Answered Prayers

May 10, 2017:

Harley and Ozymandias rescue some children from half-demons and their acolytes intent on sacrificing them.

Dilapidated Apartment buildings.

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions: Batman

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

Heather Raminez is a custodian on the third shift at Umoja Tower. She has been working at the Tower, since it is first day. She has never missed a day of work until day. Today is the day after her grand-daughter who Is thirteen has gone missing. There has been other teens and children that have gone missing in Harlem, in fact eight since the beginning of Winter.

Heather Raminez sits in her apartment where her grand-daughter would visit her before Heather would go to work, and she prays to Saint Anthony of Padua.

Ozymandias does not know if the patron saint of missing persons hears her prays, but Ozymandias hears them and he is determined to seek out the perpetrators of this crimes.

Twenty miles away in duo two story dilapidated and rat infested apartment complex ,a group of hooded men begin to lead out a group of children up the stairs of the complex. The children are malnourished except Heather's daughter, but she is drugged like all of the rest of the children.

Harley Quinn isn't aware of this particular human trafficking ring, or she might have done something about it before now. Instead, she is looking for a new place to hang her hat that Amanda Waller, lovingly referred to as Satan by the Squad, doesn't know about. Some place where she can have a little privacy. At least for a little while.

It's while she is looking over an abandoned apartment building that she catches movement out of the corner of her eye. She sees something in the building next door. Damn! Some sort of daycare for the deceased! Those kids look terrible!
"It be hard bein a business man. Too many competitors trying to take over our territory." One of the hooded figures pulls back his hood to reveal a half-demon face, "You got to make deals in you want to make it to the top. Everybody's goin to have sacrifice something sooner or latter." The half-demon raises his arms in the air, and the other men and women pull back their heads to reveal that their are all half-demons too. "Acolytes, join your masters and mistresses sides.

When he utters these words, the doors of the empty apartments open up and normal humans in their late teens to late twenties from all walks of life appear holding candles, and walk towards one of the Masters and Mistresses. "Wiyh the blood of these children, you will gain our power, but not the curse of our visage. We had made that sacrifice for you, and you will go home and brings us more children, so we can gain in power and will together will rule all areas of this city from entertaintment to politics, then the state, then this country, and the entire world. "Through the blood of those most innocent shall we rise."

The children are led to banister on the stair well that has meat hooks dangling from underneath this banister is an altar.

The people haven't noticed Harley Quinn yet

Seeing the faces of the people with the hoodies gets Harley's interest. Well, that's not right. She watches carefully from the building across the way, now curious what is going on. It would help if she could hear what is being said. Let's see…. demonic looking people. Regular looking people. Starving kids. You know what? Those never really add up to anything good.

She growls softly under her breath as she races up the stairs to the roof. She double checks that she has the ability to make this jump before running to the opposite end of her building and then racing to the adjacent side to the demon building. With a roll, she makes it onto the roof. Now to get down to the party. And them having forgot her invitation. How rude!

"Prepare the lower the children on to the hooks, then we will slit their them from gullet to groin and feast for their innocence. Our time has….The leader raises his left hand to stop the ushering of the children to the hooks. He sniffs the air. "There is someone who possesses a boon from the light coming closer to this location. I can smell it!" Acolytes, defend your Masters and Mistresses. We will complete this ceremony. The Acolytes begin to form a protective circle around the Masters and Mistresses, while the Leader calls for the sacrifices to start.

"Untie the children, so we can begin. No force of this earth will stop us. The first child is so drugged and malnourished that she drops to the floor, when she is untied. When she hits the floor, she slower begins to wake from her drug stake. The Acolyte puts child over his shoulder and carries her one the meat hook. The young girl is too weak and drugged to scream, but her whimpers can be heard and her tears begin to be reflected by the light in the building.

Ozymandias approaches the building and decides to enter from the bottom and work his way upwards.

One of the Acolytes that is trying to untie the children looks up at the roof and narrows his eyes, and looks around a few times to see if he saw something moving around up there. He is about to yell for someone to check it out….
Having impovised a weapon of a spindle of the stairs down from the roof, Harley is trying to be quiet. She hisses into her phone, asking if any of her Squad mates are available. Nope, just her. She takes a deep breath, knowing this is gonna hurt. Maybe worse then being thrown off a building and left to die.

She sees a thin spot between the floors, the rot having created a hole to let her see the half demons below and the children. The child that is being brought to a meat hook clearly is going to need immediate attention.

And so, without a moment of hesitation, she jumps through the thin spot.
The Acolyte carry the child is completely taken off guard by seeing Harley. He drops the girl on the ground. The girl just minor scrapes her hand when she is dropped to the ground. "Heathen! Begone." The rest of the Acoyltes near the children forget about untieing them, and begin to rush Harley.

The leader begins to sound frantic, "Forget about the Heathen! You must kill the children." He begins to make his way towards the children, and pulls out a jagged metal dagger. He is still far away from the group.

Ozymandias finally arrives on the scene and looks at the group of Acoyltes and half-demons gathered before him. He turns out his infrared goggles and throws some smoke bombs towards the group. He spends this moment of chaos to further scan the area and to notice the children on the stairs and Harley up there with them.
You paged Harley Quinn with 'You can do what you want.'
"Heathen?! Oh, babycakes, you don't know the half of it. All my friends are heathens too." She uses the broken wooden banister, back handing the cultist in front of her. Scooping up the little girl in one arm, Harley starts to back up towards the other kids. Keeping them in a group so she can defend them.

Once all the kids are together, she starts fighting like only a madman can. Erratic, unpredictable. She uses her foes against each other, pushing them against each other or letting one hit the other when aiming for her.

"No one kills a kid on my watch, butt face!"
Seeing Harley fight against the Acolytes answers the question on which side Harley is fighting on. Ozymandias clenches his fists as he realizes that getting the children to safety should be his first concern. He throws some smoke bombs and sleep bombs below him as he uses his grappling hook to swing towards Harley's side. He grabs one of the Acolyte's and knocks him out with a guillotine choke.

He points towards the roof, "We lead the children to the roof and to the building next door.

The smoke bomb and sleeps bombs have thin out some of the Acolytes ranks, but have done nothing to weaken the half-demon, especially their leader who appears several feet from Harley and Oz.

Harley has never seen the guy that shows up beside her before and cocks back a fist. She's about to give him a kiss in the face with said fist when he yells at her about helping the children. So, not one of these guys then.

She points to where the staircase up to the roof is. "C'mon kids! Aunty Harley and Uncle… " She looks Ozymandius up and down. "Who the hell are you? You look like B-Man, only with less B." She has to duck then, the conversation having nearly gotten her hit in the head. "Woah! Can't a girl talk here?!" She starts fighting again.
"I think your life would be significantly different if I was the Bats." Ozymandias smirks behind his mask, "Ozymandias is my name. Ozymandias transforms pulls out his Zulu style shield and transform his Ilkwa into a mystical version of itself. He blocks one of the Masters attacks, and plants the mystical energy spear into the half-demon.

The half-demon screams in agony and reverts back to being human. The leader of the half-demons growl at Harley, "Leave those innocence to me!" He lifts the dagger up in the air.
"Alright kiddies! Follow Uncle Ozzy!!" yells Harley as she continues to fight. She's not actually being too careful about who she hits in a deadly fashion and who she is just cold cocking, unlike the other hero. She swears when her make-shift bat breaks, then apologizing to the children for her foul language.

No bat, or bat replacement, Harley feels a need to big out the big guns. Well, they are guns and they are pretty big. It's a fair assessment. Both arms straight out before her, she starts shooting herself a pathway to the Leader. "Sorry, sweetness. No innocences on the menu today. How about a nice big helping of pissed off clown!!"
The leader begins to fall back from Harley's gun. His human side twisting and turning into more of a demon with each shot of Harley's bullet, but still he persists as his blood hits the flood. His voice weakens as he presses, "You…have ruin..everythin"

"Fuckin Gotham" Ozymandias rolls his eyes at the antics of Harley as she protects the kids. Ozymandias continues to help usher the kids up the stairs. He peers down at the Masters and Mistresses that are coming up the stairs. He puts his spear and shield on his back and pulls out his bow and arrow.

Ozymandias fires several arrows into the Acolytes legs making sure they will not be walking anytime soon. The Masters and Mistresses have made their way to the stairs, now that most of the Acolytes are down. They are closing in on Harley's position.

For a brief moment, he does ponder leaving Harley to her fate. He is not Batman, but she did risk her life to save these children, and he knows he has far more innocent blood on his hands than Harley could ever have. He tells the children to stay, he shoots off his grappling hook, flips, and lands behind the Master and Mistresses. He calls upon the power of Ma'at and unleashes mystical energy blast upon several of the Masters and Mistresses.

"You know, I get that a lot," is Harley's response to being told she ruins everything. She is close enough now to punch the demon in the face, pistolwhipping him instead. She is about to turn and run when Ozzy shows up again. "Seriously, you got more toys then a birthday party!" She ducks at the blast going around to hit the Masters and Mistresses and then looks around. "Neat trick. Kids now?" She starts to bolt to the children, gesturing for them to keep going up the stairs. Now, how to get them to the safety of the next building?

The leader demon goes down on the ground, and Ozymandias finally catches up with Harley, he finally looks at her handy work, and he must admit that he is impressed. One of the people she beat down whispers or mercy as Ozymandias passes him. Ozymandias looks her up and down for a moment, "If you cover me. I can carry them across. He quickly counted the number of children. It should take two trips. I don't trust the children to hang on to me.
The person begging for mercy nearly gets a shot in the head from Harley, but she pulls her gun back. "Not in front'ah the children. Ain't gonna let 'em see more then they hafta," she grumbles. She's in a bad mood. This hero type guy just saw her try to save a bunch of children. It's going to be all over the street that Harley has gone soft. And that jsut means work, work, work.

When asking for cover, Harley nods. "I gotcher back. Just get them ta saftey." She finds a broken pallet and rips off the two by six that makes one of the supports. Not her usual weapon of choice, but it'll do.
"
"As Ozymandias lands with the first kids to the other side of the roof. Three Acolytes that escaped the arrows and the sleep gas make their way to the rooftop. Seeing their leaders defeated, their hopes of power gone, they turned their rage on Harley and rushed at her. Ozymandias jumps over and quickly grabs the children, then jumps back across the roof."

Harley was really hoping that there was still some fun left to be had and here they come up the stairs to provide. Now that she doesn't need to worry about the kids, she gets to truly enjoy herself. Any signs of mercy or restraint are gone as the madness flairs in her eyes and she starts killing mercilessly. She bends in ways that should be impossible unless you are some sort of contortionist, which, apparently she is. She turns one of the Acolytes into a meat sheild while being attacked by the others, all the while laughing like a giddy teen that just got asked to the prom.
There is a wicked grin that comes across his face watching her fight the Acolytes. Her movements are like a deadly beautiful ballerina, and he is about to get lost in her performance, when he remembers the task at hand, and remembers that he has his own rules that he follows. Ozymandias peers over at Harley across the roof., "McChesi….I mean Harlequin. I am calling authorities to help to gathered the children. I think they are safe now. You did good today."

Stops long enough in her fighting, really just playing with them now for giggles when she hears Ozymandius call out to her. Apparently what he said was not something she wanted to hear as she points her blood soaked 2x6 at him. "You tell anyone I did good and I come looking for you, Uncle Ozy. I'm a hardened criminal, dammit!" She then turns and resumes the beating of her victims to take out her anger at being referred to as a *shudder* good guy!
Ozymandias smirks behind his mask, "Then I might have to tell everyone becauseI might want to see you again, McChesi." Ozymandias turns his back to her. "I will cover for you, McChesi. I think it is best that you will depart before the authorities arrive."
"
And he taunts her! Taunts her!! She bashes in the head of one of the Acolytes that is clearly already quite dead. "And stop calling me McCheesie! I am not a burger!" She angrily whips out her gun and shoots it in Ozymandius' direction a couple times, but either she is a terrible shot or she intended to miss. The sirens can be heard in the distance and she knows her cue to leave when she hears it. Oh, when Waller hears about this, Harley is never going to hear the end of it. She's going to be a laughing stock of the SKWAD!!

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