The entirety of the Metropolis Maximum Security Penitentiary was united in an abject nervous condition. Nearly every soul that had any official connection to institution seemed to be on the edge of an outright panic attack. Even the most hardened inmates, who usually relished the arrival of "fresh meat" sat back in quiet awe and whispered in hushed voices over what everyone was calling, the "newest guest."
No one but only a few actually had the privilege of seeing even a glance of the prisoner but the man's reputation alone preceded him enough to cause such stir. He was known to kill anyone at any time without a second thought just for the thrill of the experience and for carrying out terrorist acts just for the sole amusement of it. He was capable of anything, so much so that he was being locked up in the most secure solitary confinement cell the prison had. The scariest thing of all…everyone knew that even that could not hold him for long.
The one who knew it best was Evendale Holcomb, the prison's warden. Even with the "guest" in solitary confinement, surround around the clock by a contingent of six guards in full riot gear and fully armed, he didn't feel safe. It was doubtful that he would have been any less nervous if the man were guarded by the 3rd Marine Division.
Presently, there came a hard rapping at the outside door of the warden's office rousing him with a start from a horrific daydream full of all the problems that could possibly occur should anything go wrong and the prisoner escape.
"What is it?" He barked once he had regained his composure, assuming that he had had and composure to begin with.
The door opened slightly and a fresh faced young man in a police uniform stuck his head through the crack. "There's someone here from the Daily Planet." He explained in a low voice. "He said that you agreed on an exclusive or something."
Holcomb sighed in resignation. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to the press but he thought keeping too quiet might make every news agency in town overly curious. The last thing that he needed was a bunch of journalists crawling around the parking lot making up whatever wild accusations came into their heads. At least by giving an exclusive he only had to deal with one reporter. The rest could fight it out between themselves. Besides, having his name connected to such a high profile prisoner might get him a little recognition from the mayor, or even the governor.
He put up his hand and motioned for the guard to allow the visit. A second later a youngish man in a brown suit, glasses, and a fedora hat came into the office. Warden Holcomb couldn't help but think that he looked like someone out of the 1930's.
"Evendale Holcomb." He said, standing up, grasping the reporter's hand and giving it a firm shake. He only hoped that the man wouldn't notice that the shaking was more out of nervousness than courtesy.
"Clark Kent." The other replied in kind.
The Warden directed his guest to a chair next to his desk then returned to his own seat. "What can I do for you today?" He asked after he had made himself comfortable.
Clark took out a pad and pencil from the inside pocket of his jacket. "What can you tell me, Warden?" He began. "Did Superman bring this one in personally this time?"
"Superman?" The warden's face beamed. "Nobody's seen him in two weeks. You ought to know that, your paper's been going on about it the whole time."
"That's true." The Kent admitted with a little laugh. "But you never know, he could show up again at any time."
Holcomb shrugged. "Maybe but we didn't need him this time anyway. The criminal genius tried to blow up a cargo freighter but got himself caught in a fishing net instead. Poor deranged lunatic, couldn't do anything but laugh about it until the cops fished him out."
"So does that mean-" Another sharp rap at the door interrupted the reporter's next question.
Warden Holcomb bellowed out a lengthy list of expletives before yelling at the office door. "What!"
The door opened and the same guard as before stuck his head in. He looked slightly more pale than he had before. "Did you approve a transfer of the new prisoner, sir?"
"No, I didn't" The man snapped. "And if you can't…" His voice drifted off as he began to process the fact that his subordinate had used the word, transfer. "Wait, what transfer?"
"There is a young lady out here that says she has an order to transfer the prisoner to Arkham Asylum in Gotham."
All of a sudden the warden's entire demeanor changed. If it were not for the present situation, it could have easily been assumed that he had spontaneously undergone some sort of religious conversion on the spot. The fact of the matter was, that he would jump at any chance to get rid of the whole mess and get back to running his prison the way he liked it.
"Show her in." He demanded. He had completely forgotten about his previous guest.
The guard stepped aside allowing a young lady to pass into the office. She looked as though she were in her late 20's but was doing her best to hide the fact. She had tied her long golden hair back into a gigantic, almost comical looking bun and was wearing large round black framed glasses.
"Good morning, warden." She said in an almost forced monotone voice.
"Morning." Holcomb echoed the sentiment. Then, remembering his other guest turned gestured and introduced him. "This is Mr. Kent. He's a reporter from the Daily Planet."
Clark stood up and extended his hand. The lady grasped it but paused in mid shake. "Do I know you?" She asked. "You look a little familiar."
"Funny," The other replied. "I was about to say the same thing about you, Miss…?"
The woman released her grip. "Forgive me." She apologized directing a glance back to Mr. Holcomb so as to address him as well. "Dr. Quinn." She stated with a small smirk. "And, please, no 'Medicine Woman' jokes." The other two nodded politely.
"You said something about a prisoner transfer?" The warden reminded the young lady. He was anxious to get the process over with and the prisoner gone.
"Oh, yes." She said, holding up a manila envelope. "Your prisoner is a resident of our facility and we feel that it would be better for us all if he were to be transferred back there as soon as possible."
"You don't have to ask me twice." Holcomb responded, practically snatching the envelope from the young lady's hands. It was as if he were a child who had just been presented with the Christmas gift he had waited for all year long.
He took it over to his desk, opened it, and dumped out the contents. He then proceeded to rifle randomly through the stack, signing his name anywhere he saw the words "sign here."
"Shouldn't you read those?" Kent asked
Warden Holcomb never looked up from the paper. "Nah." He replied, almost incoherently. "I've signed thousands of these. They're all the same."
When he was finished, he divided the papers and stuffed some of them back into the envelope. "Here's your half miss." He said presenting the documents to the lady.
She took them and nodded to the two men. "Thank you gentlemen." She said, with a little smirk. "I'll go take care of your prisoner now. Bring him to the prison parking garage. I have a van waiting."
As the young lady exited the warden plopped down in his chair and took a sigh of relief. "That's one brave lady, Kent. " He told the reporter.
The journalist didn't answer. He was too distracted by trying to remember where he had seen the young lady before.
Dr. Quinn left the office and sauntered down the hall past the line of guards that were milling around the area. Coupled with her thick glasses and enormous bun the walk looked ridiculous causing most of the men to look away or to ignore it completely.
None of this seemed to bother the young lady. She had other things on her mind. As she rounded the corner she sped up her pace and moved down the corridor and around the cell blocks. Two or three times she had to stop and show her credentials to the guard on duty so that they would unlock the door to the next area.
Presently, she came to a small parking garage. Inside was a single black van with tinted windows. Along with the new prisoner this had been an area of great speculation among the prison employees because it seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. No one was able to identify where it came from or when it had arrived. There were no markings on it, no pass stickers from the front gate, nothing. By the time the young lady had arrived in the parking garage one of the guards had managed to run the license plate and saw that the vehicle was not even registered to anyone, in fact, according to the records that were available, the van did not exist at all.
This was all about to be revealed from the guard to his superior just as Dr. Quinn entered from one direction and a small contingent of armed guards came in from came in from another with the day's star prisoner in tow.
This event sparked the interest of all those guarding the parking garage as the days two sources of intrigue had come together in the same place. The man, they noticed was tall and skinny but that was about the only detail available to them. His face was covered with a dark cloth bag that went down over his neck ending where the baggy orange jumpsuit began. And with the man's hands shackled behind his back there was no way to even know his race.
The two groups converged at the van upon which Dr. Quinn told the guards to place their prisoner into the back. As they prepared to do so, the young lady opened her purse and began to dig through its various contents until she came up with a small white ball featuring an overly happy, smiling face. Before anyone could think to ask what this was she pulled the nose off and dropped the object on the ground.
A stream of green smoke began to seep out of the ball's mouth consuming the entire company. As soon as the guards breathed in the miasma they were suddenly overcome by an overwhelming urge to laugh hysterically until they fell prone on the ground in convulsions.
At the same time, the young lady, had managed to pull out two small gas masks. She quickly fitted one over her her nose and mouth, then attended the other to the still bound man in front of her. Then she grabbed a set of keys off of one of the incapacitated guards and unlocked the shackles that were binding their prisoner.
In a matter of seconds he had shed the handcuffs and leg shackles. Next, holding his breath, he tore off the mask then the hood over his head revealing a white pale overly smiling face complete with green hair. For her part, Dr. Quinn threw off the thick glasses that she had been wearing and released the bun on top of her head allowing a long quaff of golden hair fall down to her shoulders.
The two scrambled to the front of the van and jumped inside, Harley Quinn in the driver's seat and The Joker next to her. She started the ignition and slammed her foot down onto the accelerator causing the van to scream out of the parking garage and around a corner and straight through a chain linked fence. The gas masks, no longer of use, were discarded unceremoniously out of the windows.
"Did you have to use the new laughing gas?" The Joker asked, once they were clear of the prison and had made it onto the interstate.
"That's what I get for busting you out, a lecture on laughing gas? Hows about 'Thank's for springing me Harley?'"
The Joker rolled his eyes. "Yes, like I wouldn't have got out anyway. Now about my gas-"
"Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. What have you been eating?" The look from her companion told her that he was not amused. "Ok ok. It was the only thing I could get my hands on. You locked up all birthday grenades."
"The key," the other noted, "was under the door mat. You just had to turn off the electricity so you wouldn't get electrocuted."
Harley shrugged. "I was busy."
"Busy with what?"
The girl twisted her face into a guilty smile. "Painting the van."
"Sweet peaches," The Joker started in a menacingly nice tone, "you didn't paint over my Joker Van did you?"
"It looked like the Mystery Machine." She explained
The Joker's eyes grew wide at the indiscretion. "It was supposed to look like the Mystery Machine. I like the Mystery Machine."
Just at that moment a small speck of red and blue descended from the sky and landed in the middle of the road ahead.
"There is a very good reason why I painted it this way." The young lady continued to explain almost oblivious to the event. As they approached the speck, it grew in shape slowly morphing into a more recognizable form until was easily identified as Super Man. The Man of Steel had landed directly in their path.
"Um…Harley." The Joker prodded at his sidekick and pointed through the windshield.
"See, I knew that things worked different in Metropolis than Gotham…"
As they approached, the spec that was Superman continued to grow in size.
"Harley…."
"So I managed to get into that stash of special whatchamahoozits you stole from Batsy that time…"
"Maybe you should turn around." Instead, Harley hit the accelerator.
"…you know those weird green crystal thingies…"
Now they were approaching the super hero at top speed. It was easy to see the look of confidence in Superman's face. He was about to make an easy catch. Suddenly the van impacted directly with him. The Joker braced for impact but instead being crushed to death by running head long into the Man of Steel the superhero went flying backward, rolling several feet across the pavement. Harley continued on maneuvering the van around her victim and sped off toward a nearby off ramp and fled back into the city.
"What…how…huh." Was the Joker's only way of asking what had just happened.
"Just what I was telling you, Puddin'" Harley answered. "I ground up those green crystals into the paint. As long as we're in this van, ol' Supertights can't touch us."
A short chuckle started from the passenger seat and burst forth into an all out guffaw. "I could kiss you." He told her between bouts of hysterical laughs and then began to cough violently. "But I won't…I'm getting sick."
Harley rolled her eyes. "You'll want to again in a minute." She predicted and made a series of sharp turns through the streets of Metropolis, almost colliding with several cars coming the other way. After a few more blocks she made a second sharp turn into a parking garage and maneuvered their van up the very top. At last she slammed on the breaks, jerking both her and her passenger forward.
When they had come to a full stop, she turn off the van, jumped out and strolled to the back, her companion right behind. She pulled down on the handle and threw open the back doors revealing an arsenal of all sorts of weapons ranging from a small slingshot in one corner to a vintage World War II German panzer shriek in the other. They were all painted pink.
"I'm impressed." The Joker complimented when he saw the makeshift armory. "You've been busy."
His side kick poked him in the ribs. "See, every once in a while Harley Quinn can make a good plan." And with that she chose a rocket propelled grenade launcher for herself and turned around to face the edge of the building overlooking the city.
Almost on cue Superman came floating up from below. He looked very much less confident than he did before. On the other hand, he did not look very amused by the situation either.
"That gave me a headache." He said, crossing his arms over the s-like symbol on his chest.
Harley shrugged. "No hard feelin's fly boy." She said, "but if I take you out I'm sure to get more respect…from some people." She shot a glance at the Joker who shrugged.
"And why not?" The super villain added. "After all, with him gone we'll have a whole new playground for ourselves. And all it took was a little special paint job."
Superman scratched his forehead. "Sounds like you two have it all figured out." He admitted, slightly sarcastically. "I guess I'm done." He gave a gesture of resignation. "Fire away."
The young lady propped her weapon onto her shoulder. "Yooou got it." She chuckled and squeezed down on the trigger. With a roar of smoke the rocket flew out of the weapon directly at its target…who caught it caught it effortlessly in mid air.
Both villains stared at each other in disbelief. "How did you do that?" The Joker demanded. Why the kryptonite in this van's paint…"
"Is on the van." Superman explained. "I'm too far away to be affected by the kryptonite, and you're not inside the van." With that, he tossed the still live RPG back toward the pair of evil doers. It impacted on the top of the van sending parts flying in all directions and blowing the Joker and Harley clear off of the roof of the parking garage. They only fell a few feet until they were snatched up in mid air, one in one hand and the other, in the other hand.
"Now to save time I think I'll fly you back to Gotham myself. I'm sure Batman will love to have some company for the evening."
"I guess I failed." Harley said through a nervous laugh
The Joker only shoved his hands into his pants pockets, at least as well as he could while dangling in mid air. "Epic fail." He replied.
"Can I still have that kiss?"
"I'd rather kiss a wookie."