Pamela Isely was running out of time. Like the killing frost of winter, someone was coming to destroy her beautiful garden. She paused to tour her most recent paradise, knowing that it might be her last chance to enjoy it. She walked first to her indoor grove of greenery, ducking under leafy branches and around hearty tree trunks. She plucked a "little apple" from her manchineel orchard, immune to the toxic sap that was now wreaking havoc throughout the city. It had taken years for the grove to flourish, but now the plants were strong. They even survived a harsh winter without love when she was imprisoned in her stark cell in Arkham. She took a bite of the fruit, tasting the zest of poison that was merely a spice to her lips. She nibbled at the forbidden fruit as she continued strolling through the garden.

She examined her lovely blossoms of oleander and then wandered through the specially grown field of Belladonna. She threw the remains of the manchineel fruit to the side and fell back onto a mossy patch near a stand of English yew, stretching luxuriously among the green and red foliage. She rolled onto her side to reach out and ever-so-gently run her finger along a nearby Mimosa pudica. She watched in delight, as she had as a child, as the tiny leaflets folded up, one after another.

"Sister."

Pamela frowned at the interruption. The plants around her involuntarily released more poison along their stems and into the air. Sister Katrina would feel the effects in a few hours. For the time being, the middle-aged woman was healthy and serious, as always. Very few of the acolytes Rage sent to Poison Ivy's gardens stayed for very long (alive at least). Katrina had stayed and, truth be told, was an adept undergardener. But she had the personality of a fungus. She now stood patiently waiting, feet safely in rubber boots, hands tucked deep within the sleeves of her robe, and face bowed beneath her unbecoming black robe.

"Yes, Katrina?" Poison Ivy rolled onto her back again and spread her hair around her head, breathing in the garden as long as she could.

"All but four of the trucks have gone. Brother Eric thought he saw something as one of the trucks was leaving the gate."

"Hardly a surprise."

"Killer Croc did not return to Command."

Ivy rolled her eyes. "Of course he didn't. I don't know why Rage asked me to create the serum for Croc, only to deny it when he needed it most. If he was testing Batman he's a fool." Katrina flinched when hearing her idol's name used so casually. Ivy was immune to Rage's charisma, among other things.

"Perhaps we cannot know Brother Rage's true intentions." Katrina's words held the slightest hint of scolding.

Ivy rose from her bed and the air around them filled with more invisible, tasteless, odorless, poison. "Tell everyone to gather at the fountain, Katrina."

Katrina bowed and left without a word.

All she needed to do was buy time for the first trucks to reach their rendezvous points. If all went as planned, the country's wheat, rice, corn, and soybean crops would be decimated within weeks. The very fertilizer used to spur their growth would instead unleash a pestilence. Rage had been uncertain at first, having a difficult time believing that Poison Ivy would come up with such a plan herself. But he, like everyone else, did not understand her. What were five species compared to the fate of millions? Such massive destruction was only possible because of the weakened genetic line and the homogenizing of the crop. Most crops had been modified to the point that they could not even reproduce without human assistance. The genetic diversity of the planet was shrinking by the hour and she would make men pay for their shortsightedness.

Righteous though her plan was, she knew that Batman would try to stop her. But he was predictable. Like her, he didn't play well with others. He would see the trucks and let them go to focus on her. Of course, he might send Robin to deal with the trucks, but rumor had it the young bird's wings had been clipped. Too bad, she thought. It was always easier to control one if she had the other. But Batman was probably coming alone. If luck was with her, he might not have even told anyone about her garden yet. Knowledge of her greenhouse and the plague would die along with Batman.

She stretched under the sun lamps of the greenhouse and began making her way to the waterfall she had designed at one end of the long warehouse. Brothers and sisters of Rage would be gathering. Some of them perhaps knew what was coming. The rest would find out soon enough.

Ivy shrieked as her head was yanked painfully back by the roots of her hair. She saw the silver flash of a knife and then felt it pressed against her throat.

"We're leaving," growled a man's voice. He pulled back on her glossy red head, forcing her back through the greenhouse.

Who was this? Where was Batman? No matter, she decided. It's a man. "Am I under arrest?" she asked in her best sultry voice. A tingle rippled through her body as her skin secreted an intoxicating scent. The man didn't answer and for a short time she thought her pheromones were having the desired effect. But as they continued backward and the other end of the warehouse grew more distant, she began to doubt. "Not exactly playing fair," she observed.

"I've been warned about you." This time Ivy heard that the man's voice was muffled. He was probably wearing a protective mask of some sort. Then she noticed the slight itching on her skin. Herbicide. Poison Ivy was too refined to growl, but she got close. Her attacker responded by digging his fingers deeper into the tangles of her hair. He didn't notice that the plants surrounding him rustled despite the lack of a breeze.

Ivy rapidly formed a plan. It was not very elegant, but it would suffice. Her anger altered her chemical pheromones and a toxic haze radiated from her body. The plants in her garden responded by releasing their own poisons into the air. Any human left unprotected would have been clawing at his eyes. The man behind her started rasping, but not as much as she would like.

He coughed and then threatened, "More of that and I light the place on fire."

She laughed. "Do that and it will be one hundred times worse."

"This way." He dragged her sharply to the right, keeping his grip and the knife steady.

Ivy did not try to hid her smile. He thought they would make a quicker exit through the side door. He probably didn't notice that the path to the door was barely two feet wide, crowded with bushes that loomed overhead and vines with blood red flowers. He was probably already congratulating himself on how easy it was to take down the infamous Poison Ivy. The boys on the outside would clap him on the back as a team from Arkham bundled her off into the paddywagon.

"I said stop that," he warned.

The air had grown misty with the amount of chemicals in the air.

"I can't help it sometimes," she said sweetly. "You frighten me and my babies. You see that beautiful plant above you? Genus Brugmansia. Sometimes called angle's trumpets. Many people plant them, not knowing that their poisons can cause terror-filled hallucinations. I'm growing them special for an acquaintance of mine. They are closely related to Moonflowers, another fav—."

At that moment Ivy stopped her narrative, grabbed the man's knife hand, and shoved herself and her captor backward. As she hoped, they quickly fell against something. She had to give him credit for holding onto her and the knife. Not a problem. She reached back and clawed at the man's face, laughing as she snagged his eye protection and ripped it off.

The man let go of her hair and the knife to cover his eyes, which were already filling with tears. The toxic haze attacking his senses was actually minor compared to the fact that he was now held fast by thousands of sticky stalks of a mutant Drosera plant. He would be enveloped and drowned by the mucilage of the overgrown carnivorous plant within minutes.

Ivy paused for a moment to watch. She picked up the knife and placed it under his chin, forcing his face up to hers. His eyes were blood-shot but he was bearing up to the toxic air remarkably well. His eyes didn't move a muscle as he made a lightning-fast attempt to take the knife back. It was then that he realized he couldn't move his arms very far. He braced himself to break away from the plant, only to find that moving spread more thick sap onto his hands and arms and made things worse. He stopped moving and did his best to look her in the eye.

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary…," he said.

"How does your garden grow?" she continued the old nursery rhyme for him.

"Sister."

"What?" Ivy snapped. Katrina's appearance was a like a storm cloud in her sunny garden. The Drosera had already covered the man's entire back and was oozing more fast-hardening sap onto his head and shoulders.

"We're blocked in, along with the final four trucks. I took the liberty of distributing the serum."

"Did you now?" Poison Ivy tightened her grip on the knife.

"I also informed Brother Rage that this site has been compromised."

Ivy twisted the knife under her captive's chin. "How many men are outside?"

"More than you can handle."

Was he telling the truth? This man certainly wasn't the brooding loner she had been expecting.

"They've probably stopped your entire shipment by now," he added. "Strange. I always took you for an organic freak."

Ivy smiled. "Oh, but it is organic. Many terrible things are. It's just not the fertilizer they are expecting. Quite the contrary. How many people know the difference between an apple tree and a poison oak? They'll wish they know when the hunger riots start. Imagine it. Millions of people, entire cities, starving for food." She paused to remove the man's mask and head covering, revealing his shockingly white hair… and his lips. "You have only yourselves to blame. All of those engineered plants, pumped full of chemicals, packed as tightly as they can grow, pushed into early harvest… it's unnatural. I'm just doing what Mother Nature would have done in a few years anyway."

"Humans are worse when they're desperate." He paused for a coughing fit. "More plants and animals will die if you upset the balance."

She scoffed. "What balance? One in five plant species faces extinction at this very moment. I am not destroying the balance. I am restoring it. Between Rage's insurrection and my plague, this country's human population is about to be severely pruned."

Only the front of the man's head and chest remained free from the sticky cocoon. It would be a wasted kiss with the end so near, but she was sorely tempted. If she couldn't kill Batman, she could kill his emissary. She leaned in, effusing a heady mix of pheromones and death.

"Go," he wheezed, just before her lips grazed his.

"What?" she asked, pulling just inches away.

The man looked dizzy and struggled to keep his burning eyes open to meet hers. "I wasn't talking to you, Red."