thecapitol | So what? I'm still a rockstar.

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So what? I'm still a rockstar.

Who: Harley Quinn and anyone who dares show up.
What: Harley throws her own victory party and YOU'RE INVITED!
When: During the family visits.
Where: Caritas Karaoke bar

The Caritas Karaoke Bar was not one of the most popular places in Capitol City. In part because of it's bad location on the far side of town.

Also in part to the fact that it was a poorly lit little hole in the wall where the high society would not so easily be seen by cameras. This dim little business however was not dirty nor was it quiet. In fact there was music playing twenty four hours a day by order of the owner who claimed that without music in his life he would have no reason to live.

And thus the bar became a karaoke bar. A place free of judgment for even the most ridiculous and horrible singers to step up on stage, get cheered on while the belt out a tune and perform awkward and off rhythm dance moves.

It didn't hurt that the alcohol was cheap.

Harley swaggered up onto the stage in a outfit she had been saving just for the occasion.

Tapping the microphone she cleared her voice.

"Testing, testing, there will be a pop quiz later~"

There was some light chuckles in the crowd and Harley tapped a button on the Karaoke machine to set it playing.

The song she chose had a bouncy beat she loved. It had to be dug up from the backlog of music the club kept on hand but it fit her mood and she screeched it out half off key and half just shouting the lyrics while punching her fist in the air. It was a cringeworthy display but she was having so much fun swinging around the microphone stand and jumping onto the nearest tables that one couldn't help but laugh either with her or at her.

As the song ended and the cheers died down she waved to crowd and blew kisses before taking up the mic again.

"Thank you, thank you! That one was dedicated to my EX-Boyfriend." She made sure to put emphasis on the first part of that title as a picture of a rather distressed looking clown appears on the screen behind her.

"Yeah that's the bum!" She barked and seized upon a bowl of popcorn from one of the tables closest to the stage to throw the puffed snacks at the screen in dismissal.

"I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for him...he gave me my start after all. But you know who made me who I am today?"

The picture fades and is replaced by images of some of the more well known tributes and mentors, Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Barbara Wilson, Cecil Palmer, Cinderella, Damian Wayne, Diana Prince, Donatello, Dr. Holiday, Edward Nygma, Elsa, Eva Salazar, Hans, Homura Akemi, Kurt Hummel, Maximus, Mindy Macready, Tim Wayne. And finally Susannah and Detta, two pictures of the same woman with sharply different expressions on her face.

"She'll kill me when she sees this." Harley added jerking her thumb at the picture of Susannah, "And to be fair...I probably deserve it. But that's a headcase for another day!" She chuckles.

"The point is...no woman is an island. Or man for that matter. Not even the ones as big as Mentor Maxi there. Even if we're in different districts we're all still warriors right? We're all still wallflowers attending the same party and waiting for the right moment to dance!"

At the word dance the screen shifts again to one of her more popular videos where she and Donatello were engaged in brutal combat ontop of stampeding buffalo. The video appears to have been doctored however so instead of blood splatter sparkles burst from each wound like she's full of glitter.

"I gotta say, Green Genes there is one of the best dance partners a girl could ask for. I hope he wins next...no offense to those of ya who won't win." she added with a stage wink.

"Anyway, I wasn't the only winner in the last arena...but I'm the only one of the four I give a crap about so lets do what we came here to do!"

She held the Mic tight and bellowed so loud she didn't even need it's support.

"Scream and drink till we forget how insane everything is! LETS GET CRAZY"

She kicked off the next song and called out over the music "I wanna see you all dance for this one! Especially you District nine! Your mentor commands it!

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Mindy shook her head. "Yeah, not surprised at all you get tased. Must be thrilling."

She guessed correctly, of course.

"Gonna be hard if she doesn't want to see you to do that though, don't you think?"

"Well obviously." She snickered "But if helping friends was easy then everyone would do it."

And Harley was hardly the type to give up on a hopeless case.

"How about your case of friendship and betrayal? Has she come around?"

Considering what was happening with Guy and Ellie lately, Mindy tended to agree.

"Actually, we're getting along better. I doubt she'll trust me as she did before, but maybe that's for the best."

"Aw but don'tcha hate it when logic and reasoning prevents you from getting what you really want in here?" She put her hand over her heart with a deep breath and a sigh.

"The head and the heart, bitter rivals clashing over what you want and what you need." She spun on her stool.

"Personally I'm a bigger fan of the heart even if the head is more fun to study."

"Eh." As far as Mindy was concerned, the heart could be way more trouble than it was worth. That was why she was in such turmoil over what was happening to Guy.

"More advice? Harley, you are on your way to becoming a fucking fortune cookie, you know that?"

"Well just what do you think it is Mentors are supposed to do squirt?" Harley barked out with a laugh and pulled a serious face.

"Dr. Harleen Quinnzel will put all of her knowledge, wisdom and practical madness on the line to make sure her tributes have all the advice and preparation they need to survive." Then she grinned cheekily.

"And if they go crazy in the process? Better!"

"Mentor. Train. And technically I made mentor before you, so don't forget we're on par with each other."

Not that she thought Harley honestly would.

"What do you mean 'go' crazy? You're already there!"

Harley was alot of things, but on par with Mindy was not one of them. No that would imply they were playing the same game.

If Mindy was golf, Harley was a game of strip poker on a water slide where half the cards were wild.

"I mean driving our tributes crazy. It worked for Donnie after all."

"Yeah, I remember. Since then I've been close to Don, insert so many goddamn fanfiction of us by fans. I don't want to see him crazy again. I just wish he cared more about winning, you know?"

Even if she knew he would never be as bloodthirsty as he was back then.

"Yeah, fat chance there. The only way we'll get him to win is to make him as ruthless as he was before. He was never closer to victory then right then." Harley lamented. "But he swung back to nice peaceful good guy again."

Which truthfully Harley had also had a hand in.

"A girl can hope." Granted, Don technically DID let her win the Arena: even she was unsure if she could have taken the turtle after so many fights and so much blood loss.

"I don't mind that. Donatello isn't a killer. He's a thinker."

"You say that like that's a good thing." Harley screwed up her face in a silly look of confusion.

"Being a thinker in this place is much more dangerous then being a killer. Thinking about what we're going through and what we're doing is the fastest way to destroy your spirit till there's nothing left to keep you going." She reasoned.

"His greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. in that case. His big brain is a direct line to his heart."

"It can be a good thing he uses it for himself. one of the reasons I'm not like, say, Azula, is because going around and killing people is not the only way to win this thing. Thin about it: how many people did YOU kill, yet you still won? The trick, really, is not dying, biding your time. He's not unskilled and he's not weak. Just work on the areas that suit him the best."

She didn't like the idea that people threw other ones away just because lacked killer instinct. It was a waste.

"But the heart, that we'll have to work on. I'm not about to let him let someone win over him. In a way though? I thin his mind IS the problem in one way."

Harley wilted a little looking mildly disappointed "Um...I killed alot of people. Especially in my last arena. Detta may have gotten the credit but I unleashed Detta and was there for almost every kill."

Which kind of made her a poor example of how you could win the arena without killing many people.

"In what way?" She asked though she likely could have guessed. Still Mindy was on the same level as she was when it came to mentoring so it would be polite to let Mindy express her thoughts on the matter.

Mindy had slacked on watching, so this came as a surprise. "I figured that was Su-uh, Odetta. It got pretty intense. Guess you and I are the same there."

Except that Mindy had a hand in each death, of course, starting with the throat she slit.

"I've talked with him...I talk with as many of the District members as I can. He's given up his fate in his mind. He can't see any way out, so that'll drag him down."

Harley pouted "My moments of glory and you missed it? Thanks mentor. Real supportive." She stuck her tongue out to show she was at least half joking.

...probably.

"And it's "Detta" not "Odetta. Easy mistake to make, but "Odetta" Is a different personality entirely. Suzie is basically three people in one."

"My DAD was here," Mindy reminded her pointedly. "That was kind of a big thing for me, seeing as he shouldn't even be around anymore. I pretty much blew off anything except that one point where you and Detta surrounded Pruna."

She made a face. "THREE? So what's the difference between them all?"

"Excuses, excuses." Harley chirped half joking, after all she had her needs when it came to ego stroking.

"Well Odetta is all fancy and uptight, she doesn't get out much. Detta is the ruthless, rude and crude girl who does what feels good and doesn't worry about the consequences." She paused "Also racist, but that can be forgiven considering when the girls grew up. Civil rights and all that." She rolled her eyes.

"Susannah is the uncomfortable middle ground. It's your classic Id, Ego, Superego set up really...just with Susannah refusing to accept those other two are parts of her whether she likes it or not.

"If I had the chance, I'll go and see it myself!" Mindy insisted. "I'm sorry, you know you're my girl!"

Mindy scoffed. "Dude, if I was Black in America, I think I'd just be racist by default. Since I'm not though, I'll worry more about our current situation. Man though. Anytime someone had split personalities in soaps, it was usually because of some kind of abuse. I kind of feel sorry for her. Dealing with that, and being here. She was pretty messed up when she saw Guy taken too."

Harley pouted for a moment more, then forgave Mindy dragging her into a hug and pinning Mindy into her chest for comedic effect.

"Aw I could never stay mad at you." She cooed.

Releasing the hug she tapped herself on the head "If by abuse you mean "Brick dropped on noggin" then yes, that's exactly it."

"Waauh," Mindy pretended to protest the hug, but was actually feeling better because of it.

"Thanks! I would say the same, but its you, and you're pretty cool about it either way. That's why I like you!"

She looked more than a little shocked. "A brick?! Are you shitting me?"

Harley tipped back her colorful drink for another sip.

"I just know what she told me. And that's how bad it was back then, not that I'm old enough to remember living in that time. But people were brutal bastards during her time. So brick plus head equals instant three way in your brain I guess." she shrugged.

Mindy took a drink, sighing.

"Hey, they're pretty brutal now, they just make laws around it. Hell, if the law won't work for you, all you have to do is pay someone to move around it for you."

"Well sure." Harley acknowledged with an amused smile "But back then you didn't even need to pay someone to move it. At least where I come from everyone has an equal chance at being a terrible person no matter what skin color, species or even home planet."

Racism always seemed like a smaller issue when there were documented aliens from other planets, mutants and metahumans running around.

"Where I'm from, white people just got better at hiding their racism," Mindy said, shrugging. "It's why they stuck urbanites in the shittiest cities and then gentrify the fuck out of it later. Then, when people in the slums act on fucked up values, they blame it on race. I blame it on shitty people making sure poor people live like shit, act out, and then jail them worse. Sure makes me life a fuck of a lot harder back at home."

Not that it mattered in the long run. A criminal was a criminal, and were punished accordingly.

"Anyway, in the end, you're gonna have to figure out how you make amends. I just kinda feel bad when she's all fucked up.. She seems like a really nice lady."

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