Harmon slammed an open palm down on the table with a sharp crack.  “Is this a game to you?  Some battle of wits?”  She stared into the so-called Cog’s lantern eyes, but he met her gaze, unblinking and with that condescending smile plastered across his face.  “I thought this could be a useful exchange of information, but I guess we’re just waiting to see who drinks the iocaine powder.  Well, cheers.” Harmon threw back her drink in one gulp and turned to leave.  Klendel rose, in step behind her.

“Don’t worry, Miss Harmon.  I’ll make a fine companion until such time as I can come up with the best question to ask you.”

“It’s [i]Doctor[/i] Harmon, if you would.  I’ve had it up to here with your disrespect.  I’m not your tool, I’m not your pawn, I’m not your bird in a cage to be cooed at and xxxxxxxxx”

As Harmon spoke, her tenor and cadence shifted to a more musical bent.  By the time the rhyme had left her lips, it was full on singing, straight from the diaphragm.  There was a power behind it, and already there was an electricity in the air that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Since I was a girl there’ve been people like you, trying to get the most out of what I can do.  But I will not be harnessed, and I won’t be corralled.  I’m not a horse, I’m a woman and I’m strong and I’m proud.”

Klendel took a step back, then another, his grin beginning to falter.  Harmon was strutting and twirling now in time to her own music, sharp hand gestures snapping off licks of green flame.  Their fear ebbing, the bar’s patrons spun around on their stools and one by one began to add their voices to a back-up chorus.

“Ah!”

“And I’m proud!”

“[i]Ah![/i]

“[i]And I’m proud![/i]”

“[i]AHHHHHHHH[/i]”

“[i]AND I’M PROUUUUAAAAAAAA[/i]”

Harmon’s lyrics flowed into a primal scream, as an aura of green flame phased in around her.  She raised a finger to they sky, and the flame flowed up her arm and gathered in a sphere around her hand.  Klendel was backed to the wall, turning his face from the light with a fanged grimace.  Still screaming, Harmon brought her finger down, pulling the ball of musical energy down until it pointed straight at —

[i][b]woooooooon[/b][/i]

The chair next to Harmon blew apart in a spray of wood shards and sawdust.  Klendel dove behind their table and the doctor threw her hands over her face, her gathered energy wisping away harmlessly.  The backup singers-cum-bargoers scattered, and the bartender stood behind them, residual acoustics drifting out of the end of his didgeridoo.

“Get the hell out of my bar, you freaks.”

They got the hell out of his bar.