| MALLing Children | ||
|---|---|---|
| Summary: Someone decided it was a good idea to try and rob the New Market Mall. Needless to say things get out of hand quickly...    |
The New Market Mall immediately fulfills numerous checks on the list of what you expect from a mall. There is a distinct smell; a mixture of multiple perfumes, shiny retail items, and a miasma of various fast food scents. There are waxed floors, wide long walkways, and a neutral color scheme of beiges, whites, and faintly sickly greens. The ceiling itself provides a large portion of light, wide panes of glass making up the majority of its structure. Set back about 20 feet from the main entrance sits a charming fountain, with raised marble and stone walls. The interior jets cycle through a few different colors and designs, and the water inside shows multiple coins representing flicked wishes. There are potted plants and sofas placed strategically throughout the hallways, providing spots to rest on your spree. There's weaponry, clothing, a taxidermy store, candle shops, a pharmacy, photographer, a florist, a dollar store... more or less anything you can imagine your heart might desire! It's what passes for a beautiful day in Mabase City. Mostly this means nothing overtly terrible has happened yet; there's no rampaging zombie horde, no climatic battle between godlike forces playing out somewhere above the Usual Restaurant, just the 'usual' assortment of weirdness, lost children being devoured by eldritch horrors masquerading as gaudy mascots, and at least one bulk robbery currently being planned. "Okay, remember how we're keeping this simple?" The self-proclaimed eco-terrorist known as Poison Ivy hasn't been in this dimension long, but she has been informed by someone she - for some godawful reason that's probably way sappier than it ought to be - trusts. Insofar as it's possible to trust anything with arms, legs, and human DNA. Currently she's reclining casually on one of the many benches scattered throughout the New Market Mall, more specifically one just off the main concourse, approximately twenty yards from a jewelry store, an ATM, and an upmarket clothier's that sells the most fucking adorable hair accessories. Ivy's green eyes slide with distant nonchalance from bypasser to passerby, doing a quick assessment of each of them. She's quickly adjusting for abnormalities, and seems entirely confident there's nobody in the area who's worth anything as more than a witness. "You're trying to keep your nose clean, and I respect that. That's why most of this is gonna be on me. See the plant pots set up outside... almost every store?" She glances at her companion and then directs her eyes along the nearest row of stores, using her own gaze as a guide. "It'll be like having my own gang of pickpockets. So, I'm gonna take a walk, and you're going to go and... y'know, be Harley. Make a noise. Cause a distraction. If one of those three cops turns up, they'll have dozens of robberies to deal with simultaneously. By the time I reach the other side of this consumer hell..." She shrugs, flipping her her back over her shoulder to look down the long concourse. "Nobody's gonna notice a green lady they've never heard of slipping out. You get out the other side, and get us a vehicle. I can daisy chain this shit," she probably means that literally, "Across the city, we load it up, and get gone before anyone works out what the hell just happened. If anyone's smarter than you seem to think they are, I can set up decoys, play it by ear. But if anyone takes the fall on this, it's me, okay?" She holds up a hand instinctively to stave off any protest. "There's no Batman, nobody here who knows who I am. All I care about is you, your new leaf, and making a shit-ton of money so we can do whatever we want. Future starts here, Harl, smart, clean, and easy as you like. No drama."
Harley Quinn looks nervous and that look doesn't suit her well. "I just... I dunno, Red. I'd be more comfortable with this if I wasn't practically in my street clothes, y'know?" Street clothes. She's got the tips of her blonde hair dyed pink and blue and she's got pink and blue makeup smeared over each eye. Let's not get into the rest of her attire that looks like it came straight from a roller derby. All she needs is... nope. She's wearing roller-skates today too. "But yeah, I can make a distraction. Sure." Harley pulls out her small travel purse and fishes a large plastic light gun out of it. How did that even fit in there? "When I had money I bought a set for me an' this kid who works up the street. Remind me ta introduce you later. I call him 'Red' sometimes too." It's not an exclusive thing Ivy, don't be upset. It's literally hair-color. Without another word she takes off into the laser tag arena and the sounds of people getting upset are immediate. Soon a sizeable group of overweight children come storming out the doors with Harley hot on their trail blasting away with the gun, setting off sensors and making everything flash and buzz. "C'MON! I THOUGHT YOU TWERPS WANTED A CHALLENGE!?!" So much for looking reluctant to do this...
It's not a look Ivy's used to seeing on her only friend, and the reticence draws a sympathetic pout from Gotham's premiere photo-synthesizarita. Momentarily, she's ready to pull out - it's not like this was difficult to plan, in fact this was the entire point. She's done more complicated things in her sleep. When Harley rallies, though, her dark green lips tug into a smile and she leans forward to briskly plant a kiss on the other woman's forehead. Worry not; she topped up the clownette's shots last night. "I know you can," she reassures, eagerly, only to be blindsided by the news that maybe she's not ALL that special. "Wow. Way to hurt a girl's feelings, babe. Just... mess 'em up good, okay?" Under other circumstances she'd warn Harley not to murder any children, but there really seems little risk of that. Surely her intuition's at least *this* good? "That's my girl," she murmurs as the operation commences, waiting only long enough for the shooting to start before she rises gracefully to her long, disgracefully-human legs and starts walkin'. The first plant comes alive in her wake, barely emitting a sound as it grows to four times its size and extrudes a handful of thorny veins. Ivy just keeps on down the concourse, hands in her jacket pockets and walking casual-as-you-like. Behind her, a vine hits the ground and uncoils, extending until it finds its way into the aforementioned clothes shop. Weirder things happen on Twisted every day, so nobody bats more an eye as the creeping tendril spirals upward, bursting into a humanoid shape and beginning to try on various barettes, gesticulating for help from the long-suffering store clerk. "And... here we go," mutters Ivy, rolling her eyes away from direct contact with anyone in the mall crowd as she triggers three more plant pots, these bursting into ceramic shards with noise loud enough to send the more fragile shoppers ducking and screaming. Vines streak across the ground and through the air, simultaneously ramraiding the fronts of three neighboring stores. Large sacs, bulging with pollen, pop open to unleash blinding spores into the air of each. People stop screaming, start passing out. By the time this has occurred, the sauntering redhead has triggered another handful of her 'babies'. One of them immediately crushes the nearby ATM with a thunderous whack of a giant pseudo-limb, sounding a blaring alarm and showering people with bills in a thousand different currencies. It is, in short, utter chaos. The girls are back in town... or, a town, at any rate.
All of this chaos is missed, of course, by Harley who's gotten herself a bit too much into her own chaos. She runs, she leaps, she cartwheels. The chubby children don't stand a chance. It's enough that some of the staff of the laser tag arena have come out and are trying to wrangle her to stop (with more laser tag guns of course) and the end result is a massive free for all with people weaving in and out of stores much like the plants sneaking amongst them. Her skates give her an advantage, and at one point she even drops into a ball - going under people's legs and back towards the arena with a maniacal cackle that would have impressed Mistah J himself. At least until she smashes head first into a very angry woman who looks like a refrigerator on legs poured into an ill-fitting suit. "MISUZU WILL CRUSH YOU CLOWN!!" Harley puts on her best deer-in-the-headlights and skates away quickly, shoving people out of the way as she darts back towards Ivy. "WHY DIDN'T I BRING MY HAMMER!?!"
Back towards...? Oh, boy. Ivy herself is blissfully unaware that the plan's already come off the rails, with the distraction looking to hook up with the innocuous, green-skinned redhead just trying to run her errands about town without any of the trouble unfolding behind her. It's notable that the further she gets from chaotic ground zero, the more subtle her own display becomes; once she's halfway down the main concourse, the plants that come alive are indeed sneaking their way into stores, right behind the people evacuating - whether in panic or simple curiosity at what's occurring back there. Harley's path is made harder by people bending over and even crawling across the ground, trying to scoop up the 'free money' and getting plenty tangled in intrusive vines in the process. A few more buds burst open, showering them all with irritating, itchy spores that - at the very least - cause onlooker's eyes to water profusely. Overhead, some of the heisting foliage has already succeeded in obtaining money from tills, and easily-saleable items from shelves and display cabinets, beginning to pass what equates to sacks of loot from thorny protrusion to thorny protrusion. A few choice items are stashed in vents, and plenty of items end up falling either by design or fortunate happenstance, providing yet more distractions as the more invested store clerks are given the opportunity to retrieve their stock. To keep things tight, Ivy does look over her shoulder with 'wide-eyed alarm', quickening her pace as if all the more eager to get away from this matter that certainly does NOT concern her. So far, so good.
It's not all people running screaming, some are actively participating. The kids who haven't been zapped are still running around with guns using the stores, and now the plants, as cover. Luckily for the sake of this scene the laser tag arena has the sensors in the guns and they stop working once they're shot, so it's easy to see who is and isn't participating. Speaking of not participating, the giant angry woman in the suit-skirt is not holding a gun. No, instead she's barreling after Harley almost as fast as she can skate which is an impressive feat for her size. The off-again clown doesn't go after Poison Ivy, and instead straight for a brick wall which looks really bad until she leaps up, uses the wall as a ramp, and kicks backwards over Misuzu as the woman collides into it, putting a sizeable hole in the concrete. Harley skids to a stop in momentary concern before the large woman stands up and screams. "OH SHIT! IVY! WE FOUND BANE'S MOTHER AND SHE'S REALLY PISSED OFF WE ATE HIS COOKIES!"
Shirou'd gotten a call about some sort of air born irritants and other such issues breaking the peace at the mall. It's honestly a slight relief compared to the more violent things that can happen around the town. He shows up via sliding down a rope from one of the sky lights, equipped with a mask to protect his face and breathing, as well as having a LARGE, flowery looking magic shield summoned in front of himself. "...oh wow, where to focus first in all this," he murmurs. Only seeing two sources of possible harm instead of just chaos, he'd try to cut the more directly obvious one off at the pass. He slides between Harleen and Misuzu, giant magic shield of Rho Ais et all, and holds up a hand toward Misuzu in attempt to be disarming. "Maam, as a member of the law enforcement here, I request you stop for now and save your hostilities for talks afterward, in a more civil sort of manner. There are other things going on, if you couldn't tell."
Easy breezy, Ives, just keep your head down and keep walking like your two squalling kids are at home and you need to hit the grocery store before it closes... easy... br-- "Dammit, Harley." Of course it couldn't be that easy. The redhead feels her rage bubbling up inside, quelling it swifly by reminding herself - over and over, like a mantra - that this was her idea, it's probably not her bestie's fault she's being assaulted. But for just a couple of seconds she feels that nasty, dark little urge to keep walking. Maybe Harley will be fine. Maybe she's exaggerating. Maybe Bane doesn't even have a mom. Maybe-- "Fuck, fuckity fuck fuck fuck!" The few people still keeping their composure at the other end of the concourse look across in mild curiosity as a woman they barely noticed before suddenly starts swearing and spins on her heels, throwing her arms out to either side. Like THAT, every unactivated plant within fifty yards of her erupts into action, not heading for nearby stores but rearing up and thundering back down the concourse toward the fray. One, exceptional tendril clears a swathe through the crowd near Ivy herself, and then rises up beneath her tight-clad butt, lifting her into the air and carrying her through the brightly-lit roofspace of the mall. She doesn't have much time to take in the scene that USED to be behind her, only seeing the culprit named by Harley, and her fellow redhead interposed with... some kind of magical shield. That doesn't seem very villainous. From above the panicked, choking, flailing and tearful crowd, but at the fore of a tight clump of jagged, dangerous-looking plant tendrils that look poised to rain down some very natural punishment on the world, Ivy calls down. "Jump! Now!"
Of course, Harley isn't getting to see much of the chaos that's not the behemoth Misuzu as she growls angrily and focuses on her target, "Look! It was just some fun! Nobody got hurt! Everyone's having a good time! Why don't we just-" Misuzu is also not seeing much of any of this, "SHUT UP!! You're going DOWN, CUPCAKE!" Harley blinks, "Cupcake?! Do I look like a snack to-oh! Hey Red!" Now she notices her would-be hero. "PAMMY! This is the guy I was tellin' you abou-huh. Pammy?" She looks around and then up to see-MISUZU tackles her into a pillar, causing it to splinter and crack against the force of the strike. Harley barely gets out a gasp before everything goes pink. Well, it looks like a flower, that's probably Ivy, right?" Harley drops to one knee as the giant woman stumbles backwards. "It's okay... I'm okay." She wobbles a bit and waves blindly waiting for the little bats and birdies to stop spinning around her head.
Shirou winces as Misuzu smashes Harley into a pillar. Yeaaah that's too far for a little disturbance of the peace. He's VERY much protecting Harley from the refrigerator lady now. "Touch her like that again, and I'll be seeing you to a cell instead of letting you voice your issues somewhere more comfortable," he warns flatly as a pair of cuffs appears in the hand he'd had held up disarmingly before. "Whatever she'd done isn't worth what you're retaliating with. STAND DOWN." He furrows his brow at the plants that look like they're about to attack. "And preferably do it quickly before I have to knock you out to protect YOU from THAT up there."
Hey, it DOES look like a flower! Ivy's attention snaps to that eldritch shield as it deflects the hellacious blow, and suddenly she's grateful for the interloper. A mental note is made that she owes one to the handsome stranger, a fact she finds as annoying as she does relieving. Shirou makes his pronouncement, and the green goddess' lips draw to a testy line. Her mental muscles flex, shifting the focus of much of the conjoined plant mass toward the only seeming threat. A half dozen thorny protrusions spin into action, growing longer still as they drive as one toward Misuzu, pitching dead into her brawny flank. It's more smash than tear, but as a very wise little Mexican girl once said... why not both? "You're welcome!" She yells down to the magus, immediately diverting her own concern to Harley while her plants fixated on keeping the behemoth down, as ordered. Her tangled perch lowers her toward the waxed floor of the mall, and dizzy Harley finds a familiar, verdant-fingered hand extended toward her. "Didn't tell me you had friends here who were actually useful, babe. Now let's get out while the good officer sorts this out." Said 'good officer' is being targeted as well, but Ivy's not making good on any threat she seems to pose, merely directing a few tendrils to take up position around the other redhead's metaphorical radar. He's helpful, sure. For now. "And, uh, ixnay on the ame-nay, hmm?"
Harley Quinn doesn't see much of anything, but she does see Ivy's hand and takes it about the time the fog clears. "Ixnay on the Hombre? I mean it's a good album, but I don't see what the point of-OHHHHH. Right. Sorry." She smacks herself in the head and instantly winces. Let's hear it for all those years of getting a doctorate, folks. Misuzu in the meanwhile wonders briefly why she only gets a turn when Harley is pos-uh, I mean Misuzu is shrugging off plants and growling in general at everything around her. "WE HAVE TO KEEP THE PEACE!!" SMASH. "CHILDREN MIGHT GET HURT!" SMASH. She points a sausage-sized finger at Shirou, "YOU WILL RESPECT MISUZU'S AUTHORITY, TWERP!" We don't know why she's talking in third person, or much of anything else about her rampage, but it's definitely doing a number for giving Ivy time cover her tracks if she's bound to do that sort of thing. The blonde with the dyed tips shakes her head to clear away the second round of fuzz, "No way. We gotta help the kid. He's good people, Ives. I don't have a lot of friends here!" She momentarily squeezes her arm before she lets go, "An' he's cute!" This time though she spies a chunk of rebar that had come off the pillar and picks it up, "Yo! She-bitch! Payback's a bitch!"
Shiro blinks a little at the turn in things. He's not ignoring the plants, but this does change things a bit. "Err, thanks," he murmurs with slight uncertainty toward Ivy, "Make sure to check her head, that looked bad..." He'd move to keep Misuzu from being damaged any worse. He'll need to have a talk with her. He SHOULD talk with the other red head too, but as long as he can keep anyone else from actually getting HURT here, the part of things he's worried about most is done. Any actual stolen money or structual damage is a lesser concern than people actually being NOT dead or badly injured. Yeaaaah, in most places he'd probably be sacked as a cop for not putting higher priority on things like goods, but here that's likely a LOT more forgivable for making sure people aren't getting killed. "The children will be fine once we get this settled," he states before turning toward the other two, shield still aimed at Misuzu and some of the plants. "You should go, Harleen," he states, "Let your friend check up on you, I'll be fine."
Making a point to Harley is too often a case of making said point, and then waiting for the gears to clunk into place. It's okay, nobody with green skin is holding it against her. Ivy waits patiently for understanding to dawn, and then triggers their ascent with no more effort than it takes to roll her eyes in exasperation... Which is funny, because that's exactly what happens instead. "No," she says, first with the calm air of a mother laboring under the illusion she's ONLY going to have to say no once. Which is of course, shattered immediately. She's all ready to keep up her protest, and get physical if necessary, but then her former therapist makes two very good points that appeal right to Ivy's goopy, mineral-rich heart. Yeah, she can relate to doing stupid things when short on friends... And he IS pretty cute. "Ugh, fine!" Snaps the May Queen, hopping down from her perch and allowing the morass to separate into its component parts. Two vines coil their thornless portions about her wrists, the rest streaming out to cordon off the area around the now four combatants. A few slow or unconscious civilians are flung out first, giving them an area that's mostly safe to throw down in, and by no small happenstance also blocks view of the plantlife still working to evacuate the mall's not-insubstantial riches. "Sorry, Red 2, but that's a negative," Ivy quips to the shieldbearer, stepping toward Misuzu and lashing out to throw strikes that would fall way, way short were they not extended and exacerbated brutally by their attached tentacles. Like two thorny whips, they strike for the big woman's arms, seeking to T-pose her where she struggles. "This one's gone and hurt ALL my babies. She gets taken away or she gets wrecked." Green eyes narrow to slits. The plant lady ain't taking this sitting down. "Nice shield, by the way. Have to get me one of those."
Shirou nods in reply. "I'll have to talk with you about these plants," he states honestly, "But you've done more of a prank than anything that resulted in hurting people. She's going in for using that much force to handle a civilian incident...and then continuing to go against the request of law enforcement afterward."
Misuzu is a living tank, thorns and teeth are just shrugged off as she come barreling towards the trio trying to stand against her. It barely matters who started what now, all she sees is red - and that's not a pun about hair color. She grabs two fist-fulls of vines and chews threw them as she marches across the center of the mall court, covering the distance in seconds. Harley manages to get in one good shot with the bar which echoes the hit loudly before she's thrown to the side once more. At least for Harley's sake she's much more focused on the other two. "I'VE HAD THIS JOB TWO WEEKS AND NOW I HAVE TO PUT UP WITH YOU LITTLE SNOTS?!" If allowed she'll try to grab at both Shirou and Poison Ivy and simply throw them at a wall like she keeps trying to do with Harley. If she doesn't manage to grab either a smell will begin to emanate like burning ozone as she'll prepare to do something more than just smash and grab...
"Less talk, more fight!" Ivy replies without a thought, which seems to act less as encouragement for Shirou and more for the barrelling behemoth. Misuzu's plant-based destruction draws a distraught widening of the eyes, and distracts Ivy long enough that grappling her is, honestly, embarrassingly easy. She's not particularly buff, and manages little more than a gasp as the breath leaves her lungs and she slams toward a wall between two stores that are, at least, already thronged with guardian vines. A patch intensifies as the green lady's body approaches, another doing the same for Shirou on the opposite side, but all it does for Ivy is soak the worst of the impact. She's still down for a spell, tumbling heels over head and falling prone with a gurgle. Thick red hair covers her face, and by the time she lifts her head it's too late to do anything particularly useful - seems like the magus is fighting alone for now...
Thankfully Rho Aias isn't just some pretty light show and Shiro hasn't dismissed it, so any attempts made to cause damage even remotely closely to him will be blocked by the giant, pink flowery thing. Granted, it has a limit, so once he's blocked something another petal will fall off the 'flower' until none are left. However, given the woman's insistence on continuing to be a destructive force in all this, it's ALL too obvious Shirou's getting nowhere with her using peaceful methods. As such, the cuffs that appeared before are now vanished into a puff of magical sparkles before being replaced with a scythe instead. "I warned you..." he murmurs, "But you're forcing me to use force now..." That said, he suddenly brings down Roh Aias in another sparkly poof of magic, replacing it with a bow. He brings the scythe to the bow...shooting it at Misuzu like a freakin' ARROW. Thaaaankfully this isn't to the usual result of when he does this sort of attack, the scythe doesn't cause an EXPLOSION of flames. Instead it causes a heavy, metal, spikey netting that's imbued with time stopping magics to drop down toward the hulking woman.
Ivy's not down for long, at least not meaningfully - one of the many, many benefits of not doing most of your fighting yourself. She doesn't even bother getting to her feet before she sends MOST of her accumulated plant-growth into the wake of Shirou's incredibly impressive projectile. Honestly, it deserves a quip... But there's neither time nor breath; Ivy's busy. From every angle, tendrils erupt, alternately striking, entangling, and simply adding additional mass to the 'cage' summoned by the magus. It's dubious how much her addition really helps, but as Misuzu storms forward and is struck in the center of her copious mass, she's at least forced to contend with a multitude of angles. "IS THAT IT?!" Roars the gigantic woman, as the May Queen finds her feet and stumbles up beside Shirou, with a semi-breathless, "Nice trick." "YOU PUNY--" Misuzu flexes, stopping herself from being driven any further back, musculature erupting through the very seams of her nicely-tailored suit. "LITTLE--" Her eyes are wide with rage and the promise of pain, which means they don't widen any more as the full effect of Shirou's magicks make themselves known. But she's definitely failed a Will save. No more words are forthcoming, it would seem. The net encompasses her, quickly followed by a few dozen whipping tendrils that bind the metal firmly against her bulk before tying off with a lovely big bow. From the extremities of the knot, flowers bloom, by no happenstance appearing highly similar in color and tone to Shirou's magical shield. And that... seems to be that? "Nice!" Exudes the greener of the two redheads, turning to the other with a broad smile, "Couldn't have done it better with two of me, and boy would I not want to be on *your* wrong side. Ivy, by the way. Thanks for saving my girl." Her conversational tone belies the fact she's still exercising her own will, and the floor beneath her is now a tight patchwork of vines, which have begun already to spread up her feet and ankles. That's probably fine.
Speaking of fine, Harley's fine. "I'm fine." She's fine. She's not jumping off any buildings or getting into any fights for a day or two, but she's alright. She stumbles drunkenly towards her friends only slightly aware that one of her pigtails has come completely undone and pulls one of her tank top straps back over her shoulder. She gives the court a slow glance and forces a laugh, "So? Who wants to go get ice cream?" Don't mind her, she's just prioritizing.
Shirou shakes his head a little. "If you're getting ice cream, some of it should be in a bag and held to your head," he says with a slight tsk like tone before turning to Ivy, "That's no problem...thank you for helping detain her...still, I do have to ask, why the plants?" He's not asking this in an accusing or interrogating sort of way. It's more like he's trying to get to the center of WHY she wants to sic a bunch of plants on a mall than demanding she not do it. There has to be something causing this whole thing that happened, after all.
Ivy's immediate reaction to her friend's staggering approach is a concerned frown, and she's a heartbeat away from reaching out to adjust that tank strap - her hand is raised and everything - when Harley gets it for herself. Relaxing her posture, and restoring a smile that's now touched with the sweet entrails of victory, she settles for putting that hand to her hip instead. Attention shifting back to Shirou, she manages to only faintly widen her eyes at the direct question she'd hoped to avoid with their shared moment, and briefly considers following through on Plan C to simply disappear in a puff of blooms. But, well, he DID help out Harley... "Oh! Uh. Plants, right. I'm on this whole vengeance-for-Mother-Earth thing, but I took a... vow not to kill and so mostly I get my kicks just terrorizing malls and staging protests about the environment. My bad. Won't happen again." To punctuate her goodwill, she tips her free hand in the air and promptly every previously-rampaging plant retreats back into either its pot, or the pile of soil and ceramic where it used to be. People begin to dazedly sort themselves out, and count their belongings. "So," Ivy resumes, tentatively, "We're good, right? I can get this one home and patch her up?" Beat. Shrug. "Sorry, though, about the... whole thing. You know."
Shirou gives a nod. "Assuming everything's as it looks and you were just causing a bit of harmless chaos, it should be fine," Shirou states, "I'm afraid I'll have to come looking for you if anything else is going on, but for now you're in the clear with a warning since the amount of people actually hurt was mainly not your own doing or was done in defense. If you need help with something though, I can at least listen..." Hey, he really IS trying to be a GOOD cop instead of a shoot first ask questions later type.
Harley Quinn's eyes go large at that 'vow not to kill' comment and nearly ruins it by starting to say 'When did-?' but she catches herself before more than a syllable makes it out. "Wh-won't. Yeah. She just got here. She's having to relearn her limits an' stuff. She was just tryin' ta help, honest. I'm the one who caused everyone ta spill out of the Laser Tag Arena." Shirou speaks and that whole 'come looking for you' makes her sweatdrop. "L-look, you're not gonna come down on poor Pammy when everyone was runnin' everywhere. You might as well go get everyone who was shopping and everyone who was playing laser tag back here if you're gonna go that far!" She gestures towards Misuzu, fully intending to use her as a scapegoat. "Besides, she's the one that took things too far an' started smashing everything! That's why people where panicking! My girl Pam tried to get everyone ta calm down but you know how Twisted is. She didn't mean ta make people itchy, back home that calms people, y'know?" She crosses her arms and huffs, "If anythin' she should get a medal."
Shirou rubs the back of his neck. "It's fine, it's fine," he insists toward Harley, "I didn't mean that like a threat if it came off that way. I just need to ask questions to make sure I understand the situation."
Wow, she... really didn't think that was going to work. They say the best lies contain an element of truth, but when your 'truth' is still highly illegal and offensive to the vast majority of people? Honestly, just wow. Ivy doesn't exactly hide her astonishment, but fortunately she's a pretty cool cucumber under most circumstances, and it only manifests in slightly wider eyes and sharply raised brows, quickly absorbed into the grateful smile she throws Shirou. It's a weird feeling, NOT hating someone who's both a seeming authority and... human... which makes the gratitude quite sincere. She makes a mental note that he's probably, secretly a dick - coz, man and all - but she'll certainly step more carefully. In that sense, everybody gets what they want out of the deal. Lack of ice cream notwithstanding. "No!" This time her scolding of Harley is more direct, delivered with just the faintest grain of panic her longtime bestie might detect. "No, no medal, I don't need anything but the satisfaction of a job well done and the knowledge that I almost caused a serious problem, which I certainly had NO intention of doing. You should remember to recycle, though. Where we come from? Planet's dying. There's a big wodge of plastic in the ocean, the rainforest is falling apart... it's a real mess." She shrugs again, then grabs Harley's hand and starts to pull her away, no longer tethered by her own foliage - which has retreated along with everything else. "Really nice to meet you, officer! Keep fighting the good fight!"
Harley Quinn lets herself be drug off finally, waving back to Shirou enthusiastically. "You still owe me another round of Laser Tag once things are back to normal! " It should be noted she's still wearing roller-skates and literally is being drug off. She makes no effort to help or hinder this until she manages to be rolled outside. Don't even think about trying to figure out the logic about the vines and cracked floor tiles that should have impeded that from working! "See, Red? Told you this place is great! I still want that ice cream, y'know." She wraps her arms around the arm Ivy's pulling her with, "We did good, right? Distractions and all?" At least she's not being totally obvious about things while there's still a chance she might be overheard.
Shirou nods toward the two of them, offering a little wave. "Just be more careful," he directs toward Ivy, "Protest isn't against the law, but things like destruction of property and injury of people usually are, as much as nature's a good cause, there'll be problems if sides are getting hurt. I don't want to have to be against you for trying to do a good thing." He waves after Harley at that reminder. "Yeah, sorry I've been meaning to get back at you on that," he answers, "Lots of stuff going on! Call me sometime!"
"Ice cream, yep," comes the swift and tense reply to Harley, her words irrelevant in the face of her message, 'Let's get the hell out of here before he changes his mind or realizes just how much we made away with.' She still means it, though. They can ABSOLUTELY get ice cream, after they retrieve the stash her plants managed to squirrel away in the mall's substantial tipping area, out back, before she dismissed them. "Laser tag sounds great too!" Ivy calls back. It doesn't. It sounds like the absolute worst. But, anything for Harley. She hears the rest of Shirou's warning, but waves it off mentally and quite rudely doesn't reply any further. She already said goodbye, dammit. Once they're a few steps away, she at least spares another smile for the clownette, noting, "You did great, babe. Very distracting. This was educational, and I think... we should be okay for a while. Now let's find ourselves a vehicle and get you some sugar." Not, she doesn't hasten to add, the free kind. Something GOOD. And huge. She's earned it. | |
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