Harley Quinn's Burning Passion

He thrust out his left hand and plunged it into the tactical pouch at Harley's waist.

His fingers touched the metal cube.

The jammer.

Floyd yanked it free and clenched it in his fist.

"Fall back!" Floyd screamed, his voice cracking.

Summoning strength from somewhere, he kicked off the floor and rolled backward through the suite door.

Dig scrambled after him.

Nanaue roared and charged on all fours toward the elevator shaft at the end of the hall.

The three fled like whipped dogs, desperate to escape.

They abandoned Harley without a second thought.

Only a lunatic would fight that monster.

Harley didn't even glance at her fleeing teammates.

The baseball bat she had raised stopped dead in midair. She tossed it onto the carpet.

It landed with a dull thud.

She dropped to her knees and crawled toward the sofa on all fours, like a frenzied beast catching the scent of blood.

She lifted her painted face and stared at Chu Men's slippers on the carpet.

Her mouth stretched into a ghastly smile.

"Puddin'... I caught him," Harley murmured, twitching her neck.

Chu Men looked down at the woman laughing and crying at his feet.

The iconic wallpaper image from his previous life—a wild, sexy woman with pigtails and a baseball bat—overlapped with the painted, deranged woman before him.

Reality was dirtier and crazier than any wallpaper.

Harley bared her white teeth and lunged for Chu Men's calf.

At the same time, her right hand darted to her upper thigh.

A custom dagger coated in venom was hidden there.

She drew it and drove it viciously toward Chu Men's knee.

Clang!

Metal rang out, sharp and clear.

The tempered-steel blade couldn't withstand the recoil. It shattered in an instant.

The fragments flew back with several wet slices, cutting open Harley's cheek and chin.

Blood poured out, mingled with cheap face paint, and ran down her neck into her collar.

Seated on the sofa, Chu Men watched with a cruel glint of amusement.

He reached out and seized Harley by the chin.

His arm tensed slightly.

Harley was lifted bodily into the air.

Her feet left the floor, kicking helplessly.

She gripped Chu Men's arm with both hands, trying to pry open his iron grasp.

Chu Men looked into her eyes, wild with hatred.

"What are you pretending for?" His voice was cold. "Avenging your 'Puddin''? Don't make me laugh."

His fingers tightened slightly.

Harley's jaw creaked under the pressure, and her eyes rolled back in pain.

"You never loved him." Chu Men held her gaze, piercing every disguise she wore. "You were hooked on the thrill of breaking rules and doing whatever you wanted. With the Joker dead, the madness you took such pride in has lost its source. Everything you're doing now is just hiding how scared you are."

A strange rattle came from Harley's throat as she shook her head desperately.

"Strip away the clown act." Chu Men pronounced each word like a death sentence. "You're just a worthless psychiatrist. A pathetic, unwanted madwoman."

His words cut through Harley's already battered defenses like a scalpel. The Joker's death had left them in tatters.

She had sustained her mad persona through an obsession with revenge.

When Chu Men tore that facade away, nothing remained but emptiness.

Harley's laughter stopped abruptly.

Her legs stopped kicking.

Her arms fell limp at her sides.

The madness in her eyes faded, replaced by utter emptiness and despair.

The system's cold notification sounded in Chu Men's mind.

Target's will has collapsed. Conditions met for [Spiritual Imprint].

A piercing red light flared in Chu Men's eyes.

An invisible spike of mental force drove deep into Harley's soul with overwhelming power.

The Joker's twisted suggestions buried in her subconscious, her sick dependence, and her obsessive madness were ripped out by the roots under the crushing mental assault.

Harley convulsed violently in midair.

Her eyes rolled back, and agonized hisses escaped her throat. Her limbs spasmed as if electrocuted.

It was more painful than being cut to pieces. It was the price of having her soul torn apart and rebuilt.

It lasted only seconds.

The convulsions stopped.

Chu Men let go, and Harley fell onto the carpet.

She lay facedown, gasping for breath.

Then she slowly raised her head.

The hatred and despair in her eyes were gone.

In their place was a boundless, obsessive fixation on Chu Men.

She gazed at him like a zealot beholding a true god, with a devotion even more complete and pure than what she had felt for the Joker.

The Joker had only been a mortal. The man before her was a god she could barely bear to look upon.

"Master..." Harley climbed up Chu Men's leg like an obedient cat.

She gently rubbed her blood-and-paint-smeared cheek against his knee, her voice cloyingly sweet.

Boom!

A muffled explosion sounded downstairs.

The whole building shuddered slightly.

Then came a dense burst of automatic rifle fire.

Floyd and the other two had clearly run into the people below.

Chu Men tipped back his head and drained the rest of his wine.

He tossed the glass onto the carpet. It rolled twice across the thick pile without breaking.

He stood, hooked a finger through the metal ring on Harley's collar, and led her out like a dog.

"Come on. Let's watch the show."

The second-floor hall of the Iceberg Lounge.

Smoke hung in the air, thick with the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood.

The once-opulent marble pillars were riddled with bullet holes, and priceless oil paintings had been shredded by gunfire.

Floyd crouched behind a load-bearing pillar and ejected his empty magazine.

He reached into the tactical pouch at his thigh, pulled out his last spare magazine, and slammed it into his gun.

He racked the bolt, chambering a round.

"I'm out of ammo!" Dig shouted from behind an overturned banquet table.

He had two new through-and-through wounds, and blood stained his combat uniform.

Nanaue's massive body made an easy target.

Bullets were lodged all over his gray-blue skin, and blood streamed from his wounds.

He crouched behind a huge leather sofa with his arms over his head, groaning in pain.

Across the hall.

Hundreds of mob gunmen in black suits had them pinned down.

Normally these thugs would fold at the first sign of resistance and pick on anyone weaker than themselves. Now they fought like men with nothing to lose.

They poured out fire with submachine guns, shotguns, and even rocket launchers.

Chu Men's reputation had terrified them.

Their fear of failing the mission far outweighed their fear of bullets.

They knew that if those three rats escaped, the man upstairs would turn them all to charcoal.

"Keep them pinned down! Don't let them near the stairs!" a mob boss roared from behind cover, his Thompson spitting fire.