Hell Hath No Fury Like The Rose's Thorn

[Oracle]

“Sometimes the rarest of things only bloom at night, but that doesn’t mean they should stay hidden.”

"…Do you think she’s going to change?”

“She will, I don’t doubt that…For better or worse…only time will tell. I’ll keep an eye on her; I don’t think this will be the last we’ll see of her.” Batman dropped the flower once the van was out of sight and began walking towards the Bat Mobile, Robin reached down and picked up the flower and held it delicately as he followed Batman. “Don’t you want to keep it? I mean, you have a trophy from all your other villains. This one seems like one of the nicer gifts.” “-And only a doorway into the Batcave for a woman that can control plants.” “Fine then, I’ll plant it in the dirt right here…” Robin knelt down and scooped away dirt and placed the plant into it and buried its stem. 



Now~


Ivy crouched, fingers extending low to caress the tips of the one of a kind flower she'd crafted for the Dark Knight. Here it lay growing up from the dirt, leaves full and strong, vines spreading half a foot in diameter around the plant. It was growing despite the cold of Gotham, despite the way it had carelessly been tossed away by the vigilante. Ivy had known the moment he'd discarded it, she was a part of the Earth, she knew every vine and every leaf. Arkham had been a cruel cage for the leafy vixen and it hadn't been an easy survival inside, let alone a simple escape. They'd known she'd escaped for a good few days now, all of the cold, dreary city was on alert. But they wouldn't find her if she didn't want to be found. In the days of her escape, she'd spent her time gathering her little army of men, ready to do as she bid. Manpower was needed for her plans, something she'd drafted while staring at the cold, hard walls of her cell. She had her men, her feet on the ground, her fists curled at her command, now the next stage. She stood, turning to the handful of men, burly and strong, men she'd selected on purpose from bars and gangs. She needed brawn and now she had it. 

"Darlings, be a dear and surround the building, infiltrate it. Kill whomever stands in your way. But no one. NO ONE is to touch Max Schreck." her voice, smooth and alluring, musical and enchanting, was all they needed. Fully under her control, the men nodded and ran to do as she commanded. At least a hundred men would descend upon the Schreck Corp building, with night fallen and the doors closed after hours, they forced their way in with guns and miniature explosives. In Gotham it wasn't hard to get their hands on the items required for the job and while they broke in, Ivy kept a safe distance. As they made their way in, she ensured her pawns went first. Stepping over broken glass from the shattered windows, vines coated in thick bark weaving their way along the floor to give her a safe path from the shards, she entered the building. The sound of threats and gunfire rang out and she smiled, hands clasped behind her back. One set of men ringed the lower floor, guns in hand and facing out as sentry. The rest were flooding the building as ordered, like blood in water, corrupting the building entirely and spreading out to every nook and cranny. Ivy's vines thickened and came up from the basement and the earth, up the elevator shaft and destroying the elevator, leafing out so that she could step onto it and ride the branches up the shaft to the top toward her intended target.

[Batman (Bruce Wayne)]

"I have to admit, I didn't expect a rose, Bruce." were the words that slipped out of a woman's lips with a sultry tone. She leaned into the table to lock gaze with him as she placed the bud of the rose to her cheek before sliding it across her nose to inhale its scent. Bruce sat across from her dressed in a casual black business suit with a maroon shirt and black tie. The restaurant was dark and had red candles lighting the walls and ceiling which created the atmosphere of romance along with intimate whispers from each of the customers who were seeking a romantic dinner. "Well Rebecca, I hope you forgive me for walking out on our last date...Again, I'm sorry about that." She shook her head and placed the rose back into a glass vase. "Well, the dinner was lovely, Bruce...But I'm not so sure you've won a ride home yet." Bruce's head tilted as if she posed this statement as a challenge. "Who said anything about leaving?" Bruce stood up and walked around the table to stand behind her as his hands moved to her shoulders to begin massaging them. "We could...just stay here..." Bruce lowered his lips to her blonde hair held up in an elegant bun as he whispered with a snicker upon his tone. "get a room upstairs..." His eyes would look to the window and see the city skylight to see the Shreck Corp building becoming engulfed by vines.

"Oh my...Is that the Shreck Corp building?" Bruce spoke as he stood up from his date's head and looked at the sight and then gave her a tap on the shoulder. "I...have to check Wayne Enterprises, please forgive me and excuse me. I'll have Alfred take you home." Bruce kissed her cheek and then slipped away to the elevator he tapped his watch and spoke. "Alfred, I need you to pick up my date from the hotel. There's been an incident downtown." "Indeed sir, it's breaking news now."

Bruce would reach Wayne Enterprises and immediately change into the batsuit and take to charging the incident from the rooftops. The Dark Knight climbed to the top of the building across Shreck Corp and examine the situation. As vines began to swarm around the exterior of the building, Batman saw an opening and raised the line launcher to fire two cables in opposite directions. One latched onto Shreck Corp and the other latched onto the wall behind Batman. Lifting his legs the launcher would begin reeling him towards Shreck Corp and the wave of vines rising from the ground. Slipping between the vines he landed on a balcony and holstered the launcher as he made his way into the building from the top floor office spaces.

[Oracle]

"Max Schreck." His name rolled off her tongue as she sauntered toward the white-haired man. His pinstripe business suit was flawless, black gloves on his hands and a coat draped over his arm as though he'd been planning to leave for the night. She circled him slowly, her vines and greenery taking over the massive board room, his large, oblong table centered in the middle with the signature Shreck cat logo on it. Her mind lined the walls and kept an eye out, other men throughout the building waiting for the inevitable Dark Knight and GCPD's arrival. Already she heard the sirens down in the streets but the lights were blocked out from her vines encasing the floor entirely. No one could see in and no one would gain entry unless she deemed it so. His eyes were trained on her ass and down her shapely legs as she barefooted across the tile, fingertips tracing along his shoulders before digging in hard. He gasped but the suave buisnessman kept it smooth.

"A new lady in town I see. And she likes it rough." he stiffened his lip and nodded. "I can respect that." he looked her over and seemed even more impressed. "And I bet a lady like you could go far in whatever she endeavored." His eyes glanced around the room incased in bark and vines. "Landscaping? I know a guy who could do well for you, smart, and he's not too bad lookin' either. Knows a lot about gardening-"

She dug her nails into his shoulder farther and let them grow like sharp thorns deep into his flesh through the suit. He cried out and bent some to the attack. "You're a stiff little man who thinks his money and charm can buy himself in and out of everything. But you've left a trail of all kinds of harms against Mother Earth in your expanses. Your company, like an umbrella that heads so many campaigns and projects, is the spearhead that has done nothing good for nature."

He'd dropped his coat to the floor when she'd grabbed him and he wafted his hands, giving his drying lips a wetting. "Hey, maybe you missed our dealings with the paper company in Japan, ninety-four percent recycled materials-"

Ivy's vines snaked up his leg and wrapped around his neck, effectively shutting him up for a moment. "And all the companies and warehouses that do that work spill pollution, release toxins to the air, sell pesticides to farmers, you haven't done a single good deed in any of your transactions around the world." At his feet, the vines opened a man-sized Venus fly trap, open-mouthed around the two. The insides a bright red, growing thorns as long as two feet ready to impale him as soon as it closed its maw on the scoundrel. She leaned against him, thorny nails still in his shoulder as her other hand caressed his jaw and her lips brushed his cheek. "Max," she whispered. "You've been such a naughty boy, selling your toys and ideas, making all that green when the green you should have been worried about withered and decayed beneath your well-polished shoes..."

[Batman (Bruce Wayne)]

It would seem almost too easy as the Dark Knight moved through the hallways covered in vines and overgrowth he boldly trekked forward and found himself in the board meeting room to see Ivy making herself comfortable, using Shreck as a pincushion or a leaning post. As she was prepared to begin sucking face with the man Batman would growl. "Let him go, Doctor!" He called out to her, waiting for a reaction from her before calmly making his approach towards her allowing his arms to be exposed as they swung easily by his hips and giving her and Max Shreck a full view of his plated body within the darkness. The bulb like plants within the room gave an amaranth glow and shade of lighting as the building electricity was shut off by her plants breaking through the building.

"We had a deal, Pamela. We save this city - together. We don't kidnap and we don't threaten people's lives." Batman's voice was raspy, feral, and held a grudging tone clear that he was annoyed by her initiative here. He began circling her and Shreck. "I could've napalmed all of your plants, but I'm here to extend an olive branch." Max Shreck would roll his eyes to Batman's last statement and snipe out. "Word play, do you two practice this when no one is looking?"

[Oracle]

Ivy's annoyed eyes narrowed at Shreck and the vines around his neck gripped tighter with a threat before the massive fly trap closed around until the tips of the long thorns inside its maw began to slowly pierce his flesh all over, drawing droplets of blood. She nearly hissed, slowly turning with Shreck carefully held captive to face the Dark Knight. "You have the nerve to pretend like we had an agreement!? To work and clean up this city as a team?" the many carniverous plants growing all around the room snapped their maws in warning at him, like snakes in Medusa's hair. The woman's bright green eyes blazed at him. "You sent me to rot in a cell! Do you understand what that's like!? Do you know what that does to me!?" Pain burned in her voice and tears threatened her vision as she slowly took a step toward him. "Have you never cared for a plant before? Watered it? Given it SUNLIGHT!?" The greenery coated the ceiling now, vines looping and hanging as bright, surely dangerous flowers bloomed in exotic yellows, oranges and reds. She wrapped her arms around herself, "It was cold. And it was bleak. I didn't see the sun. I couldn't feel fresh air, just stale disgust that smelled of sweat and rot from the creeps you put me in there with!"

"He doesn't know how to treat a lady." Shreck added, swallowing hard against the restraints.

[Batman (Bruce Wayne)]

Batman wasn't quick to jump to Shreck's defense, the man deserved the pain she was inflicting upon him and so long as she wasn't outright killing him, there was time to save him. "I know about the institutes at Arkham and I know how you escaped." Batman continued to circle her until he stopped almost towards her shoulder alignment until she stopped to face him and he would face her. "I can make accommodations for you. No one has been hurt..." Shreck would interrupt. "Ah! Not that this isn't painful, but I am suffering bodily harm!" Batman would look to Shreck and growl. "Shut up." His attention went back to Ivy to measure her response. "Tell me what you want."

[Oracle]

Her eyes narrowed but she took a breath in thought. He was being sincere, at least she thought he was. It was difficult to read a man in a mask. He was offering her a kindness, though, it was a 'let me make you more comfortable in prison' sort of kindness, still, it was something that mattered to her. Arkham had been an unkind beast that had swallowed her whole and kept her in pain and disconnected from the Earth. But prison was still prison, and while some part of her felt guilty and knew she did deserve to be jailed, the greater purpose had not been fulfilled. Her arms slid to her sides and the fire lit back up in her green eyes. "What will you do with him?" She didn't have to point or gesture, Shreck was the man in question and this was the ultimate deciding factor in her eyes. If Batman wanted to do as he said and help her, he'd be helping her save Gotham from it's self-destruction against the planet. And he couldn't do that by jailing one man who would surely pay his way out of bail and lawyer his way through things until he was back behind his desk reaping his profits once more. It was a vicious cycle, these scum in business suits that roamed the cold city of Gotham, and Batman's way hadn't fixed it yet and wouldn't fix it now. Was he really willing to help her in her endeavor? To save Gotham together? "What will you do with him, Batman? Will you honor our olive branch?" she used his wording back against him, "Or turn it into a thorn to impale me?" She took a step closer, her breath warming his face slightly.

Shreck's eyes were wide, glancing from the green vixen to the masked crusader, his fate in the balance.

[Batman (Bruce Wayne)]

The Dark Knight stood his ground as Ivy made the first step towards him at last. It was a hopeful sign that she was willing to compromise. "He will be tried for his crimes against humanity and nature. Not face execution on the count of one person. Our compassion is what separates us, Doctor. Scum like Shreck, need to be brought down, but not by vigilantism or a thirst for revenge." He looked down upon Ivy, as their height difference was apparent.The fire within her emerald eyes would be able to see the stone cold nature within his blue eyes as his vision deactivated and allowed her to see a more human side to him. "If you want an upgraded cell at Arkham, I will make it happen, I promise."

[Oracle]

Her fist clenched at her side and she stomped her foot, voice raising several octaves in a moment. "I WANT YOUR PROMISE THAT HE WILL PAY!" The nature filling the Schreck building seemed to clench onto the building, its massive vines and branches contracting down the structure so forcefully it practically groaned and the concrete began to crack and drop bits to the floor. Another clench like that and she would level the place with them inside. Her blazing eyes were fierce, protective. She cared so deeply for this, for what she was fighting for. She could see the human side to him now, the clear blue eyes, striking and strong. He was a man that commanded obedience in all things she was sure. A Master of the Universe, surely, and she needed him to understand. Her arm extended to point an angry finger at Shreck who was looking up at the ceiling with fret that it was about to collapse. "Don't pretend, don't you dare tell me he won't pay his way out. He will smooth talk and throw his dollars at the problem and even if he's detained for an amount of time, his company and those extended to him gaining from his help will continue their pollution, dripping their vile footprint over everything!" She was breathing heavily, gasping, having stepped closer to him but not attempting to harm him. She was begging, her eyes pleading viciously, for him to hear her. Her voice lowered to a whisper, "I...will wither away like a rose in winter and die in one of those cells. Or I will die doing what I need to to save this planet, starting with Gotham City. Please...I NEED your help. We NEED to stop him. To TRULY stop him."

[Batman (Bruce Wayne)]

Batman heard her scream and squinted his eyes seeing her anger and passion on the subject. He shook his head either disagreeing or not promising the man would pay."That's not for us to decide, Pamela." Batman's hand would reach up to cup Pamela's cheek and jawline. "N-..." A series of gunshots would cut through the vines and aim to strike Batman and Poison Ivy, Batman would hear within his ears "This is Gordon! Hold your fire! I didn't give the order to fire!" More gunshots would blast through the room, prompting Batman to shove Poison Ivy behind a desk as he jumped towards Shreck to cut him out of the binds he was in. He sliced through the thorns with his batarangs held between his fingers like a razor tool. He pushed Shreck onto the ground and tried to keep him out of the line of gunfire. Batman was trying to figure out what was going on, when Shreck spoke up. "One can never be too careful, nowadays...Sooner or later you'd show up." Batman would glare at Shreck and curl his lips towards the corrupt man. "What did you DO?!" Shreck would scratch at his wounds as he felt a minor allergic reaction to the thorns. "What any normal citizen would do...You're a vigilante and wanted criminal...I gave a tip to the police if something like this should ever happen, there's someone wielding a gun-..." Shreck would pull a pocket revolver from his shoe and aim it towards Batman, but the Dark Knight would grab the gun and Shreck's hand twisting it to break the man's hand forcing Shreck to grunt in pain. "You paid them off! Who?" Batman snarled before more gunshots began to ring out throughout the room.

"Commissioner we got sights on armed gunmen in the room with hostages." were the words Batman heard from his helmet's police radio.

[Oracle]

His hand at her cheek felt like it had silenced the room and stalled her rage. His blue eyes looked less commanding and more understanding. Did he get it? Had she really explained it to him? She took in a breath softly, looking up at the Dark Knight, hanging on his next words. But the sound of bullets twhipping through the room and hitting the wood of her trees and the soft flesh of her vines broke the moment in its tracks. Batman threw her behind the shield of the large desk in the room and she bounced on her shoulder so hard her head slammed to the tile hard. Her ears rang loudly, so shrill she hissed in pain. But as she wrapped her arms around her protectively, she let out a small cry and pulled her hand back to find crimson dripping from her fingertips. The bullet lodged in her shoulder hadn't found its exit and she could sear she felt it whenever she moved her shoulder blade the barest bit. She rolled onto her back under the desk as the bullets thwipped now and again through the room. She could hear Batman holler at Shreck and she swore to herself she was going to put the next thorn through his genitalia. For now, emitting small noises of pain, she commanded small vines to hold open her wound while another set prepared to extract the bullet. Just moving the flesh burned so that she bit down on her lip and whimpered to keep from screaming. But before she could pluck the bullet from her shoulder, it began to feel as though acid were spreading from it. It burned and singed, spreading pain greater and greater through her shoulder and down her arm as well as across her chest. The pain was so much so that she lost focus on the vines and they released her wound as she arched her back from the floor, letting out a shrill cry. After her scream she turned to glare at Shreck, her voice crying through the pain to speak. "What did you DO!?"

Shreck's toothy grin flashed as he began to chuckle, "What's the matter, Greeny, don't like a little pesticide and weed killer cocktail?"

Ivy screamed again as she bucked from the floor and writhed. Her eyes ringed with red and she hissed as a set of vines thwipped around him and she prepared a growing thorn aimed at his forehead.

[Batman (Bruce Wayne)]

Batman would slam Shreck's head into the ground knocking him unconscious as her vine whipped around Batman slashed it with his forearm guard and then he ran over to Poison Ivy to push her down onto her back as his blue eyes were suddenly hidden behind white lenses that analyzed her body. His hands would attempt to hold her down. "Don't move." He growled as he no doubt struggled against her as he analyzed the wound. "Nitric acid...You'll have at least 2nd degree burns if I can't neutralize the process of decay..." Batman would look around. "Water." He stated as he then saw a large plant vine green and plump he grabbed it and yanked its stem towards Ivy before cutting it and pouring the water fluid periodically onto her wound to flush it. He continued the process over and over for what would seem like ten minutes of constantly trying to flush her wound.

[Oracle]

Ivy's body writhed under his pin as she hissed and cried out in pain. "It BURNS!" Her shrill cry echoed in the room as he worked at her room. The area around the wound would begin to turn black and slowly spread out. Her shoulder and arm began to feel limp and and cold. Her heart raced as she panted, the wound burning on the inside so badly she wanted to claw at it, if only it weren't for the Dark Knight's sure hands keeping her from doing so. But as he flushed her wound continuously, the pain slowly began to dull and the feeling started to come back into her arm. Her breathing slowed to a labored breath and her green eyes stared up at him, wide and full of pain but surprise more. His eyes were veiled again, she couldn't see the clear blues she now knew lurked behind, couldn't read anything from the solid line of his mouth or in the tone of his voice. She swallowed hard and turned her head to see Shreck unconscious on the floor. "He...p-paid off the cops? To shoot?" The water continued and with each flush, the burn dulled further and further until it was a throb she could manage. She nodded at him, "Thank. You." Turning onto her side, she dug her nails against the floor and pulled herself to sit, holding her shoulder protectively as she glared at Shreck's unconscious form on the floor. Part of her wanted to wonder if he had been behind the attack, but his surprise was genuine in his blue eyes before he'd tossed her to safety and gone after Shreck. "I can't take more hits like that." She swallowed hard, the pain still evident in her shoulder. "So unless you plan on returning me to Arkham as mulch on that horrid lawn, we need to stop those shooters." Her green eyes leveled at him. "Then we can negotiate terms over that rat's life. Though, I'm leaning towards an early death sentence given the newest evidence."

[Batman (Bruce Wayne)]

The wound had been cleansed and Ivy was rebounding from her injury. It neutralized her somewhat - being capable of wrapping the building in vines indicated that her physical being was injured not her mental connection to plants. "I'll worry about the shooters...You protect Shreck. If anything happens to him, I'll burn down this overgrowth and every endangered plant in Gotham." He spoke firmly and with a growl before standing up and moving towards the window he spotted the man with the help of his detective vision and shot out a grappling hook to swing across on an intercept route to the sniper.

It was in a following moment that Shreck would be startled into consciousness and look at Ivy and smile faintly at her injury before grimacing at his own injuries. "You know...You should be on my side? Batman is only using you. You have the power to do ALL this right?" Shreck sighed and settled upon the floor as his head seemed to have pain, he held the side of his head and then spoke again. "-And you can't kill a single man? The only man who can stop you? And...Hehee there's irony to this all..." Shreck finally pushed himself off the floor to sit up, holding his hands over his wounds, his white hair was stained by his blood. "I'm the one person who can help you get stronger. My...research department...has a plant growth formula, used by Dr. Alec Holland before his lab went up in flames." Shreck was sure Poison Ivy would know of the late doctor, died in his research attempting to work on plant regenerative properties.

[Oracle]

Ivy's green eyes stared back at the Dark Knight, her gaze narrowing as he growled at her over the protection of the white-haired miscreant. Ever the stoic hero, despite the man's long list of naughty deeds. Her eyes flowed to Shreck as she pulled herself up from the floor and the Batman propelled out the window to handle the shooters. Shreck's voice was more irritating the longer he spoke, his gaze fixated at her down his crooked nose. Slimeball came to mind as she looked at him and when he opened his mouth, it was as if she could see the traces of manipulation in visual form. But no man manipulated Ivy. And especially not this one. Her lithe form crossed the distance between them, her wounded shoulder holding that arm lax at her side as the remnant pain still lingered. She wasn't a slow healer, but this concoction had done a true number on her.

Her lips twisted and she grabbed up Shreck by the front of his finely-buttoned shirt, hauling him to his feet. From her clenched fist at the fabric, strands of thin vines twisted and grew, lacing up to tug at the edges of his jaw. Alec Holland, the name was indeed familiar, and it was in her late time stuck at Arkham that she had made his name on the list of things she wanted to do when she got out. It sounded now that that name just bumped its way up much higher. Her eyes checked the opening Batman left from and back to Shreck, "It seems you and I are going on a little field trip, Shreck." She leaned closer, so close that her lips just barely grazed his skin and he would feel the tingles of a painful poison just waiting to be released into his bloodstream. "You take me to this facility, I let you go." She grinned a twisted smile, "Let's kiss and seal the deal." Before he'd have the chance to argue, the tendrils of vines tugged him to her the rest of the way and she pressed her lips firmly to his, kissing him deeply. Under the surface of his skin, a dark green network of poison seeped into his nerves and into the blood. The green spread halfway across his face and slightly down his neck.

She pulled free and he gasped, his lips tained with a similar green, eyes bug-eyed as he gasped in onset pet. "What....what did you do?!"

Ivy's vines released him and she patted his chest. "I was ordered not to hurt you. But I don't take orders well and now you and I have an accord. You take me to the facility, and you will do it fast, because the poison in your body will spread by the minute, and if it reaches your heart, there isn't an antidote Bats can create fast enough to save your pathetic life. You take me there safely, you live. And I assure you, Shreck....you won't survive if I don't." She jerked him toward the other end of the building where her vines parted to allow them an exit away from Batman. "Best hurry...time is running out."