Harley Quinn Romance 3

Chapter 17: Showdown

"Child," Talia sneered, unsheathing the long and curved sword from across her back. "Do you think my father was the only one to use the pit to stay young and strong? I've been an assassin since before your grandparents were born. Even if you trained your whole life, you could never be my equal."

"Perhaps," Batwoman admitted. "However, I do have one advantage."

"What would that be?" Talia question dismissively.

Batwoman didn't answer, only smiled. Several voices in her head demanded she tell the stuck-up assassin what for, but the majority of the voices argued it would be stupid to let her rival know what she was planning beforehand. Batwoman removed a batarang from her belt with one hand and a smoke grenade with the other.

The smoke grenade went off the instant it impacted the floor between the two women, filling the room with clouds of obscuring gray. A batarang whistled through the air, but Talia's sword flicked out and deflected it away easily.

"I practiced blindfolded for years," Talia laughed, her eyes closed. "Your weapons are mere toys."

Talia marched through the smoke cloud in a straight line toward Batwoman.

Batarangs were hurled toward Talia as fast as Batwoman could pull them from her utility belt, but Talia effortlessly dodged, deflected, or blocked every one of them, all the while closing the distance to Batwoman.

When Talia was almost within sword range, Batwoman threw a different item. The sword flashed up to strike the projectile and hurl it away, but the item shattered on impact. The glass vial held the same acid Joker had used in his squirting flower, and it began to dissolve Talia's sword similar to an icicle shoved into a hot oven.

Splashes of the acid got on Talia's face, hands, and arms. Talia flung her vanishing weapon away from her with a cry of pain. She frantically brushed at her face and armor in an attempt to remove the acid eating away at her.

Batwoman offered Talia no respite, lunging in with a flurry of strikes. The sharpened edges of her batarangs sliced through Talia's armor to leave a bleeding gash on her side, another stabbed down into the assassin's leg, nearly causing her to lose her balance and crash to the floor. A backhand slice took off the lower part of Talia's ear while leaving a bloody furrow across the side of her face. A knee to the stomach knocked the wind from Talia's lungs, doubling her over, and a swift kick to her ankle dropped her to the ground on her back.

"I told you how this would end," Batwoman said between deep breaths. She pulled out a set of batcuffs.

"You think this is over?" Talia questioned before spitting out a mouthful of blood. "I know Bruce is Batman, so I know who you are Harleen. I know about your friends, employees, even your butler. You can hide nothing from the League. Arrest me and everyone will know the secret identity of Batman and Batwoman. How many criminals can you stop if you have nowhere to hide, and how much collateral damage will there be?"

"You shouldn't have said that," Batwoman said, putting away her cuffs and picking up one of the batarangs from the floor. When she spoke again, her voice was calm and measured as if all emotion had drained away into a deep chasm within her soul. "Now you gotta' die."

"Go ahead," Talia taunted. "Why do you think Bruce and I never got together? I was a killer, and his moral code couldn't accept it. Kill me, and you'll save him, but you'll lose him. He'll hate you the rest of his life."

Talia's laugh was cut short by a wince of pain.

"I told you that you were no match for me," Talia reminded with a bloody smile.

Batwoman glared at her rival as the smoke in the room cleared, switching off her enhanced vision to look at her opponent in the green glow cast by the lazarus pit. She wondering how she'd been outmaneuvered, but a different part of her brain asked why she was letting Talia set the only two options. Batwoman's gaze shifted abruptly toward the pool of eerie phosphorescence and then toward the supplies stacked in the far hallway, smiling as she decided on a different course of action.

Returning the batarangs to her belt and removing something else, Batwoman marched to the only exit and used a pressurized canister to spray lines of expanding gray foam and spell out "Harley wuz here" on the stone wall beside the door.

"What are you doing?" Talia questioned, her tone lacking all traces of victorious triumph it had possessed a moment before. She forced herself unsteadily back to her feet and staggered to the edge of the pit to use the fluid and erase her injuries one by one.

Batwoman considered her work for a moment before spraying more to create a smiley face on the other wall and frame the doorway between her two artistic renderings.

"What is that?" Talia demanded, picking up her sword.

"If I can hide nothing from the League," Batwoman replied as she waved the canister at Talia, "then you must've heard about explosive gel.  I wouldn't get too close to the door if I were you."

Batwoman stepped past the thick slab of the door and put her full weight against it to shut it behind her. She sprayed more of the gel on the low ceiling and surrounding walls before racing up the stairs and hitting the activation switch for the explosive gel. Detonations went off behind her, collapsing the stairway and filling the downward passage with broken rock and the surrounding soil, vanishing the access to the lazarus pit as if it had never been there.

Heading up the stairs into the skyscraper, Batwoman added more explosive gel every few floors, collapsing the basement levels' access as well. She even paused at one of the floors to add some inside the elevator shaft and prevent anyone from going down or coming up that way either. Satisfied with her work, she headed upstairs to find Batman.