Nearly twenty young men and women within a room surrounding a holographic display that was shifting on different axes according to the commands given. Six separately colored regions were being focused on or pulled back to show them surrounded by a region of empty darkness. Overlooking the situation was a woman with long blonde hair wearing a dark uniform. A severe expression sat on her face as she watched the holographic display shift from one point to another.

"Enforcer Harlaown," one of the monitor crew asked. "Can you come look at this?"

The blonde woman walked over and stood behind the monitor tech, looking down. "What is it?"

"This one isn't investigating the discrepancies between the reality she's in and the reality she's from," the tech said.

"Is she just not noticing the discrepancies?" the Enforcer asked, finding that hard to believe.

"She'll notice something," the tech said, "start to look into it for a minute or two. And then she calls it a distraction and moves on to hunting ingredients to reproduce a mutagen from her...what is it, past life?"

"I prefer not to think about it," the Enforcer noted rubbing at her forehead as she again tried to ignore her distaste for this desperation play. "Whose reviewing the bits of the...past reality we got when we tagged her?"

"Uhh...I think that's a Unison Device," the tech said.

"Given that most of the rest of us age like any other human," the Enforcer noted blandly, "I think it likely it would be a device who could survive the decades it would take to watch someone's life."

"Right," the tech said, embarrassed. "It was...Long Count Record."

"Okay, leave Maya," the Enforcer stopped as the tech looked up at her. "She prefers that name. Leave her a message that we need a summary of any significant information before we get a detailed report. It should take her..."

"She sent a reply already."

"Right, time dilation," the Enforcer noted. "Let's open the summation."

The tech nodded as he did so and a dossier of the woman in question drawing a sharp intake of breath from the Enforcer.

"Her genetic makeup, does it include...?"

"From what I can tell, ma'am, the defect is more severe in this body," the tech noted. "I think we've been seeing her aggression increase already."

"The last thing that reality needs is another omnicidal psychopath," the Enforcer noted with a sigh.

"Ma'am, what do we do?"

"What can we do?" the Enforcer asked. "We try to go in and do something, the anomaly spreads to here."

"Then what are we doing this for?" the tech asked.

"The best case?" the Enforcer asked. "Sending these women into foreign realities gets the residents looking at it themselves, maybe stop it from happening. Get them moving at normal time again instead of speeding toward self-destruction. Maybe it might even be possible to get them aware enough that we can try an evacuation when the next collapses happen."

"And realistically, Ma'am?" the tech asked.

"We're collecting data and hoping to find something to tell us what's going on," the Enforcer noted with a sneer expressing the distaste she had for the position they were in.


Kodachi stood at the window, looking out at the prominent Wayne Enterprises Tower in the distance. The most realistic strategy was to identify a less impressive genetics lab to infiltrate as her workspace for the night, after locating and acquiring the remaining ingredients that she needed. But she predicted that by the time she what she needed, that it wouldn't be something she considered an issue. She took a deep breath and turned back toward the computers in the library behind her.

"Right," she muttered to herself. "I have the correct roses. I'll need the orchids and a catalyst. Everything else I need should be standard in any genetic labs."

The search functions on these computers were primitive from what she was used to, but then again, when she was a teenager, the internet hadn't even been created yet. Which was another thing to add to the list along with the existence of a Wayne Enterprises or Gotham City for that matter.

"Glorious, there is an actual mamushi exhibit at the zoo," she said with a victorious smile. "Now, let's see if there are any greenhouses specializing in orchids around here...and there are."

The relief was premature, she knew. There was no guarantee that a greenhouse would have one of the sort of orchids she needed. Still the feeling of euphoria rose up quickly enough that it came out of her in the form of a cackling laugh.

"Excellent," she said with a clap as she stood up and found herself facing the stern expression of a woman in her mid forties.

"Young lady," the woman said with a hint of nervousness. "We do not appreciate such...behavior in this establishment."

Kodachi looked on her with a disdainful expression, speaking with a sneer. "Young lady? Do you really mean to speak me in such a fash..." Kodachi stopped, closed her eyes and then opened them again. "Excuse me, madam...I am having a...stressful day."

"That...that is no excuse to behave in such an outlandish fashion," the woman responded. "You'll scare someone."

"That's curious," Kodachi noted. "As far as I can tell, there's no reason for my laugh to be considered anything more than annoying as of yet."

"You must not be from Gotham then," the woman responded.

"It would explain my Japanese accent, wouldn't it?" Kodachi asked, clenching a fist behind her back.

"I think it's best you leave now, young lady," the librarian said, putting her back up again.

Kodachi squeezed shut her eyes again. "You should be careful about referring to a person's age. Especially someone under stress."

"You are dressed in a high school uniform and look barely in your teens," the librarian scoffed.

"That is reasonable," Kodachi whispered as she took a step back away. "That is a reasonable ex...explanation." She emphasized each word strongly as she turned away from the woman and started for the door.

"You..."

Kodachi's eyes snapped open, narrowed and she held up a finger without turning around. "I'm warning you right now, don't say anything else until I am gone."

With a huff, the librarian stalked away and Kodachi walked out the door, pushing herself to stay focused and dismiss the insult as imagined. She pushed down an urge to make even more of a scene than she already had. There was, as of yet, no desire to do anything more than put the fear of the Rose in that petulant woman, but that could easily escalate if she let it.

"That is definitely aggression, approximately equivalent to my early twenties," she whispered to herself in Japanese. "Sense of grandeur is feeling...delusions of grandeur are becoming more pervasive. On the plus side, I never even thought to argue myself down as a teenager or 'tween'. Perhaps the self-awareness will give me a bit more time than my original calculations."

She got down to the base of the stairs of the library and stretched out. "Of course, if I'm already to the point of degradation of my early twenties after a little more than ten hours, then I have...maybe two...three hours before I kill someone unnecessarily. That's plenty of time."

The Rose shook her head and grimaced wishing she could tell whether the last sentence was sarcasm or another delusion before she took a tight corner and leaped up to a dark ledge, turning to watch the sun approaching the horizon in the distance.


A twenty-seven year old Kodachi walked into the room, eyes on the central display where a vine grew along a white trellis, displaying a batch of beautiful white roses. Her eyes twisted down to the plaque describing it as a Jincho White Rose.

"Such a bland, plebian color," she commented. "A complete lack of thorns. I find it difficult to believe that this tame...thing is what has won the honor of being the Kantoshiro Reward this year."

"What would you choose then?" a man next to her asked. "The Kuno Rose? That's the only other contender. All the other projects had...mysterious setbacks."

"The Kuno Rose is a wildly beautiful creation, full glory and native power," she protested. "And it has numerous applications beyond simple decoration."

"It's deadly poison," the man scoffed.

"Poison is relative," Kodachi retorted. "A dilute sample of what you call poison could have a specific curative effect. That is what medicine is, after all. It is a use of poisons in a hope that what ails us will die before we do. Poison is an art of precision."

"Wait, you're Kuno, aren't you?" the man said in a moment of realization.

"Yes, yes I am," she said. "I suppose this might change your opinion..."

"I think I shall take my leave," the man said angrily. "I have no wish to share air with a psychopath."

"Psychopath?" Kodachi asked as the man left the room and she followed. "Psychopath? How dare you speak to me like that? How dare you?!"

Kodachi caught up to him easy enough, being that the man, whoever he was, had nothing in the way of martial training. She landed on a ledge overlooking his position as he continued to stomp off in a huff. Still the brief trip allowed her to consider all the various complications that would come with her plan. Not that she was all that worried about such things as the police, but she'd rather not be bothered by them.

Fortunately, she had something more...poetic in mind than simply killing the man or making him vanish. She took out a handful of petals and blew them down over the man, watching him push them aside without looking closely.

"I've wanted to test this particular species," Kodachi noted with a broad smile as she proceeded to shadow the man below her until he reached an apartment building. With every step, his anger growing hotter and hotter. All it took was a triggering event and then she was able to watch as blood was shed.


In the present, Kodachi shivered and pushed the memories out of her thoughts as she dropped down to the street and joined the groups of visitors heading into the Gotham City Zoo. She turned idly to check the hours and noted distastefully that they were having extended summer hours with lighted exhibits lasting past sunset.

Kodachi grimaced as she came up to the gates, pulling out some of the cash she'd taken from the thugs that tried to mug her earlier. The woman behind the cash register smiled as she walked up. "Welcome to Gotham City Zoo, I hope you'll enjoy your visit."

"Shouldn't you be closing?" she asked. "Sunset is coming within an hour."

"We've been having some extended hours, tomorrow we'll admit people to watch the fireworks display," the woman explained.

"That sounds as if it would be quite hard on the animals," Kodachi noted with distaste. "All the lights and activity have to disrupt their natural cycles quite badly."

"I think there have been some funding problems," the woman said quietly, looking around.

Kodachi frowned and nodded. "I see."

She turned over the money and walked through the gate into the park on the other side, making straight for the map and locating the reptile house. Given the warm, breezy weather and the fading light, she found the reptile house only lightly populated. Her eyes kept drifting to the exhibits to admire the beauty of the creatures, but even so it didn't take her long to find what she wanted.

The man in the uniform was clearly one of the experts as he went about checking the exhibits himself. She checked over her shoulder for a moment as she reached into one of her hidden weapons pockets to draw out a simple black rose. She tried her best to keep herself from putting a charming smile over her face. In her experience, her smiles tended to disturb people more than be taken as charming.

"Excuse me," she said casually. "I'm curious. Might I ask you a question."

"Certainly, miss," the man said, turning to look at her. "What would you like to know?"

"Do you collect the venom from the exquisite collection of serpents you have here?" she asked gesturing broadly toward the various displays.

"Well, yes, of course," the man noted. "There's a lot of use for the venom. Making antivenom and other such researches."

"Indeed," Kodachi noted, bringing her rose around and up in front of her face. "And would you currently have any unprocessed mamushi venom?"

"Actually, the female was milked just today," the man noted, looking just the littlest bit suspicious.

"Excellent." Kodachi took a breath and released it lightly over the top of the flower, directing it towards the man. He coughed for a moment and then his eyes started to glaze over. "I need the mamushi venom. About 50 ml. Now, hurry along quickly, before you fall asleep."

"Right, let me get that for you, miss," the man repeated with a slow, dazed nod as he walked off toward the back of the building. She walked a few feet to the side and stood in front of the mamushi display watching the serpents in their stillness, replacing the black rose into her uniform.

The mamushi wasn't the most beautiful of serpents in her opinion, she had rather an appreciation for the colorful North American coral snakes in that regard, but it at least was not so ugly as many of the rattlesnakes on this continent. What the mamushi did have was a nearly unique combination of neurotoxins and hemotoxins. In this one creature, nature had done most of the work for her in the creation of the catalyst for insuring the BR-mutagen was efficiently relayed to her genetic code.

The drugged snake keeper only took a few minutes to return, though he was already starting to nod off as he walked toward her and held out the vial of venom. "Here you are."

"Thank you," she responded. "You're doing the world a favor. Of course you won't remember any of this when you wake up." She pulled a notepad and a pen out of the man's shirt pocket and jotted down a few instructions on it before sticking the notepad back in his pocket. "That should help alleviate the side-effects tomorrow. Enjoy your sick day, though I suppose I may have just cost you your job."

She waved and started to walk away from him as he toppled over, breathing shallowly.

"Well, that was a painless acquisition," she declared.

A moment later the sound of gunfire and screams cut through the sounds of people enjoying a night out at a local attraction. A look of annoyance crossed over Kodachi's expression as everyone else around her took on various expressions of fear and concern toward the door leading outside as they tried to huddle out of the line of sight of the exit.

Kodachi didn't break stride in her walk, hoping that she'd be able to get out in the open before whatever thugs decided to secure the reptile house for more loot. As she walked, a voice started coming over the loudspeaker.

"Greetings to the patrons of the Gotham City Zoo," the man declared, "the absolute perfect one-stop shopping place for all the very best pets."

As he spoke, the door in front of Kodachi opened, admitting a man wearing a clown face-mask and bearing a fully automatic rifle. She didn't pause in her stride, already within striking distance of the man. He bore a lethal weapon, and his body language spoke of none of the training that any legitimate authority would require before giving a military grade weapon to someone. Everything about him stunk of the street and raw greed.

Her hand slipped out, chi working to open the Hidden Weapons pocket in her sleeve and drop a club into her hand. The slender tool whipped across the man's throat, crushing his larynx in a single motion. She idly shouldered past him, drawing out her ribbon as the man clutched at his throat and reflexively pulled the trigger a couple moments before collapsing.

"Unfortunately, it seems there's been something of a mistake," the man on the speaker continued, "because it seems some of the pets up for viewing already belong to someone. Me," there was a low, sinister laugh...almost infectiously cheerful actually. It made Kodachi want to laugh herself actually.

"Ohhh-hohohohohoohohohoho!" she cackled herself. "You really think such amateurish weaklings can stand against the Black Rose! Well then..."

In any case, the gunman she'd dispatched at the door of the reptile house had friends. Her ribbon lashed out as the club folded back into its place. The ribbon cut through the rifle of the nearest thug, and into his body and with a flourish through the throat of the next thug. Then it was swirling around her, rising a cloud of dust and debris drawn up by her chi to cover her leap to a higher perch on one of the gothic style arches of the zoo.

"Let's see how you do," Kodachi noted. "Oh my, it seems I've killed you all. I am so sorry, perhaps I should have given you the first move. But then, that's not in the nature of the Bla..."

She stopped, and snapped her mouth closed, growling as she realized she'd reverted to her younger nomme de guerre. Not to mention her accusation of them being amateurs while she started engaging in the posturings of her youth and insanity, which was beyond being merely an amateur.

Glancing around, she decided the reptile house was clear for the moment and moved to a new position. She made her way toward the front of the zoo and made an analysis of the situation.

"Now, I don't want my poor little babies to be without me for the festivities tomorrow," the man declared. "So I thought I'd come and take them off your hands...and maybe take off a few hands for that matter."

The individual thugs were of minimal capability, though perhaps some raw practical experience in surviving. They were deployed rather expertly however, and there were quite a few of them. Blood Rose could handle them easily, as could the Black Rose, though her methods would likely have been needlessly vicious. As it stood, however, she wasn't the one and was actively resisting becoming the other. In addition, she rather had doubts about her ability to deal with the man behind the PA system.

His insanity was palpable and the Black Rose portion of her personality had already fed on it. It was in her best interests to simply leave and hope that the civilians here would be safe. She gritted her teeth and already knew the answer to that.

"What's this?" the man's voice behind the PA declared. "It seems someone isn't interested our little party here. Now, whoever could it be? It's just a tad more blood shed than I'd expect from the Bat...unless, hmm, could it be that you're starting to see things my way out there, Batman?"

Batman? Kodachi wondered. They thought her to be some...person known as the Batman?

"What manner of insult is this?!" she wondered, eyes virtually flashing as she started to reach for another tool.

She stopped herself and shut down the bitter, senseless rage that she felt for this strange man's distant conclusions. She moved to another perch closer to the exit of the zoo and stopped, staring down at a pack of the thugs holding guns over a crowd of men, women and children. She took another look toward the exit and hesitated. Leave, or do something for at least this group of civilians.

Though she didn't know why she should concern herself with a bunch of sniveling commoners...

...and that was why she had to do something.

Quietly, she counted up the men she was faced with and considered the pros and cons of a direct assault. It was a delay and she knew it. There were five men, and given the tactics available to her in this body, no matter how she approached, there would be civilian casualties if she tried to do things the direct way. Unfortunately, most of her tools were not exactly of the covert nature. She had her roses, which would either incapacitate the hostages as well, or else would require her to get very close, practically in the enemy's face.

She didn't have a way to handle this that was both swift and acceptable.

"I need to get on to the orchids, not hang around here worrying over..." Stopping and taking a breath, she continued. "Secure the children first."

Kodachi moved from an arch to the top of a tree, minimizing her weight as much as possible before allowing herself to drop through the top of the tree into its branches. Walking along a thicker branch, she came to just above one of the thugs and knelt down over him before twisting about to hang upside down from the tree with a rose in her hands.

"Well, Bats?" the voice over the PA asked. "Is that you? Or do we have some other party pooper dancing around our little affair?"

As the man spoke, she smiled darkly and waited for the thug to turn about before blowing on the rose in her hand, sending its petals and pollen into his face a moment before pulling herself back up into the tree. Behind her, the man felt his muscles seizing up in moments, as he saw a shadow of the girl that had incapacitated him leave and move for another target.

The urge to laugh and declare herself floated under Kodachi's thoughts as she padded her way from one tree to the next, putting herself in a position to take out the next target. Behind her, the paralyzed thug near the youngest hostages was just barely toppling over, to the surprise of his captives. The sound attracted her next prey's attention along with that of the others.

"What the hell, did you trip?" one of the other three thugs asked as he started to move in that direction.

The thug beneath her seized up as a club touched the back of his neck and an electrical current was dispatched through his body, locking down even the muscles required to scream. Unfortunately, that did nothing about the civilians around him that reacted with shrieks as the man suddenly toppled over with a faint burning smell.

"Well, whoever you are," the PA voice declared. "I'll be setting up some little surprises for you since I rather expect you to be coming this way. After all, you can't really count on the police can you?"

"Hey, get out of the shadows or we'll..." the thug had started to point his weapon at the hostages, but failed to finish as a ribbon whipped out to grab him about the neck and then pulled him back into one of his remaining two fellows, leaving them toppled in a pile.

The last thug turned around with his rifle taking aim at a teenaged girl in a black school girl uniform redirecting the ribbon as he started to aim. A grim look in her face as she noted that he had a bead on her and would be able to fire before she could do anything to get out of the way.

"Well, at least the Black Rose won't be making a repeat appearance," she thought to herself.

And then the sound of a low flying aircraft roared over the scene. Kodachi didn't see the make of the aircraft, but it drew her enemy's eyes upward away from her. In that instant, she tossed a club outward and drew back in her ribbon. As the last thug dropped to the ground, her eyes tracked a shape in the darkness descending with speed and then gliding out over the area.

"I would suggest that you flee this place," she declared without looking at the civilians, pointing toward the gates, "and do so quickly."

She waited for the civilians to flee, looking back into the zoo and wondering what she had just seen.

"Ah, there's the guest of honor," the PA voice declared. "I'd know the sound of that wind-breaking anywhere. Well, then, we can deal with this other interloper later, I suppose."

Kodachi's eyes narrowed as she eyed the entry gates and started to walk towards the staff box and where she expected another PA box would be. She was holding the handset before she realized it, but stopped short of speaking making a statement.

"I don't have time for this," she whispered heading off into the night.


Batman stepped into the zoo office standing among the unconscious forms of the Joker's thugs as he untied the hostages. He eyed the radio, now smashed, that had been hooked up to the PA system.

"Wh...what did he want?" the head zookeeper asked.

"Someone apparently sold you his hyenas," Batman explained.

"Those two?" the man asked. "We were going to put them down. They'd savaged another of our hyenas."

"Well, they're not your problem for now," the Caped Crusader noted. "I'd suggest you head out to the police."

"Right," the man said, gathering up his subordinates and leaving the area.

After he left, the Batman reached up to his ear and tapped the side of his cowl. "Gordon?"

"I'm here," the man said. "Are we lucky enough to say you took in the Joker?"

"I'm not sure he was even here to begin with," Batman said. "And Harley was out with the hyenas before I arrived on scene. They didn't waste anytime. This is looking like just their way of making us aware they're in town."

"Typical of the damn clown," Gordon responded. "This is just his opening line."

"There's something else too," Batman said. "Joker wasn't the only one here."

"That's all we need," Gordon said. "Any idea who?"

"Witnesses at the reptile house suggest a girl, late teens," Batman said. "She left three of the Joker's men dead there. And one civilian unconscious via some kind of drug. Curiously, she left treatment instructions on a notepad in his pocket. Also, some black flower petals."

"That's interesting," Gordon said. "There was an incident at Gotham East Hospital. Someone drugged a lot of lab workers to sleep and left black flower petals scattered around."

"What was she doing there?" Batman asked.

"She ran blood tests," Gordon said. "I assume you can get access to the information."

"I'll look into it and get back to you," he told the old cop before cutting off the communication and connecting to another frequency. "Oracle? I need you to look into something."


Kodachi snarled as tossed aside a plant that, while beautiful was both too mundane to pique her interest and worthless to her own purposes. This was the third greenhouse. Third! And all of them had been useless to her. Every single plant. Bitterly, she started to reach into her pocket for a certain seed packet. She stopped herself though.

"I need that virus," she told herself, firmly. "That's for me. Nobody else. That's mine."

She took a deep breath and smoothed out her uniform, regarding it with a disappointed sigh. At some point she needed to get some proper clothes. But she'd wait for that until after she had some time to alter the clothes, put in hidden pockets here and there. Things that she wouldn't lose access to if her chi was disrupted the way Hidden Weapons was.

In any case, there were still some greenhouses to check. She was running out of time before the deadline she'd set for herself came up. The idea of allowing herself to simple fail in a task that she had set for herself was outside the realm of allowed reality. The Rose tossed back the hair over her shoulder and strode for the shattered door, walking out into the streets before leaping up for the rooftops.

"Now, let's see where was that next address?" she commented. "I believe it is somewhere over in this direction."

The dawn was breaking before Kodachi came to the next location and found it just barely open and ready for business. She landed down in front of the building and turned to look over her shoulder towards the surprised man standing there and starting to head for the shop.

"Take your business elsewhere," she instructed casually. "I desire no interruptions as I conduct my affairs." She turned her back on him and started walking to the door.

The surprise on the man's face turned to a look of anger and annoyance. "Listen you little bitch, I need to get my wife some flowers."

As the insult carried to her ears she stopped and felt a sneer come over her face. She felt a voice deep in the back of her mind repeated some statement. It was something in the neighborhood of "ignore him, he's not worth it," which felt rather more annoying in and of itself. Ignore it? Ignore an insult to her greatness? Why should she allow such a thing?

"Do you seriously seek to argue with me?" Kodachi demanded, turning about slowly. "I am Kuno Kodachi, scion of centuries of samurai blood, the Black Rose. To think that some common gaijin would think himself equal enough to argue with me? Ohhh-hoohohohohohoho!" She smiled darkly, pulling out her ribbon from within her robes and lashing outward to slash outward, catching the man's leg and then launching him across the street. She continued speaking in casual tone of voice with an undercurrent of maddened amusement. "You are nothing. You bare not heritage nor any shred of natural greatness such as graced my rivals and my love. Remove yourself from my presence or I will gladly experiment to see how long I can take removing you from this life. Run, run now, because it won't be long before this display will not content me."

The man swallowed and darted away, stumbling as he ran past his own car, heading pell mell down the street.

Kodachi turned away from him, resisting the urge to pursue. It was just a distraction from this challenge. She had to complete the mutagen before the time she'd set herself was past. No distractions like toying with fools or investigating the strangeness of this world. She had to stay focused on the return to her truest nature and power.

She pulled open the door and walked in to find a quaint little shop filled with the most exquisite of rarities she had seen in quite some time. Her anger and rage was momentarily dispelled as she looked around the shop with something akin to wonder.

"Certainly this place shall have what it is I desire," she declared.

"Good morning," a woman's voice welcomed her with a drudging tone. "Welcome to my shop. How might I help you?"

"How can such a toneless voice exist in this house of wonders," Kodachi asked as she approached the counter and the woman behind it. "There are plants here for which I have no name. You have no idea how long its been since I have beheld something new."

"You don't look old enough to have spent much time studying things," the shopkeeper noted with fresh curiosity. "But you certainly have good taste."

"I awoke yesterday with somewhat fewer decades on my shoulders and some of my own grace stolen from me," Kodachi explained casually, still not looking at the shopkeeper. "And certainly, I have the most exquisite and elegant of tastes."

"You are not like most of those who come in here," the shopkeeper continued. "Few seem to understand how it is to care for such fragile and delicate things."

"You do not sell such wonders to the common rabble do you?" Kodachi asked in shock and turning to face the shopkeeper for the first time. She found a red-headed woman with vibrant green skin. "Beauties such as this should only be granted to someone worthy of them. Botanists, horticulturalists, scientists. Ohhhh-hohohohohohoho! Let the commoners be happy with their daisies and lilies or their tame, thornless roses. Save this...for those who truly understand."

"I'm afraid that I have little choice," the green woman noted. "I have something of a history that would keep many from trusting that what I sell them would not kill them."

"Ahh, tsk," Kodachi noted with a shake of her head. "Indeed, it is only the truest of connoisseurs that can appreciate true deadliness. I do remember the men that sought to put down my poor Midorigame. The cowards struck while I was away from town on business operating under some court order in reference to a dangerous animal. It wasn't as if the poor thing had actually killed anybody."

No, she'd just fed it a body or two. There was a bitterness behind that thought that momentarily mystified Kodachi.

"What brings you to my door?" the green woman asked.

"I find myself in need of a particular sort of orchid," Kodachi explained. "Or rather an extract of a particular orchid. It is a critical ingredient to a project of mine. None of the other greenhouses I've been to yet have had anything like what I need. It has to be of the lamia family. Parasitic orchids that sample the genetic codes of the trees they anchor themselves to."

"Taking an extract from the plant would require killing it," the green woman noted with distaste.

"Sadly, yes," Kodachi agreed. "But it is the key in creating something else again. Something rather like you, actually, now that I think on it."

"I'm sure someone of your demonstrated appreciation can see why I would dislike to hand over any of my plants to someone who would simply...harvest it," the woman protested.

"Well, Ms..."

"Isley," the woman told her. "You may call me Pamela, if you wish."

"Well, Pamela, would you know of another way for me to get the necessary extract?" Kodachi asked.

"Assuming all you need is that, then yes," Isley responded, crossing her arms. "I can get you the extract without harming any of my plants."

"That would be simply glorious," Kodachi declared with joy. "And what, might I ask, would you require in return?"

"Money would be helpful," she replied.

"Ahh, I doubt the funds I have access to would match such a boon," she said thoughtfully.

"How much do you have?" Pamela asked.

Kodachi paused and recovered the small stack of money she'd acquired over the course of the night by pilfering the pockets of those thugs that had sought to delay her. "I believe that I have somewhere in the neighborhood of $102.37, and that is all."

"Sold," Pamela noted.

"Are you quite certain?" Kodachi asked.

"For someone who so truly appreciates plants as yourself, it is no problem," Pamela said as she walked toward the back of the shop and through a door. She came back some minutes later with a vial of fluid to hand to Kodachi. The apparent teenager took the vial and unstoppered it to draw in the scent. "Careful, that can be deadly."

"I do not fear such poisons or venoms," Kodachi returned dismissively as she restoppered the vial. "And this shall be quite what I need. Now, again a piece of advice. Take this..." she gestured around, "...wonder and hide it for yourself and the worthy. Let the common public have something pretty, tame and commercial. A woman of your sensitive nature will only drive herself mad by letting most men and women have access to such things as these treasures."

"I'll...consider that, thank you," Pamela noted. "Where do you go from here?"

"My next stop?" Kodachi asked. "Waynetech biolabs, I believe. I've been informed they might have the facilities I need to do my work."

"Waynetech," Pamela noted. "You'll want to attend to that before evening. Breaching Waynetech is going to bring some unwelcome attention."

"Yes, such attention is my failsafe, actually," Kodachi said with a smile and elegant wave before she left the building.


"I understand that Mr Day has been returned to his normal quarters in Arkham," a cultured, British accented voice noted as he walked through the half-illuminated cavern within which a number of advanced technological equipment sat. "I wonder how he'll celebrate the day's festivities from there."

"I'm more concerned with how the Joker plans to celebrate, Alfred," Batman noted. "Last night, his crews made a raid on Ace Chemicals after they finished with the zoo. They were collecting ingredients that could be used to create his Joker venom."

"I'm assuming since you remain worried that you doubt whether or not you have managed to put an end to his shenanigans?" Alfred asked.

Batman nodded. "It's likely that he already has the venom he needs for whatever he's planning. Last night was just to tell us it's coming."

The butler walked up toward his master's side and looked down at the monitor he was watching arching an eyebrow as he saw a Japanese teenager on the screen. "And who might this be?"

"According to witnesses, she calls herself 'the Black Rose'," Batman noted. "She quietly took over Gotham East's blood lab for almost three hours yesterday. Ran two blood tests noting and comparing hormonal levels."

"Sounds like something that one would typically go to a doctor for, not hijack a doctor," Alfred noted. "What did her tests reveal?"

"Rising aggression, decreasing empathy," Batman noted grimly.

"Never a pleasant combination," Alfred agreed. "Barbara is running facial recognition, I assume."

"And Gordon's crew found fingerprints to run as well," he confirmed. "So we knew the girl at the hospital is the same one who killed three of Joker's men. Then, this morning, three greenhouses reported break-ins." He called up images of the crime scenes one after the other. "This one, the door was left ajar and the sales counter was tossed about, but nothing was taken. In the second the damage was more extensive and the third…"

"Good gracious," Alfred said as he took in the disaster area that the third greenhouse had been left in. "And these store owners waited until this morning to report it?"

"The security systems had been disabled before the break-in," Batman explained. "Nobody knew about the break-ins until about an hour ago."

"You think these are tied in somehow?" Alfred asked. "Due to the increasing amount of violence displayed?"

"It's possible," Batman agreed. "It won't be confirmed until Gordon's crime scene is finished with the scenes. If it is the same girl, she's likely been as careless with fingerprints."

"Sir, if I might make a note," Alfred said, looking at the addresses. "The path displayed by these addresses presents a certain line, and the next greenhouse along that line…"

"Yes, Alfred?" Batman asked.

"Well, the next greenhouse that came along this line would have been Miss Isley's," Alfred noted.

"You're familiar with where Poison Ivy set up her shop?" Batman asked.

"Of course, sir," Alfred noted. "I decided that her effort to walk the straight and narrow would be better if she had some regular customers. Don't worry, Master Bruce, I've run every purchase past Dr. Thompkins' and Mr. Fox's analysis. She's provided some uniquely lovely plants for landscape in the last few months."

"If this new girl raided Ivy's greenhouse," Batman said grimly. "Between this and the Joker, the Batman might have to go out in the daylight."

"When you do visit Miss Isley, Master Bruce," Alfred noted. "Might I suggest hiding your distrust of Miss Isley. In particular, you might refer to her by her name rather than her…more colorful identity. It's likely hard enough for her to make an effort without being reminded of it."

Batman thought about for a moment, the consideration showing in the deepening grimace on his face. "I'll try, Alfred."

"That's the most I can ask, I suppose," Alfred said with a sigh.


"Isley," a deep voice noted from the shadows, drawing the attention of the green skinned woman moving about the greenhouse.

"Isn't it a little bright outside for you to be up and about," Pamela asked with a clear sign of distaste.

"There was someone raiding greenhouses last night," Batman noted stepping outside.

"And you came to see if it might have been me?" Pamela accused darkly.

"I was concerned that you might have been one of the targets," he corrected her.

"Oh. Well, my babies and I can take care of ourselves, Batman," she reminded him. "You don't have to worry about me."

"I worry about everyone," Batman commented.

She turned away from the business of her vines and looked at him. "I suppose you do. Well, I can assure you, I've had no attacks on my property, and only one customer."

"A Japanese girl in a black school uniform?" he asked. Pamela frowned and turned to look at him grimly. "I'll take that as a yes."

"Are you chasing little girls now?" she asked, turning back to her plants.

"This little girl is suffering from a chemical imbalance and has a high level of martial training," Batman noted. "Given the wrong circumstances, people could die. And I doubt she wants that anymore than I do since the first thing she did yesterday was break into a hospital to test herself for the condition. What did she come here for?"

Pamela hesitated, and thought back to the encounter with the girl earlier this morning. The mention of the girl's failsafe came to mind. "She was looking for the extract from a lamia orchid. A distillation of my blood is close enough to the same thing, so I gave her that. She said she needed it for an experiment of sorts." Crossing her arms, she considered what next to say. "She is…possibly suicidal."

"What makes you say that?" Batman asked.

"She referred to police attention as her failsafe," Pamela explained. "When I last saw her, she said she was heading to Waynetech's biolabs."

"And you didn't report this?"

Pamela turned to glare at him. "Forgive me if I don't show much trust in the Gotham PD, or take the words of a teenager seriously. Is there anything else, or are we finished?"

"Joker's in town, have you heard from Harley?"

Pamela turned coldly away. "Harley is not welcome under my roof while she's with that clown. Last time I made an exception to that rule, I very nearly died. No, I haven't heard from her."

"There are other women out there," Batman noted.

"Pardon me if I'll ignore love advice from someone who can't stop pussy-footing around," Pamela returned snidely.

Batman nodded and looked around the store. "Then I'll leave you to your customers."

"One moment," Pamela noted, hoping to catch him before he vanished. "Someone suggested that I stock more...normal strains for the common customer. Do you have any opinions?"

"You do business with Wayne's butler, don't you?" Batman asked.

"Some, yes," she admitted. "What of it?"

"Who do you think is better to advise you on a business matter?" the Dark Knight asked as he faded back into the shadows and found some exit.

"Lot of help you are," Pamela said rolling her eyes.

Outside, Batman moved up to the rooftops and reached for his cowl. "Gordon, are you still reading?"

There was a delay before the police officer answered. "Yeah, I'm reading. What are you doing still up? I thought you turned to ash in the daylight."

"Following up a situation," he answered. "The greenhouses last night…"

"There were fingerprints at the scene that matched our girl at the zoo and the hospital," Gordon confirmed. "Do you have anything more on that?"

"She paid a visit to Pamela Isley this morning and purchased a rare plant extract," Batman informed him. "According to Isley, she's on the way to Wayne Enterprises. Think you can contact Wayne or Fox and give them a head's up?"

"I could have a full team there in the next ten minutes," Gordon added.

"Isley suggested that suicide by cop might be an issue," Batman warned. "Depending on her mental state, she might not be the only casualty."

"Just what we need," Gordon said. "Okay, I'll brief Montoya and Allen and give the alert to Wayne. Hard to say what he'll do with this information, though. What about you?"

"I'll be working on tracking down the Joker," he responded. "Tonight's the 4th, we may have taken down the Calendar Man, but Joker will likely have something up his sleeve for tonight."

Cutting off the connection, Batman waited for a moment until Alfred's voice contacted him.

"Sir, I have a phone call here from Commissioner Gordon," the butler noted. "I'm assuming you're expecting the call?"


Getting into the labs had not been easy. Kodachi had to admit that this Wayne Enterprises had secured its facilities quite well. Of course, a determined opponent was capable of getting past any defense. She rather expected exiting would prove to be even more difficult.

Kodachi looked up from her work toward the where the blast doors had been lowered by automated systems. The sounds of security, and most likely Gotham PD, trying to get in past the door still reverberated through the room with regularity.

"I don't suppose there's anybody else who can open the door, is there?" Kodachi asked the two scientists huddled against the wall with their hands and feet tied together.

"Only Bruce Wayne or Lucious Fox could bring down the defenses at this point," one of the nervous scientists explained. "At least without tearing through walls."

"Good," Kodachi noted. "I should have time to finish then."

"What are you making?" the second doctor asked as Kodachi moved from station to station.

"It is a mutagen," she answered quickly. "I've used it before. I am uncertain exactly how it is that I came to this place back in my old human body, but such a container is not truly the worthy to hold the greatness of my being. I am rectifying that mistake."

"You're going to kill yourself," the scientist protested.

"Please, I've done this before, as I have said," she responded. "Do not take it upon yourself to correct me in matters such as this. Be glad that I have no need for guinea pigs this time and know exactly what it is that I am doing."

Her immune system and poison resistance were quite high, enhanced by her chi over years working with various potentially deadly cocktails. She needed to knock it down a few pegs in order for this have any effect on her. At the moment, she was working a time delay coating for the extract and the viral seeds of her own creation. The extract would allow the virus to make the leap from plant to human DNA and infiltrate her cells once the mamushi venom had weakened her system enough. For that matter, if it worked the way that it had previously, the extract would cause some of the reptilian traits to filter in as well.

The last element was her, she would have to meditate, attune her chi appropriately, make her body ready to be changed.

"Of course, on the other hand," she noted. "I will be quite hungry after the change, so perhaps you shouldn't be so relaxed after all."

She didn't want to eat them, of course. Not really. Hopefully it would keep the two bothersome scientists quiet for the rest of the time however. If they were still being troublesome afterwards she could deal with them then.

Finally, the extract and virus had bounded to the temporary anti-bodies and slipped into a solution of the mamushi venom. Filling the injector, she set herself on the floor cross-legged and sent placed the item against the artery in her neck before depressing the trigger. A sense of relief flooded through her as she took a deep breath and tried to focus herself.

Her eyes opened as the security blast door opened up, released by the command of some with the right biometrics on the other side of the door. She watched as a tall man with dark hair and a powerful build walked in, hands displayed peacefully out to the side.

"I assume you're either Mr. Fox or Mr. Wayne," she said.

"It's Mr. Wayne," the man said in a calm manner. "Is it all right if these two leave now?"

"Yes, yes," Kodachi snapped, waving her hand dismissively. "You're disrupting my meditation, take them all away, come back in three hours and collect me then."

Mr Wayne nodded back over his head as some police officers came in to evacuate the two hostages. Kodachi ignored them and closed her eyes again, returning to her focus.

"You're going to have to come with his, Miss," a woman's voice noted.

Kodachi cracked open one eye, revealing a red rim replacing the outer edge of her black irises even as the whites of her eyes were turning green. She took in the police-woman in the red coat and frowned before closing her eyes again. "I'll come with you in three hours. I've already said this. Please don't disrupt me, I need to make sure my body accepts the mutagen."

"Or let me guess, you die," Montoya asked.

"No, I simply fail to change," Kodachi answered sharply. "And that could leave me feeling quite annoyed. So please keep quiet."

"Easy, easy," Wayne said. "Detective Montoya, perhaps you and Detective Allen could remain here to have her under watch here until she's ready to leave?"

"I saw the damage she did on the way in, here," Montoya noted. "She's left eight of your security personnel hospitalized. So forgive me if I don't feel like waiting for her to come out as a full metahuman. She can meditate on the move."

"Continue to disrupt me and you won't have to worry about hospitalization," Kodachi snarled as she shifted her seat slightly and eyed the woman with the gun.

"I have a compromise," Bruce Wayne suggested. "This lab is designed to be sealed off in the case of a biological containment. Perhaps if we seal her in here."

"How would the containment hold up to a metahuman?" Montoya asked.

"It's the same material used to contain Clayface and Killer Croc in Arkham," Wayne explained.

"Sounds like a good bet to me, Montoya," Allen noted.

"Fine, let's back out of this place and seal her in then," the woman suggested.

"If you are through deciding how to cage me," Kodachi snapped. "Then please leave and let me get back to something important."

Stepping out of the lab, Wayne and the police carefully watched Kodachi sitting in the middle of the room and focusing. As soon as they were on the other side, the lab doors started to seal shut, containment protocols moving into place.

"I hope you know what you are doing, Wayne," Montoya said. "We've already got the clown to worry about. I don't want to deal with a wannabe Poison Ivy as well."

"Given she's already made the injection," the businessman said. "I'd say it is safer to let this run its course than to try to interrupt it. Besides didn't you say she's been working toward this since realizing her issue yesterday?"

"Even assuming she started with the desire to prevent herself from going insane," Montoya noted. "What's to say she didn't change her mind and the formula sometime over the course of the night?"

"If that's the case, we have two of Gotham's Finest ready to stop her," Bruce noted. "Anymore questions?"

"Not from me," Allen noted, failing to notice the sidelong look Montoya gave Wayne as he emphasized his last spoken word.

Within the lab, Kodachi quietly breathed in and out until reaching the point when her altering anatomy was able to make the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide on its own. With each passing minute she felt the Black Rose receding. Granted, she wouldn't be able to claim a physical humanity after this, but such was a small price to pay for clarity.

When next she opened her eyes, the change was completed. Standing up she walked to the nearest reflective surface and took in a relieved breath. Closing her eyes again, she focused internally and considered the state of her anatomy. She was nowhere near the level that she had been before, but the potential was there.

Opening her eyes again, she looked around for the intercom and walked toward it. "I believe that I am ready to enter custody."

"Get back against the far wall," the woman's voice noted. "I don't want any mistakes in this. There are questions we need to ask you."

"I have at least one of my own, actually," Kodachi noted. "Are there phenomena capable of travel between time or alternate dimensions in this world?"


Blood Rose was my oldest running CoH character running from the betas in 2004 to the end of the game in 2012. She was a Dark Melee/Regeneration and eventually worked up her way to Incarnate. I respecced her so many times I was fond of saying that her genetic code was like a Rubik's cube that she kept re-arranging in the lab. Literally every time she earned a respect or my account was granted a free one, I used it for her. Meaning she went through somewhere around 15 or 20 different power and slot arrangements.

That Blood Rose was based on Kodachi though her name was Anno Yumi and she had a quite different backstory. A teenaged suicide attempt with an exotic plant extract mutated her causing her to be kicked out of the family and live on the street. She took up with a tech hero for a time until the 5th Column decided her husband's robotics and power suit designs and her and her children's biology would be good research. She survived and escaped. Later it was determined that she wasn't simply a plant-human hybrid but rather a Devouring Earth creature that had somehow retained her humanity after being infected.

This Blood Rose was deliberately trying to mutate herself for greater power. She only succeeded by age forty one and then started to revert to mid-twenties in appearance. As a side-effect, the mental defects that made her a malignant narcissist and megalomaniac were corrected. She'd already had a large number of death on her conscience and was perfectly fine dealing with that by spending the rest of her life in a top secret prison occasionally getting used for suicide missions.

Hopefully, I handled her progressive degradation in this scenario well. But think the whole thing could have gone a bit better. Oh well.

I think the next chapter will focus on Karrin Murphy…assuming I don't turn to Bystander or other original stuff for a while.

Also…vacation starting tomorrow…yay!

Apparently, Poison Ivy did try to go straight in the Arkham game universe and it did fall through when some cheating husband tried to buy a bouquet from her. I simply replaced that encounter with Kodachi as being someone who would at least momentarily give her some appreciation at the low point instead of aggravation.