2013-01-12: Superstar Debut

It's partly cloudy Saturday in January, but it's not too cold: the temperature's hoodie weather, rather than coat or jacket. The sun shines bright on the Gotham U campus, and flyers have been up on campus all week that Gar Logan, Changeling, would be speaking and running a demonstration today in the quad.

Considering there's a stage set up with an amp and a microphone, and some student volunteers at the soundboard and manning a table with pamphlets and a mini bio and one-inch badges and stickers, it looks like it's not a complete joke. Maybe. Well. Not as such.

The face on the buttons is attached to a guy who's crouched at one end of the stage schmoozing with a couple of co-eds that look about five years older than him. Because honestly, in his skintights, with that babyface? He looks too young to vote. "...autograph your-- whatever you like," he's saying with a grin, "did you bring a sharpie? My assistant's got one over there, if not, but I'm starting in like a minute."

Meanwhile, there's a mini-crowd gathering. Maybe the same number of people who'd show up for a political speaker. Maybe, considering Gar Logan is green, they're the same people who /would/ show up for a political speaker. Gar straightens up and starts for the mic stand, the girl not having had a sharpie on her.

Dick Grayson doesn't always spend a lot of time reading the Alumni emails he gets from Gotham University, but the last one caught his attention for a number of reasons. While he hasn't spent too much time on the campus since his graduation, he rides his bike up to one of the visitors spots, parks, and makes his way towards the large stage set up in the quad.

Not only is there a personal interest, but it's important to know which powered folks are hanging out in Gotham for, well, any reason.

Mike Dugan was always giving Courtney Whitmore a hard time. ALWAYS. Her younger brother was a perpetual thorn in her side whenever she was at home. Which was why she found it so hard to understand why he complained when he didn't get to do whatever SHE was doing. Like touring Gotham University. He'd whined and bitched like the petulant child he was that he couldn't go with his step-mother and step-sister, even though he was nowhere near college-aged and would likely have found it boring.

Thankfully, he'd been left at home.

The Prius was parked, and Barbara and Courtney Whitmore were currently cruising around the campus with about twelve other teenagers and their parents, being shown the buildings and given the history of the place. Of course, the blonde teen had already pretty much set her heart on New York State, or even Metropolis U., but Barbara had insisted that she accept the invitation for a visit 'just in case'.

"Court. Smile." The order is given as the teenager rolls her eyes and puts her hands behind her back, shifting her weight to one leg as she affects a bright, if patient and somewhat forced, smile while her mother aims the camera at her. With a bright flash that was sure to leave the photo with red-eye goes off, the unmasked Stargirl moves away from the giant statue of Some Guy who'd probably donated millions of dollars to this place as she and the older blonde attempt to catch up with their group.

"Who's 'Bruce Wayne', anyway?" she asks her mother.

"Honey, less Jersey Shore, more CNN. Now hush, I think someone's about to speak."

The tour-guide had led them over towards the stage, where the dozen or so prospective students stood out from all others by the white bades labeled VISITOR hanging around their necks. Courtney was busy folding her arms and looking bored, stifling a yawn. She'd much rather have been checking out the food court, dorms, Sorority houses... even the frat houses!

Having decided he needed a break from New York, Owen's made his way to Gotham of all places. A simple thing has brought him out to Gotham U. A Frat house party. It was a perfect chance to grab some life force from some drunken college guys without any of them even noticing so he spent a night recharging and making sure the only Bat that would be around Gotham was a guy in a cape and not a homicidal monster. Hood up and darkness obscuring his face, Owen's slowly walking through the campus now on his way out. The mini crowd and sight of someone green get him stopping in his tracks though. "Huh..."

After doing battle with a workstation's computer in the student hall, Susan finally won. Pieces lay strewn across the floor. Ignoring the mess made, along with the wave of dumbfounded faces from casual hanging-out students, Susie strolled out, with an odd sort of strut, right out the glass door of the hall. About to reflexively pop on her sunglasses, she stopped and stared at the crowd in the distance. Her face made several expressions--wincing, perked curiousity, and finally settling on a huff-filled sigh. "I'll check out the hub-bub, bub," she muttered to herself, and continued her whimsical strut along the path towards the crowd of protesting students.

First visit to Gotham from Jacob, and his explorations led him to check out Gotham University. Somehow, this place brings him a nostalgic feeling. The people in a group study... the gathering of students around Gar... He studies it, trying to make sense of just what it is that's going on. This has nothing to do with the fragments of memories from a previous, suddenly cut short life, no.

"Look, buddy, no one ordered a cake. Certainly not a wedding cake. This is a school."

"Is it? Oh, I must have the wrong address..."

Somewhere off to the side, Campus police, who had been stationed around mostly to control traffic for the guest speaker, and make sure no one's smuggling in booze, is currently busy trying to fend off a caterer who insists that someone at the school ordered a wedding cake. The caterer is a thin guy, almost sickly thin, and quite pale, and so far, he's mostly hidden his face from the rent-a-cop, busy studying an order form.

"No, no... This is right... right?" He asks, shoving his clipboard under the cop's nose, who scowls and takes a look. There, written across the entire page in bright red... ink, is one word.

BANG!

He had to write it down, after all... Otherwise the man never would have heard the silenced gun shot as it tore through his heart. The caterer catches the cop as he falls, and helpfully brings him around to the other side of the van, stuffing him in the back.

"Alright Harls, you're up."

Seemingly oblivious to this exchange is one Harley Quinn. She's busy putting on jet black lipstick within the reflection of the van's mirror, not reacting in the slightest as the guard gets gunned down and the path for the cake is free and clear once more. Also, her reflection is adorable. In that creepy, over-contrasted sort of way.

"Mwah."

She hops out and nearly trips over the fallen cop, emitting a tiny squeak. "'Ay! Who left the dead guy here, don't these people know where we are?!" Not that it stops her from plucking the taser from his belt, eyes gleaming slightly as she takes it into her hand. "This looks dangerous."

Right, then. They've got a cake to deliver! If she just happens to leave the back door on the van open just enough that, say, a barely tamed hyena or two might be able to push it open and go running amok, well..that would just be a real shame, wouldn't it.

Jacob blinks as a short, muffled noise suddenly rises above all else. He looks around in a casual but curious manner. He lifts his head up slightly, and begins to sniff the air some in search of more sensory input. Other than that, he continues to obeserve the people.

There are, of course, anti-meta/anti-mutant protestors beginning to gather around the outskirts of the little crowd, as well: some of the traffic-directing campus police split off to keep the grim-faced sign-holders at a safe distance from the speaker's attendees. They're not hard to get past, since it's an open event without paid admission.

Some of the teenagers from Courtney's tour group are checking Changeling out, because when all's said and done, he's pretty cute for someone who's green-skinned. Others are making fun of his publicity gear-- those t-shirts are hipster-campy. The buttons aren't bad, and the buttons and stickers and pamphlets are all free! Who doesn't like free swag?

Meanwhile, another student volunteer's running across the quad with a camcorder and a tripod, huffing and puffing like the pot-smoking hipster-punk film major she is. She sets it up hurriedly to one side of the stage, then starts pulling other equipment out of her satchel.

Finally stepping up in front of the mic, Gar's grinning as he looks down to pull it out of the stand, and he steps to one side of it then looks up at the gathering crowd. "Hey, all of you, thanks for coming," he says with cheery ease. "My name's Garfield Logan -- Gar -- and some of you might've heard of me as Beast Boy, former member of the Doom Patrol. These days I go by Changeling, and I'm one of the Young Allies in New York.

"I thought I'd get that out of the way first. I don't wear a mask because seriously? I've been told I stand out. Oh, and by the way, the Doom Patrol didn't, you know, *make* doom. And we totally didn't work for the Latveria guy. But what I'm here to do today is let you, all of you, get to know me-- and maybe a little bit of what it's like to be a kid with powers. Once I'm done with my spiel, I'm gonna open the floor to questions. This is being livestreamed-- or will be once Haley here sets up her laptop," he laughs, "and Conrad over there," he points, "will be monitoring tweets so people who couldn't make it can ask questions, too."

Grayson is in the area where the Wedding Cake fiasco happens...just at the edge of the gathering crowd. If the delivery guy isn't immediately recognized, the fallen guard and appearance of Harley Quinn cause him to pause in his path. Glancing about, he quickly ducks into the nearest shadowed alley or empty library corner to quickly change. It isn't often that the Batfolk are out during the day, but they aren't exclusively nocturnal.

After all, he went here, so Nightwing is familiar with all the little nooks and crannies in order to change.

A call is made to the Gotham PD about the shot fired on the campus even as Nightwing starts to sneak about. Harder in the daylight, but not entirely impossible. He starts towards the van, doing his best to stay out of Harley's and the Delivery Man's sight so that he can close that van door...hopefully before any 'hyenas' get out.

Stopping to get a hotdog (with chili and chese, naturally) at one of the local truck vendors, Susan nibbles at it, while random, questionable slop dribbles behind her from the wax paper-wrapped 'food.' Eyes panning over as she ever-so-slowly walks closer to the area, she notices the stage. "What is this crazysauce?!" she proclaims, making a random student with a Phillies baseball t-shirt turn and look at her. She sees Gar as he begins to speak...vaguely remembering seeing posters of that green little dork around New York. "Can't get away from that town, can I?" She says to the guy next to her, still staring. He says nothing, and Susie stands towards the back of the crowd, listening and watching. And farting (just once).

"Mom, he's green." Courtney Whitmore states the obvious as she points up at the stage. "Like a leprecaun. Isn't their school team the 'Bats' or something?"

"Shhh, I can't hear." The younger blonde rolls her eyes dramaticly and shifts her feet while staring up at what she guesses is a baby-faced mutant of some kind. Or maybe he was an alien? Maybe her mother was right and she DID need to watch the news more! Gawd, but she'd never heard the end of it if she let HER know that. At her throat was feeling better, the teen notes as she absently rubs at an almost-invisible bruise wrapped about the front of her neck.

But hey, free-stickers! Courtney had a new subject notebook that was sorely lacking in aesthetic designs. The girl wanders away from her mom for a second, promising to 'be right back', and sidles closer to the free-stuff portion of the area. There, she begins plucking up stickers leik whoa, so much so the person handing them out is beginning to give her a dirty look. With an apologetic grin, she puts one back, stuffs the rest in the front pocket of her hoodie, and then accepts a button.

...And then pulls out her phone after getting the tweet number with only a somewhat malicious grin.

@CourWhit: dood y u green??

The protestors get an unseen glare from Owen but they don't deter him. Making sure that darkness is extra thick to keep his face hidden, Owen starts towards the stage. A green guy up there talking and not having things thrown at him? That's new for him so he's going to investigate. Making his way to the front of the little gathering closer to the stage, he listens to the speech, questions already coming to mind.

There's some very angry growling now coming from that closed-up van.

With a grumble, Susie rummages with some gusto through her pockets. Several gum wrappers and pennies fall out, scattering to the winds. Yanking out a cellphone that looks like it's been dropped way too many times, she fumbles a little twitter message to Gar's account.

@Gar Hey dude. Your moms so stupid she sold her car for gas money.

"A lot of you might be wondering why I'm doing this. I mean-- I'm not super-famous, like Superman, or even a superpowered celebrity like Dazzler. But I've got a voice and I'm obviously adorable! I'm also just like any one of you." Gar flings one hand out, grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

"YOU'RE GREEN!" catcalls one of the protestors, "MUTIE! YOU'RE NOT LIKE US!"

Utterly ignoring this, Changeling continues without so much as a flinch or a flicker in the quality of his smile. "My dreams aren't about property damage or fighting bad guys or causing trouble-- they're not even about improving metahuman relations. I mean heck, that's the JLA's and the Titans' job, the Avengers' job, and they do great! Me? My current dream is to bring back hawaiian shirts. Well, that and get a superhuman reality show on the air, because man oh man, the crap young adults have to put up with is funny and tragic enough-- add in power malfunctions and identity woes and jealousy and really wicked good pranks, and bright colors, and you've got comedy gold. Which, by the way, the kickstarter's link is in the pamphlets at the swag table over there. And that, my friends, is my totally unrehearsed spiel. I figured there'd be enough questions-- oho!"

The green kid jogs to the side of the stage and snags his cellphone from Haley, who was waving it at him, then glances over to Conrad-- and he laughs at the display of the phone. "First question: why am I green? Easy answer: I got bitten by a monkey when I was little, and it had a weird disease called Sakutia. My folks found a cure, but the side effect is this gorgeous coloring-- and the ability that I've had so much fun with ever since: turning into any animal you can think of. Which, I'm not taking requests right now, that could go on all day." He glances at the display again. "Also, 'your mom' jokes are passe. Puns are where it's at. Okay! Questions! Go for it, you beautiful people!"

Mustering up all her vocal might, Suzsie shouts towards Gar at the top of her lungs: "CAN YOU DANCE, PRETTYBOY?" After this, she realize she has no particular idea why she just said that, but the students around her move a few steps away, making it clear that it was indeed her who said it. Eyebrows flexed, she seems to ask without words: 'What?!'

So 'Beasty Boy', huh? Doom Patrol. Changeling. Courtney is busy googling things on her iPhone, namely to see what she's missed out on. Ah, a super-team that this green guy was a part of! Well, that made sense, what with him being oddly-colored, after all. Pictures of a green guy in a suit, smiling, waving... pictures of green animals? Too weird! His pets? Elasti-Girl, Robotman, Bumblebee. Yeah, seemed a pretty standard bunch of whackos as far as super-teams went!

"Bet I could take 'em." She mumbles as Garfield Logan starts in on the meat and potatos of his speech. She at least has the courtesy to turn and give a glare at the protestor. Geez, not like mutants could HELP how they were born anymore than she could help her biological father being a deadbeat!

Barbara immediately begins looking for her daughter at the mention of a TV Show. She has to find Courney before-

"And who best to co-star than his best pal, *STARGIRL*!" And now Courney Whitmore, decked out in her star-spangled uniform, is on stage, leaping forward to sling an arm around Changeling like they were old pals, pumping her cosmic rod into the air as her mother facepalms in the crowd.

For no sooner had the possibility of fame and a TV Show been mentioned than the collapsed staff had come out of her purse and been used to transform herself directly into Stargirl's costume. Now she's giving thumbs ups to the crowd and her biggest, braces-filled smile. "Yeah, VH1, we rock!"

Silence for a moment, and then. "...Hey, aren't you the one that let the Federal Reserve get robbed?"

Courtney's arm drops as she gives a sullen stare at the maleficent male who'd dare scorn her name. She pokes a finger in his direction. "Can security remove that guy?" And then in Suszie's direction. "And that girl?"

Ah... again, some nostalgic feeling regarding the crowd, this feeling running through Jake's mind like wild fire. So much so, he closes his eyes for a moment, not noticing the odd wedding party caterer and his assistant.

Owen stays as quiet as always as he listens. Gar's speech gets him frowning slightly. The calls from the crowd and sudden appearance of Stargirl just prompt a little sigh from Owen. Shaking it off, he refocuses on Gar. "Pardon, but do ya'll really think its a good idea tah be puttin' people on TV when they gotta worry 'bout folks like that comin' after 'em just for existin'?" Owen calls out, jerking a thumb towards the protestors. Of course he might come off as a bit creepy looking given the 'why is there nothing but darkness under his hood?!'.

'Go for it,' the Green Man says. There's a storm approaching, and she's grinning like an absolute fiend. Harley approaches the fun surrounding Gar with her head canted forward and her arms sweeping out to the sides, a projectile taser in one hand and a flare gun in the other. Like the mockery of an angel. There's also a crowbar in a scabbard across her back, because Mister Crowbie likes to travel in comfort and style.

"Ladies and jerks! It's time for you all to make a decision. Cake," she asks while sweeping a hand back to the giant wedding cake being rolled on in behind her, "or death?"

Insert smug grin here. "I always wanted to say that. Now let's get this partay kickin'!" Up comes the flare pistol, firing once in the general direction of where Gar Logan is/was having his talk. The single shot is nothing more than a canister being lobbed out like a smoke grenade. Complete with smoke. Thick, green smoke that has a nasty habit of making people laugh themselves sick, or worse. "Let's hear some laughs for Gotham's biggest jerk of all, and that's -my- jerk -with- a capital Jay, and -don't you forget it.- The greenest of all evils, the laughter in your manslaughter, the puddingest of puddings, it's the Jay Man!"

'The Caterer' barely supresses a snicker as Harley pulls the tazer free from the belt of the guard, but he's already pushing a monster of a wedding cake along on some busted up cart, heading straight towards the gathering. As he goes, he whispers a few last minute instructions to his Clown Princess. When he's finished, he cackles, unable to smother it in time, but luckily enough that it doesn't attract any attention.

"'Scuse me, pardon me! Cake comin' through, no need to panic, there's plenty for all you crazy kids. Where's the happy couple? They've got to pay their bill!" In no time at all, he cuts a line straight through the crowd, before he pulls the cake up to a stop near the stage and waits for Harley to make her move, still obscuring his face beneath his hat.

When she does, he cackles, hops up on the stage, right into the deadly gas cloud, and rips his hat from his head, tossing it straight into the crowd, "Hellooo, Gotham!"

Yes indeed, the Caterer was, in fact, the Crown Prince of Crime!

He turns his horrifically large grin on Gar and Courtney, throws open his arms like he expects a big hug and waits.

And waits.

"Oh, come on! Don't you want to say hello to your old Uncle Jay?" Instantly, he slips between the two of them and moves to drape an arm over each of their shoulders. "You know, Bird Brain, something's different about you... Did you get a haircut? Change of uniform? Fall into a vat of deadly green chemicals?" Without waiting for an answer, Joker turns his smile on Courtney next, asking, "And you, Mrs. Bird Brain... You're different too, less broody, more spangly. I like it! Much more festive! HAhahAHAhaHAhaHAahAHa!" They better move fast unless they plan on laughing themselves... to death.

At Susan's yelled-out question, Changeling laughs. "I can dance like the stars, gorgeous! See me after class." His eyebrows waggle, but the shiteating grin that accompanies it is clearly teasy instead of pervy.

AND THEN COURTNEY HAPPENS. Startled as all hell, Gar staggers slightly as Stargirl slings an arm around him. "Wh--" he starts, eyes a little wide, and then he just rolls with it. "Ladies and gentlemen, she'll be here all week! Sign up before we sell out, and you'll have all the indie cred you'll ever need."

He snappoints at Owen, then, eyebrows up. "That is a *good* question. But man, it's like I said before: I can't hide. I'm a target anyway, and there are a lot of people like that. Why not have some fun with it? Haters gonna hate no matter whatcha do."

AND THEN HATERS HATE. "Oh crap." Gar raises his voice into the microphone. "Don't trample anyone in your drive to GTFO, peeps! This was NOT IN THE PLANS, and those are NOT ACTORS!"

It's as he's yelling this, trying to get his voice out (over the soundsystem, so there's probably a good shot of it happening) over the Harley and Joker annunciating, that Harley tosses the canister and then Joker cakes it up and hops on with him and Courtney. As soon as the Clown Prince is slinging arms around them, the green kid shifts in a tiny explosion of kirbydots and lands on the canister-- as a BIG GREEN MANATEE. The microphone goes rolling off the stage and Haley's already scarpered, taking her camcorder with her and /still filming/. She is a dedicated student, despite her pot-smoking ways.

The manatee calls out, "Stargirl! Get the cake out of here, it's probably gonna blow up!"

"Hmm?" Stargirl's lips quirk and she stands up on her tip-toes to glance in the direction of the people Owen is indicating. Then she looks towards Garfield. She's just about to respond when her mother in the crowd catches her eye, a furious expression on her face as she snaps her fingers and points at the ground in front of her. Courney's eyes go wide behind her mask as she silently mouths 'Moooom, not now!' in the older woman's direction. Geez, was she going to get grounded just for trying to get on syndicated TV?

She seems to be having the time of her life on-stage until...

Wait, is that... The Joker!? Holy ****!! Stargirl blinks herself stupid for a moment as the Clown Prince of Crime begins cantering towards them like every child's nightmare of a clown. If this guy was enough to give the goddamned Batman trouble on a regular basis, then these people were in real danger. Which meant...

"M-MOM!" Stargirl screams as she tears herself violently away from the grinning madman, reacting instantly the moment a green-tinted cloud of crap comes boiling into the crowd. The cosmic staff is tossed out in front of her and she hops on it like a skateboard which begins zipping with all haste right into that cloud and the people in it. Stargirl hangs onto the staff with one hand, dropping down and wrapping an arm around her mother with the other, swiping her away to safety before she might get hurt somehow. Like inhaling any of whatever kind of funky teargas that was!

Cake? What cake! That lie would have to wait!

At the new commotion caused by The Joker, Jacob quickly shifts his head in their direction, frowning some. THen, when he hears that that their appearance was not in their plans, and that those are not actors, Jacob straightens himself out, trying to study the situation. New to Gotham - to life itself, in fact -, he has no idea who that joker is supposed to be - oh, wait...

His senses remain alert, his ears sharpened. What's the next move?

Nightwing shoves a respirator in his mouth (Utility belt standard now) and darts out from his spot near the van towards the Joker and Harley. With all the crowd running in panic, it makes things a little harder, but he manages to vault off of one guy's shoulders and make a dive towards the Joker. Hopefully he doesn't land in the cake.

Surprised by Gar's response, she starts contemplating weather or not he's the type that gives foot massages. She loves those. Then she remembers that her mismatched socks haven't been changed in two days. This stream of deep thoought was interrupted when Harley begins rambling, but Susan just dismisses it immediately, thinking it's just a drama student getting a little too attention-needy. Going back to considering what tomorrow's outfit will be, or if she should go shopping, she starts to see the emergence of the green smoke filling around the crowd. "Goddamn ravers! Ugh!" she declares, and uses her Super Jump to leap 50 feet out of the gas' spew, closer to the action. Much to the astonishment of those around her, beginning to laugh uncontrollably.

Landing far closer to the action, just on the edge of the stage near that weird drama student jester lady, she gawks as she watches Joker roll his cake into the group. Ungassed, she begins maniacally laughing *anyway* at this sight. "This guy's got style!" she decides aloud, "Could use some fashion tips, though..."

Owen's about to comment to Gar again when all hell breaks loose. At least it isn't giant robots...but even he knows the Joker's reputation. Cursing under his breath, Owen starts to reach for the nearest people to teleport them away when the talking mantee...first earns a double-take...and then mentions a bomb. Cursing again, Owen dashes for the cake. Should he reach it, he's just going to take it and teleport as high above the campus as he can with it.

What th-- Where did that green manatee come from, and why is it floundering about on top of Harley's smoke canister?!

Not that it excuses him from a terrible joke. Gotta take 'em when the window's hot, and all! "Whooboy, looks like -somebody- has a gas problem!" ... "Seriously, get offa my canister."

With everyone finding something to do that doesn't involve the Harlequin, she contents herself with reloading the flaregun. One giant, empty aluminum casing falls to her feet while another gets dropped into the tube.

"How's about a little campfire we can all tell stories around, that sounds like good times!" Now she just needs something to ignite with a little help from some airborne white phosphorus. Like..the stage! That looks like it'll go up nice and burny-like. "Fire in the hole! Which hole, I 'unno! Hey--Come Back Here With Mistah Jay's Cake!"

With Gar and Court already beating a hasty... uh... retreat? Manatee? Bah, whatever they're doing, Joker just stares at them with that unnaturally large grin. But! Things to do, people to kill, can't go busying himself with trying to figure out the hormone addled minds of teen superheroes. "Something in the cake?! Well of course there's something in the cake... Love!" He cackles again, bending down to scoop up the microphone with a flourish and bring it all too close to his mouth, perfect for picking up every wheezing giggle as he speaks, "Okay, boys and girls, here's how we're going to play it. Since I know the Bat will be swinging his merry way down here any minute, or who knows, one of his little spawnlings maybe playing dress up in the crowd as we spe- Oh look, there's one!" He spots Nightwing pushing his way through the crowd, and hurries to complete his sentence, "If any bats or birdlings get in the way, the cake goes boom!" He holds up his hand, which is currently gripping a dead man's switch, with a cackle. With any luck, Harley was able to russle up a few hostages by now and pin them down near the cake.

It's also about this time, that half of the protestors, half of the campus cops, and yes, even a few of the parents from the tour group pull on clown gas masks and assorted weaponry, keeping a good portion of the crowd from leaving.

"Also, I wouldn't suggest trying to get anyone to safety, unless you think you can take me, Harley, and the goons down all at once."

By this point, he's probably pinned underneath a Nightwing, so he just laughs right in his respirator'd face, then proceeds to wave the dead man's switch in it as well. "I think we call this a good old fashioned stand-off."

Okay, so maybe the cake is about to go bye, bye, but someone'll let him know before that happens. And also, there's the goons with guns as a fall back.

"Starg-- DAMNIT," the manatee complains as Courtney whisks away, and then it blinks big limpid green eyes at Harley. "Nuts to you and your canisters!" it yells at her, and then spots Owen going for the cake; he immediately shifts into a really big green pteranodon and scoops the once-more-smoking canister of Smilex up in his clawed feet. A mighty flap of wings and he's airborne, dropping the canister into the cake with a splat. "Lady," Changeling yells, falling from his pteranodon-ness into the shape of a big green kangaroo right above her, "does this guy treat you right? I bet he doesn't! I'd take you to the Riviera, give you candy and venus flytraps and a pet pony! HEY BOUNCY GIRL," this yelled at, "get the people off the cake!"

Courtney Whitmore is halfway across campus before she finally sets a rather frightened Barbara down on a personnel overpass. "Wait here, Mom, I have to go back!" Stargirl is already crouched on the balcony and ready to leap back off and in the direction of the commotion once more when her mother calls out.

"Courtney, //no//! It's too dangerous, sit this one out!"

Stargirl only hesitates for a second, then jumps off the balcony and onto her rod, calling over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, but I can't keep doing this for the wrong reasons and sitting out the tough fights! Lives are at stake!" And then she's a rapidly-vanishing blue-and-yellow blur in the distance, leaving a very worried mother behind.

"Know where you people messed up?" Stargirl's staff comes swooping back in, carrying the blonde upon it, right into the ground at an angle, prompting the girl in question to leap from it, using her momentum to roll into the rough middle of the half-scattered, half-gun-toting crowd. She comes up in a fighting stance, holding out an arm and using said momentum to clothesline one of said crooks with all the power of her cosmic converter belt. "YOU MESSED WITH MY MOM!"

And then shooting stars are erupting from her spread hands, her arms held out as she begins to spin and spin. "I'm really, //really// sorry about this!" she yells. Why? Because civilians, criminals, her shooting star display isn't discriminating, and she's showering everyone in range like a spinning top shooting off light. The stars themselves pass right into organic beings, disrupting all electrical devices, including the electric signals of the brain! The result will probably be a lot of unconscious people. Hopefully none of them had pacemakers.

Jacob starts observing the people around him, both surprised and with what could pass some sort of... anger on his face. He dislodges himself from his position, and he starts to walk, but then he listens to the threat Joker makes, he feels he cannot let the lives of people hang in the balance. So, he makes a bold move. How? Shapeshifting his arm into a form of tendril-filled slingshot, he fires a form of tentacle-swirling biomass at The Joker's hand that holds the dead man's switch. If this one connects, it immediately wraps itself around the Clown's hand, keeping his finger pressed on the switch. In fact, it will be easier for him to have his hand crushed than actually released from that massive grip.

Nightwing makes a mental note to get more information about all of these powered folks now suddenly in Gotham, but right now, his focus is on the Joker. He's about to press his own hand to the one with the kill-switch with a tentacle does it for him. There's a brief pause before he turns back to the Joker. Since he no longer has to hold the villain's hand down, he pulls back a fist to land a good punch. "Someone call the cops!" is called out to...anyone who might be still functioning.

While Stargirl was throwing magical stars at everyone shutting down their brains, Susan was an experiencing a spike--nay, a torrent!...of tangental (and irrelevant) brain activity. She has surmised (and possibly smized) what's going on here. Finally. Putting the pieces together... crowd, super-people, guns. Although she'd spent some time playing around with her powers, the small, rational part of Susan's brain reminded her (before being shoved back into its dungeon never to be heard from again) that it was entirely possible that she lacked the experience for this situation, but was now asituated in it. This is what she wanted, wasn't it?

Being pulled out of her thoughts, she snapped to attention when Changling shouted at her. "Oh, yeah... will do, Sarge!" she sarcastically quips back. With a breath, she catapults herself in a dramatic display with her Super Jump, diving straight at the cake. "Bomb voyaaage!" she snorts, laughing at her own bad joke, just before hitting the cake. Making a massive, splashing impact, she both grabs hold of, and knocks away those near the cake itself. With one person in each of her hands (with two others being flung away into the air, crashing into the ground some distance away), there's a spray of icing and breading within ten feet of the impact, and Susan continues moving--looking oddly like a human-sized comet made out of cake. She hopes this doesn't ruin her vintage Converse sneakers.

Gloved hand plunging into frosting, Owen and the cake vanish in a cloud of murky darkness leaving nothing but a few bits of frozen frosting and anyone that happened to be stuck to it on the ground. Exra chilly. Owen and the cake reappear in the air about ten miles up. Hood falling back expose his furred and fanged face, Owen pushes the cake away and teleports himself away. Leaving the evil baked treat high in the air, Owen reappears on the ground...falling a little hard on his back. Give him a moment to get back up.

"Heads up!"

Just why Harley feels compelled to say that, let alone giggle maniacally in the process, while there's a green kangaroo dropping right for her shoulders is probably best left to the imagination.

"I've got -two- things to say ta you, mistah. First--" Point one is really more of a two-pronged attack, in the form of tiny metal barbs connected to filament wires leading back into a stun gun. She just snaps that sucker right on up and tries to peg Gar Logan with several thousand volts.

"And two, -don't you talk about the Jay Man like that!-"

Someone's yelling out to call the cops. Harley's on the scene! She whips out her cell and starts -running away- from all of the chaos. She may be twisted, way closely allied to the Joker and randomly packing some dangerous (and bizarre) stuff, but she's still a squishy human and this is getting waaay outside of her paygrade. "Yah, officah! A buncha crazy guys are beating up my boyfriend at Gotham University and I've got cake in my hair, -ya gotta help!-"

Running away is all that saves her from falling unconscious due to the sudden attack of a bunch of flashy stars. All in the timing!

"HehEHEHEhehEHehEHEheHEHEHe!" The Joker breaks out into fits of rioutous laughter as a tentacle keeps his hand pressed on the detonator, and he gets a fist to the face from Nightwing.

"Oof! Wow! You're really not getting any weaker with age, Bird Brain. Hey, you know what this reminds me of? That time I killed the Boy Blunder. Remember that? With the crowbar? And the bomb? Oh! Or that time I shot Gordon's daughter! That was hilarious!" He keeps on laughing and bleeding, until he finally calms enough to say, "But seriously, get off. My ride's here." He tips his nose down towards his chest.

Which is ticking.

"Or you can just stay there and we'll go together!"

HahAhAhAHAhaHahaHaaHAHAhaHAHA!

"THANKS, PRIVATE!" Kanga-gar yells up at the bounding-away cake as the giggling nutjob under his huge feet goes on the attack and Joker gets tentacled and facepunched and the stage is starting to catch fire properly and everyone is screaming and running and goons are firing things and then starting to bolt away as the sirens that got called earlier start to get all piercing shrieky and SHOOTING STARS GO EVERYWHERE and what's left of the cake after bounced into it and splattered icing everywhere /disappears/ with a /dude/--

There's a funny definition of luck, actually. Luck in missing getting shot by a star is awesome!! Unless it results in the definite unluck of the Clown Prince's Psycho Sweetheart tasering him in the midsection. Oh Gar. He's actually /in the process of shifting/ when he gets jabbed, so it's a twitching half-kangaroo half-bull-shark that rolls to the ground away from Harley-- and then leaves a green kid in a red and white costume panting in the middle of a lot of leftover icing. "Ow god damn..."

"Um... Yeah, maybe I should..." Stargirl stops spinning, wobbling a little to one side as a minor wave of dizziness overcomes her. She's soon fully upright as Nightwing calls out for someone to contact the police. Well, there's no immediate danger of hostages getting shot, or of the hostages themselves even being awake (whoops), but they'd all live, so hopefully they wouldn't sue her when they got back up.

Courtney Whitmore is pulling out her pink-covered iPhone about the time Harley's making her own call for help. She has to stick a finger in her ear and lean her head almost right into the speaker to hear the 9-1-1 operator's recorded message that 'All lines are currently busy, please hold'. In addition to whoever else was on the campus calling the emergency hotline, it appears Harley Quinn had taken up the last serviceable line!

"Tch!" The star-spangled teenager hangs up with a press to her touch-screen, "I think they've been called!" She yells as the sirens begin to wail and the staff rips itself out of the ground, swooping by her as she grabs on for the ride. It deposits her a very short distance away, kneeling on the ground next to the twitching Garfield as he lies in the remains of a lethal cake.

She prods him in the shoulder a few times to make sure he's responsive. "You should watch the language if you want to get that reality show on prime-time. ...Y'gonna be oka- What is with that creepy laughing!?"

Sprawled on the ground in the icing too, Owen glances over as Gar ends up looking like some animal nightmare when tasered. "This is supposed tah be fun? he asks, trying to get his second wind after the first was knocked out of him by the impact. When Stargirl kneels down by Gar, Owen looks up at her from his spot on the ground nearby. "Pretty sure that language is fine for prime time. Ah'm fine by the way..."

It takes only a second for Jacob to realize what it is The Joker's got strapped to his chest. "Everybeing... RUN!!", he warns as he grabs Nightwing and yanks him away from Joker's grasp with a powerful but measured shove. Then, like lightning, he lashes out at Joker's neck, and jumps off with him into the air, leaving quite a bit of collapsed ground underneath his feet.

Nightwing doesn't often get shoved away, but with the ticking at the Joker's chest, he doesn't mind all that much. Rolling away and then to his feet, he looks about before trying to get any civilians out of the way of things...just in case. He's going to want to catch the green kid as well and make sure he knows the rules of Gotham.

Susan started whistling some sort of excited, 'whee!' notices before the bulk of the cake she was carrying up and vanished. In surprise, she dropped the two dudes she was towing along, and turned to look behind her. As many of her plans, there wasn't much of one, and Susan soon found herself deep within a nearby, perfectly manicured bush within a nearby grassy patch. A normal person might at least have broken a butt-bone from such a crash, but  seems to recover within seconds, albeit a little dizzy. Rubbing her head and popping her head up and out of the greenry, she scans the clutter and chaos... noting how many people have cleared out in such a short period of time.

Eyeing Stargirl and Changing to one side, and some sort of tussle still back on the stage. Tough choice. But then she remembered that her favorite Gothom record store closes in *five minutes*! Oh snap! Like a toddler without her binkie, Susan darted out from the scene as fast as she could. "I'll catch the rest on the news," she thinks to herself. There's no possibility that she's just the slightest hint afraid or intimidated about what just happened. Well...maybe a little. She makes a mental note to twitterspam Gar sometime.

Joker pauses as he's suddenly in the air with Jacob, and frowns to look at the hand around his throat.

Yes, he frowns.

"Cheater," he glances down to the ground for a moment, still perfectly calm despite being in the air with a bomb attached to his chest and a superpowered hand around his throat. "I don't know you. I only die with people I know. Sorry." Rule number one, of fighting in Gotham?

Never underestimate the Joker.

In two motions, he sprays the hand clutching him with acid from his lapel, and jams his other hand into the kid's face, the one with a joy buzzer equipped that puts out enough voltage to kill a man in less then a second. There's also the bomb. And the Joker Venom spraying out from his collar and sleeves. He's like a walking death trap.

There's a guttural /roar/ as Jacob is hit by acid - which he recovers pretty fast from, mind you -, and that electricity. As a result, he loses his grip on the clown, and falls on top of a nearby building. A few seconds of stillness, he gets up. THere's a mark of sizzling, and a part of his face has been eaten. But it's mere seconds until it's all good as new. But the Joker is gone. He sniffs the air, and can't find him.

"Guh-- I'll be fine-- get people out of here or whatever, I'm gonna stick around for the cops," Changeling coughs out, holding his hands to his head. "Dude, nice threads." This, apparently, to Nightwing. "But all in all, man, I'm so glad I don't live here. Your creeps are crazo." He makes lots of shooing motions then starts wiping icing off himself. He asides to Owen, "It was fun until the taser. It'll be fun again in like five minutes, no worries."

Aside from the unconscious people on the ground, the campus security, and the arriving cops, it looks like a whoooole bunch of people have /left the building/. Or the quad, anyway. Paramedics start jumping on that crap pronto, some of the goons are already in handcuffs, and Gar-- instead of going to the trouble of hoisting himself up off the ground-- shifts himself into a big green orangutan to fling himself up there. And then he sits on the edge of the stage disconsolately and waits for the inevitable fingerpointing.

But /damn/, that's some *awesome* publicity.