Chapter 2
She was here. She was stood outside of Wayne Manor. The nervous woman tucked a stray brown lock behind her ears. She looked over herself, reassuring herself she looked the part. Nothing she wore was designer, but it looked smart enough. She wore smart black heels of a medium height, semi transparent black tights and a smart grey business dress suit. She wore a black blouse underneath the jacket, and held a black leather portfolio file to her chest. Her chocolate brown hair was twisted into a large black butterfly clip. Her bangs were tucked behind her ears, and her makeup was soft and neutral. Her eyes were a steely blue, and looking nervously over her attire again. This was Bruce Wayne she was going to see. She had to look worth the five minutes she needed. She locked her car and approached the front door. She knocked twice, and the door opened slowly. She blinked a few times, seemingly not expecting the elderly man that now looked at her.
"My name is Alfred, I am Mr Wayne's Butler. You said you came to see him? Do you have an appointment? As I fear he isn't here at the moment."
"Oh...I rang his firm and they said he wasn't there...so I thought..." She cleared her throat, and extended one of her shaking hands. "S-sorry for being rude. My name is Brenna Jones. I don't have an appointment but I really need to speak to Mr Wayne. Mr Bruce Wayne." Alfred shook her hand and gave her a gentle smile.
"Well it is a pleasure to meet you Ms Jones, but without an appointment I fear you will find it quite difficult to get an audience with the Master of the house."
"Oh, well, I called his secretary and she said there wouldn't be any chance of me seeing him for anything non business related for 3 years." She laughed nervously, holding the portfolio to her chest tightly. "I can't wait 3 years to see him, sir. It's really important."
"Are you a reporter Miss?"
"No sir. I'm a primary school teacher." Alfred was highly educated in the ways of society and schooling ones features, however, even he was unable to hide the look of confusion on his face. "Recently qualified. I need to speak to Mr Wayne. It's a...personal matter. I could wait for him, I don't mind."
"I'm sorry miss, but my master would be very upset if I allowed every young lady who had personal business with him to wait in his home for him to arrive." Her face fell. Alfred saw a sad desperation in her blue eyes. Brenna looked off to one side for a moment, clearly thinking what her next step should be. When she turned back to the aging butler she had a sad smile on her lips.
"Can I please leave my name and number for Mr Wayne to contact me when he gets home? It's really urgent. And I'm happy to come back tomorrow. It's the summer holidays now so I'm off work for 6 weeks. I don't start at Linly Grove primary school until the 1st of September. Please tell him it's urgent." Brenna handed him a piece of note paper with her name, number and address on it. She hovered there a moment, clearly disappointed she didn't get to see him. "Will he be back tomorrow?"
"I couldn't say Mam."
"Couldn't?...or wouldn't?"
"Have a nice day Mam." Alfred smiled at her and slowly closed the door.
Brenna Jones sighed deeply, turned on the spot and made her way back down the massive drive and back to her dinky little car. She drove back to her tiny little Gotham central apartment and sank into her sofa sadly.
"Well...i'll try again tomorrow I guess."
Jaclyn Ester packed her suitcase, including the metal box from her mother. She was dressed in what she called action gear, consisting of white trainers, baggy blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a pink hoodie. Her hair was down though, as she couldn't find her bobble. She opened the attic window and looked down with determined emerald orbs. Luckily there wasn't much of a distance between her and the fire escape along the side of the building. She was able to sit half in and half out of the window, hold onto the frame with one hand and lower her suitcase to the fire escape with the other hand. There were grenades in there after all. She didn't want to see what would happen if she just dropped the case all the way to the floor. Then the fire cracker swung her leg out of the window and jumped down to her suitcase. She paused in her crouched position, waiting to see if her new foster 'family' had noticed the clang of her landing on the fire escape. When no one stirred, she picked up her suitcase, scaled down to the stairs and zipped down the alley ways to the main part of the city. Once she was there she stood outside of a large bus station, holding her suitcase and sighed.
Well. What now?
So she'd run away. Wasn't she a big girl now? But where exactly was she going to go? There weren't exactly lots of jobs available for 16 year olds (that were legal) and apartments that would let to kids. So where did she go now? Even the most villainous of criminals needed a place to sleep at night.
"Stop that right now!"
"Geez lady, back off. I'm just doing my job."
"You're killing them! There is hardly any beauty left in this city and you're murdering the last of Gotham's true children!" Jaclyn dragged her suitcase behind her and hurried towards the sound of commotion like she was in a trance. There was no thinking behind this decision. She just did. As she got there she saw what looked like a building crew trying to dig up a very small city centre park. They were yelling and swearing at a young woman dressed in a pair of black slacks, black heels, and a black blouse. As she approached the scene she saw the woman had vibrant red hair, and was definitely not afraid of the group of angry builders.
"Listen lady, move or be moved. End of story."
"I will not back down to bullies!"
"Move lady!" one of the men grabbed her arm and tried to hoist her up off her feet and out the way. The woman narrowed her eyes on him, about to let loose, when a blur of pink and yellow passed her. The man released the red head as a younger woman jumped onto the brute's back.
Pamela Isley watched as a young blonde girl took a piggy back off the man she was about to impale with the vines under her clothes, and watched as her fists smacked him upside the head and her teeth attached his ear. "You crazy bitch! Get offa me! AAAaaaaa!" as the man wobbled back and forth trying to pull the girl off his back, Pamela jumped forward, wrapped her arms around the girl and pulled her off.
Part of the ear came away in her mouth... "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA!"
"That's enough sweet heart." Pamela dragged her away from the scene as people ran to the bleeding brute. Jaclyn spat the piece of flesh from her teeth.
"He attacked you! I'll kick his ass!" She screamed, her lips bloody and her legs flailing.
"Call the police!" the man screamed, holding his bleeding head and ear.
"And that's our cue to leave." Pamela started to drag the girl away, stumbling only when the blonde reached out to grab her suit case.
Within 5 minutes they were around a corner and into a green ford focus. After 5 more minutes, Pamela broke the silence. "Thank you for the assist back there, but I was going to deal with them in my own way. Are you passionate about plants too?" Jaclyn wiped the blood from her lips onto her pink hoodie sleeve and looked up to her captor.
"Well, I just hate bullies in general I guess. Plus, I like fighting. I know I shouldn't though."
"Well if the cause is just, I think it's alright." Pamela giggled, flipping her crimson locks behind her as she drove through the streets of Gotham. She pulled into a fast food outlet car park, parked, and turned to look at the girl. "Now, you're running." She pointed to the suitcase on the back seats. "Why?"
"My mom's dead. I had to get out of the foster house I was in." Jaclyn folded her arms and looked out of the window.
"I see. So where are you running to?"
"Hadn't thought that far."
"So you need somewhere to say. Want to stay with me?"
"You gonna do any weird shit to me?"
"Oh no baby girl. Not unless you harm my babies." Pamela restarted the car, pulled out of the fast food place and drove out of Gotham and to her secret residence in the woods. "I'm Pamela by the way."
"...I'm Jaclyn. Call me Jac. So." She turned to face the older beauty. "You're going to take me home with you and promise not to do any weird shit to me? Or hurt me? Or worse, report me to social services?"
"No sweety. In fact, I could use a...campaigning partner." She giggled, pulling up to a large wooden cabin next to an enormous tree. "Conservation work is a hard, thankless job. The way I see it, Batman has Robin and Nightwing. Penguin has his thugs. Joker has Harley and his gang. And then there's me, little old me all alone." Pamela swivelled in her seat and cocked her head to one side, her gorgeous mane of red hair falling forward as she did so. "Fancy being my side kick?"
"...HHmmmmmm..." I suppose this could work for now... Her emerald eyes narrowed on the read head. She started to read off her fingers. "Alright, but I'm not a kid so don't treat me like one. And I'm not having a curfew as I have...friends in town I want to still see."
"Alright sweety. But you have to be open to...more hard hitting methods of protecting the dwindling greenery of this city. And if we are doing nicknames, you can call me Pam."
"Sure Pam, I'll break some legs with you. Just give me a decent baseball bat and I'm there." The young girl nodded her head, and Pam winked at her. Both women got out of the car and faced the log cabin. It was a quite a substantial size. It almost looked like a wooden house... "Just let me get my-bag?" Jaclyn looked to the backseat to see her suitcase was gone.
"Here it is." Pam stood by the front door, holding her suit case. Jac raised a brow at that. How did she get my suitcase out of the car and get over there so fast...?
"Right, thanks. Erm, I'll take that." Jaclyn quickly took the suitcase with an awkward smile. The last thing she needed was Pam to hit the damn case against the wall and floor and blow them all up. Why did I keep the grenades? Why?
"You hungry? I have lots of mangoes and passion fruits ready for the picking in my garden."
"Garden?"
"Oh yes." Pamela flipped her hair behind her and escorted the girl through the entrance hall, the living room, through the kitchen, and out of the back door. Jaclyn put her suitcase down in the kitchen before running out to the garden with her new 'foster mum'.
"...wow..." It was like the Amazon rainforest! Jaclyn's head turned from side to side as she looked at the array of vibrant plants and trees. She ran after Pam as she walked deeper into the 'garden' and up to a large fenced of area.
"Now dear, I happen to have some...well...the species of plants through this door are highly delicate and poisonous." Pam cleared her throat. She wanted to break this girl in slowly, not jump out and say 'Hi, I'm Poison Ivy and I'd like you to help me take over Gotham. I also have an army of mutant killer plants behind this fence so hands off for now.' "I'm a scientist you see, and I'm trying to preserve the species by-"
"Poisonous? As in poisons?" Pam raised a brow at the girl. She seemed to be...grinning?
"Yes."
"Do you...collect these poisons?"
"...I could collect them...why?" Pam's lips were curving into her usual seductive smirk. "Are you...interested in poisons?"
"Oh yeah. I-erm had a school project about them." Jaclyn started to chuckle nervously. Ok smartass, how are you going to back this one up without sounding like you want to use poisons for real? "I find them really interesting. The applications are very interesting, I mean."
"Applications you say?" Pam beamed a smile, seeing that her task would be easier than she thought it would be. She could see a spark of something...more in this girl. Something that would be very useful to her.
"Well, they are so ranged and varied aren't they? Some plant toxins are used as painkillers, and some are neurotoxins that can paralyse someone, with the tiniest amount. Like a knife coated in it would do the trick."
"Or a dart? Were you studying the aborigines and Amazonian tribes at school? They would use plant and animal toxins for that very purpose. And of course, to kill their pray."
"Yeah, that's exactly it. I always wondered how it worked..."
"Perhaps then-" Pam put her hand on the girl's shoulder and lead her back to the house. "-we could extract and purify some plant toxins later on? For my research and your education?"
"That would be awesome." Jaclyn grinned, almost from ear to ear, looking up at her new friend with glee.
"After lunch then?"
"It's a date!"