(A.N: Whoo, two chapters in one week! I'm on a roll! Be careful with this chapter, cause Joker gets a little crazy with his methods. This rating borders on M. You have been warned! Next one will be all Robin...And Batman...And Starfire...And Conner...MWAHA!)
«»«»«»«»»»
The Joker had sizzled Wren with his Joy Zap until he'd gotten bored of watching her jerk and twitch and drool. She'd passed out at least twice, but each time he'd brought her back. She'd woken up to a sweet, cloying smell coming from a dirty cloth to her nose, and an increased jolt of voltage from the device.
Now, Harley Quinn was holding her on the floor the way a mother would hold a child, crooning horribly into her ear. Wren was completely still ...the tiniest movement made her vibrate with agony. The ends of her hair were singed and brown, and her clothes smoked slightly. She was so red she resembled a four limbed, freshly cooked lobster. The last time she'd came to, the Joker had been gone, and Harley was cradling her.
"Aw, poor baby bird girl," Harley whispered, stroking her cheek with one bony finger. Her nail against her skin made waves of icy pain crawl up Wren's face. "Ya know you should just play along, 'fore Mista J REALLY starts having fun with you. I gotta admit though, I'm pretty jealous." Wren shivered, but otherwise didn't move. Harley smiled blissfully and kissed her loudly on the cheek, making the whole side of her head flame like a bonfire.
Strangely, she found herself thinking back to the last battle with the sidekicks, and how she'd fried Kid Flash. She felt infinitely sorry for him.
"Harley! Baby, I'm back!" Joker's voice sounded from somewhere outside the dungeon. Harley leaned up from her place near Wren and called out to him brightly. "In here, Sugar!" To Wren she said, "Mista J said he was going out to get something special. He said you're gonna really like it!"
Wren's stomach quivered, but she held her silence. So far, the Joker had gotten nothing out of her in relevance to the Kryptonite and Slade. He'd asked her about her master, his plans and routines, and other random things, but she'd held firm. She could only hope that wherever her brother was, Robin was doing the same thing.
And that he was even still alive.
"Harley? Bird Girl? Ahhh, here you are." The Joker stepped into the light, smiling as always. His acid green hair made an evil halo around his skull like head. He clasped his gloved hands under his chin and batted his eyelashes at the both of them. "D'awww... ain't that precious. A little girl bonding time!" Harley giggled and stood up to lean on his shoulder. "What'd ya get while you were out, Mista J? I missed you something terrible!" He pushed her away and shook his finger scoldingly. "Now, now, miss Quinn. You're going to ruin the suprise!" In his arms, he held a big, clear plastic bag that sloshed and jiggled when he moved. Large dark specs floated in the liquid inside.
"Harley, be a dear and move her over to the tank." Quinn curtsied, giggled, and cut Wren's other hand free from the wall, binding her wrists together like handcuffs. Then, she pulled her to her feet and pressed the blade into the small of her back ominously. "Don't be mean, bird girl. Just move it along and do what Mista J says." Wren gritted her teeth and thought about struggling. Quinn was no match for her, even injured, but then she thought better of it. Escaping would be much harder with a severed vertebrae.
Harley shoved her over to another part of the basement and yanked her to a stop in front of an empty glass tank. It looked like a large aquarium, big enough for someone to sit in without being squished. A crude wooden stool sat in front of it. Harley forced her down onto the seat and backed away quickly, leaving a space for the Joker. "Comfy?" the clown asked. Wren only stared venemously. The Joker nodded. "Good, good. Then we can get started." He sat the plastic bag down and reached behind his body, drawing out a thick metal chain. "Welcome to the Laugh till it hurts Spa, miss Deathstrike. As this is your first time, I'll explain what to do!"
He grinned and reached down for her bare leg. She immediately kicked at his face, but he grabbed her ankle and held her still in an iron grip. "Mm-mm-mm." he sighed, clicking his teeth disapprovingly at the raw flaking red patches of burned skin on her legs. "What a shame. No young lady's legs should ever look like that. Don't fret! We'll fix those gnarly sticks right up!" And he began to coil the chain around her legs.
Wren started to fight in earnest, flailing her legs and trying to kick his teeth out of his mouth. The Joker struggled to hold them both- she was not a weak girl, even after being electrocuted. "Let...go...of...me...You...sick...bastard!" she howled. The Joker jumped back once again, scowling, but then he smiled. Of course.
Without another word, he dove forward and straddled her lap. He forced his body in between her legs. With his hands, he wrenched her knees apart. Wren flushed bright as a stoplight and struggled harder. She was clad in only a musty, over sized t shirt and her underwear. The Joker's cold fingers crawled up her pale thighs, and terror erupted in her stomach. She began to sweat. "NO! No, get away from me!" She jerked in her seat, trying to desperately throw herself from the stool. If she closed her legs, he would tie them up and do who knew what. "GET-!"
The Joker put his entire weight on her knees, holding them open. He brushed her underwear aside, and beaming, promptly jammed his thumb as hard and as painfully as he could into the little bundle of nerves, digging his nail into her and pressing down.
Wren's scream was high enough to shatter glass. Razor sharp pain rolled through her entire core and lower half. She was sure she was bleeding. The Joker released her, and her legs closed tightly, shaking and paralyzed. She sobbed quietly, feeling violated and disgusted. Behind her closed lids, all she could see was Slade's blank mask. Her slit throbbed with soreness, swollen painful and red.
The Joker stood, licked his finger, and continued wrapping the chain around her legs, chortling all the while. She wanted to vomit. In seconds, he had them both tied together like a mermaid tail. He tossed the other end of the chain to Quinn, who stood on tiptoe and looped it through a hook on the low ceiling. "Good to go, Mista J!" Wren, shaking with aching pain, watched through eyes blurred with tears as the Joker pulled the chain downwards. Her legs jerked up, suspended above the empty tank. He smoothed his hair and straightened his ragged clown tie. "Now..."
He handed the chain to Harley, then picked up the bag. "Meet my hungry little fishies." Despite herself, Wren peered closer. The dark shapes darted and moved around in the bag, glinting dimly like pennies. They were fish- squat, stocky fish with small eyes and big mouths. They were a rusty red color. They looked like-
Wren went white as a sheet when her brain registered the large, pearly white fangs protruding from their mouths. Piranhas.
The Joker shook the bag and cooed at the bloodthirsty fish. "Pretty, aren't they?" He emptied the bag into the tank. The piranhas- at least twelve of them- tumbled into the water, not five inches under her toes. Wren's mouth went dry- she knew what these fish could do to flesh in seconds. The Joker's plan was obvious, but if she just stayed still, they'd leave her alone. The Joker himself reached into the pocket of his bright purple suit and removed a glittering blade.
"You know, bird girl, I honestly thought you would have wised up and started talking by now." he said conversationably, tossing the knife end over end. "I've got a lot of people counting on me to get this Kryptonite. Me and some friends were gonna split it, and when that girl called me, well...She said you'd be happy to help me." Wren swallowed the quiver in her voice before answering. She knew she couldn't sound weak, but the statement caught her attention and held it. "Girl? What girl?" The Joker waved the question away. "Oh, some girl. She called us- all of us, actually, Crane and Bane and Ivy and some others- and said Slade's kids were gonna knick something really special."
"That's how you knew were we were?" Wren asked, forgetting momentarily about the vicious flesh eaters at her feet. The Joker nodded irritably and ran his thumb along the flat of the blade. "Yup. But the point is, she lied. And that makes me...angry. I hate liars. But I don't have anyone to take it out on." he growled. Wren's mind was going at a million miles an hour.
Some mysterious girl had called Gotham's villains and told them about their mission. Whoever it was was no friend of Slade. She ran through a list of her master's enemies. There were a lot of them, both male and female, around the globe, but she couldn't think of one with that much connection. Someone had known about it before even her and Robin.
A tingle of anger rippled through her, and she grimaced. That person was also responsible for THIS- they had sabotaged her mission and gotten her and Robin seperated and captured. For her being held and tormented. Whoever it was, she would personally see them die.
The feeling of the cold blade being pressed against her foot jerked Wren back to the present. She glanced down and saw the tip of the knife held to her toe. The Joker's smile was forced. "So how about it, kid? You still want to play hard to get?" Wren shuddered, but stared him straight in the eye. "Go screw yourself, Bozo." The Joker sighed. "They're not gonna be happy to hear that. Oh, well." He started sawing the blade over her toes, leaving deep cuts in the webbings of skin. He looked like he was doing nothing more incredible than carving a chicken, not maiming her.
Wren bit her cheek and closed her eyes to the pain. She was no stranger to being cut. The Joker moved from her toes to the backs of her knees and her thighs. He left a mosaic of bloody lines all over her legs, slicing through the burned skin. When he stopped, streams of blood were running down her legs and into the tank. The piranhas swam through the blood as it hit the water and blossomed into crimson blots, opening and closing their mouths and flaring their nostrils. The Joker grasped the chain and lifted her legs, hoisting them over the tank. "Last chance, Bird Girl."
"Fuck you."
He stared at her, then opened his fist and released the chain. Her legs splashed down into the tank, spattering bloody water. The liquid turned pink, and the pirahnas swam around her ankles, tasting it. Wren flinched at their scaly touch. The Joker glanced at him watch. "I've got a meeting now. When you've had enough, just yell." He handed the chain to Harley, who grinned. "Have fun! Oh, I wouldn't watch if I were you, bird girl." He strode away, out of the light.
Wren stared down into the tank and the rapidly moving fish, convinced they were about to tear her apart. Harley jiggled the chain, making her feet jerk and splash. "Chow time, fishies!"
The first piranhas nibbled at her ankle, then another, then another. Wren felt their sharp teeth dig into her toes, ripping tiny pieces away. Outwardly, she was frozen with terror. Inwardly, she was screaming her head off.
«»«»«»«»«»
"She's not cracking, boys. I'm trying my best tricks here. I'm starting to think Slade replaced those brats with robots." The Joker complained. He pouted at the screen in front of him, split into four images. The faces of four of Gotham's other villains scowled back at him- Scarecrow, Bane, Riddler, and Two Face. Over his mask, Bane's eyes were cold and blazing. The Riddler was red faced. Harvey Dent looked conflicted, as usual, and Scarecrow was...Scarecrow.
"Tell me this, Clown- what's something you don't break unless you wanna get broken?" Riddler spat. "A promise! You promised us a fair share of your loot! Where's the rock?" The Joker sneered, and his scars pulled at his mouth. He hated riddles. Jokes, he loved. But he really hated riddles. Especially the Riddler's riddles. "I don't know, Green Breeches. Why don't you make a riddle out of it? She's not talking." Scarecrow shifted and spoke up. "What have you been doing to her?"
"Electrocution, piranhas, suffocation. I've beaten her a few times-"
"You fool," Bane rumbled. "She is the apprentice of Deathstrike. This is childs play to her." Joker frowned. "So what the hell do you think I should do then?"
"Such a shame, having to hurt that pretty girl." The undamaged part of Dent's face sighed. "If only she'd be a good girl and tell us..." He turned suddenly, showing the waxy, scarred, burned portion. "Good girl!? GOOD GIRL!? She's a little Bitch!"
"Maybe if we ask nicely-"
"NICELY?! How about we hold her down and bang her up and make her SCREAM it-"
"And still nothing from your mysterious informant?" Bane interrupted Two Face's faces. Joker shook his head. "Nothing."
"You have to break the mind first, then the body. It's really quite simple." Scarecrow sniffed in his oily tone. Joker sighed. "It's not as easy as it looks! I'd like to see you try it." To his shock, Crane nodded. "Alright. I will."
"'Scuse me?"
"In two days, if you can't get anything out of her, bring her to me." Scarecrow clarified. "I'll get answers in two hours, tops." The Joker was miffed. "Now wait just a minute, Straw head. I've been doing just fine without you and your fancy gas." Scarecrow tilted his head in an insectile manner. "Really? I don't hear any screaming for mercy or information being babbled." Joker opened his mouth, then closed it and grinned. "Shhh...hear that?" From the basement, Wren had finally started screaming. "Holy moly!" Harley yelped.
The Joker turned and waved at the screen. "Excuse me, gents, but I think that's the dinner bell."
"Two days, Joker. Two days, and then she's mine."