Author's Note: I'm SO SORRY for such a long update. I've been on a "writer's block" with this story for a long time, and I HATED IT! ...but now, it's FINALLY over with, and I managed to finally finish with chapter 10. What also took me a while with this particular chapter, is that I didn't expect it to be long, so I had to rewrite some of it and make it a "two parter." I REALLY hope none of you gave up hope on me. Again, to any of my reivewers/readers...I'm VERY sorry for this, and I PROMISE this won't happen again with the story.
I hope you enjoy reading.
Chapter Ten:
Thorns In My Side
(part one)
"Barbara...you did the right thing about calling me."
"This isn't your fault. You did everything you could do."
"You made the right choice to not go along with Pamela's extremist ideas. If you had, you too, would be in her critical state."
"You shouldn't be here anymore. I'll take you home..."
The words of Commissioner Gordon were barely recalled in Barbara's mind. Everything felt like a blur to her. One minute she was sobbing on the nearest payphone to her father about Pamela's incident, and the next, she was back home in her bedroom; sitting on her bed, appearing to stare into space. There was nothing else to think about...expect for Pamela's health. "Please...please let her be okay..." Barbara thought worriedly, biting her bottom lip. The last thing Barbara remembered was the sight of Pamela being carried out on a medical stretcher, while the medics themselves hurried the injured girl into their ambulance. Wait...injured? Barbara had to think about that, because Pamela did not appear to be injured... Then again, Barbara wasn't close enough to see how in poor health Pamela was.
The ambulance that carried Pamela Isley was rushing through the streets at this moment. The sirens blared so loudly that anyone who was sleeping soundly woke to the horrid noise. As the vehicle turned a corner sharply, the medical attendants had to hold down Pamela's body to the stretcher as so she wouldn't fall off, and keep the stretcher steady to the floor. As far as medical supplies go, there wasn't much on Pamela except for an oxygen mask; and before she was even loaded into the ambulance, the medical team removed her clothes-- medical procedure, of course. Only a thin blanket kept the girl covered.
"She...seems to be stable... Very unusual..." one of the medical staff decided to announce as he kept track of Pamela's health status. He cocked his head as he spotted a leaf on the girl. Without thinking much of it, he pulled it away and turned to his partner. "What do you think is wrong with her?"
The other medical attendant took one long look at Pamela...and shrugged. "Who knows... Kids these days..." he grumbled. "I hear that this girl has a run the with the police lately. They wouldn't tell me what kind of trouble that is though--" He suddenly spotted a few leaves around the girl's body, and his eyebrow raised in slight suspicion. "What the hell?... Did this girl fall in some 'plant pile' or something?" He grunted as he wiped the leaves off the stretcher.
"Very odd..." said the other medical employee, his voice trailing off. He scratched his head. "I don't...remember any leaves getting on the girl..."
Then the two attendants remained silent, but still constantly checking on Pamela's status to make sure she remained stable on the way to the hospital. As some minutes went by, one of the men almost growled as more leaves appeared around her body. "What the hell is going on here?!" He shouted, grabbing the leaves and throwing them to the floor. There were a lot more leaves than just a few minutes ago. "Those damn leaves keep coming back!"
"Impossible!" The other couldn't believe it. "Leaves just don't sprout that quickly!"
"Ugh..." Both men heard Pamela groan, as if waking up after a long night of sleep. "I don't...I don't feel so well..." Her voice was barely a raspy whisper. Her head turned to the side and her lips parted just slightly. She appeared very ill now. Her skin had now flushed to a pale...with a green tint?
"What the-- what's wrong with her now?!" Questioned a medical attendant, and checked her health on the monitor. "According to this, she's doing fine!"
The other man shook his head slowly. "Something is seriously wrong with this girl..." his voice became a bit shaky with fear. "Whatever happened to her...is giving this girl a very nasty side effect."
Before the men knew it, the leaves around Pamela's body began to grow out, and stretch onto the ambulance floor. "What the fu--?!" The ambulance abruptly stopped in its tracks, which caused the men, medical equipment, and Pamela to fall hard onto the floor. As the men came to their senses seconds later, their eyes literally bulged out of their heads as the leaves are now starting to completely cover the inside of the ambulance.
"Let's get out of here!" The driver yelled from the other side, and the two men with Pamela heard the driver get out of the vehicle in a hurry.
"We need to get the hell on out of here too!" The medical attendant cried, trying hard as he could to keep his body from being ambushed by the growing leaves.
The other was shaking badly in fright, but as he watched his partner try to force the ambulance doors open, he looked back onto Pamela's body, which was now a heap on the floor. "B-but...we can't just leave the girl like this!" He said to his partner in great concern. "We have to help her--" Suddenly, the men were thrown to the doors as a great vine of earthly color shot up through the ambulance and came between them and Pamela's body. The men nearly passed out from the horror of all the nature.
"She's a goner now," said the man still trying to open the ambulance doors, and he felt relieved inside when the doors finally swung open. "Come on!" He urged the reluctant medical attendant. Within a second, he stumbled out of the ambulance, not wanting to wait for the other hesitant.
"But--" The one still inside the ambulance didn't want to leave Pamela in there, but as the large vine started to take apart the vehicle, he knew there was no chance of getting the girl out of the mess. He yelled out in fear as he too, got out of there just in time. Both the attendants, and the driver, backed away as they witnessed the immense vine swallow up the ambulance into the ground beneath; along with the patient, Pamela Isley.
Everyone in the streets...that happened to see vegetation do such a thing, screamed at the top of their lungs.
Roughly around five minutes later, the Gotham PD swarmed the area that the incident had occurred, and the police urged everyone to back away from the scene. Only some parts of the ambulance was left behind: a door...and other metal bits that the police haven't determined what they were exactly.
As the police investigated the area, Batman had snuck in from the shadows and hid carefully behind the large metal scraps of the ambulance. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he knew he would find 'it' once the clues came into view.
Suddenly...something caught his eye: a few oddly colored leaves that were stuck to the metal scraps. Batman's eyes narrowed as he took out of pair of tweezers from his belt and carefully plucked the leaf from the ambulance part. He looked it over carefully, and his lips parted slightly. "This...doesn't look like 'garden variety'..."
Batman put the leaf in a small glass vial and quickly left the scene before anyone could notice he was there in the first place. He knew something was...odd about the leaf he picked up. It didn't look like an ordinary leaf...
Meanwhile... While all the commotion was still going on in the streets of Gotham... Barbara Gordon was pondering about Pamela Isley.
"Is she okay?"
"Is she safe?"
"Do her parents...does her brother and sister know what happened?"
Barbara groaned and threw herself on her bed. She was tired of thinking of these thoughts, but she couldn't help it. Pamela Isley is considered to be one of her best friends...
Barbara sighed and turned on the TV. "Maybe some TV will cheer me up..." she said to herself, trying to sound a little cheerful, but it wasn't working; especially the first thing she heard as soon as the TV went on.
"It appears Pamela Isley mixed dangerous chemicals together, which resulted in--"
Before the news reporter could finish his statement, Barbara turned off the TV as quickly as she turned it on. She growled softly upon hearing that. "Already the reporters are on this." She scoffed. "They're fast."
"Now what?" Barbara asked herself. She rolled her eyes. "I know: stop talking to yourself-- it's weird."
She got up and began pacing her room slowly-- thinking deeply. "What should I do until...until I know Pam's okay?..." The girl's eyes caught sight of the telephone next to her bed. "Should I...call Joey?" Barbara actually reached out a hand to the phone, but suddenly changed her mind. Now she just stared at it. "Ugh...no, that's not a good idea. If I talk to Joey about Pam, all he'll do is give me some sarcastic speech; I can see it now..."
"Um..." Barbara could hear Joey clearly talking in her head. "I don't really like Pam-- at all, so I have nothing good to say. Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment instead?"
Barbara turned to look at the closet with half closed eyes. She thought about her gymnastics outfit inside...and the Halloween costume of Batman. She sighed depressingly. "I wish there was something I can do..." she mumbled. The girl walked over to her closet door and opened it. In her closet were many outfits hanging inside, and a lot of them were even in a huge pile on the floor. She didn't care about her "normal" outfits at the moment. The only things that got her attention, were the Batman costume and her gymnastics outfit. She reached out and touched the Batman costume hanging inside. The girl became lost in her thoughts now...
"I-I wish I can be like Batman--" She remembered telling her friend, Joey.
Barbara took the Batman costume and the gymnastics outfit from the closet and laid them out on her bed neatly. She started to think harder.
"When I saw Batman fighting Firefly... It made me think...well...I picture myself saving people and being the hero-- or, um, the 'heroine'..."
"...Why?..." Joey had said to her.
"Why?..." Barbara repeated, looking over the outfits carefully. She grabbed her Batman costume and examined it more thoroughly. "...Because I want to be a better friend to you, Joey; and Pamela." She said more determinedly. "I'm tired of being the one that stands there and lets Pamela talk meanly to Joey. I'm tired of seeing other students at my school being bullied by others. I...I just want to be someone that people can look up to...like Batman. I want to help people when they're in trouble. I want to be a better person than I am now..."
Barbara formed a small smile on her face as she held the costume up higher. "Yeah... That's why..." She gazed around her room. "Besides... If dad ever found out what I've been doing with Pam... If he found out I've been skipping gymnastics...he'll never let me join law enforcement..." Her face quickly fell solemn.
"Well...if I'm ever going to be some sort of heroine...I need to make a costume..." As she started to search around her room for the right materials to make a good, original costume for herself, she heard distant sounds coming from outside her bedroom door. The sudden noises startled the girl, and her eyes quickly shot to the door. "D...dad?..." She hurriedly grabbed her odd outfits and threw them into the closet and closed the door. After all, she didn't want anyone to know what she was up to...
Barbara opened up her bedroom door and looked down the hallway. There was nothing. "Dad?" She called out in a slightly shaky voice. Barbara stepped out into the hallway and started to roam around her house for the source of the odd noise. She couldn't even begin to describe what it was exactly.
After some time of exploring the rest of her house, Barbara decided to check outside the front door and look around; although, she figured whatever made the noise, is probably gone now... She stopped herself. "Ugh...what am I doing? Obviously, it wasn't dad at the door..." Barbara turned around and began heading back to her bedroom again. "I'll just go back to my room and call dad from my phone and see how he is..."
Once Barbara got back to her bedroom doorway, she stopped dead in her tracks, and all the color in her skin seemed to flush away. Her eyes were wide with fear as to what she saw sitting on her bed: it was a girl. A very odd looking girl. This girl had part of her back turned to Barbara, but the fearful girl knew there was something wrong about this intruder. The strange girl appeared to be wearing a short dress...made of green leaves. The hair was a bright red, and it seemed to take the form of some sort of tulip; maybe a rose? What is most peculiar about the young woman intruder, is the color of skin she had. The skin was pale, but with a tint of green.
The intruder remained seated on the bed while she examined a photo on Barbara's nightstand. The photo had Barbara and Gordon smiling happily at the camera that took their picture.
Barbara exhaled softly, and decided to very slowly, and carefully back away from her bedroom before the odd intruder noticed. Just as Barbara began to take her first few steps, somehow the intruder heard, because she said, "Took you awhile to come back up here."
Barbara froze. She didn't know what to do at this point. Then again, she was too frozen with fear to move, or even speak. The intruder got off the bed and turned around so Barbara could get a better look at her. The girl looked somehow...familiar to Barbara.
When the intruder started to approach, Barbara gasped and backed up a few steps. The other giggled mischievously. "Oh, come on, Barbara. Don't tell me you don't remember your best friend..."
The two just stood there in front of each other. Barbara remained speechless, but she started to ponder on why this intruder seemed to know her. Then...Barbara thought of it, and eyed the other carefully. "P-Pam...? Pam?!" Barbara leaned forward slightly to get a better look at "Pam's" features.
Pamela smirked. "So you finally recognized me now." She then turned around headed back into Barbara's bedroom.
Barbara followed, still dumbstruck by all this. "Oh my God, like...what happened to you? I mean...last I heard, you were being taken to the hospital..."
Pamela groaned and plopped herself on the edge of the bed. She clutched her head with both hands. "I...I don't remember what happened," she mumbled. "The last thing I remember...you and me were going to break into the Pale University greenhouse; and then...I woke up...in a greenhouse...like this." She gestured to herself and then looked at Barbara. "I woke up in...D...Dahlia's Greenhouse... I love that place. It's like, close to being one of the biggest greenhouses in America. I'm so glad...I woke up in a place like that..." Pamela now seemed to be lost in her happy thoughts.
Barbara felt overwhelmed by all this. "But...shouldn't you still go to a hospital, Pam--"
"Not...Pam anymore..." The other girl said with a smirk. "I'm...Poison Ivy now..."
Barbara rolled her eyes, "Okay...'Poison Ivy'... Um...how did you get here, anyways?..."
Poison Ivy strolled over to one of Barbara's open windows and pointed outside. "Nature gave me a ride here."
"Huh?" Barbara quickly walked over to the window and peeked her head outside. She screamed. Poison Ivy chuckled evilly. Barbara saw large vines-- almost as wide as a car-- begin to entangle themselves around the side of her house. What also scared her, is that the vines appeared to have a mind of their own.
"Cool, huh?" Poison Ivy said coolly, smiling.
Barbara looked back at Poison Ivy with eyes almost bulging out from her head. "You...you..." Barbara was getting to the point of being frightened by her "former" friend. "You're a plant!"
"Of course I'm a plant now, Barbara." Poison Ivy said a matter-of-factly. "Just think of what we can do now for the world now..." Poison Ivy stepped outside through the window. The vines immediately formed into some sort of seat for Poison Ivy to sit on.
"What do you mean?" Barbara asked meekly.
"Well...put it this way..." said Poison Ivy, making a flower grow from her very own hand. The sight of it made Barbara feel a bit queasy. "With these 'abilities' of mine, I bet anyone would listen to us now... No more foolish protests outside of chemical plants. Now, we can finally take action to those that won't listen to us about protecting Mother Nature!" She smiled sweetly and set the newly abloom flower on the windowsill. "Think about it, Barb. Think about what we both can do to change the world for plants. I'll come back here later..." Poison Ivy waved goodbye, and the very vines that were around Barbara's house, are now going back into the ground from which they came from, and taking Poison Ivy along with them.
"W-wait! Where are you going?!" Barbara asked as half her body was hanging outside the window, trying to get a good look at Poison Ivy one last time.
Poison Ivy gazed back up at Barbara and shrugged. "Oh, nowhere important... I just...need to take care of a few...'things'..." and those were the last words of Poison Ivy as she went beneath the Earth, along with the vines she commanded to her will. Barbara remained partially out the window as she tried to take in all that has happened just recently.
Barbara came back into her bedroom and walked over towards her bed. "Pam... Oh my God..." She paced her bedroom slowly, thinking. "I-I have to call dad." She immediately darted for the phone in her room, but a thought suddenly came to her mind. "Ugh...I can't do that. All he's going to do is put Pam behind bars. Pam...needs help." She looked back at the flower Poison Ivy laid for her on the windowsill.
"Maybe...Batman knows what to do." Barbara thought, and she went over and picked up the exotic looking flower. "Yeah...I'll ask Batman for help!" She now peered over her shoulder to the closet where she had stashed her costumes. "...but since I think I'm...kind of responsible for what happened to Pam...I want to help too..." The girl walked over to her closet and opened the doors. "I hope Batman lets me help... Now...what did I do with that sewing machine?..."
As Barbara began to wander quickly through her house looking for the sewing machine, she thought on Poison Ivy's last words to her. "'...take care of a few...'things'...' What did she mean by that?"
Jonathon Isley growled when the battery in his CD player died. "Goddamn it all!!" He yelled, and threw the CD player hard into his bed. "Why can't I get an Ipod like all my friends have?!"
"Jonathon!" Jonathon rolled his eyes when he heard Ursula's voice in the distance. "What is the matter with you?! Is this all you can think about at a time like this? Are you not worried at all about Pamela?"
Jonathon exited his room and went into the kitchen where Ursula appeared to be doing homework at the table. As he approached her, he brushed his black hair from his face and said to Ursula in an irritated tone, "Pfft, Pam's going to be fine..." He leaned towards one side while staring at her. "I mean, why should I worry about her? She hates us anyways." He took a seat across from his older sister.
Ursula stopped her homework to look up at Jonathon with a shocked expression on her fair face. "What are you talking about, Jonathon? What do you mean she hates us?"
Jonathon scoffed, and a smirk came on his lips. "Come on. How can you not know that she hates us all? Pam hates me because, well, I'm 'me,' and she hates you, because she thinks you're just so...'perfect.'"
Ursula narrowed her eyes and shook her head slowly in disbelief. "I do not believe that," she said in a stern, monotone voice. "If Pamela has a problem with any of us, then she would talk to us about it. I do not think our sister is the type of person to just hold onto her anger and jealousy."
The youngest boy kicked back and laid his feet on the table. "Whatever," was all he said back.
He decided to change the subject, "So, if you're so worried about 'precious Pam,' then why are you doing homework?"
Ursula sighed and halted her work once again. "I do this, because the University does not care if any of my family members are in a crisis. All that matters to them is that I do the work. I must do it in order to maintain my good grades." She began writing once again.
"Uh huh..." Jonathon didn't seem to care what Ursula had to say about the University, but he pretended to anyways. "So...what class you working on?"
"It is just some psychology homework," Ursula replied. "Even though I do not wish to do the work right now, but Mr. Crane will be angry if I do not do it. He does not care for no one but himself, it seems..." She shook her head again. "The man scares me sometimes." She whispered to herself.
Jonathon gave a slight chuckle, "'Mr. Crane?' What's his first name? Bird? Claw?"
"It is Jonathon. His name is Jonathon Crane. Please... Let us not talk about my teacher anymore. Talking about him makes me nervous."
"But you're the one who brought him up--"
"And I am sorry I did." Ursula sounded a bit aggravated now. "Oh, I forgot to do this, but...can you please check on the flowers in the garden? I want to make sure they are all right."
Jonathon was annoyed. "What? Me? Why do I have to do it?"
"I told you, Jonathon, I am doing homework right now, and this needs to be done. All I want you to do is to go outside and check on the plants."
"Fine... Geez..." The Gothic boy got up from the kitchen chair and left to go to the small garden outside their tiny backyard.
As Jonathon reached the sliding glass door that led to the backyard, he suddenly stopped, and his eyes grew wide as to what he saw just beyond that glass door. He even rubbed his eyes, because he just couldn't believe he was actually seeing this..
Jonathon saw a plant outside...but this was no ordinary plant in appearance. This plant, which has a flower as its head, was standing on its roots, which acted as the legs. The plant also had arms, which it waved excitedly at the frightened Goth.
"Ugh... Ursula..." Jonathon backed up cautiously. The plant stopped waving and pressed itself against the glass door to get a better look at the teenaged boy. Although no one would be able to guess how a plant can "see." "Ursula!" Then he ran back into the kitchen for his sister.
"What is it, Jonathon? Did you check on the plants outside?" She asked impatiently.
Jonathon went up to her and began tugging on her arm. "Ursula, you are not going to believe this, but I think the plants outside might be alive..." He bit his lip nervously and continued to tug on her arm.
"Oh, Jonathon, of course plants are living--"
"That's not what I meant!" Jonathon said testily. "I mean, I think these plants are...alive. I just saw a flower outside...and it stood on it's own two feet, and it waved at me!"
"I do not believe you, Jonathon. It is impossible for a plant to do that. No plant can do that..." She then saw the eager look in Jonathon's eyes, so Ursula sighed tiredly and got up from the kitchen table. "Alright. Show me this plant that seemed to wave at you."
Ursula was suddenly jerked as Jonathon grabbed a hold of her arm and pulled her along quickly to the glass door that led to the small garden. When they reached the glass door, they both stopped and looked outside. Nothing was there. Ursula surveyed outside carefully from where she was, but she did not see any "living" plant through the darkness. "Jonathon, there is nothing outside."
Jonathon looked desperate, "B-but...I know there was a plant out there! There was a plant...right up on the glass door, and it waved at me!" He put his hands on his slim hips.
"Jonathon...it is late. Perhaps the darkness is just playing tricks on you." Ursula didn't want to make fun, nor did she want to argue with her brother, so she just tried to reassure him of the matter.
After a few moments of silence, Jonathon actually agreed with her. "Yeah...maybe you're right..." He put a hand to his head and turned around. "I think I'm just going to go to b--" He gasped and backed up into the glass door.
"What?..." Ursula turned around as well to see what startled her brother, and she immediately spotted it. The two saw plants creating a half circle around them, so that the humans had no place to go. The plants all looked identical to the one Jonathon saw outside recently, but now the plants were all inside with him and Ursula. To their surprise, all the plants were standing and waving excitedly at them.
Ursula shrieked and covered her mouth in horror. Jonathon merely stood there, and was too terrified to move.
The plants stopped their waving, and were now waddling themselves over to Jonathon and Ursula.
"Outside!" Ursula blurted out. "We must get out of this house!" She hurriedly opened the glass door, and Jonathon sprang outside into the small garden. Not even a second later, Ursula got herself outside, and slammed the glass door shut. The plants on the other side kept slamming their little bodies against the door, in attempt on trying to get to the two.
"Oh...Oh my gosh, you were right, Jonathon!" Said Ursula, whom appeared to be out of breath for some reason. "The...the plants are alive, but...but how can this be? Plants can not do this!"
Jonathon didn't answer. He couldn't anyways, because the ground beneath them suddenly gave way, and the two screamed when vines jet forth and quickly wrapped themselves around him and Ursula. Their screams were now muffled, because the vines have almost completely wrapped around their bodies.
While Jonathon and Ursula still tried to scream and squirm out of this mess, the two stopped when they saw an odd girl, dressed in a green-leaf dress, approach them slowly with an evil smile on her face. The hostages immediately recognized this girl.
"Pamela?!"
Unfortunately, the vines kept the two from speaking clearly, and thus, it would of been difficult for anyone to understand what they were trying to say.
Poison Ivy stood in front of her former brother and sister. She waved a finger at them. "Nah-uh! My name is Poison Ivy now..." She said teasingly, and it seems she did understand what Jonathon and Ursula were trying to say. She got even closer to their faces and said rather darkly, "I think it's time for us to have a little talk..." She smiled evilly afterwards.
Before anyone knew it, Poison Ivy had the vines drag the two beneath ground. She laughed out loud in triumph and went underground with them.