2014.02.24 - High Fashion

It's summer. No, it's winter, but it might as well be summer with how hot the heat is in here. Speaking of heat, good god are there some attractive people here. And the people who think they are and aren't. And then the people who are attracted to people of either type. This little place thinks its safe from Gotham, safe from the darker elements of the inner city but still just close enough to have the chique of being in a city without actually being in it. A rebounded exurb iceberg that has just hit its titanic; not even aware of it yet.
The event in question might seem like it is outdoors, given the cavernous size of the room, but it is an old carriage factory, brick and mortar building of an avante guard variety. The event, if one can call it that, is inside the building but the lights and noise in the 'micromall' are quite audible for blocks in every direction.
A photographer is set up along the catwalk as models dressed in all kinds of outfits imaginable line up; some of them talking, others looking mortified at having been the victim of threads and yarn and even a few live animals. There is, as of yet, no sign of clowns save the five bright red balloons being held over one of the stalls across the way.
Black Canary was rooting around Gotham today, following up on her endless leads of potential Maggia holdouts, in her quest to get to the source of those mercenaries that keep trying to kill her. She happened to be passing by the area of the gathering of by the docks to follow up on a single site, but stopped for a moment. She'd been at this for four hours, and hadn't eaten. She pulled over her bike and fumbled for some random granola mix in a bag, sipped water, and breathed, taking a a brief moment of peace. She gazed down the street, and saw some activity. Some kind of event. She slipped her helmet back on--her curiosity compelling her to take a closer look.
Nico is currently watching the show, having come out to Gotham on an ADVENTURE. Okay, she was bored.
She's eating a sandwich, her pocket knife in her right pocket, as she watches the show, humming to herself. Today's a good day.
In the crowd of people is a young blonde woman wearing a little too much for such a hot day. A baggy fleece and track pants? Seems fishy. She's going around with a clipboard, hassling people in a high-pitched Brooklyn accent. 
"Hi! I'm taking signatures on this petition to nuke the whales. You see, I'm from St. Bonerland Hospital -- don't laugh, I know -- and we're coping with a massive outbreak of Whale Flu, which the president is trying to cover up, just like with Benghazi and chem-trails. The only solution to Whale Flu? Drop the bomb. Exterminate the whales. Can I put you down for a six thousand dollar donation? Stop walking away. Stop calling the police! Stop that!"
The fashion show starts. Everyone expects this. Too loud, too harsh electronic music begins to pump in the background as the models come out. One is wearing Finland. It's a paper mache outfit of the country. Another is wearing a dress made out of nothing but Oranges, and a third actually has something that looks decent.
The lights flicker on and off. Bad fixtures? Not hardly. The twin Tesla coils that light up the dark in the flickering lights highlight the lowered podium as a figure in a tuxedo of purple and green can be seen descending from it. 
Yes, of course you can guess who it is. The one and only. The locks on the doors are perfectly timed to slam them shut approximately one second before the first person in the mob instinctively running away reaches them. 
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF GOTHAM...SO PLEASED TO BE HERE." The microphone reverberates of the stage making it vibrate. To anyone on the outside however, only silence is seen and the music that was previously echoing for several blocks is now deadly silence. Someone has soundproofed the mall.
Dinah usually wasn't one to pry into events like this: to her, fashion was a question of how unpoorly did the garment fit, or did it look like it could handle well in a fight. She was in her typical Canary duds, fishnets, Leather Jacket and all. She curiously eyed the scene: there was something so odd, but she couldn't put her finger on it, but whatever it was, she decided to pop her head in to give it a quick glance. After taking but two steps inside, she felt a whoosh of air behind her, followed by a loud *slam*. It was the doors--and they just locked.
"What the hell?" Dinah said, pulling her gaze back to see. She doubted this was all for her benefit, so she moved cautiously deeper inside to take a look.
Oh crap. The Joker. Nico's standing up from her seat quickly, drawing her pocket knife. 
"Hey clown, you look funny." A slit through the wrist. "When blood is shed, let the Staff of One emerge!" The Staff of One flies into her right hand, a wave towards Joker. "Bad move." Yep, cocky teenager.
When Joker reveals himself, Harley does too. "Hey! Hold this!" Harley says, smashing the clipboard over someone's head so that it breaks. (The clipboard? The head?) She pulls off her fleece and her snap-up track pants to reveal her red and black leathers, MAC-10s holstered at her hips. She skips to the stage, smudging her make-up with her hands so that her eyeliner has that smoky derelict look. "C'mon, Mister J, ask 'em if they're ready to rock!"
The Joker says, "Note to Self...preplan puns with Harley." Alas no boulder had been prepared for the inevitable comment, but he indulges his hench-wom..person. "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?" 
No boulder falls.
"You're lucky folks...you're blessed. You see...you're going to join me in the elite, the few, the proud. As of tonight, we're going to make you all CLOWNS. Isn't that something?"
The crowd, for the most part, ignores him and tries to get out any way they can. Not having so much luck with that really.
The Tesla coils zot down massive bolts of lightning and fry two or three people to cinder and then he shouts again, "I SAID ISN'T THAT AWESOME?!" Some people get the queue and begin to clap. He meanwhile pays the extremely confident Nico Minoru the ultimate insult. He ignores her. Though with a subtle gesture of his hand, he points Harley in her general direction."
Okay, this was unexpected. It only took about eight seconds for Dinah, who'd heard the amplified voice, to identify at least somewhat what was going on here: Joker. In truth, she'd only heard tales of his antics from Batman, and had yet to ever meet the man in person. But it was Gotham: eventually everyone meets. His presence could only be trouble, and Dinah made efforts to find an alternative entrance to the main hall. After about a minute, she identified a small door which took her up to a small balcony on the second floor full of some lighting and video equipment. She hid there, taking a moment to assess the situation.
The weird clown dude was ignoring Nico. And now a chick had machines guns. AND NOW PEOPLE WERE GETTING DEEP FRIED. Time to take out the coils. Nico waved her staff at a coil, shouting out.
"Malfunction!" Nico said, then paused, not knowing what it'll do, before realizing that might not have been the best spell on something like this.
Harley gives the Joker a pouty look. "Aw, but Mister J. She looks 12. Can't we just kill her parents? That'd mess her up way worse than death. Look at Bruce Wayne, gettin' in the tabloids for accidentally elbowin' a model in the tit so hard her implan--"
/Malfunction!/
Harley pulls one of her MAC-10s. "Wave a stick at me, will ya?!" She goes to fire, and the gun jams. "Dammit!" She just throws it at Nico.
So. Malfunction. Right.
Magic, being a persnickety thing takes a wide view of such things. There, were, of course, the all typical wardrobe malfunctions of boots falling off, flys being partly unzipped, dresses tangling and such; which causes sprains, bruises, curses and chaos...but...what REALLY caused the chaos was the carefully choreographed sequences of events going haywire...
Right, so the good news is that the locks on the doors open but then they close causing the doors to become rapid death traps. The slightly good news is that the Tesla coils also malfunction but begin shooting electricity in random directions frying two more people but also zotting the Joker.
The smilex gas canisters under the fashion walk also open and gas seeps into the room, exposing hundreds. Talcum powder flows from the ceiling and tiny little green capsules fall down as well with a hallucinogenic gas inside.
Fun for the whole family really.
Dinah sees the first wind of Joker's canisters, and in a paranoid rush, backs back into the stairwell, closing the door behind her. Too late? Not too late. She tapped a distress message to the JLA frequency, fulling knowing that it was completely unknown how long a response would come in. Gotham wasn't Metropolis, she reminded herself again. This was up to her. She formulated a plan.
As her spell goes horribly wrong, luckily her own clothing immune to the wardrobe malfunction, Nico's tapping her ear. "CRAP. IF YOU GET THIS, TELL EVERYONE I'M SORRY."
She lets go, noticing the crystals, as she waves her staff again. "Give me a gas mask!". A gas mask appears on her face, attached to oxygen, protecting her from the doom gas, but also taking one of her spells out.
"You smell like bacon, Clown." And then she's hit in the face with a gun. "OW!"
The smilex goes off earlier than planned, and Harley gets a nostril full of it before she pulls on her gas mask. She immediately starts giggling. It's not clear if this is the result of the smilex, or the result of being Harley. Still laughing, she cartwheels over toward Nico, to try and grab the Staff of One away. "An' you're gonna look like a kebab when I get ya with this, kiddo!"
The Smilex makes everyone all start giggling...covered in white talcum whilst the dye sticks to their hair, making it green. The grins...oh the grins...carefully calibrated, everyone is smiling. Everything is funny. The hallucinatory starts to take effect, and small ants crawling up your arm gnawing it off is funny. Your best friend getting turned to ash is funny. Everyone is grinning...
Except the Joker. He's PISSED that his carefully choreographed scene is ruined. He'd been practicing those lines for WEEKS. He takes out a sub-machine gun. "Alright kid. Let me show you what else can malfunction..." and opens fire.
"Stop!" Dinah shouts, attempting to snap Joker's gunned attention away from Nico, and any other potential victims. More than half of the laugh-troubled hall-goers turn to stare at Black Canary: she's armed with a cart, a thick, metal panel, and numerous sharp pointy things. Not one for monologue, Dinah dives onto the cart, which moves at a surprisingly fast speed: mostly due to Dinah's strong legs pushing it off. Within seconds, she moves onto Joker's area, nearing the stage. The whole entrance looks so choreographed that one might suspect that Dinah was in it for the theatrics: but instead, she was just using whatever limited materials she had. Her cart crashed into the bottom of the catwalk, which Dinah used the momentum to hurl herself onto the stage level. 
Dinah had already ruled out the Canary Cry option--too many people around, too many potential casualties... at least for now. She'd been holding her breath, avoiding the gas, and had almost avoided it. Almost. Just a trace little whiff caught her, and she monetarily cracked up, before pointing at Joker and announcing, "You keep trying and trying stuff like this, Joker. But there's always someone to stop you." Then she laughed again.
As Harley tries to take the staff, Nico is jabbing her towards the gut with the hard end, before pulling the staff back no matter the outcome of that. She slits her other with with the knife, more blood offerings. "Time out, freak.". She waves the staff to cast the spell directly at Harley, running after whatever effect happens happens, diving down behind a sort of cover to dodge bullets. "Crap. CRAP.". And her ear communicator is still malfunctioned, too!
Nico's spell sends Harley away! Which is good, because that's the only thing that saves Harley from being cut down by Joker's wild sub-machine gun fire.
Harley reappears in the corner of the room, sitting on a stool, facing the wall. "--what the."
The gun fails to go off, because...well, malfunctioning. But he tries a good old fashion knife. Yeah. That'll work. "People keep stopping me....really? I didn't know you were Black Resurrection Machine birdy...when you bring back the dead, let me know. That's be some trick!" But he's not smiling. This particular insult appears to have cut him to the quick for some reason...Which is when several people throw random things at each other...and at Black Canary and the Joker. Random brick a brack and all.
"Hey you idiots! Not ME!"
The hail of blunt and semi sharp objects seems to be growing and its like a food fight except with mall crap.
Dinah ducks before a large, styrofoam panda is lobbed at her. Where'd that even come from?
"Ahaha!" Dinah laughs uncontrollably, but pushes herself to speak: "Words are wasted on you, aren't they? Ahaha," She takes two leaping steps into a high kick, hoping to send the ball of her foot into Joker's chest if all goes well.
With the extra cut, Nico has three spells left. Gotta make em count. The more prominent heroes focusing on the clown, so she'll have to deal with the ugly witch. Nico's running towards her corner, ducking in between thrown objects.
"Hey, ugly! Get pied."
Yes, yes, horrible name for a spell, but now pies of all sorts and flavors are launching from the staff...out of control, towards Harley. A lot of them are missing, and Nico's getting some pretty serious recoil, open to a strike.
And besides, pies aren't even fatal! Unless Harley has an apple allergy, that is.
Harley is blasted by wave after wave of delicious pies. She cackles as she tries to advance, but they keep splattering on her, covering the screen of her gas mask, creating conditions too slippery for her to keep on her feet. "I heard'a pi goin' on forever, but this is ridiculous! An' if you got that, you're a freakin' nerd!"
The Clown Prince is kicked roundly in the chest AND hit by an errant pie. It's also humble pie at that. Why? Because Magic that's why, so shut up. He falls backward and lands in a horrible vat of....clothing.
The carefully choreographed exit "in case of Bat" ...relied on mechanical apparatus that apparently is not working.
Plan B. "Retreat! Retreat!" A mound of clothing heads towards the nearest exit blurring in among the crowd of chaos.
Dinah snarls at Joker's hasty exit while laughing. It was definitely the angriest laugh she'd ever heard, much less from her lips. She wasn't sure if she should stay and assist the unruly, guffawing mob or pursue Joker. Concern versus vengeance: it was a tough call. She chucked several small, arrow-like spikes at Joker, suspecting they might miss, and jumped off the stage and stormed towards Harley, still being smothered in layers and layers of pies, that seemed to ceaselessly pummel from... a girl's wand. Who wasn't Zatanna. She marched over, planning to take our Harley, but one of the random crowd members jumped in front of her.
"Ahuh-huh! You're BLACK CANARY! Can I have your AUTOGRAPH! AHAHAH!" the chucklehead chuckled. Dinah pushed him aside and kept moving.
With the gas still flowing and two spells left, Nico pointed her staff in the air. "Air filter!" As the spell says, a giant air filter appeared in the center of the room, pulling the smilex in and dispensing out fresh, free, clean oxygen in return. Thanks for recycling!
The pie bombardment has stopped, as Nico steps aside for Black Canary. "Oh man, you're Black Canary. I'm a huge fan of all of you JLA members! Whoa!" A large grin on her face, as she's removing the gas mask.
Luckily, the grin isn't smilex induced.
Dinah stopped between Nico and what was now a giant pile of pies, presumably with Harley under it. She tapped her ear-communicator, and spoke into it like she were talking into a cellphone, placing a 'hold' finger up to Nico.
"Yes. The incident has been temporarily resolved. I'm going to need a pick-up. I've got one of Joker's people here. Yes. Probably Arkham."
Dinah stepped closer to Nico, she smiled, which turned into an even bigger, over-zealous, almost creepy smile due to her tiniest bit of exposure to the smilex. "Listen.. thanks for helping out." She introduced herself, and gave her information on the location of her flower shop in Gotham... she thought it better to keep contact with someone like this.
Harley has disappeared under a pile of broken pies, almost as if she was never there.
The pile of clothes are shed one by one as the clown prince of crime climbs to a nearby roof, eyes dark and deadly, smouldering embers of coal as he looks upon the city. "Oh Gotham.....you have failed me. You have all failed me and I think that the time has come to make a mark you'll remember forever. A bat family? Well...I think you'll be seeing Jokers around for a lot longer than that....it is...after all..." he leaps off the roof and into the shadows, "the villain that defines the story."
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