“So… so when I came back, puddin’ was with this other bitch!” Harley slurred, jabbing a finger into the air like she could stab the memory itself. “Stupid bck hair, oooh, stupid name too. Punchline. Who does she think she is—”

  Harley stuffed another Oreo into her mouth and took a long swig straight from the wine bottle.

  That bottle ran about seven hundred dolrs a gss. I gnced at it, then at the pitiful heap that was Harley Quinn sprawled across the couch, and decided not to comment. I just took a careful sip of my own as I watched.

  “You deserve better, Harls,” Ivy murmured, leaning in close. Her towel slipped down her shoulder in a way that was anything but subtle. “I know it sucks, but maybe you can take this as a sign. Who knows… maybe there’s somebody better. Even close by.”

  I covered my mouth and snorted at the most btant flirtation I had ever witnessed. Ivy shot me a venomous gre, but I ignored it and made exaggerated kissy faces.

  The soft rustle of vines followed.

  Several of them crept toward me across the floor.

  I raised my hands in mock surrender, fighting back ughter. Whatever wariness I’d once had of Ivy had evaporated the second I saw her acting head over heels for Harley. It was hard to be intimidated by someone who flirted like an awkward teenager.

  Ivy huffed and turned back to consoling a very drunk and increasingly messy Harley. Her bumbling attempts at comfort, ced with painfully obvious flirting, were a delight to listen to.

  Not exactly how I’d expected to rex tonight, but honestly, this might have been better. Who knew even Gotham’s resident crazies had romance troubles?

  It pyed out like some deranged soap opera. Harley, the spurned second love, is desperate to win back her beloved. Ivy, the loyal best friend, is helping her through heartbreak while obviously drowning in feelings of her own.

  Except instead of plucky teens, it was homicidal lunatics.

  Watching their back-and-forth for the past hour had been more entertaining than any soap I’d seen.

  But it was missing something.

  A little spice.

  A wonderfully dangerous idea formed in my head.

  “You know…” I chimed in casually, swirling my gss. “There is a simple solution to all your problems. If you want to get the ‘girl’, so to speak.”

  That snapped Harley out of her sobbing. She lifted her head, mascara smeared and eyes wide. “Really?”

  “Oh, there’s always a simple solution,” I said smoothly. “If you’ve gotta share someone’s affections… well, why not just…”

  I mimed strangling someone.

  Harley frowned, though her expression turned thoughtful. “Mr. J wouldn’t like that. He told us to py nice. He might dump me for real if I kill that bitch.”

  “Who says you have to be the one to do the deed?” I leaned in and lowered my voice conspiratorially. “You didn’t hear it from me, but.. I heard Deathstroke and Deadshot are in town.”

  Harley’s eyes lit up at the suggestion. Determination repced the drunken despair almost instantly.

  “You’re right! If I’m gonna get back Mr. J, I can’t just sit here cryin’!”

  She scrambled to her feet and stumbled toward the bathroom, already muttering pns under her breath.

  Across the room, Poison Ivy slowly turned toward me.

  She was looking at me like she was deciding what fertilizer I’d make.

  “Why the hell would you say that?” she demanded, rising to her feet. “I’d finally just gotten her away from that asshole!”

  “Hmm… just because.” I took another slow sip of wine as vines and roots slithered closer, brushing against the legs of my chair. “But you know, my advice would work pretty well for you, too. Look at how inconsoble Harley was when Joker stopped paying attention to her. Now imagine how devastated she’d be if the good old clown kicked the bucket. So devastated, she’d cling to her dear friend Ivy for comfort. Who knows what might happen after that?”

  Poison Ivy’s expression went strangely dreamy.

  Objectively, what I was describing was completely unhinged. Soap opera levels of dramatic insanity. Still, the two vilinous women didn’t seem to mind at all.

  “No… no. I couldn’t do that to her.” Ivy shook her head firmly.

  Color me surprised.

  Still, one more nudge couldn’t hurt.

  “I mean, if you don’t want to kill him because it’d hurt Harley, there are other ways to end a retionship.” I raised two fingers and mimed a pair of scissors. “Why not just…”

  I leaned in and whispered the rest of my idea into her ear.

  Ivy froze for a second. Then a slow, dangerously wide smile spread across her face.

  “That,” she murmured, “is a good idea.”

  Harley burst back into the room in full costume, mallet slung over her shoulder and eyes bzing with renewed purpose. “Come on! Ivy, get dressed. I need to go hire a hitman!”

  Ivy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Do you even have any money, Harls? I don’t know what they’re charging these days.”

  “It’s usually three hundred thousand minimum, plus an hourly fee that varies depending on the guy. They charge extra for high-profile targets or metahumans.” I said casually while munching on another Oreo.

  Both women went still and slowly turned to look at me.

  “What?” I shrugged. “I have to know the rates so nobody tries to fleece me.”

  Harley giggled at that.

  Ivy, however, was staring vaguely into the distance, doing mental math. “Harls… do you have that kind of money?”

  Harley froze mid-bounce and turned to Ivy with mechanical stiffness. “Care to spot me?”

  “Harl’s, even if I add up every bolthole stash I’ve got, I don’t think I’d break fifty thousand,” Ivy admitted.

  I blinked. “Haven’t you two been in the game for years? I figured you’d have made bank.”

  The bigwigs in any crime family always made sure the fattest checks went to themselves first, but still. Even with Arkham stints factored in, I expected more.

  “Ehehe… I let Mr. J handle all the money.”

  Ivy looked away. “Taking care of pnts burns through cash.”

  Right. Insanity did not exactly correte with sound financial pnning.

  The two of them started spitballing increasingly questionable schemes to raise funds, each suggestion somehow worse than the st. As entertaining as it was, I felt a faint sense of responsibility for nudging two of Gotham’s most chaotic women toward a new objective.

  Well. Actions, consequences, and all that.

  I pushed myself to my feet and headed for the door. “Gary! Bring the cache I found!”

  The floor creaked as the massive gargoyle shuffled down the hall. He appeared in the doorway carrying a heavy wooden chest, as if it weighed nothing.

  Both supervilins froze at the sight of the hulking monster.

  Gary set the chest down with a solid thud, gave a polite nod, and lumbered back to his post without a word.

  “Uhh… are we not gonna talk about that stone demon thing or…?” Harley asked slowly.

  Ivy’s gaze lingered on me, a little more wary now.

  “We could,” I said with a grin. “Or we could talk about this.”

  I kicked the chest open, and the sight inside stole both their attention instantly.

  Emeralds the size of my fist. Diamonds and rubies spilling over one another. A literal pile of gold coins and bars stacked haphazardly inside, like a pirate's treasure chest.

  “Here,” I smiled. “Go do a crime.”

  Their jaws hung open.

  “Are you sure?” Ivy asked quietly. For a second, she actually looked touched.

  “It’s fine.” I waved a hand dismissively. “Chump change for me.”

  That was a complete lie.

  Finding this stash hidden inside the mansion walls might have been the luckiest moment of my life so far. The problem was that actually turning it into usable money had been a nightmare. I knew a few fences, but this was way beyond their capacity. The only person I knew who could realistically move something like this was Cobblepot.

  And even with my limited knowledge of gems and precious metals, I understood one thing clearly.

  This was enough money that even Penguin might decide betraying me was worth the risk.

  The haul was so absurdly valuable that I had not told a single soul about it. The chances of a career criminal seeing this and not getting greedy were basically nonexistent.

  I had been nursing a headache, trying to figure out how to convert it into usable capital.

  Maybe this was not the smartest solution.

  But it was a solution.

  “Thank you! Thank you!” Harley practically vibrated with joy before unching herself at me in a hug. “I won’t forget this! If ya ever need somethin’, just gimme a holler! I’ll do it right after I kill that bitch!”

  Ivy tried to maintain some dignity, though the excitement was still there in her eyes. “Thanks. I mean it.” I lifted my hand automatically for a high five. She smacked it on her way past, and I felt something slip into my palm.

  The two of them grabbed the chest together and hurried out, already talking over each other about pns, targets, and timelines.

  I gnced down at my hand.

  A small folded slip of paper rested in my palm.

  Two phone numbers.

  [Feat Achieved! Hard Bought Friendship][+1 Gold Gacha Ticket]Fucking worth it. I grinned as I ripped the ticket.

  [Tinker - Alchemy(II)]

  |Rare Ability|

  Allows you to design, modify, and build technology and technological constructs reted to alchemical reagents, potions, and the production of those items. Such as healing, stamina, energy potions, potions that cure diseases, grant minor permanent buffs, or very explosive gases, incendiary acid, etc. But the stronger a target that consumes a potion, the less effective it is, and vice versa. The more potent a potion is, the better materials you need for it.

  Knowledge flooded my brain.

  My mind filled with ideas faster than I could process them, each one branching into a dozen more.

  Oh, this… this had potential.

  —Helena had never regretted picking up the cowl. There was something deeply satisfying about beating bastards down with her own two hands as Huntress, and it was a joy she intended to cling to for as long as she could.

  That said, not everything about the job was gmorous.

  Being crammed shoulder to shoulder with another viginte inside a dusty ventition shaft ranked somewhere near the bottom of the list.

  “If your foot kicks me one more time, I swear to God,” she whispered harshly.

  Orphan said nothing, but Helena would have bet good money the brat was rolling her eyes in the dark.

  Working with the Batfamily was always a pain in the ass. Did they all inherit Bruce’s hard-edged, emotionally constipated personality, or was that part of the training manual?

  Below them, a rusty metal door creaked open. Tracking down the League of Assassins’ primary meetup spots had been an exhausting process. She was not Question; she didn’t enjoy drowning in investigative minutiae.

  And why the hell did they need thirty different fake bases?

  She shoved the thought aside and focused on the bck-cd figures gathering beneath them.

  “Do you have the details for the new job? We're finally gonna go after that furry Bat loser?” an annoyingly familiar voice called out as a man dropped from the rafters.

  Bck Spider.

  “Don’t say that if Talia’s in earshot,” a woman in green replied, idly cleaning a sai. A catlike mask framed her face. Cheshire.

  “Just telling it how it is,” Bck Spider shot back.

  A bck-robed figure smmed a fist down on the table. “Enough.”

  The room fell quiet.

  “This job was approved by the Demon’s Head himself,” the robed figure continued. “A hefty price has been paid to the League. No mistakes will be tolerated. A Scyillithan emerald was forwarded as initial payment, with more promised upon completion. As such, the Demon’s Head has decred an open contract on this mission. Additional operatives will arrive shortly to assist.”

  Bck Spider gave a low whistle.

  Helena frowned. If she remembered correctly, a Scyillithan emerald was a collector’s item of obscene value. She shot Orphan a quick, uneasy gnce. This was bad. If the League was mobilizing multiple assassins for a high-paying open contract…

  “This is not an assassination mission,” the robed figure added. “We were informed that failure will result in the Demon’s Head being… greatly displeased. We are expected to carry out the task exactly as specified.”

  “What do we have to do?” Cheshire asked, twirling her weapon.

  The robed figure unfurled a piece of paper and read, “We are to, quote, cut off the Joker’s dick and make him eat his own balls.”

  A heavy silence settled over the room.

  Even the two hardened assassins looked momentarily stunned.

  Next to her, a muffled snort broke the quiet.

  Helena turned her head just enough to gre at Orphan, and sure enough, the younger viginte was shaking with barely contained ughter. She had to bite down hard on her own tongue to stop herself from joining in.

  Every head below snapped upward toward the vent.

  Goddammit.

  ***

  Comments and Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Likes are like a drug to me and boost my creative juices.

  I have advanced chapters if you wanna read ahead.