Chapter 8

Plants and Clowns

Babs revved her bike down Mercy road in pursuit of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. They peeled left down Main Street. More police cars joined the chase behind Babs and the three other Police cars. Babs slowly made her way past the other police cars, who responded to her presence neither positively nor negatively, continuing their pursuit with just as much intensity as normal, not getting out of Babs' way.

Harley, in the passenger seat, shouted something to Ivy, who turned the wheel and screeched around the corner, jetting off down a side street. Babs cut the turn early and easily took the corner at full speed; unfortunately for the larger, less maneuverable squad cars they had to decelerate and lose nearly all their speed in order to make the turn. Unhampered by the police, she continued speeding after Harley and Ivy, slowly gaining on them.

Harley pulled a large weapon from the floor of the back seat and placed it over her shoulder, aiming the large, wavering launcher at Babs. She fired it, rocketing her shoulder back and into the windshield, splintering the convertible's glass from the recoil of the over sized rocket launcher.

Babs swerved out of the way to avoid the swerving missile. How did Harley get her hands on a rocket launcher? Oh, right. She worked with the Joker.

"Any word on what they stole?" Babs asked into her comm. system as Harley loaded another round into her rocket launcher.

"There's nothing conclusive," Batman said on the other side, the sound of him scratching the shadow of beard on his face. "They trashed a mall and were on their way out as the police arrived. There could be anything in that trunk."

"Know where they're headed?" Babs asked. Harley fired another round at her. She dodged it, but the nature of her swerve lost her most of her speed. Why did these chase scenes always have to grow so complicated? What happened to the traditional no gun chase scene?

"Anyone's guess," Batman said. "They were both in Arkham just last night, so it's safe to say that they probably already have a place to go to."

Arkham? What did Arkham… wait a minute.

"Where was the Scarecrow last night?" she asked, pieces clicking in her mind.

"Arkham. Why do you ask?"

"It's the missing link," Babs thought out loud. "Two Face, The Riddler, Scarecrow, Harley, Ivy… All of them were in Arkham at some point."

Radio silence. "So? Every major criminal in Gotham has been in Arkham at some point or another. What's your point?"

"But were they all in on the night before they committed their respective crimes?"

"Follow your hunch," Batman said, trying to mask his fake skepticism.

"So I go to Arkham after I finish this?" she asked as she swerved down an alley Harley and Ivy scraped into, sparks flying off the car's contact with the wall.

"Follow your hunch" his voice trailed off, daring her to go to Arkham.

The car hit a bump in the alley just as Harley brought the launcher up to her face again, a bump triggering the missile launcher prematurely. Harley yelped as she recoiled backwards, firing the missile spiraling upwards into the brick apartment building, sending chunks of brick and wall onto the alley. Babs kicked her bike into gear, swerving around the falling chunks of debris, gunning the motor and shifting gears and chasing the convertible down the next street. They turned down Market Street and peeled down it, swerving in and out of the cars in all lanes of traffic.

Harley loaded another round as Babs sped up to catch the car, wondering why they were rocketing towards Market Street's dead end. Babs dodged around Harley's next round easily. Frustrated, Harley threw the launcher out the back of the car, clattering down the street and towards Babs' motorcycle.

Babs weaved to one side as Harley threw several round, purple spheres out of the back seat, glowing orange fuses dwindling into them. She only had a second to react before the smiling purple bombs exploded, showering the ground with shrapnel and choking the air with smoke, forcing her to slow and weave to avoid puncturing her tires on the major pieces.

Ivy cut the car to one side when she reached the park, sending it skidding towards the legde, carving up grass and dirt and shooting them over the side as they plummeted to the ground, landing with an earsplitting crunch. Babs followed them, skidding and chewing up the grass in the park, following Harley and Ivy from the park above, careful to stay above them so that they wouldn't notice.

Harley gave Ivy a quick high five and flopped down in her chair, wobbling her head side to side, and wobbling the bells on her hat as they sped down Prospect, falsely believing they were in the clear. As the park ended in a grove of trees and apartment buildings, Babs altered her course slightly so that she came off at a diagonal, soaring through the air in freefall and landing directly behind Harley and Ivy, who whipped around simultaneously as one, looked at each other, and shouted at each other inaudibly.

Ivy turned unexpectedly down Cameron Street. Why would they try to leave the city? They bulleted down the surprisingly uncrowded Cameron Street. Babs gunned her engine and caught up to Ivy, looking over at her and smiling innocently. Harley made a silly, immature face, pulling her eye down and sticking her tongue out as Ivy looked over, scowled, and threw some seeds from her hands onto Babs's helmet.

Babs yelled and attempted to scrape off the dangerous seeds that embedded into the crevices of her helmet and grew unnaturally, blocking her field of vision. She ripped the vines off her helmet, only to find herself looking straight into a large semi truck, heading straight at her. The truck flashed its lights and peeled to Babs' left as Babs cut her speed and cut right, pulling in behind Ivy for a second before Ivy turned unexpectedly onto Gotham Bridge. Babs followed, pulling several batarangs from her belt, now close enough to use them effectively. She threw them at the wheels of the purple car, and they popped the purple car's left tires, exploding with two simultaneous loud bangs and sending the car swerving from the loss of balance. The car tipped and skidded to a halt, throwing Harley from the front and onto the street, screaming at the top of her lungs as she rolled comically down the bridge.

Babs turned quickly, cutting her speed completely, and lifted the helmet off her head. "Give up?" she asked politely. It never really did hurt to ask.

"Yeah right, lady!" came Harley's voice as she stood up and dusted herself off. "We came this far and now we're going to make our special delivery to Mister J!" She swooned at the mention of his name.

"Will you give it a rest?" Ivy stood up from Harley's side of the car. "He doesn't care about you! Never has, never will."

Babs rolled her eyes. "Look, I would love for you two to enjoy your little bicker fest… Actually, I wouldn't. That doesn't really sound like a good idea."

Harley ignored her and stayed riveted on Ivy, lip quivering. "He does too care! Why would he have me around if he didn't care about me?"

"Because he doesn't care enough to tell you," Ivy said, annoyed, like she was explaining to a first grader for the millionth time that two plus two did in fact equal four.

"I said," Babs interrupted. "That I don't want to listen to this." She tapped her foot impatiently on the asphalt impatiently, growing more and more aware of the cars all stopped on Gotham Bridge.

"Will you shut up?" Harley yelled at her incredulously. "I'm trying to educate my friend on the finer points of me and my Mister J!"

"Can't we discuss this later?" Ivy asked. "The girl does have a point. We'll have to fight her eventually and it makes no sense for us to fight her later if only one of us is conscious."

"No," Babs smiled innocently. "You two can continue. By all means. I'll just sit here by the side not paying attention to anything."

Harley's eyes widened, realizing the finer points of Ivy's argument. "Hey! Ivy's right! There's two of us and only one of you. What the heck are we waitin' for?"

Babs gulped. She never faced off against any more than one super villain before.

Ivy charged at Babs and threw a handful of seeds, which landed on the bridge and dug into the asphalt, sprouting quickly and growing into a large plant, sending cracks through the ground and probably all the way to the bottom side of the bridge. The large, snarling plant lashed out its tentacles and grabbed her, pulling her in slowly to the center stalk lined with long, malicious looking thorns.

"It's a new creation of mine: the ventriculus. Super strong, abnormally fast, fast growing, and I imbued its thorns with a poison designed to stun its prey just enough so that they can't move, but can feel every part of the digestion process."

Babs struggled. "Digest me with what?" She tried to keep her mind focusing and not focusing on the dire situation at hand. How did this get the drop on her? This plant shouldn't have been that fast. She wriggled her fingers to her belt and pulled out a rope cutter, preparing to cut the plant's tentacle.

"This is why I love ya," Harley smiled, her annoying voice inflection raising with the thick accent she had created for her character as she placed her arm around Ivy's shoulders. "You always have the best toys. Well, the best besides Mister J's!"

Babs made a deft motion and sliced through the large tentacle that had just begun to constrict her ability to inhale.

"My plant!" Ivy screamed as Babs landed on the ground roughly, holding what felt like a cracked rib. "How dare you?"

She kicked Babs in the side as hard as she could, eliciting an audible crack from Babs' ribs. No. There was the cracked rib. Babs moaned as she rolled onto her back, trying to alleviate the pain from her body. "I'm sorry. Was that yours?." Ivy tried to kick her again, but Babs caught her foot and threw it straight up, sending Ivy off balance and to the ground.

Ivy yelped. "You'll pay for that!" She shouted, as she flipped to her feet.

Babs leap frogged over Ivy and lifted a batarang from her belt, flinging it at the large pod that looked like the thinking center for Ivy's new creation and slicing it off, releasing green sap as the pod rolled down the bridge and stopped at the bridge's guardrail.

Ivy screamed and attacked in a blind rage. Babs grabbed Ivy's arms, rolled backwards, pulled Ivy with her, and kicked her in the stomach, sending her at the dying, floundering plant, tentacles splaying in every which way. Babs smiled in triumph, turning around, wholly prepared to take on anything that Harley could possibly-

WHAM!

A huge hammer with cloth on either end of the mallet portion made contact with the side of Babs' face as she turned around, sending Babs spiraling to the street, tasting blood.

"Take that!" Harley shouted, holding the heavy mallet at her feet at an angle.

"Right," Babs stood up, wiping her mouth with the back of her yellow glove. She threw her body weight into a right hook at Harley's face, but Harley dodged it, flipping backwards in acrobatic cartwheels.

"Would ya look at that, Ivy? Kid's got spunk!"

"Sure does," Ivy said, rubbing her stomach as she gingerly stroked the quickly disintegrating plant.

They both charged her simultaneously from both sides. Babs ducked, as the two kicked upwards right at Babs' chin, sending her head backwards into the ground. More blood in the mouth. These two were well-coordinated. Team u o, this wasn't nearly improved enough from both sides.

"Alright!" Harley shouted in triumph.

Babs wiped the blood from her lips again. She double hand sprung into the fray. Ivy punched as Harley kicked. Babs ducked the punch and shifted her weight around to dodge Harley's kick, using her ability to multitask to her advantage. She flipped onto her hands and jumped off them vertically, spinning her legs around and knocking the two in opposite directions and to the ground.

Harley flipped to her feet while Ivy recovered, leaving Babs to fight her one on one. Harley cartwheeled to Babs and landed next to her. Fists flew as Babs matched Harley's speed. After a few second, Babs saw a small break in Harley's defense and gave Harley a quick uppercut to the jaw. Harley flew comically up into the air and landed on the ground, unconscious. Babs turned around to face Ivy, who, during the few seconds had recovered enough to sneak up on Babs, punched Babs across the face, sending her hard to her left and off balance. Babs restabilized herself by thrusting out her right leg, catching Ivy in the stomach as she. Ivy grabbed her leg and flipped her over so that Babs landed on the ground, moaning. She tried to stand up, but Ivy prepared to kick her in the face.

"No, no, no," Ivy smiled. "Don't get up."

Babs dropped back to the ground, rolled and grabbed Ivy's foot with both hands. She twisted quickly and spun Ivy to the ground.

"I wasn't aware I needed your permission," she said as she kicked Ivy again, this time in the head, knocking her out.

She breathed heavily as she moved to the overturned purple car and popped open the trunk. An assortment of hats and head decorations popped out. Why would the Joker want hats?

Babs hopped on her bike and rocketed off towards Arkham with this new information as the police pulled up.

Why the Joker could possibly want a huge trunk full of hats from the mall. Now she had to fight the Joker. Harley wanted to take the hats to Arkham for the Joker. Why would-

Then a thought occurred to her.

What if the Joker didn't want the hats? What if someone manipulated those two as he or she undoubtedly manipulated The Riddler, The Scarecrow, Catwoman, Two Face and Psimon? So who would want-

She smiled. Wasn't the Mad Hatter in Arkham?