“Alright boys! Load it all up in the truck; Mistah J’s got the Bat distracted runnin’ around after small potatoes, so now’s the time!”
“Don’t be so sure about that Harley.” The soft, feminine voice growled from a few feet behind the jester’s head, sending a spark of alarm down her spine. She spun on the shot, whipping her cork-gun up to head height in the same motion, only to be met with an empty pool of the dimly lit parking garage.
“It’s the she-Bat! Keep your eyes peeled boys!”
A moment later, a hefty ‘thwack’ followed by a grunt of pain sent one of Harley’s goons crashing to the ground. Spurts of gunfire erupted all around the workshop, eliciting an angry screech from their boss. Her eyes raked the rafters of the toy-shop, trying desperately to keep track of the flitting shadow within. But every time she lost sight of her, even for a heartbeat, another one of her minions toppled over unconscious.
Out of the corner of her eye, a flash of movement sent Harley spinning with her finger on the trigger of her pop-gun.
“I gotcha now lil’ miss Bats!”
The fingers of her free hand shot up to her mouth as she saw the hefty cork slam into her last henchman’s forehead, his muscle-faced figure tipping like a felled tree into a stack of tricycles.
“Oops! Sorry Zet!”
“Give up Quinn; I’d hate to send you back to Arkham with a broken nose.” Harley jumped reflexively away from the voice as she turned to face Bat-girl, the lean figure staring her down from mere metres away.
“A broken nose? That’s the best you got? C’mere Bats, I’ll wipe the floor with you!”
Lunging forwards angrily, Harley launched a high kick at the caped heroine’s head, only to find herself on the receiving end of a swift jab to the throat that sent her rolling along the ground.
“Honestly Harley, I can understand stealing from the banks, but taking money from a toy factory? Really?”
Harley’s eyes darted to the super-soaker still clasped in Zet’s meaty fist. Through a fit of wheezing coughs, she spluttered at Bat-girl.
“We wasn’t stealin’ the money you dour goofball! We was stealin’ the dolls!”
“… The dolls? What possible reason could you have for stealing dolls?”
“Because, Bat-brain…” Harley scrabbled along the ground frantically, diving forwards and reaching out for the super-soaker as she felt Bat-girl’s booted foot collide with her stomach. Rolling onto her back, she pumped the primer of the squirt-gun and pointed it at the woman standing over her, “… there’s about to be a surplus of them!”
The superheroine folded her arms in a decidedly unimpressed manner as Harley sprayed her with the unassuming liquid, droplets rolling down her face.
“Okay, you’re coming with me.” Planting her foot on Harley’s ample chest, Bat-girl stooped down to deliver a strike into the jester’s face, only for Harley to reach up at the last moment and catch her fist. For the briefest moment, surprised was visible on the heroine’s face before her training took over. She made to retract her arm, but found herself entirely unable to break the harlequin’s vice-like grip.
“Sorry Bat-boob, but I’ve got other plans for tonight!” Hefting her legs up and planting them heel first into Bat-girl’s stomach, she kicked up with all her strength and sent the caped cretin hurtling through the air. Launching herself back to her feet, Harley dashed quickly over to the sprawled super, furiously pumping on the soaker’s primer again. Even though she knew what to expect, Harley still couldn’t suppress the feeling of giddy amusement that was rapidly overtaking her alarm.
It was barely perceptible at present, but it grew more noticeable with each passing second; Bat-girl’s clothes were becoming increasingly loose. The skin-tight costume, the reinforced gloves, the pointed cowl; all of them looked like they were two sizes too large for her now. And it wasn’t even the clothes themselves that were getting larger… it was the woman beneath getting smaller.
“What’s the matter shorty? Where’s the broken nose you promised me?”
The instant Bat-girl’s face turned to Harley to make a retort, she was met with a prolonged spray from the squirt-gun, the words in her throat gargled as she gagged on the liquid. Harley giggled impishly, shrugging off the feeble gut-punch that the heroine threw at her.
“Aww, silly Bat-brain, that’s my stomach not my nose! This is where your nose is…” Reaching down with one gloved hand, she flicked her opponent squarely in the centre of the face. The yelp of pain was much squeakier than usual and Harley didn’t even try to suppress her laughter as she estimated that the dwindling dink had just bypassed her belly button.
“What is this?! What is it doing to me?!”
“Oh it’s one of Ivy’s concoctions! She had her own plans for it, but Mistah J got a hold of it and… well, you know how he gets. The comedic potential is unlimited with this kinda stuff! Strictly speaking one dose is just enough to shrink someone to the size of a doll.”
“You’re turning me into a doll!?” Bat-girl said, tripping over her costume and sprawling on the floor of the workshop with genuine fear in her voice.
“Well, honestly not really. ONE dose turns you into a doll… I’ve sprayed you with, like… five? Six? And you just swallowed some, so I don’t even know how that’s gonna work out. If I can still see you when this is over I’ll be surprised!”
“WHAT?!? You can’t do this!” Bat-girl gazed up pleadingly at the gigantic jester. Through the eyeholes in her mask, the sight of Harley towering above her was like nothing she’d ever seen. She was used to gliding beneath the shadow of the skyscrapers of Gotham, but the towers weren’t usually giggling down at her with the complete power to step on her like a bug if they so chose.
“Can’t do what Bat-bug? Let you shrink away into irrelevant nothingness? Let you go toe-to-toe with the germs in the dust? I can absolutely do that… but who knows, maybe I’ll be merciful and stop it before then.”
“You can stop it?”
“Sure can! I mean, if you die then you won’t get any smaller, right? I could just put my boot down on you, lean into it and… splat! No more baby bat!” A chill shot down Bat-girl’s spine as she crawled impulsively away from the hellish Harlequin, her costume falling away all around her until her naked form had only the shaped mask to conceal it.
“You’re mad Harleen!” The squeaking voice yelped up, barely audible at this stage. Harley just giggled maliciously in response.
“Gee, ya think? You deserve an award for the sleuthing it took to come to that conclusion!” The monstrous maiden of madness planted a boot beside Bat-girl’s crumpled outfit, bending forward at the hips to rummage around for her puny prey. To the still-dwindling heroine, it had gone from overwhelming to nightmarishly surreal. If Harley had been a skyscraper of flesh and fabric before, she was positively monolithic now; it was no longer a human standing before a skyscraper, it was a mere cockroach… a flea… a grain of living sand.
Out from under the mountainous interior of the heroine’s mask, the tread of Harley’s boot stretched across the horizon like the edge of a vast city. Had she been regular size, the visage would have certainly meant the doom of Gotham and probably the rest of the world too! As it stood however, Bat-girl knew her only options were to try her best to escape being caught by the giggling giantess… or let herself be taken. She might never be found if she did manage to elude her after all; if she didn’t stop shrinking soon, it could take her the rest of her life to even get out of her costume!
“Where aaaare you Bat-brat? I’ve got to give you your prize, remember?” Her teasing tone beat down on the dinky dame like thunder as the mask was lifted away. Bat-girl made no attempt to run; what was the point? Even as she started up at the gigantic jester, she could see her gradually stretching into the sky, growing larger and larger with each passing moment. She waited with a sinking feeling in her gut for the titan to scoop her up between her fingertips.
But Harley just stared, her eyes gazing out through layers of makeup and raking the cloth for any sign of her victim.
“Aww this ‘aint no fun; how am I supposed to toy with ya if you’re gonna hide?”
Bat-girl’s jaw dropped. She was standing right out in the middle of the fabric, and yet still she was so utterly minute that even Harley couldn’t see her when she was mere inches away. Immediately she set about trying to draw attention to herself, running around wildly and jumping up and down, shouting at the top of her laughably little lungs. The threads in her costume fabric were starting to become quite noticeable, and with a surge of adrenaline she realized that there was a very real possibility that if she got too much smaller, she could fall through the cracks of the weave and be lost forever in an abyss of her own creation!
Harley grunted in irritation, rising to her feet millions of miles above and stalking over to the duffel bags brought by her goons.
“I swear, if you don’t come out right now and give yourself up dink-knight, I’m gonna just douse your stupid costume in petrol and light it on fire!”
Scrambling to the top of one of the mountains of fabric, Bat-girl waited until the infinite Miss Quinn was back in sight before setting about frantically waving her arms again to be noticed. As Harley approached, the quaking impacts of her feet sent ripples through the air that almost blasted the victimized vigilante from her perch. Her eyes widened in horror as one of the cackling colossus’s boots lifted directly over her mask. The tread sank towards her like a plummeting sky grime and dirt plastered to the underside of a city-sized shoe.
A wail of feeble resistance escaped Bat-girl’s throat before the boot slammed down on her…
… and yet, in spite of the fact that her heart had jumped into her throat, she still lived! By some stroke of fortune, she had found herself in the gaps in Harley’s sole! It hardly made her feel much better about her situation of course, but it was enough to say that she was at least not dead.
“Oh! Hang on a tic, that’s probably where…” Harley muttered, lifting her boot away and bending back down towards the mask, a magnifying glass clasped between her gloved fingers, “hope I didn’t step on ya just not Bat-brain! Be a real shame if I had to tell the big Bat that his assistant was smeared under my shoe like an itty bitty bug!”
Squinting through the magnifying glass, her inspection of the mask resumed… though this time far more successfully than the last.
“AHA! There you are ya grumpy little germ! Ha! You’re way tinier than I ever expected; gotta be real careful with this stuff huh?”
Bat-girl yelled at the vexing villain for help, but it became readily apparent that her voice wasn’t nearly powerful enough to reach the giant’s ears. Harley just shrugged, a huge grin plastered across her mouth.
“Well! Guess you’re not goin’ anywhere like that; lucky your ol’ pal Harley has got just what you need.” Reaching into the duffel bag once more, Harley produced another piece of glass equipment, this time in the form of a test slide intended for use with a high powered microscope. “On ya hop squirt!”
Bat-girl hesitated for the briefest of moments before leaping from her perch onto the seemingly limitless expanse of the glass slide. The subsequent rush of momentum from being hoisted into the air by the big, bubbly bully was more than enough to practically flatten her against the ground.
“HeheehehehHEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh bitty Bat! I wish you could see how ridiculous you look right now! I don’t even think Mistah J could come up with a joke this funny!” She paused for a heartbeat, her eyes squinting in thought, “I mean… probably not, but hey, nothing’s impossible right?”
Harley watched through the microscope as the insignificant little thing’s mouth worked a mile a minute, utterly soundless as she continued to get smaller and smaller.
“Well Bats, I’m afraid I’ve gotta scoot along. I’d offer to bring you with, but… y’know, I can’t really drive AND keep an eye on your dinky little caboose at the same time, so… I guess this is goodbye.” Through the glass, she could see the heroine’s head shaking back and forth on objection, a pleading expression on her microbial face.
“But hey, because we’ve had such a fun time together these past few years…” Harley continued in a tone of faux sorrow, “I might as well tell ya what I really think of ya…”
With a toothy smile, Harley reached down and tugged out the elastic of her skin-tight leggings, lowering the glass slide squarely between her bulging buttocks and clenching her cheeks an instant later, instantly enveloping the entire slide within her superior posterior. Still pinching one corner of the thing between her fingertips, the jiggling jester dragged the slide back out, not even bothering to check if her victim was still on board before casually tossing it over her shoulder into a nearby trash can.
“So long Bat-Bug!”