2013-01-19 Thin Ice

It's another one of those chilly Gotham nights. The sky is a blend of overcast with patches somehow clear enough to show the stars and moonlight beyond. It's been largely quiet around town for the last few days, which should be the first indication that trouble is stirring.

Strange trouble. Unusual trouble.

The freight train that's prepping to head out at this ungodly morning hour isn't all that strange nor troublesome, though there's a person or two milling about that might be worth a few questions. A person or two in heavy makeup, never too far from a gathering of better than average mooks that make themselves useful, perhaps out of fear of retribution alone. There may be some planning involved. Or plotting. Definitely no scheming.

They are wiring up a lot of parked vehicles with improvised explosives, though. The owners of them sure aren't putting the gasoline in their tanks to use. It would be a real shame to let it all go to waste!

The Harlequin is right in the center of this little hive of activity with two very excited hyenas, orchestrating everything with the utmost of planning and precision.

"..The hell is -that- thing?" Shrug. "I 'unno. Go ..put it over there, or somethin!' Hey, you! Baldie!"

Three men stop and look up at the same time.

"..Nevermind. Just keep..doin' your stuff." The order is left as she stands in the middle of the street, barely used even on a good day. She wets a finger upon her tongue and holds it up to the air, a mischievous little grin slowly edging across her face. "This town really oughta appreciate the things I'm willin' ta do for it."

That's the funny thing about rats... They're EVERYWHERE. Especially in areas of the city like this. And this time, there's four or five creeping along the ground, popping out of a sewer grate, and even running down a rain gutter. Nothing too unusual right? Except... Their focus. They're staring... Their beady, little golden eyes sometimes flash in the darkness, but for all that, their unabated focus... is on mooks wiring parked vehicles up. Those wires... they sure do look chewy!

Nimh's natural inclinations are to run out and chew on those wires! Why, even now, that might not be a bad strategy! But there's more to it than this, really. There's thugs and famous villains, and frankly it's unsettling to the colony of rats currently infesting the robot that maintain's a crouched, roofbound position. While she's not a professional detective, she's seen enough to know that sometimes knowing the plan is more important than petty vandalism.

Amongst this group of malcontents, one remains malcontent above all others. "Haaarley, why are we out here again?" The nasal voice is followed be an even more nasal sniffle, as the Joker rounds a corner, wrapped in a heavy blanket, nose bright red, hot water bottle sitting atop his head. "You know I'm sick." Sniffle. "And where's my chicken soup!? You! Go get me my chicken soup." The indicated henchperson confusedly searches about the area, until they stumble across a thermos and hurry to pour out a cap full of chicken soup for the Clown Prince of Crime.

The Batgirl has started to become a familiar face in Gotham. Well, as familiar a face as an urban myth can be. Oracle's camera-surfing flagged some unusual activity and so word was passed on to Batgirl to go check it out.

Dressed all in black, just the yellow outline of the bat on her chest and the belt around her waist, she swings over to alight on a roof some distance from the rat-robot. Behind the featureless mask, she peers down at the goings-on. Their words are so much noise in the wind, and so her gaze moves from person to person, taking in what their bodies say to her.

There are lots of ways of getting around Gotham city. Walking, of course, is one of them. Cars. Bicycles. Motorocycles. Teleporters. The favored one for the vigilante set seems to be prowling and leaping around rooftops. This is easier said than done and Orion, relatively new to the game, is sorely lacking in practice. "Son of a bitch." he mutters, having come to a ledge overlooking a jump that's just too wide for him to take unassisted. "It's like some stupid video game maze." Turning away, he heads to a different part of the roof and sees some activity down below. Activity perpetrated by some infamous people he recognizes. "F*** me. I am so screwed." Still, he reaches for the holster on his belt and pulls out the baton.

"Well, -I'm- out here because I'm bored, and -you're- out here because -I'm- out here," Harley oh-so-cheerily tells the Joker with a 'melt your face off' sort of toothy smile. "Cheer up, it'll be fun! I'll even letcha push the button when we're ready."

Ready for what, detonating a bunch of parked cars? The Harlequin may be clinically insane, but there's still a highly intelligent mind mixed up in all of the glitz and glamor of getting to play alongside the Joker. What girl -wouldn't- be giddy in his presence?

Not far away there's a metallic squeal as that freight train eases around a bend in the line, gingerly dancing through the miles of switchyards, side tracks and abandoned railcars that have rusted in peace for decades.

Up on a nearby hill further up the street is a plain dark green van, parked near a water tower that dates back to the 1800's. Two plain, ordinary looking men are checking over the support beams.

Looking for weakened spots.

Then there's rats. Curious lot, those guys. Here's a hint: The red wire -is not tasty.- Better avoid the green one, too. And the yellow, blue, white and black ones. They're part of the design, one component from an overall beautiful whole. If one of those components were to fail, pulled out of sequence just so...

KA-BLAM!

A poor, unsuspecting 1970's Plymouth suddenly erupts in a giant ball of ignited fuel, leaping a good five feet up from the curb to land on its side, then roll onto its roof in the middle of the lane.

"Who's settin' off my cars?!" Harley suddenly demands. "I want his pay docked for at -least- twenty minutes!"

Damned rats.

If she'd taken the time to study the explosives a little closer, maybe she'd have realized she was dealing with REALLY smart people. Instead, a few rats go up in a blaze as the Plymouth explodes. And like that, damnably intense, and blessedly brief pain rocks through the NIMH collective. For all that, there's a crackling sound as the robot has to suddenly catch its balance on the roof, having not expected the sudden explosion. The rats hold of gnawing for the moment, but now she spreads her focus to multiple groups of individual rats, looking at the bombs more carefully. The water tower? Well, she has no idea what's going on or what she'd do about it even if it WERE suspicious.

Nimh rises on somewhat shakey robot limbs and carefully unlimbers what, from the flash of the scope, looks like a high-powered, long range rifle. A gun!? The superhero... is holding a gun. The robot even pulls a black balaclava from its pocket and pulls it over its face. Nothing fancy there! Then she hops off the roof and begins approaching street level,"If you give a rat a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk..."

"Of course I'm pushin' the button," Joker mumbles, snatching the chicken soup from the grunt without even flinching at the explosion. However, Harley's reaction tips him off that it might not be planned, and he frowns. "The Bat and his brats'd be more careful... This is someone else." He points out a couple of grunts, "Go check it out," and then he points out Lar, "You go with them." Finally, having completed his orders, he sits down right in the middle of the ground and starts to devour the chicken soup, his trademark grin slowly slipping over his features.

While Batgirl doesn't get anything particularly coherent from the insano-twins to let her know what's going on, the explosion of the car is definitely something you chalk up in the 'bad guy' column and those gathered around are responsible. And gearing up for more.

Sharp eyes pick up Orion as he's defeated by the Gap of Doom, picking up his worry and resolution as the baton is drawn. One hand drops down and a sweep of her arm sends a batarang flying across the distance to embed itself into the building facade at Orion's feet to get his attention. Tipping him a nod, Batgirl then nods down to the nefarious goings-on before leaping off of the building. No planning, no strategy. As two of the grunts head off one way, Batgirl lands on the hood of one of the cars in front of one of the non-leaving goons. No witty repartee or joking, One leg kicks out, aiming her heel at the guy's jaw with enough force to knock him out.

The batarang certainly gets his attention and Orion looks around a moment before spotting Batgirl. He grins a moment and nods back before his baton telescopes into a staff. There's a flash of white light and then he's gone from the rooftop. Teleporting is cheating but practice has turned serious. Seconds later, there's a second bright, white flash next to one of the cars being wired. Before the glare is even gone, his staff is swinging at one hyena and the return brings the butt of it at a second's chest. People making bombs don't get warnings from him either.

Harley isn't sure whether to be outraged that she's got uninvited company or thrilled that she's already getting social interest in her work! Suddenly there's a Bat-type person landing on the hood of a car, going after her goons. They're disposable, really. She's still right on schedule, it's all good.

The hyenas know something isn't right, they can smell something in the cool, crisp air. Something that smells ..kinda like rat. With excited yips they go tearing off in search of the scent, could be there's a snack or four in it for them both tonight! Or..maybe for just one of them, as Bud takes a staff to the sternum. With a sudden yelp of surprise he goes down in a flurry of fangs and fur, thrashing about to right himself. His brother, Lou, seems torn. Scent of Rat, or strange teleporting guy that just laid the smackdown on his brother..?

Rats put up less of a fight.

"LOU--Wait, that one's Bud, BUD!!" Harley shrieks! In a flash her grin is gone, replaced by a cold, -dark- glare at the man that would -dare- harm one of her babies! From the pocket of a coat she pulls out a small box, flicking it over to the Joker. "We're ready now, Mistah Jay. Might wanna get offa the street. The rest of you morons know what ta do!"

Never hire unarmed help. Those goons? Yeah, they've got guns. Lots of 'em. Knives, too! This formerly quiet street is about to become a warzone, wired cars or not!

The guys on that water tower aren't quite ready yet. The explosive charges are still in their hands as they climb about the aged structure, working to get them placed. It doesn't matter, there's enough of a charge there to bring the whole thing crashing down.

Harley shoots another glare at the arriving hero types (though mostly Orion for hitting her 'yena,) then storms off to the side of the street. They wanna party? Okay, she'll give 'em one hell of a party. One call is all it takes to get her pets to go scampering off to rejoin her side, though Bud's moving with an obvious limp.

That freight train doesn't seem to care about any of this. It's still rolling around at a snail's pace.

It can be blindingly fast when it wants to be. Fast enough to catch bullets, fast enough to cover a lot of ground very quickly. The robot stops its 'at-ease' pace and launches into the air with a jump that seems to swallow the distance. One-handed, she lifts that rifle and sights along it at the detonation device. Turning on the built-in loudspeaker, Nimh announces,"Put down the device and I promise not to blow your hand off." She's even got one finger resting lightly on the trigger,"Otherwise, get ready to look for prosthetics."

Would she actually blow the Joker's hand off? Not likely, but if a threat will work, she's going to try that first. It'd make things so much easier. To the other heroes? "She's got several cars wired with explosives. Might be going for the train. Not sure." And then she starts calling the locations of the wired vehicles... Easy enough when a part of you is crouching on them.

As heroes start to descend upon the operation, Joker simply continues to sit there, cross-legged, right in the middle of the road -- eating his soup. He catches the detonator with one hand and looks it over, and once he realizes what it does... he breaks out into a broad, sadistic smile. And pushes the button, not caring about the fate of the goons who are still in position by the water tower.

HahaHAHAHAhAHahAHAhHAHAHhaHA!

Suddenly, he snaps his attention to Batgirl and gets up, calmly walking behind a sea of goons, behind a couple cars, and then slowly approaching her from the back now armed with a steel pipe, hopefully stealthily. He waits for a good moment, then dashes forward and swings the pipe full force at her head, laughing so hard he's nearly wheezing.

Batgirl? Happened to be on one of those cars! Luckily, even as the goon that she hit goes down, she catches the panicked reaction of the others that see Joker push the button. She dives for the fallen goon, trying to pull his unconscious body away even as the car blows, up, blasting them back and away. Batgirl slams into another car and is still, the thug's body partially covering hers and well, he was already out cold. Now he's out colder? Or maybe dead...

And... the hyenas run away. Probably for the best since Orion's never actually fought hyenas before which is why he was hoping to take them out quickly. Taking a few running steps, he leaps onto the roof of a car then quickly continues down off of it and onto a second one when he hears that the first one was wired to explode. As they start to explode, he takes cover against its side, shielding himself from shrapnel.

Good thing Batgirl's got her own costume and not Bab's old one. It has things like, oh, armor to help protect her from the blast. And audio dampers. As Joker creeps up on where she and the crook lie, she manages to shake off the stun of the explosion and impact, pushing the thug's body away and sitting up as the Joker looms over the car she slammed into. Head still muzzy, she doesn't see or sense the Joker with the Lead Pipe in the Parking Lot until almost too late. She manages to turn and move just enough that he doesn't cave her skull in, but he does send her back down to the ground, hard, though still moving.

One key part of being a wicked sort of evil that often gets to keep doing evil nasty things on her own schedule? Hire lackeys to take the fall. Having a BFF that's an even more famous and vicious villain doesn't hurt, either. The attention's on the underlings and the top of the Danger List. Harley fits ever so comfortably somewhere within the upper echelon, but by no means is she the nail that sticks out the furthest.

Right now, she's also -grinning- with her arms going out to the sides for effect.

"Fire!"

Running straight down the street are automotive explosions, going up in pairs of two in a twistedly beautiful synchrony. The street trembles, windows explode into snow-like glitter, manhole covers pop out of their openings, hyenas bark and yip like there's no tomorrow...

And two goons up by a nearby water tower get turned into a fine, red mist.

"Water!"

The sound of old boards and mortar groaning under the stress is easy to miss over the sound of so many detonations. Without some serious and timely effort, it's going down. It's an older tower, less volume than modern ones, but there's plenty of water contained within to put this entire street under.

Among a small number of vehicles that survive the thunderous path of destruction is a bland looking grey sedan, with two non-vaporized goons standing around it. Harley calls out to them next, "Fetch me my Big Stick, boys."

At the other end of the street, opposite of that water tower, the train finally rumbles on through. Engines, boxcars, car carriers, tank cars...

Tank cars painted with rust and age-faded logos for New Jersey Chemical.

Two goons are starting to haul out a rocket launcher from of the back seat of the car, the words 'Waka Durp' spraypainted in red and black along the side of the tube.

Krisa swears out loud as the Joker just goes ahead and pushes the button... This is followed by intense pain as several more rats die, and then she's straightening up. Parts of her body are pulling 'full terminator' appearance right now. With the flesh torn away by exploding vehicles, she's all shiny metal and lubricants underneath the synthetic skin. "Don't know enough about trains... Need to make a choice..." Several rats run up the side of the water tower and start examining the thing while she sprints over, clearing a large chunk of distance in a series of jumps.

Picking the weakest looking supports of the tower, she wraps the body against it, locks the robotic joints in place, and BRACES it. It's a strain even to her pneumatically empowered body, and one can even hear the hiss of gases as she calls out with that loudspeaker voice,"Could use some help here."

As the Batbrat goes down, Joker giggles hysterically and plants one foot on her shoulder blade, shoving in an attempt to force her back towards the ground, even as he raises the pipe for another whammy of a hit. "When will the Big Guy learn? Stop sending snot nosed punks to do a bat's job. HehehHehEHehEhehEHEhEhEhHEHeh!" The double line of explosions is completely lost on the Clown, because now he's utterly focused in his task of destroying another of Batman's proteges, this time with a steel pipe, rather then a crowbar or bullet to the spine. Gotta' switch things up, after all.

Batgirl manages to roll over, so she's on her back as Joker steps on her shoulder. Her ears are ringing and her head is spinning but one of the things she's really good at is taking punishment. That focus of Joker's, the strength of his desire, lets her know all too well what he's about to do, and as he raises his arm with the pipe, her hands grab his foot at toes and heel. One foot braces against the ground as her body arches even as it screams in pain and the other leg comes up to try to wrap around his upper body as she twists his foot to try to take him off balance and send him to the ground on his back, hard. She never says a word, or shows any reaction to Nimh's earlier information or this request for help. The robot body doesn't 'speak' her language for her to have any idea with she/it/they are saying.

Once the final car has exploded, Orion climbs back to his feet, glancing down at his chest where the armor is scratched. That could have been very, very bad. As it is, the concussive force and noise make him peer around blearily. Ears still ringing, he can barely hear Krisa ask for help but... seriously? Does he look like Superman to try holding up a collapsing water tower? One thing he can do something about. "Leave her alone!" he commands and aims his staff at the Joker. One ends begins to glow blue and then fires a stream of crackling blue energy. And then a second. Double tap.

Harley's distraction seems to have worked quite well. The cars? Just for show! She never needed them at all. But..something's still amiss, here.

"Where's my water?"

As the launcher is handed to the masked villainess she stops to look back at the train, then the tower, then the train again. The train's moving slowly enough. The tower falling is part of her plan, here... Having one without the other -just wouldn't be right.- The launcher pops up onto her shoulder, comically large compared to her smaller figure

"I said water!"

The first rocket -screams- out of the tube in a streak of light and smoke, tearing down the street at an insane velocity. She doesn't need a direct blast to topple the already stressed tower. Really, a good shove ought to do the trick. But, she only has one means of reaching out and shoving it at this distance.

What's a few more explosions, anyway!

A rocket. That... could be a problem. Unlike most suits of powered armor, robots, etc... Nimh is merely bullet-proof. A rocket could snap a great big hole in her robot suit and probably consume a great deal of her biomass in one fell swoop. Translation? Rockets are trouble. She drops her gun entirely and then several things happen at once.

The first is that a loud buzzing hum fills the air as a large, three-foot long blad erupts from her right arm, surrounded by a haze of glowing, vibrating energy. With a sharp and sudden swivel, she shears through the water tower's supports, sending it toppling toward the group,"HEAD'S UP!"

Then her form literally... blurs. No longer needing to bear the weight of the water tower is a boon. She darts forward to slip behind the rocket as it draws close, and grab hold of the fins. With a grunt, she swings it around... pointing it back in the direction of the one who fired it.

Finally? She goes diving for cover. Because, holy crap... rockets.

The Jokemeister may be one sadistic psychopath, but he's never been known for his acute talent for the martial arts. Sleight of hand? Distraction? Ace up his sleeve? Of course, but it has always been the Bats that come out on top in any straight physical interaction they have.

As Batgirl turns into a contortionist of pain, the Joker goes down easily enough, but of course, he's laughing the whole time. Even as the blue energy from Brandon's weapon hits him -- twice -- he still manages to keep up a strangled, gurgling giggle, even as he writhes on the floor. For all intents and purposes, he looks to have been effectively disabled, if not silenced.

But one should never count the Joker out...

As the Joker goes down to the ground and Orion's tasers set him into a twitching fit, Batgirl gets up to her feet, if somewhat shakily. Nimh's shout gets Batgirl's attention, even if she doesn't know what's being said and though it can't be seen her eyes go wide as suddenly rockets and water are headed down the street. A rocket. At Harley. Batgirl breaks into a sprint, trying to divetackle Harley out of the way of the deadly explosive.

Head's up? Glancing over at the shout, Orion's eyes widen behind the visor of his helmet as he sees the water tower toppling. Holy tsunami Batman! The significance of this is dimmed by holy crap... rocket! And Batgirl running toward it! He shifts the aim of his staff away from the Joker and fires at the rocket, hopefully shorting out the electronics and turning it into a... large bullet. Well, it's better than *boom*.

Hey, look at that. Turns out it -is- possible to kill two birds with one stone! The water tower starts to collapse, causing water to rush down that tiny hill and get channeled down the street, right for all of the exploded cars and burning fires and heroes and villains duking it out.

On one hand, the water ought to put out the flaming wreckage littering the place.

On the other hand, it's falling so -perfectly- into Harley's palms that she couldn't have possibly planned things out any better.

Water will take a while to reach where everyone else is fighting. The rocket? It makes damned good time on its way back to the launcher and launchee. Harley is all set to run like a (literal) madwoman when Batgirl suddenly rams into her, pulling them both out of the way.

"Oof!"

Faster than a person could snap their fingers the rocket zips past the two, slamming into the ground right beside that slow moving train.

The same train that her lackeys had taken over nearly an hour ago, bringing it into position at the far end of this very street.

There's supposed to be a ginormous kaboom. That part is slightly lacking. Orion's electrical charge shorts out the explosive payload but fails to kill the projectile's insane momentum. Instead of detonating it skips off of the ground and slams into the side of a tank car, piercing its metal hide like a javelin. In an instant the car starts bleeding liquid nitrogen out across the railyard and onto the street. In about thirty seconds the water and nitrogen will collide. There will be ice. Lots and -lots- of ice.

"You guys sure got a thing against skating, sheesh! And you all call -me- crazy."

Problem for Harley: She's got a Batgirl on top of her.

Problem for Batgirl: She's got a pair of vengeful hyenas standing around her.

Grrrrrrr...

Krisa smacks her half-torn face into a palm as liquid nitrogen moves to create a skating rink. "Seriously. Never coming back to this place. Eve- Oh, those look like hyenas." And once more, the robot is taking off like a, pun intended, rocket towards Harley and Batgirl. And the hyenas. Why? For no other reason than to pick them up by the scruff of their necks and chide them,"Bad... uh... hyena! Bad!" She's not rocket proof... but she's betting she's hyena-proof at least,"Do you have any idea how long repairs are going to take?"

The problem with multitasking, is that sometimes, you'll forget about one thing, thinking it'll be fine on it's own for a few minutes, only for you to come back and find it trying to strangle you with a joy buzzer.

Maybe not literally... At least not most of the time.

This time, though, it takes significantly less time for the Masochistic Clown to get over the pain of Orion's energy rod then someone else might take, giving him the perfect opportunity to claw his way over to his assailant, pull himself to his feet, and let out a burst of insane laughter as he lunges at him, trying to simultaneously strangle and electrocute the kid with the joy buzzer hidden on his hand.

Batgirl has time to look up and blink at the hyenas as they start that menacing, slow advance towards her when Krisa zooms in to accost them. Well. That takes care of that problem. She looks down at Harley, who's still right under her and aims a wickedly fast punch across her jaw to try to put *her* down. What she figured would be a simple beat-up-thugs incident has turned into a madhouse. Really, if she were more familiar with Batman's rogue's gallery, she'd have known better.

Hyenas, floods, rockets, liquid nitrogen, these all combine to distract Orion from noticing that the Joker is starting to move. Hey, he's not the Batman nor even trained by him. And while his armor covers most of him, his lower face is bare: the strangling doesn't really work, the electrocution does. He lets out a cry of pain and slumps against Joker.

Hey--HEY, someone's messing with Harley's babies--"OhMyGawdItsATerminatahYaGottaHelpMe!" she blurts out, practically -clinging- to Batgirl from the sudden emergence of a battle-damaged Nimh. In a flash the Harlequin has her flaregun out, hastily pointing the business end sort of in Nimh's direction and jamming the trigger.

The flare that pops out of the barrel -thonks- against Nimh's head and bounces off, never to bother anyone ever again. Probably.

"Aw, nuts."

KRAK!

Harls isn't used to being punched in the face. Good thing Batgirl is the one administering it and not the sort of people that tend to go after the Joker. "AOW, that -hurt,- BatBimbo!"

With two wild animals kicking furiously at the air to try and reach Nimh, or Batgirl, or anything that they might be able to sink their teeth into beyond the two clowned up individuals, Harley is making a mad attempt to pull a knife free and give Batgirl's lower ribs some extra company. "If yer gonna fight, it helps ta have a way to get yer -point- across!"

Kind of a pity that they blew up almost all of their goons, they would have been really useful about now. Almost all of them. The two guys that had fetched the launcher earlier? They're still here. With blunt instruments. One to Batgirl, one to Orion. Beacause no one wants to tangle with a friggin' -robot,- c'mon now!

Nimh shoots an easily readable look at Harley as she is shot in the head with a flare gun. The robot looks right at Harley and deadpans,"Seriously. SERIOUSLY?" With a toe, she kicks the flare over to the water, then turns back to watch Batgirl and Harley at it. "You... look as if you have this under control." She turns now... in time to see Orion getting shocked by the Joker.

At first, Nimh is at a loss. She's got a hyena held by the scruff in each hand, so what the heck CAN she do? Then it occurs to her. She tromps over to the Joker... and swings a hyena at him. Hyena clubs. "Any chance I can convince you to just go skating?"

The Joker gri- continues to grin as Orion is taken down for the count, and lower face is just enough for a knife, especially a sharp one, to slip through the kid's jaw. Just for future reference.

"Very good, Batbrat, looks like ol' Batsy-poo's been teaching you how to fight," with one of the many knives he has scattered on his person tucked neatly against Orion's face, Joker feels secure enough to call out to the two heroes who have both Harley and her babies securely pinned. "Now, unless you'd like to be responsible for adding a second mouth for smiling to this poor kid's face, I suggest you let all three of them go, Capisce?" The goon that's come to help him is waved off. He's the Joker! He needs no help killing teenagers. Or, in this instance, taking them hostage. He's got practice. However, as Nimh comes closer with a hyena in hand, the goon serves a highly specialized, meat-shield purpose, with Joker dancing lightly out of the way, pressing the knife a little tighter to Orion's skin, "Ah-ah, not so fast. Take one more step and he dies."

Clearly all the smacking around Batgirl's taken tonight has rattled her. Or else Harley's got a head harder than most normal humans. That gives Batgirl cause, because with the force she's got behind her punches if she's off even a hair, she can crush bones. The knife that Harley thrusts at her is knocked aside, and at least Batgirl doesn't worry too much if it's a wrist getting broken. She aims a kick at Harley's midsection, looking to knock her back into one of the cars but any followup is brought to a halt as Joker makes his threat.

Needless to say, hyenas do not enjoy being used as clubs. The -kicking- and the -growling- and the -shrieking,- and that's just from Harley! "You leave my babies alone!"

As for the density of her skull, she does hang out with the Joker an awful lot. Poor thing's still mighty disoriented, though. So much for the knife, and now she's got a wrist injury or three to boot. She's also kicked back into a car, blood rolling down the pasty white of her face where that punch landed. And she's -giggling.- "You hit like a girl!"

One thing which shouldn't be forgotten? The wall of water that's been rushing down the street. Half a minute can feel like an eternity during a brawl, but time always marches on. So does the flow of several thousand gallons of fluid. Burning cars are shoved out of the way like toys, the ground shaking more and more the closer that liquid wall approaches. Plus, there's the nitrogen to worry about from the other direction. This street is about to become a much more hazardous place to be hanging around.

"You guys better make up your minds soon, or we're all gonna be ice sculptures!" For that matter, Harley's work here is done. Now all she needs are her pets and her insane buddy in crime to get out of this place. "Dance witcha later, Bee," she says with a bloodied grin at Batgirl before she tries to make a run for it. Right for Nimh. "-You put down my babies!-"

Krisa backs up at this point, putting down one of the hyena's, and taking the other in two hands. She hops-skips-jumps to a nearby roof, and DANGLES the hyena over the ground, a vibrating blade next to its throat. "Have your boyfriend let the boy go, or Bud gets it!" The hyena in question is Lou, not Bud. She has trouble telling them apart. Still, she IS indeed taking a hyena hostage. She can almost be heard muttering under her breath, "This lacks dignity, even by my standards."

Joker raises an eyebrow at Krisa, and shrugs, "Go ahead. Plenty more hyenas in Africa. 'Course, there seems to be an abundance of brats in Gotham, too." He looks to Orion, and asks, disregarding the small fact that he's out for the count, "Seriously, where does he /find/ all of you?" Yeah, hostages don't really work against the Joker. He's not the type who would mind seeing a little more death. Or really believes that anyone'd do it.

Batgirl lets Harley go, because when the choice comes to saving lives or taking down badguys, her choice is something of a no-brainer. Her fingers twitch, batarangs dropping down into her hands as she focuses on Joker, pushing past the nagging pain and the dizziness that makes her sway on her feet just a bit. As his attention shifts to Krisa, she lets the batarangs fly as she sprints towards him. They're aimed for his hand, to make him drop that deadly knife. With a little luck, it'll give her the opening she needs to grab Orion and make for the rooftops with her grapnel.

This part of Harley's evening isn't going so great. With Lou--"That's Lou, you mechanical idiot!"--now dangling over the edge of a building, with a blade held next to it...

And Joker's doing nothing to help the situation...

It's all a ruse, right? He's just playing the robotic thing, he wouldn't really let one of her pets be harmed. He would -never-... Not her Jay!

At least Lou is kept out of the path of wet, frigid death rapidly approaching them all. Harley's outgunned here, and about to become a Harlequinpop. "You'll get what's comin' ta ya!" she screams back at Nimh before taking herself, and Bud, elsewhere. Very quickly. 'Running like hell' quickly.

Because really, everyone else should be doing the same.

Krisa dumps the Hyena on the roof with a supreme look of irritation and bops it lightly (for a super-strong robot) on the head to keep it docile, then hooks her feet on the edge of the roof and dangles over the edge. The blade in her arm retracts and she holds out her hand in Batgirl's direction when she finally grasps the girl's plan,"Grab my hand!" Does she take ALL her inspiration from Schwarzenegger movies?

The Joker watches as batarangs head right for his hand, and with all the dexterity of a drunken cripple, he watches as they knock his knife away, and force him to drop Orion. But! With his strange, and criminally insane cohort getting away, he just leaves him for the liquid nitrogen and makes a run for it.

HAhHAhahaHAhaHAhAHAAHahhAHAH!

Batgirl's slight body hits Orion's as the grapnel is fired up and she holds on tight at it jerks them upwards towards the roof where Krisa is as the nitrogen and water mix and ice spreads across the ground that they were just on and frosts the scalloped edges of Batgirl's cape. Her feet hit the side of the building and while she doesn't have a hand free to grab Krisa's, Batgirl's gotten close enough that the robot can grab the unconscious quasi-alien. Which would be good, because while Batgirl can punch through cement blocks, carrying around a guy and his armor is a bit much for her.

So the plan with mixing a lot of water with a lot of liquid nitrogen didn't work out -exactly- as Harley wanted it to. The water needed time to settle first, which it didn't. What results is a very artistic but very un-skate-worthy surface of frozen material that's not going to sort itself out anytime soon. The cost of city damages won't be astronomical, but it's still one heck of a mess.

Eh, she tried!

Lou will catch up in his own time, her pets always do. Joker's cackling hysterically, so all's right and good in his world. The heroes are safe and mostly together. The local prisons won't be overcrowded, as the mooks are all disposed of in various bits and pieces, many of them frozen several inches under.

Fortunately, the train wasn't moving fast enough to cause a serious derailment. Give Gotham a couple of days, it'll be back on its feet.

So long as it's not too busy tripping over the ice.

Krisa is quick to snatch up Orion when Batgirl draw's close, and pull him up. But after looking at the destruction and ice, she looks back at Batgirl and just sighs,"Why does it feel like we didn't really win?" She won't be bragging about THIS on twitter.