Without warning, Joker released a spray of laughing gas on to the policeman nearest to him. The victim coughed and swatted at the thick cloud of toxin floating around him. Jonathan hurried towards him to record what happened.
At first it wasn't much. Everyone stayed quiet and still for a moment, watching and waiting. After failing to remove any of the smokey fog from his view, the police man attempted to stand. But it was to late. He had already breathed in a significant amount of laughing gas. He fell back down, continuing to cough. The coughing turned into gags and slowly into a raspy laugh. Joker gave a satisfied smile.
"Hey what's happening to him?" someone shouting.
"What the hell?" another voice said.
The pained laughing continued, the man's face turned red. He thrashed around on the floor and his eyes rolled back into his head. After a few more laughs and gasps he stopped and remained still. Jonathan stopped writing in the notebook and slowly bent closer to the first laughing gas victim. With great caution he reached out his hand to check for a pulse. None.
"He's dead," he said quietly to the Joker.
"Damn," the clown stared down at the body, "He didn't keep smiling. Oh well, good job Jonny,"
The room irrupted into yells, demands and threats after the breif period of stunned silence. The clown henchmen prepared to shoot if needed.
"Calm down everybody. You'll get your turn," Joker assured the crowd, "How many doses are in this thing Jonny?" he asked, yelling over the noise. He pulled up his sleeve to look at the can of laughing gas strapped to his wrist.
A police officer attempted to be a hero and dove towards Joker. The clown reacted quicker then him and sprayed the laughing gas directly in his face. He fell to the floor gasping and shaking violently with laughter. Jonathan wrote it down and glanced up to find Joker, he was already spraying another cop and bursting into a fit of giggles as he did.
"See Jonny," he yelled, overjoyed by the chaos around him, "I told ya this would be fun,"
The police man Harley had been guarding was suddenly becoming courageous as well, "Stay down," she cried pointing the gun in his face.
She quickly looked over her shoulder, hoping to get Mr. J's attention so he could gas this one.
"I mean it, I'm gonna shoot," she warned.
The man obviously did not believe the clown girl and began to get to his feet. Harley squeezed the trigger of her handgun with a shriek. She found that shooting the man with that short of a range resulted in blood splattered clothing. But she did not dwell on her stained tank top to long. Instead she looked around the room for Mr. J. Harley was starting to get scared, she couldn't see him anywhere. The room was a chaotic mess of cops trying to regain control, henchmen trying to control the cops and a thin haze of laughing gas. Joker had disappeared among the crowd.
Harley began to push her way through the room with no idea as to where she was going. She slipped and lost her weapon among the crowd. Then suddenly, someone grabbed her ankle.
Jonathan completely lost Joker. He moved to quickly amongst the crowd who was swirling like a whirlpool through his eyes. The colors of the blue police uniforms and the red and white clown masks of the henchmen seemed to stand out more than ever. Every color looked brighter then when he walked in. They swirled in circles and then stopped but continued throbbing and swelling into different shapes right before his eyes. But the worst part was the noise. Laughing, crying and screaming blended together, almost as one sound, pulsating so loudly he could feel it in his whole body.
He stumbled backwards, still holding on tightly to his notebook. Jonathan felt sick and faint, almost as if he'd fall over.
He ran his fingers nervously through his sweaty, dark hair and began looking for a way out.
A victim of the laughing gas that had been writhing on the floor where Harley had fell, he caught her ankle. He was definitely not dead yet and barely laughing anymore. Though he still gaged and wheezed, heaving huge breathes.
Harley screamed and struggled to escape the police officer's grip but he held on tight.
"Mistah J! Mistah J help!" she screamed and attempted to free herself, "Mistah J?"
She slammed a platform boot down hard onto his arm several times until his grasp on her ankle loosened. Then with one final kick to his face she escaped and raced away, hoping to run into Mr. J somewhere.
Jonathan felt his way along a wall until he reached a door. Without any idea as to where it lead to, he ducked inside assuming it had to be better than outside in the middle of all that madness.
After closing the door behind him he slid into a sitting position, his back against the door. What the hell are you doing? Scarecrow whined. Get back out there, I was just starting to have a good time.
"Shut up," Jonathan's voice cracked.
Don't tell me to shut retorted angrily, Get up and go.
"You may have no common sense, but I do. I could get killed. No, no I'm not going," Jonathan said forcefully, "And stop talking so I won't feel the need to respond to you,"
Oh yeah, think you're so smart Mr. Common Sense? Well, what are you gonna do from here hmm? Sit on your ass until this is over and whatever police is left will come and arrest you? Oh yeah, good plan.
"As a matter of fact it is," was Jonathan's hoarse reply, "At this point I'd be glad to be back in Arkham,"
Needless to say, Harley Quinn did not find the Joker. However she did make her way through the crowd and across the room. At the end was a door, which was thankfully unlocked. As fast as she could she slipped inside before anyone noticed.
She peered through the large windows from inside the room. Allowing her to safely view the chaos going on outside of it.
The room appeared to be an office. It contained a desk, which was scattered with papers, two chairs and a computer. A nameplate sat on top of the large metal desk, "Commissioner Gordon", it read. This was an office. Harley figured it would be a good place to hide until Mr. J was done with his laughing gas. She sat down on the chair sitting in front of the desk and sighed with relief. Then something caught her eye amidst the mess of paperwork, her picture.
Don't say that! Scarecrow yelled, You hated it in Arkham. Now listen to me, somewhere in this building is a room where the police contain all the evidence of any crime that involved Batman. Find that room.
Jonathan rubbed his temples, "No," he groaned, "I've got enough problems already, the last thing I need is to be caught tampering with police property,"
How the hell did you get a PhD? Honestly? Don't you get it? asked the very annoyed Scarecrow.
"Get what?"
Two words jackass, Fear. Toxin.
Harley grabbed the paper to be sure, it was her. Her old ID from Arkham Asylum, re-sized to become a larger image and printed out on a sheet of computer paper. Her slightly wavy hair was pulled back in low pony tail, no make up on her face and she wore a modest light blue collared blouse. It was strange how unfamiliar the picture was. It had only been a little over a month and the change in her looks had been astounding.
Harley walked to the other side of the desk to explore the rest of the cluttered desk. She soon found several more photos of herself, most of them from identification cards and others were attached to newspaper clippings featuring articles the Gotham Times did on her after she accepted the job as Jonathan Crane and the Joker's therapist.
Of course she knew that the Gotham City police were investigating her "disappearance" but what she noticed next surprised her.
The idea was tempting to Jonathan, he had worked so hard on that fear toxin and now it was just sitting somewhere in the police station, being of no use to anyone. Everything he went through to create a weaponized hallucinogen were being wasted. The years he spent trying to perfect it, for nothing. Not to mention all the trouble he went to keeping it a secret.
Jonathan Crane had wanted to get better. He was slowly healing in Arkham and he would have never left if it weren't for the Joker's goons coming and getting him. It was all there fault that he was losing control again.
Well? Scarecrow waited.
His alter ego was becoming so hard to resist. He desperately wanted that fear gas now. Jonathan knew what would happen if he got his hands on the toxin again, but the temptation was to great.
Slowly he stood up, his vision swimming as he did, distorting the dimly lit hallway before him.
"Okay," he gave in.
Gordon had several grainy images of Harley Quinn. He knew.
Harley supposed it was bound to happen at some point. Somebody would eventually figure out that Harley Quinn was the new and improved version of Dr. Quinzel. But she still felt sick knowing her secret was out. It was not the prospect of jail time that bothered her, though it would kill her to be separated from Mr. J like that. She felt sick because she wanted to be punished as Harley Quinn, partner in crime to the infamous Joker. Not Harleen Quinzel, therapist went crazy. She wanted her past identity to remain a secret, she wanted it to be completely erased as if Dr. Quinzel never existed.
She stared at all the photos and notes taken about her, all the links between Harleen Quinzel and Harley Quinn that Gordon had recorded. Then swept an arm across the desk sending the papers flying everywhere before raining to the floor.
Jonathan had no idea where anything was in the police station. Sure, he had been there before, more than once, but he was not exactly taking a tour of the building. And of course his current mental state was not helping things, miraculously however, the second room he came upon was the one he had been looking for.
The door was unlocked, he thought that was strange, a room containing a lethal weapon should be a little more secure than that. Scarecrow assured him that it must be fate.
Jonathan slid quietly inside. The room was dark, aside from the light coming from a computer screen towards the back. Along the walls were tall shelves that nearly reached the ceiling, they contained several cardboard boxes. Upon approaching them Jonathan found that each box was labeled, more luck. Quickly he found one labeled "Scarecrow" in quotations, along with the date which the fear toxin had been confiscated.
He carefully slid the box off of the shelve and sat it on the floor. And there it was, his fear toxin. Placed neatly inside a plastic bag at the bottom of the box waiting for him. Only one can was there though, he assumed the rest must have been destroyed. No matter, he would easily duplicate the toxin once he was done working for Joker. At least that's what Scarecrow told him.
Jonathan removed the toxin from the bag along with the straps he used to connect the can to his wrist, which was in a separate bag. He strapped it to his wrist and then covered it with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Then he took his mask out of the box. A simple but effective tool with his experiments in fear and the human mind. Originally, he had sewed it together to protect himself from the effects of the toxin while he tested it on patients, but it proved to hold more than one function. The rough stitches and the jagged mouth had been effective in frightening an already scared victim of his fear toxin and according to Carmine Falcone's repetitive mumbling, resembled a scarecrow.
He made the mask fit into his pocket as best he could and returned the box to its place on the shelf before leaving the room as quickly and carefully as when he had entered.
Harley stomped on the papers, the images of her former life. She wished everyone would just forget Harleen Quinzel like she had. Why couldn't the police just report her dead? They lied all the time to make the citizens of Gotham feel safer, why couldn't they simply lie about this? Harley Quinn crumbled up a piece of paper and threw it all the wall before slumping to the floor, tears welling in her eyes with frustration.
Suddenly the door flew opened. Harley looked up, it was Joker.
"Mistah J!" she squealed.
There he was, just when she needed him. Harley couldn't have been happier, but Mr. J... not so much.
"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded to know.
"I came in here cause I shot my policeman and I-I got scared and I couldn't find ya and and I just didn't know what to do," she stuttered trying to explain herself.
He bent down to her level on the floor and held her face with one hand, the other held a bloody knife to her mouth, "I need to know where you are. Got it? At all times," Joker squeezed her cheeks together, "If I put you somewhere, you staaay there," he gritted his teeth.
Harley nodded quickly, with that he stood up and grabbed a hold of one of her pigtails, standing her up as well.
"Mistah J, ow, where are we, ow, going?"
"Away from here," he replied pulling her along, "I'm out of laughing gas. Remember when Jonny said this stuff could make people aggressive?"
"Yeah," Harley winced.
"Well uh, he was right,"
I have no idea if the police would keep Jonathan/Scarecrow's stuff, again, no experience in that area. I thought it seemed reasonable though, and again it's Gotham. The villains escape from Arkham every two weeks and such.
So I'm feeling like I really don't describe a setting enough. I dunno. Sorry if I don't, I'm working on that.
Hmmm what else, my authors notes suck lately, I'm so lazy. Oooo Joker doll, really, really rad Joker doll. If you haven't seen this sexyass thing yet then you need to go look at it: http:// www. action-figure. com ?op=modload&name=ImageBank&file=index&id=91818