Unwanted Visitor
The botanical garden enclosed in a large green house was situated on top of a five story abandoned warehouse, starkingly beautiful compared to the two deserted warehouses which took each side of the building.
The black SUV pulled into the warehouse by driving up the loading ramp, the door opening to the warehouse almost eerily.
The car was parked silently, and its two occupants escaped the confines of the vehicle, and slowly stretched their muscles, Ivy showing it more visible by bending her body back and stretching her arms up in the air. Croc, however, merely shrugged his shoulders a few times.
As Ivy started to use the old rusting elevator to get to botanical garden, Croc used the more strenuous stairwell, and reaching the top, gasping for breath only slightly at the same time that Ivy reached the top.
As Ivy was about to step forward, Croc moved an arm to bar her way.
"Someone's already here." Croc hissed, and pointed with his shotgun at a shattered panel of glass, which was broke into jagged pieces.
As Croc and Ivy then cautiously entered the botanical garden, Croc caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye.
Ivy simply started to control her plants, which became large vines and dangerous man-eating plants, and the vines quickly covered the garden, plugging up the opening in the glass and barring the use of the elevator or stairwell behind them.
A few moments later, a sharp cry burst forth as the intruder was caught.
As the intruder was brought into the light, Ivy shook her head.
"What did I tell you Jonathan all those years ago? Didn't I tell you not to break and enter my home?"
The struggling intruder then sharply replied "First of all, you know my reasons for doing so, and second of all, do not call me by that name you tree-hugging bitch, I'm the Scarecrow! I am the bringer of fear, the dreaded destroyer of the mind, the…!"
"Aw shut up." Killer Croc interrupted, his face evidently showing an exasperated expression. "Ivy, drop the Scarecrow, and second, call her a bitch one more time and I'll change my mind and give you some Southern hospitality, ya hear?"
Ivy grudgingly complied, and Jonathan Crane, in his grotesque costume, back-pedaled until he noticed the plant he was looking for. He swiftly grabbed a small plant that looked extremely exotic, and then rushed into the shadows, cackling in a crazed manner.
Poison Ivy, meanwhile, withdrew all the vines and plants until only the vines that covered the opening in the glass remained.
She then seemed to look exhausted, and turned towards a small building set in a corner of the garden.
Croc, meanwhile, pulled out a cell phone he had found within the stolen SUV, and dialed in a number.
The receiving person picked the phone up on the second ring, and an important conversation began.
"So how's the market?" Croc asked.
"It's been doing fairly well, Boss." A gravelly voice answered.
"Good. Any sign of power-hungry subordinates?"
"None, Boss."
"Good. Say, I'm over in the Downtown District, at Ivy's Place. When can you get a chopper here without attracting any unwanted attention?"
"Well Boss…" the answering caller replied, and seemed to be shorting through some folders and the typing of a computer was heard from the other side of the line, before the receiver replying about five minutes later, "…Earliest I can find is ten days from now with a chopper that you can fit inside."
"Ten days!" Croc roared, his voice gaining an edge for the next sentence after he calmed down slightly, "Fine. But don't you dare overdue it like that time in '03!"
"Alright Boss…" the henchman on the other side replied. "But let me say it again, it wasn't my idea to get you picked up in a Mil-24 Hind, it was Fred's."
"Fine, but don't disappoint me, Vance, or else you'll get some real Southern hospitality, with a nice little visit to the gators, and a trip into becoming an ingredient in my Mammy's home-style Gumbo."
Croc then hung up, and then crushed the cell phone with his foot, his statement clear as well as the final word on his part.
Killer Croc then over the course of a quarter of an hour parked the black SUV into a shadowy part of the warehouse, on the second story, and hiding it well enough that anything less than a lengthened search from a window could see the vehicle.
He then left the Colt pistol and M16 inside, though he kept the magazines on his person, since who knows if anyone would somehow acquire the weapons.
Most people believed he was nothing but a dumb reptile, but after tonight he would never be taken as such. And besides, he wasn't as dumb as he looked after the crazy doctors stopped the devolution of his mind after a quite painful session of electric shock "therapy." He would pay almost anyone to see those scientist dead.
Besides, he had already illegally shown his prowess with his black-market dealings and personal squads of bank robbers, paid 15% as a squad of whatever they robbed, as long as it was from a bank. Already Croc's organization was one of the best and most feared amongst the civilian population, with the only competition coming from Black Mask's larger organization of crime and the Joker, due to his rather insane acts of crime.
He smirked as he strode back into the botanical garden, and decided to sit down against a pillar that held the greenhouse up, before slowly nodding off to sleep, and even then his sense of smell and hearing were keen enough to alert him of any disturbing noises, a skill he had learned in his time in the Corps.
And so the two criminals slept in peace, unaware of the mayhem happening as they slept at Arkham Asylum.