Life: 19. My grass is greener. (Patreon)

Chapter 19: My grass is greener.

Rigal PhenexGotham, NJ, USA

The botanical garden was actually pretty boring. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, maybe walls overgrown with man-sized venus flytraps or a legion of hormonal men who’d been lured in by Poison Ivy’s pheromones and parasitized with plants into Last of Us-style zombies. To my mild disappointment, I found none of that.

In reality, I was greeted by a perfectly normal lobby. There was an information booth, small seating area with shelves of books about botany, and walls with various educational diagrams of plants. There was also a brass placard that listed all of the major sponsors of the garden, Bruce Wayne’s name obviously at the top.

Hell, according to a calendar on the information booth, they had a school tour a few days ago. Apparently, they were running an educational series on different types of fruit-bearing plants native to New Jersey. Nowhere was there a single sign of Pamela Isley.

I took this to be a good sign. Thanks to a few information brokers Victor knew, I knew for certain that she was here. That she hadn’t gone crazy with redecorating implied she was of sound mind and unlikely to go on a murderous rampage anytime soon.

Which did make me feel a little awkward. I stood there, arms stretched wide, doors blown off their hinges, declaring my intentions to the world. Yet, not a single person was here to see my glorious entrance. If I focused, I could almost hear the sound of crickets chirping in the distance.

Disheartened but not yet ready to yield, I headed past the information booth and out into the garden proper. The botanical garden was not a single, large greenhouse. Many plants required specific conditions while others were perfectly happy with the regular New Jersey climate. This place boasted four greenhouses and an outdoor park. 

Well, five, if we counted the marjuana farm in the basement. According to Victor, someone on the managerial team knew a thing or two about growing and they made bank off this, relatively low-risk drug trade.

It was a pretty good plan. The cops had better things to do, especially in Gotham, and they could allot some of the garden’s funding towards developing more expensive strains for better profits.

Naturally, I concluded that this was where Ivy must be, out of sight and mostly out of mind. Shrugging, I repeated my stellar, manly, supremely cool, and not at all tacky entrance. Fire and wind cloaked my foot as I punted a hole clear through the basement door.

“Heya, Ivy~” I sang with a bright, winning smile on my face. “I’ve come to bargai–Oi!”

I didn’t even get to finish. A tree root the size of a refrigerator came barreling through the remnants of the door, straight for my face. I ducked beneath it with a jaunty grin and stepped inside.

What I found was a cross between a stoner’s gooncave and a fantasy garden. Or, more likely, a greenhouse turned makeshift lab turned studio apartment.

Streamers and garlands of various climbing vines hung from the ceiling. They were as varied as the rainbow. Some were in their autumnal yellows and reds while others flowered as if spring had already come. Many of these flowers were subtly glowing. Others wafted a fragrance that was as sweet as it was complex, and probably didn’t exist anywhere else.

On one side, the wall was lined with plants. Marijuana, which was probably how she was paying “rent,” so to speak. Greed was as good a way to buy silence as anything else. Bruce undoubtedly knew she was here, but so long as she kept her head down, he probably intended to focus on other Arkham escapees.

Then there was what looked to be a workstation cobbled together from stuff stolen from a high school lab. Even at a glance, I could tell that Victor and Serling had a much better setup. I felt a flash of smug pride at that. Judging by the big compost bin next to the lab table, her work revolved around making new types of fertilizer or growth formula.

Pride of place was a giant bed made of plants. Wood formed sweeping arches, framing cushions of moss and tender grass that looked impossibly soft. It looked like the kind of setup an elf queen would gladly have in her bedroom, which I supposed wasn’t too far from the truth.

Poison Ivy, one of Gotham’s premier supervillains, lounged on the bed. She was beautiful, wore very little, and apparently color-matched her leaf-bikini-thing to the season. Lots of reds, oranges, and yellows. It did admittedly fit well with her orange locks and popped against her faintly green skin.

I took it all in appreciatively as I wove between her lashing branches. This underground greenhouse was her ideal battlefield. Thick vines, some barbed and dripping poison, others clubbed with bone-breaking knots, struck at me from every direction.

“Oi, can’t we talk about this?” I whined as I limbo’d beneath a strangling vine. A second and third tried to tangle my feet at the same time so I just floated parallel to the ground. “This is very rude, Pamela.”

“Sit still,” she growled from her plant-bed, looking like a regal queen.

“No! You’re going to hit me!”

“That’s the idea!”

“This is not how you’re supposed to treat guests!”

“Guest? You barged in here!”

“I just want to talk!”

“You can talk after I kill you!”

I froze. Four vines wrapped around me immediately, holding me spread eagle over the greenhouse floor. “Wait, really? You promise?”

A fifth vine curled around my throat, restricting my airway. From it bloomed a set of flowers that looked like a cross between a rose and a tulip. I idly wondered just how many new species she’d created over the years. She could probably do a lot more good for the world simply by contributing to biodiversity in failing ecosystems.

Clouds of pink-ish orange pollen emerged in gentle puffs, dousing the area around my head. The vine loosened, allowing me to breathe. Natural instinct took over and I took in a gulp of air as Ivy lounged back with a satisfied smirk.

Then, I exhaled a small plume of fire. Hellfire consumed her pollen mist until not even ashes were left to float in the breeze. “You promised, right? If I die, we can talk?”

“I… What?”

“Eh, good enough, I’ll take it.”

An orb of fire formed in front of my mouth. A shell of wind compressed the fireball until it was the size of a marble. I poured so much mana into it that it looked like a tiny sun trapped inside a tornado. It didn’t take an archmage to see that this was a bomb.

That got her out of bed. She scrambled off her butt as entire root systems burrowed up from the earth. Supernaturally strong wood, thicker than many reinforced doors, formed layers upon layers of shields around her. 

“You crazy bastard! You’re going to kill yourself, too!” she screamed.

I shrugged and shot her a smug smirk of my own. “Yeah, that’s the idea.”

Then, I swallowed the overcharged hellfire grenade.

I, Klarion’s Chaos-flavored bullshit notwithstanding, was immune to fire. It was part of the Magic Cluck Bucket Combo Menu. It wasn’t even about temperature tolerance in the conventional sense. I was a devil of hellfire; ergo, I was immune to all fire, simple as.

That said, I wasn’t necessarily immune to the impact of fire. And in the supernatural world, fireballs tended to carry plenty of kinetic force alongside the heat. So, when I popped the danger-marble into my mouth like a Tic-Tac and let go of the control I’d held it under, it blew up with enough force to take my head with it.

Going without the thinky bit was a strange experience. Sure, I was more or less used to it by now, but familiarity didn’t make it any less disconcerting. I was still aware. That by itself wasn’t too unusual. Plenty of supernatural creatures didn’t have organic brains, such as sentient artificial constructs, ghosts, or any number of elementals.

This was because for magical races, the seat of identity was not the body. The soul was what ultimately contained the essence of an individual. Hell, some especially accomplished human mages could do it, too. This was the driving concept behind phylacteries and similar soul containers.

My consciousness floated there, vaguely aware of the raw surprise on Ivy’s face. She sat, still half out of bed, gaping at my headless corpse. Every vine froze as she tried to wrap her mind around this “attack” on her base.

Then, fire gathered around the ragged stump that was my neck and she saw the impossible happen. Rather than destroy and consume, fire gave back to the world. Flesh and bone were molded from flames. Blood began to flow in spite of natural law.

Soon, I had my handsome mug again, just in time to give her a sunny smile. “So, can we talk now? You said I can talk if I die, right? Right.”

“Y-You… What are you?” she asked, eyes wide in shock.

Really, with Serling and now Poison Ivy, I was getting way too much mileage out of creative suicide, not that I was complaining. “Hi, my name is Rigal Phenex, but you can call me Tweety! Nice to meet’cha!”

‘You’re the one everyone’s talking about. The one with the miracle medicine.”

“Phoenix tears, but yes. I’m surprised you know about me.”

“I’m lying low, not deaf,” she sniffed imperiously. Now that the surprise had worn off, she forced herself to take on an expression of disinterested calm. “You… There are so many rumors about you that it’s hard to tell which ones are true.”

I tried to take a step, only for the vines to tighten around me again. “You can just ask, you know. Without the plant-bondage.”

“Not a chance. Make another fireball and I’ll stab you so full of poison that you won’t want to regenerate.”

“Fine, if that’s what makes you feel safe. I really did just come here to talk.”

“Yes, because everyone who wants to talk blasts the doors off their hinges.”

“In my defense, I thought it’d be funny.”

“You’re a dumbass,” she deadpanned.

“Wrong. I’m birdbrained,” I declared proudly.

“You… Just get on with it. I’m losing brain cells just listening to you,” she sighed with exasperation.

Which wasn’t naked hostility. Progress!

“Okay, I know you’re in a grumpy mood right now–”

“Because someone broke my door.”

“Because of unforeseen and totally unavoidable complications, but we should look ahead towards the future, not mope about broken eggs.”

“The futu–” she froze. Dots connected in her brain. “Is that what this is about?”

“What is what about?” I asked, utterly baffled. I had the sneaking suspicion that she’d made leaps in logic and that these leaps went into a fucking cliff.

“You think you can come in here and try to intimidate me?” Her lips curled into a murderous snarl. “I told you bastards, I won’t let my babies be used as pawns!”

Every plant within five yards of me grew sharp, steel-like thorns. They skewered me from all directions, pinning me in the air like a dead butterfly. 

Fleshy pouches pulsed at their bases, pumping a cocktail of deadly poisons into my bloodstream. I could feel them fighting my natural constitution. It tingled, like that pins and needles feeling after sitting on a leg for too long.

Precious few poisons could actually harm me enough to trigger my regeneration. When they did, such toxins were burned away within seconds. But had it been anyone else, they would have succumbed from half a dozen toxins within the minute.

I winced in annoyance. Immortal or not, poison wasn't fun. I compartmentalized, focusing on other things, like why she suddenly shifted from “annoyed simmer” to “enough poison to drop a pod of blue whales” in the span of seconds. There was always the chance that this version of her was violently bipolar, but I wanted to rule that out if I could.

Obviously, babies. Her plants. Everything began and ended with plants where Ivy was concerned. Practically every iteration of her treated her plants like her dearly beloved children. Harming them was the fastest way to get on her shit list.

But I hadn't done any such thing. I hadn’t singed a single leaf. Hell, I swallowed the hellfire grenade specifically to avoid any accidents.

She was expecting someone. No, she'd been visited by someone before me. Clearly, she'd gotten it into her head that I was with them, and here to scare her into cooperation.

My handful of ever-regenerating brain cells hit the fryer. Their sizzling must have knocked something into place because I remembered this Poison Ivy. In the Young Justice timeline, which I was pretty sure I was in, she had a very minor role during the first season.

At some point in early October, maybe the final days of September, she and the Injustice League would hold several major cities hostage by causing giant, mutated plants to grow in the city centers. The event required a full mobilization of the Justice League and brat brigade to cover every crisis area until the ringleaders were found.

Except, the Injustice League seemed highly implausible now that I thought about it. Their goal was idiotic. They demanded ten billion dollars from the United Nations, as if the UN had that kind of authority in the first place. Their members were equally improbable, each far too egotistical to even think about working together.

Their nominal leader was Count Vertigo, an aristocrat from some backward European country whose sole “power” was using a headset that created “vertigo waves,” disrupting a target’s central nervous system to bring them to their knees. 

Not exactly a top-tier villain. He wasn’t even the Lex Luther type of super-genius, just a blowhard who thought he was entitled to a crown because he happened to be the crotch-spawn of the right pair of inbred idiots. I was genuinely surprised he hadn’t been offed in his sleep by a grumpy maid or something.

Their members were Black Adam, Wotan, Atomic Skull, Joker, Ultra-Humanite, and of course, Poison Ivy. Even assuming Harley tagged along with “Mistah J,” it wasn’t exactly an expansive roster. Though admittedly, I was wary of both Black Adam and Wotan.

In that episode, Ivy’s plants were intentionally used as the frontline against the heroes. Her “babies” were pumped full of Kobra and Joker Venom and enhanced using Wotan’s magic, Atomic Skull’s radioactive energy, and Ultra-Humanite’s technology. I didn’t know exactly what-all they did, but I doubted all these “upgrades” played nice with each other.

I looked up at Ivy’s face. Her cheeks were flushed with rage as she tore into me. It didn’t matter what I had to say. The mere thought that I might be here to hurt her “babies” was enough to decide she’d rather kill me.

I couldn’t imagine her ever consenting to something like that, especially not for money. Ten billion dollars? She’d rather kill ten billion. Whatever else could be said about her, she was also a doting mother and an idealist, a true believer in her cause.

I let her tear into me a while longer, until she got it out of her system. Then, I tore myself from my thorny restraints, leaving strips of flesh behind that scattered into smoldering embers.

“So, are you done?” I asked, more seriously now. The beginnings of a plan were starting to come together. “I’m not here to hurt your plants, Ivy. I haven’t even tried to attack you.”

“You’re here on Vertigo’s orders, aren’t you? Him and his fucking Injustice League,” she spat out fearfully, confirming my suspicions. “You can’t have them. I won’t let you hurt my babies!”

“Vertigo? That idiot? No, I’m not with them, or even the Light.” 

That caught her by surprise. “The Light?”

“They’re a group of human supremacists who claim to rule the world from the shadows and want to eventually create a human-ruled interstellar empire. They’re somewhat weakened at the moment, especially since the Witch Boy is no longer in the mortal plane. I suspect the only reason Vertigo of all people is the ‘leader’ of the Injustice League is through their backing.”

“You… You’re not with them, then?”

“No? The only ‘Light’ I’d bow to is the ‘Lux,’ and trust me, if he were interested in you, there wouldn’t enough words in any language to describe how colossally fucked you’d be.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t ask. Seriously, I’m sorry I mentioned it. Look, I’m not with the Injustice League. If anything, I’m my own faction.”

“Then why are you here?” she asked cautiously.

“Well, I didn’t have a plan, to be honest,” I said. I took a seat on one of the roots with an easygoing smile.“I heard from Victor Fries that you were probably hanging around here and decided I wanted to chat.”

If she was affected by my devilish charm, she didn’t show it. “That meddling… So it’s true? Nora Fries is off the ice block and he’s retired from being a supervillain?”

“Yes, and kinda? Nora’s fine. She and Victor live with me at the Phoenix Roost. She’s his secretary and he’s my head of security. He’s not out doing the Mr. Freeze schtick anymore, but I’m not entirely legal so I’m not sure if you’d consider that retired or not.”

“This is Gotham. Who’s entirely legal here?” she scoffed. She sat back on her bed-lounge-thing, a little more relaxed now. “Well? Fine, what did you want to talk about?”

“There isn’t an easy way to say this, so I’ll be blunt: You’re a peerage candidate. I’m thinking about recruiting you into my peerage as either a Pawn, Knight, or Rook.”

“Which means…?”

So, I launched into the same spiel again. Devil nobility, peerages, servitude, and the perks that came with that. It was a conversation I’d had several times now, and one I’d be repeating many times more.

I told her about my peerage as it stood now. She found Max to be a curiosity, but was especially interested in Serling. The fact that a completely normal person, a scientist whose name she recognized in the broader academic community, agreed to join me did more to sell my peerage than anything else she heard.

Poison Ivy listened with a blank expression. This could go either way. In some realities, she was the ultimate misandrist who thought men were the root of all societal problems. In others, she was completely insane, seeing all humans fit only to be fertilizer for her “babies.”

“So you don’t want to use my babies as pawns. You want me to be your Pawn,” she said dangerously.

“Or Rook,” I said hurriedly. If she had a problem with being called a “Pawn,” other arrangements could be made. I gave Max the mutated Rook, but I still had the second if she wanted it. “That’ll give you additional durability and a hefty dose of super strength, shoring up your weakness to close combat.”

“And Knights get super speed. All forms come with wings and magic, but Bishops get more mana.”

“That’s right. That’s another way to make you a more well-rounded fighter. Someone who could grow entire forests at will and use hit and run tactics within a battlefield of her own making would be very powerful, too.”

“Is that what you want? For me to fight for you? How are you different from the Injustice League?” she demanded.

“For one, I’m not going to force you to join. Second, I won’t try to feed your plants Kobra Venom. Look, Ivy, I know you treat your plants like your children, but you also fight with them. I can promise that I’ll try to be considerate of them and that you’ll be free to develop as you see fit, within reason.”

“That’s better…” she trailed off. “Will you stop me from punishing those who harm Mother Nature?”

“Ah… Maybe…?” I said hesitantly. I wanted Ivy, but I wasn’t sure how aggressive she’d be. I doubted we could take down the entire petrochemical industry by murdering a couple thousand people. “I don’t usually micromanage my peerage members, but it depends on how you go about it and who you target.”

“Ace Chemicals for starters. Let’s say they’re an example. Those bastards dump toxic chemicals into the bay. They deserve to pay for harming nature. The world is weeping. You might not be able to hear it, but I won’t forgive them.”

“Weeping, huh…” I wondered if that was just a turn of phrase or if she was hearing the voice of the Green. It was something to consider. “But wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on improving the biosphere instead?”

“I can do both,” she said mulishly.

“How about this? You come with me and set up shop in the Phoenix Roost.”

“I’m not joining your peerage.”

“I’m not asking you to, at least not right away. My place is a lot safer than here, right? Vertigo and his band of idiots won’t be able to try to pressgang you if you’re with me, Fries, and a Kryptonian.”

“And what will you ask of me in return?” She gestured to the wall covered in shelves of marijuana plants. “Shall I pay rent with drugs?”

“Not really? I mean, I sell phoenix tears for literal millions per vial. I don’t need your money, Ivy.” 

“You must think I’m an idiot. If it’s too good to be true, that’s because it is.”

I nodded. There was the classic Gothamite suspicion. I looked around for something I could demand of her, “rent,” so to speak. If I offered to protect her for free, she’d never accept, or spend all her time looking over her shoulder for a betrayal that wasn’t coming.

Shrugging, I belly-flopped onto her bed. My face sank half an inch into the mossy surface. I rolled around on it, first to one side, then the other. It was easily as soft as my bed back in the Underworld, and smelled considerably better thanks to all the flora.

“W-What the hell are you doing?” she demanded, half in indignation, half in strange fascination.

“This. I want this,” I declared, arms spread to grab as much of the fluffy moss-bed as I could. Spreading my arms out, I began making the imprint of an angel in the moss.

“You… want my bed…”

“Yes. It’s comfy, soft, yet has great back support. It also smells like a field of flowers. I want it. I want a comfy bed, incense for better sleep, fresh fruits and herbs, that sort of thing. You can pay ‘rent’ by being yourself.”

“And in exchange, you’ll give me a place to stay? You’ll keep the Injustice League off my back?”

“Yup. The Phoenix Roost used to be an auction house so we’ve got a ton of room I don’t really use anymore. I do host auctions occasionally, but it’s not like I actually need to. I’ve got plenty of unused rooms; you can claim a few, knock down the walls, and make a big indoor greenhouse if you want.”

“And all you want is furniture?”

“And food. I’m pretty sure you can grow tastier, fresher produce than anything in the grocery store.”

“Of course I can,” she sniffed. “What’s the catch?”

“Keep an open mind? Socialize with my peerage to see how you might fit in? Oh, if you want a lab, you’ll have to talk to Victor and Serling,” I said. I was hoping that if she talked to relatively normal people on a regular basis, it’d ground some of her more extremist tendencies. “Actually, you should talk to Serling anyway. She’s making nanites and I was told they can be used to break down pollution or something.”

“They can, in theory. She wrote a fascinating paper on their potential uses four years ago,” she said slowly. As I thought, Serling’s work was turning out to be a big sell with her. “It was lacking somewhat in biochemical grounding, but that’s to be expected of a robotics engineer. I can advise her in that regard…”

“Right? So, come join me. You’ll get more space, competent colleagues, the chance to improve the biosphere, and near unlimited funding. We’ll call this a trial run, yeah?”

“And Ace Chemicals? You’re telling me to give up on punishing them.”

“Nope. I’m telling you to avoid murder. Destroy their facility. Hack and wipe their data files. Ruin their trucks and cargo ships. Make it impossible to do business, but avoid things that’ll escalate to a League response. Hell, start a competitor company with eco-friendly materials to make them really suffer. Between you, Serling, and Victor, surely you’ve got the brains to make it happen.”

“I… I can work with that. But I won’t join your peerage. And if I think I can achieve my goals some other way, if there ever is a better option, I’m gone.”

“That’s fine. I’ll just have to show you that there is no better option,” I said, grinning ear-to-ear.

Poison Ivy, get.

X

Serling RoquetteNew York, NY, USA

Rigal didn’t ask much of me. It always surprised me to learn just how little pressure he was willing to exert on my daily affairs. No demands for niche super-tech, no attempt to tell me how I should develop the Fog, and no propositions for physical intimacy I didn’t really want right now.

He made me train, accept contracts within my abilities, and gave me books to study. All reasonable conditions. So when he asked me and Max for a favor, I was very willing to hear him out.

I shouldn’t have let him keep talking. There must have been some truth to the devil’s reputation for tempting people. He started with “How do you feel about graverobbing?” Somehow, by the end of it, I found myself putting aside my research to pick up a shovel.

He handed us a paper slip with a magic sigil before sending us off to the Queens Memorial Cemetery. Apparently, there was a miniature ward on it that kept away the normies. His words, not mine.

I plunged my shovel into the dirt. Next to me, Max did the same. I still couldn’t even budge the guy, but being several times stronger than the average grown man made the job surprisingly easy.

“I don’t get why he couldn’t come himself,” Max grunted.

“Rigal wanted to check in on Poison Ivy,” I reminded him. He tended to zone out whenever our King rambled too long. “The King should be the one to meet the peerage candidate.”

“Fine, we just have to check the body, right? If it’s rotting, I’m going to punch him.”

“It won’t be,” I assured him as I eyed the tombstone. Danette Reilly, also known as Firebrand, was a heroine who’d been a member of the Justice Society of America. And, if Rigal was right, an android.

“Why’d they even bury her, anyway?” Max asked. “If she’s a robot, why not just smack her upside the head? Works for the toaster.”

“Not every tech can be rebooted via percussive therapy,” I said with a snort of laughter. “If Rigal’s right, Dr. T. O. Morrow made her to be as lifelike as possible to infiltrate the Justice Society of America.”

“And she became a little too human. She took a bullet for someone else, ‘died,’ and was buried without anyone noticing.”

“Or if they noticed, they decided to give her the respect she deserved as a thinking being.”

Max thought about that, then nodded in acceptance. “Alright, fair point. So… Why are we digging? Isn’t this a big no-no?”

“To check.” I looked around the hole we’d dug. Max and I stood more than twelve feet in the dirt, far deeper than any grave here would be. “And, I think we have our answer.”

He grunted and hopped out. “I don’t see a coffin. Someone took her?”

“Looks like it.”

“Rigal forgot something important, didn’t he?”

“He remembered too late.”

“Same difference. Which means?”

“It means you’re probably going to have to punch the geriatric android.”

“Heh, sounds fun.”

Author’s Note

Not terribly happy with this chapter, but meh.

Ivy has a budding connection to the Green in this timeline. Whether something will come of it, I don’t know yet.

Her character has always baffled me somewhat. The conceit of the genre is that someone so brilliant and powerful chooses to remain a Gotham supervillain. I think we can agree that she could do so much more for the world walking a dozen different paths.

Animal Fact: A rooster’s crowing averages at around one hundred decibels. That’s roughly the same as a chainsaw.

On a related note, roosters also have built-in earplugs. About half of a rooster’s eardrums are naturally covered in soft tissue. When they tilt their heads back, more fleshy material covers the eardrums completely, insulating them from their own yelling.