, he can refuse me no longer when I offer him myself, and the inheritance of my father's domain."
From the simple manner in which Talia spoke, Andrea saw that she was telling the truth, and that she believed with a thousand convictions that it would happen.
When love was that crazy, it was called "obsession".
"So I'll do the killing, and you'll take the glory?" Andrea asked. "How positively Wagnerian."
Talia smiled peacefully, no doubt still captivated by the vision of a future with Batman. "I would do it myself, but my father would not endanger me so."
She wasn't ready for Andrea's kick, which doubled her over as it connected with her stomach.
"If you think I'm not dangerous, you'd better change your mind," Andrea said calmly.
Talia composed herself, and then laughed. "Excellent!" she said. "Tomorrow we can begin the plan in earnest."
Andrea didn't want to kill again, but she didn't want to go to jail. She hadn't wanted to wear the costume again, either, and now she did. How else might her desires change in the days to come?
_______________________________
"Don't get me wrong, I love orchids, and it's only proper that they be worshipped the way you do," Poison Ivy said into the microphone. "But have you ever considered what you're doing?"
"It's like Beanie Babies for them," Harley said over her shoulder, keeping three security personnel at bay with an overly large handgun.
Ivy picked up the book she'd taken from a display. "_The Orchid Thief_," she said as she stood at the podium before more than three hundred people who had gathered to hear an expert speak at the Gotham Orchid Show. Poison Ivy had not been the expert anyone was expecting. "The story of a man who uproots rare, defenseless orchids from their secluded homes so he can mass-produce them for you," she continued, pointing at all of them. "If some of them have to die in transit, well, that's the price orchids have to pay. You treat them like icons today, but the losses they suffer getting here!"
"You tell 'em, Red," Harley said cheerfully.
"I should just kill you all, really," Ivy told them, and an already nervous crowd stiffened. "I should kill you, liberate these flowers, and leave."
"But we're not."
"That's right, Harley, we're not."
The people looked as if they wanted to relax, but they weren't sure if they should.
"If I steal these flowers, everyone will say, 'Oh, Poison Ivy just had to have those orchids!' Then their value will double, and people will look harder than ever. If you love these flowers so much, can't you just leave them alone?" Ivy paused. "Thank you, you've been a wonderful audience, and remember, plants are people too!"
Then she handed the microphone back to the middle-aged woman she'd taken it from. "Let's go, Harley."
Harley fired at the security guards, and they were sprayed with multi-colored confetti that sparkled under the overhead lighting. "Now you can blend in widda moichandize," she said with a fake accent. She laughed gaily, tossed the gun aside, and kissing Ivy on the cheek, ran with her out the back way.
"That was naughty, Harl," Ivy purred as they stopped in a dark hallway, leaving behind what could only be a very confused murmur.
"Yep, that's us, sexy and naughty," Harley said, eyes twinkling.
"If that didn't overheat Batman's wiring, I don't know what will," Ivy said.
__________________________
"Let me get this straight," Detective Renee Montoya said. "When they burst in, Harley Quinn pulled a gun, and Poison Ivy took the microphone. Ivy then gave an impromptu speech, Quinn shot a bunch of security guards with harmless confetti, and then they escaped without taking anything?"
"She did say we deserved to die," the show organizer told her. "But then she called them a wonderful audience, too."
Montoya looked at Bullock. "What was this, a crime or performance art?"
"Who cares?" Bullock asked. "They violated their probation agreement, they broke into a zoo and tied up a guard, and then they pointed a gun at a bunch of people. We find them, we lock them up, easy."
"I know that," Montoya said, exasperated. "But how does Poison Ivy go into a flower show, and then not take any flowers? Okay, she's crazy, fine, but at least she's predictable."
"Would you be happier if they'd shot a few people?"
Renee sighed. "Poison Ivy," she muttered. "Wanted for speaking in public without a license."
______________________
"Ouch!" Andrea put her hand to her neck and felt the thin metal collar that hadn't been there before. She'd known being told to close her eyes while they were putting the Phantasm suit on her for her first extended trial was going to lead to something unpleasant. "What the hell is this?"
"I told you, we can't trust you not to try to escape with that," Talia told her. "If you disappear without reappearing within the confines of this room, this device will tell us where you are. It will also deliver a painful electric shock if I wish it." She pushed a button on a small metal rod in her hand.
The pain from that jolt was worse than the pain she'd felt having the collar put on, and Andrea screamed.
"Believe me when I tell you that I won't use this if you don't make me," Talia said.
"Who cares what I believe?" Andrea asked sarcastically. "I'm just the girl in the suit, right?"
Talia didn't respond. She just gave the rod to one of the DEMON agents who had accompanied them to this secluded base of operations an hour's drive from Gotham.
"Wait, where are you going?" Andrea now asked, surprised.
"It is now early morning," Talia said, "and I'm going to pay someone a visit."
"Beloved?" Andrea replied mockingly, but she would have preferred it if Talia oversaw the test run. These other men hid their faces with masks of their own, and she didn't trust them. She didn't trust Talia either, but after several days of physical and verbal sparring, she felt safer with her than with Ra's' goons.
Talia turned to leave, and Andrea would have said more - might even have asked her to stay a little longer, to be honest - but the mask was placed over her head and her speech was temporarily muffled. When her eyesight adjusted to the limited vision permitted by the Phantasm mask, she saw Talia was gone.
Andrea Beaumont was gone as well. In her place, from the reflection in the mirrors along one wall, was a dark figure that looked slightly out of place in the bright room. Someone dimmed the lights, though, and the Phantasm became a more fittingly ominous, even deathly figure.
She looked at the serrated claw fitted snugly over one hand and shuddered. How was jail worse than this?
The DEMON man with the zapper looked at her. "I do not think the great one's daughter likes you very much," he said.
"And I bet this is the first time you've held something so long and hard in your hand," she said in the Phantasm's voice, gesturing to the device he held in his hand.
He scowled. "I do not like you either," he replied before shocking her.
But it would not be for another forty-five minutes before a jolt (had it been the sixth or the seventh?) drove her to one knee.
_________________________
Bruce Wayne usually read the newspaper downstairs, but since he would be dining in his bed for a few reasons that morning, he went down to the library to get it.
"Beloved."
He was just beginning to bend over the paper when he heard the happy murmur from behind, and the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. He was rarely surprised from behind, but in his own home, he didn't expect it quite so much.
"Talia," he said, controlling his flash of anger as he turned around, clutching the paper in one hand.
She was beautiful. Bruce had never denied her that. He'd never denied any of her charms. But the love she offered with those charms became easier to deny when she betrayed him over and over again.
Considering the recent turns his life had made, the only reason he wasn't taking her by one arm - not even waiting to summon Alfred, who she had somehow evaded - and shoving her out the front door was the chance that she might have information about her father.
True, she generally allowed Ra's to spring his traps first, and only waited until Batman or innocent people were in danger before offering assistance, but he could be patient.
"It has been a long time, Bruce," Talia said. "You look well."
If she wasn't going to make a point very shortly, he was going to throw her out anyway. Ra's could play his games without him.
"Do you want something, Talia?" he asked, tired.
She smiled brilliantly. "I only wished to inform you that I am in Gotham again, and that if you wanted to meet some time . . ."
"Try a phone call, it's what other people do when they visit," Bruce said coldly. She was bothering him for _this_?
"Your butler is very formidable," Talia said. "When I call, you never seem to be home."
"Alfred has nothing to do with it, Talia," he replied, and for the first time she looked disconcerted. "If you broke into my home just so you could leave your card, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. And whatever scheme you're carrying out in Gotham, you'd better stop before you even try."
"Beloved, why do you speak to me so?"
Bruce saw her coming first, and he sighed. This was going to be ugly.
"So she still thinks you're the stars in a James Bond movie, huh?"
It was Talia's turn to be surprised from behind, and the look of pure shock written on her face was worth the morning to Bruce. So some things still got through to her.
Selina Kyle smiled coolly as she entered the library in - he had a robe for her to wear, so she must have chosen to come down wrapped only in a king-sized bedsheet for effect. "Which is it this time?" she continued. "Is this _Goldfinger_, when Pussy Galore sprays the troops with harmless gas? Or is this _Live and Let Die_, with you as Jane Seymour?" She walked over to Bruce and pecked him on the cheek. "You see, Talia, what you've failed to grasp is that when the bad Bond girl switches sides in the second half of the movie, she doesn't switch back after the credits roll."
Talia finally gathered her wits and rounded on Bruce. "How could you?" she asked. "Her, a common thief!"
"Instead of you, the common murderer?" Bruce said icily, and Talia looked as if she'd been slapped.
She mustered one last attack, however. "So she found out," she said. "Did she use that to get into your bed?"
The smile was wiped off Selina's face completely, and she took a step toward Talia. Bruce stopped her, though.
"It's better this way," he told Talia. "If I'd simply told you I was involved with Catwoman, you wouldn't have believed me. But now you see the truth, and you have no one to blame but yourself."
"Please," Talia said desperately. "You can't . . ."
"Go, Talia. The next time you decide your father's gone too far, contact someone else. Better yet, do something about it yourself," Bruce warned her.
Trembling not with rage, but with a concerted effort not to fall to the floor, Talia turned away and slowly walked out.
"You know," Selina said more calmly when she was gone, "the 'common thief' line stopped bothering me a long time ago. Like being a thief somehow made me less of a woman compared to the psychopaths and killers in the world, including her and her pops."
"Besides, you're an exceptional thief," he murmured, even though the Bat inside of him raised its eyebrows at that remark.
She patted his cheek. "You're so sweet." Her mood soured again. "For her to imply that I need to blackmail a man to get him into _bed_ - the next time I see her in my claws, I am going to - "
"Forget it," Bruce told her. "The next time I see her, unless she's doing something patently illegal, I'd prefer to walk away." He handed her the paper. "You wanted the arts page?"
___________________________
Talia was surprised she had been able to drive back. Her body was so numb, she wasn't sure she could feel her feet anymore.
She'd never truly believed the Kyle woman could be a threat to her. After all, she had the same handicap that Talia suffered from, a life of crime. Surely if Batman could ever look past that, he would turn to her, her who could offer him so much.
Surely not that cheap hussy!
Talia went to the training room where she'd left Andrea Beaumont (who she found it harder not to like - certainly that cat was a far graver danger to her than some girl he'd loved a lifetime ago), but found the suit there without her. "Where is she?" she asked another of her father's servants.
"The test was almost perfect," he said calmly. "Saheed took her back to her room."
She nodded. "Did they remove her collar?" she asked. It wasn't necessary for her to wear it "out of uniform". Perhaps if she applied herself to the work with sufficient vigor, and proved successful on her first few missions, they could forgo it entirely.
"I don't believe so, no," the guard said.
"Why not?"
"Saheed felt it was necessary to punish her," he told her.
She stared at him. "And why did _Saheed_ feel she should be punished?"
He paled under his mask, but his loyalty was to the great one and his daughter, not another lowly man like himself. "She spoke disrespectfully to him, so - "
Talia turned, her earlier horror washed away in rage. This was a very important mission, and one of her lackeys was going to damage the key to everything because his ego was _bruised_? She walked angrily to Beaumont's room.
As she put her hand on the doorknob, she heard a noise inside. It sounded like . . .
Now enraged, Talia opened the door so hard that it slammed against the wall and gouged a hole in the plaster.
Saheed stood over Andrea, his nose gushing blood. She was writhing on the floor. "M-m-my lady," he stammered. "She assaulted me, tried to escape. I found it necessary - "
Talia slapped him, and blood splattered on the wall. Then she took the rod from his hand and shoved him aside. "Andrea?" she asked, crouching over her.
The only reply she got was a whimper. Unlocking the collar and removing it, she was stunned at the thick red band around her neck, as if she had just come from a date with a hangman's noose.
"This," she hissed, looking at him and pointing at Andrea's neck, "could only have happened if she was shocked over and over again. How many times, you fool? Ten, a dozen, twenty?!" She went to the doorway. "GUARDS!!!"
Three men quickly arrived, joining their comrade Saheed, who looked shell-shocked. "Take him away," Talia snarled, "and shoot him until he is not only dead, but unrecognizable. Then find a place where the animals can feed off his flesh."
"No!" he pleaded as the other men instantly took him by the arms and began dragging him out. "I am loyal! I am loyal!"
"Why do you think we are here?!" she demanded angrily. "For a vacation? She is why we are here, and you have set us back who knows how long!" Talia turned from them. "I have no interest in anything he has to say. Do as I command. I trust some of you know how to obey."
She closed the door to muffle his shouts as he was pulled away. He could have been easily incapacitated, but it was better if he felt the bullets.
Talia glanced at the collar, then at Andrea. Impulsively, she threw the collar against the wall and stamped on it with her foot until it sparked and shorted out.
Then she went back to Andrea and helped her onto her bed. The woman was completely dazed, and Talia wondered how long those marks would stay around her neck. She wondered how coherent she would be when the sun set.
Sighing, Talia summoned her medical team. "So Bruce thinks he has 'moved on', as you put it, from both of us. It would appear," she said, looking at the woman who had mercifully passed out, and thinking of that shameless Kyle in her state of undress, "that we are sisters today."
To be continued . . .