"What is it?" was the question she asked Woodrue, but damn it seemed like such a simple, insignificant question for its majesty. She wished, in that moment, she would have instead asked, in a more intelligent manner, "What shall it bring me?"

"Poison Ivy's true birth," was his reply.

They were standing in his private den, a rather large, well ventilated room that looked fine enough for anyone who wishes to spend a peaceful evening lounging on leather sofas next to a massive, wall sized television and a cobblestone fireplace, tall shelves filled with books behind the armchair. These things, this setting, made the device itself an oddity. Something like this belonged in a laboratory, not a private den. Perhaps Woodrue was a little mad…

The rectangular glass enclosure was five feet in width and ten in height, with a single chair, padded and black, in the middle. The chair was hooked up to transparent tubes, which extended through a ventilation system in the glass's wall and fed into a large generator and terminal outside of the thing. Built into the thing's "ceiling" was a circular object with empty hypodermics. In all respect and truth, it looked like something that did belong in a mad scientist's lair: it looked like an execution chamber, the kind that criminals were strapped inside of to be gassed or given lethal injection.

"This," Woodrue said, "is the pinnacle of my research. The subjects you brought me, my work with them, their ascensions… a lower form of my genius. This, however… the highlight of my work."

"What shall it bring me, then?" Pamela correctly said this time.

"Poison Ivy's true birth," he repeated. "Until this point, you have lacked the necessary qualities, Ivy. Control and discipline, inauguration to the Mother's impression… I can fix this. You proved to me that you are capable of turning your misdeeds into legend, Ivy." He took her hand in his, and gazed into her eyes. "I will craft you into eternity. I will give you the gift of nature itself."

"W-what will you do?" she whispered, her voice trembling.

"This machine," he said, "will inject a special mutagen into your DNA structure. The mutagen is of my own design… and I myself bear its power in small doses. For me, the reasons why my control with it are…limited… are my own. That does not matter… what matters is that now there is a suitable host to the mutagen: you. This machine will prepare your body for accepting the mutagen, and perfect you."

"Perfect…me…?"

"Yes. When you have been perfected, nature will answer your call, Ivy. The plants will be yours to control, yours to manipulate and transform for your purposes. They will serve you as a goddess. You will hear their voices… and they will speak such words to you. And furthermore… the mutagen is special. It will give you more power than just that! The antibodies within the mutagen have been designed to adapt to a human system. They are very powerful, and have been tested on hundreds of different poisons and diseases. I began with animals… humans came in time, thanks to your efforts. The mutagen will give you the most powerful kind of immunity, Pamela. This is your future." He held his hand out to the machine. "It's time to shed your past. It's time, instead, to grow into your future."

Pamela collapsed at his feet. Her very chest pained with how hard she was breathing. Tears were filling her eyes. "You're being serious, aren't you?" she whispered.

Woodrue nodded. "You've worked beyond your limit to accomplish this, Ivy. The future needs you… and so do I. I need someone to follow, someone to acknowledge as the superior one. Someone who can go beyond, and do what I am too cowardly to do. What I am unable to do… because my body will never allow it."

"But why not!?" Pamela asked desperately, pulling him down to her and grabbing his face intently. "You and me, together, ruling over a kingdom of plants, basking in the poisons as they eradicate all human life on the earth! You deserve it if you're the reason I am able to do this!"

"I am unable. My body is incompatible."

"What makes it incompatible? We can fix it, together."

Woodrue smiled sadly. "Perhaps, someday. But my body will have to go through a long series of wonders before we get to that point. I have a sickness, Pamela." He said it so casually. "A sickness that impedes me."

Pamela went numb. Her heart panged painfully. "Sickness?"

He shook his head. "I'm not going to answer any questions about it. I'm resigned to whatever fate awaits me… but Pamela, I have work to do before I go." She did not even seen to notice him calling her by the name "Pamela." This was good, for him: he liked "Pamela" much more than "Ivy." It was a much more beautiful name. "It's why I've been…out of it… I've been angry, and I've been out of control. I should have not have snapped at you, that night. I apologize for it." He chuckled sadly. "Listen to me, apologizing. Pampadora told me to never apologize to anyone for anything. She said that everything spoken from the mouth of my eyes stood correct."

"She was a wise woman," Pamela whispered, stroking his chin with her slender finger. She loved him. That much was evident to her in that moment. "Do you think… she would have liked me?"

"She would have loved you," lied Woodrue, smiling a private smile to himself. "She would have seen you as the ideal successor. And you would not have made the mistakes she made."

"What…mistakes did she make?"

Woodrue sighed now, his eyes wetting. He stood up and went to sit at his chair, and motioned for Pamela to sit in the one across from him. When she did, he folded his leg neatly over the other, clasped his hands together, and said quietly, "Have you ever wondered what happened to Pampadora, Ivy?" When Pamela shook her head, he continued, "She let her love destroy her, that's what. I want to tell you this, too, because you could be endangering yourself. Alissa Jagner is your protector now. I crafted her into something that could keep you safe… even from yourself. That is because the thought of you making the same mistakes that Pampadora did frightens me."

"Tell me."

"Indeed I need to. I told you, of course, that Pampadora was as much my lover, mother, best friend and teacher as she was my sister. She was my existence. My very breath. And I… I was hers. I meant the world to her… but she had a much fiercer love than even me."

"I get scared," said young Jason Woodrue, "when you go out…there…"

He watched his goddess standing nude, perfectly lined against the screen door, staring off into the wide field of flowers before her. The flower field went on forever, a sea of crimson and orange, beautifully crafted with golden stems. Pampadora's Eden was at hand, Jason knew. The air about them was hazy, as he could see the little yellow vapors that they subtly emitted. Pampadora was ready to meet them. Woven in her hair were sunflowers. Their faint green vines entwined her limbs. She was perfection. She turned to look at him, though, in concern.

"Scared, Jason?"

Jason nodded. "Sometimes you stay out there longer than you said you should. Sometimes you forget."

Pampadora smiled. "Jason, love… I would never endanger myself. I'm fine. I'm going to be just…perfect," she sighed, lovingly stroking the sunflower in her golden curls. "I need them, though. I need their touch. I need their comfort."

"Let me touch you. Let me comfort you!" Jason begged. "But don't go out there today."

"I need to, Jason. I need to go out there. They're calling me."

"Calling you?"

"Calling me. I heard their voices in the night, screaming for their mother… screaming for me… I will see to it that they know I am there."

"Let me come with you, then!" he begged her, leaping forward and grabbing her arm. "Let me come with you and I'll pull you out when it's time!"

"You have to be patient," she whispered back, her finger sliding down to the table beside the screen door, on which lay a newspaper. She stared, mesmerized at the newspaper, and smiled, saying, "All good things come to those who wait for the earth's will to be done."

DEATH TOLL REACHES SIXTY-THREE IN COUNTY, read the front headline. MYSTERIOUS DISEASE FESTERING ORGANS STILL BAFFLING EXPERTS. Local journalists were calling it, "The Golden Plague," due to the yellowed blood found in all of the victims who had fallen to the vastly spreading disease that still had no trace tied to it. Pampadora loved her flower field. It gave the land a spark of vibrant color… it made the winds carry the sweetest, richest scents… it removed the vile human population in the most horrible way imaginable… By the time anyone would have come close to pinning the source of the disease being carried on the wind, the entire town would be eradicated. That was naturally the plan. Her contacts were guarding the stock houses even now, waiting for her call. Once the experiment on this land had concluded, and she had seen for herself that the testing could go off without any issues, her contacts would begin the planting process around the country. Having relations to the Ashford family had its perks, and large numbers of loyals was one of those perks.

Sixty-three lives. She felt nothing. Jason felt nothing. Naturally, he felt nothing because she had taught him to feel nothing. Those sixty-three lives had been trespassers, and the only concern that Jason had was for his sister, who would often, obsessively, wander out into the fields where she grew those wonderful flowers, basking in their radiance… sometimes for long periods of time.

Exposure was the key in this disease. Temporary exposure was non-lethal, as the viral properties in the plants required time to assimilate. However, with continued exposure, coupled with the high winds of their area, the virus would eventually grow stronger and take its effect, poisoning its victims slowly from the inside, degrading their organs and causing clots. And the way that Pampadora would expose herself to these things… it scared him.

She stepped out in the yard, beginning her journey towards the fields…

"Did she…die from the virus?" Pamela breathed, her skin numb.

Woodrue's head lowered ever so slightly. "Pampadora loved her flowers. She was obsessed with them. Flowers were her world. Her dream… her beautiful, age-long dream, was to eradicate the human species and fill the earth will trillions upon trillions of the most beautiful flowers imaginable. She had the genius to pull it off, too. Our family connection to the Ashfords put us in good contact with powerful names. The Anderson Foundation… the Umbrella Corporation… Kazech International… Naturally, Umbrella was our direct contact, what with our cousin family acting as one of its founding groups. But none of them saw Pampadora's vision. They were far too concerned with the mediocre venture of biological warfare and martial profit. Pharmaceuticals… It pained Pampadora to see her vision so easily dismissed as "a lunatic's folly." She could not stand for it. She began her war on humanity in the most appropriate of ways. Sixty-three lives within a matter of months… her virus was special. So special, in fact, that Umbrella eventually did come calling… but by the time they did, I had already left. As had… Pampadora, in a way."

"What happened?" Pamela asked. "Where did she go?"

Woodrue smiled. "Where didn't she go… once I took on her mission as my own?"

"PAMPADORA! PAMPADORA!" Jason screamed, tripping over his feet several times as he crashed through the flower field, tearing the golden children away as he fought to reach her. He had watched her for more than two hours from the porch, half mesmerized by how perfect she was, half concerned for her exposure… and then, as she lay across them, basking and pulling them close to her, lost in her own passionate love for them… she had collapsed. She had collapsed into a still, still form…

He had seen her stop moving. He had seen her falter. When he reached her, crying out her name, he collapsed beside her. She was not moving. She was not breathing. Her eyes was closed, and her skin had grayed in tone. Her veins had turned an odd, sickly orange…

Oh how he remembered crying over her unmoving body… how he remembered screaming the goddess's name into an oblivion from which he knew she could not hear, possibly never would hear again…

"Oh, Mother…" Pamela gasped, tears filling her eyes as she held her hands to her quivering mouth. Woodrue nodded, staring off into space.

"She did not awaken from her slumber. A coma…"

"C-coma…?"

"A coma from which recovery was impossible, I found. I believe the experiments she performed upon herself spared her from the death she had brought upon so many others… but those experiments still did not save her from consequence."

Pamela went cold now. At once, her mind went back to her lab at home… to the metal casket beneath her work bench. Inside that casket… Funny… funny how I've been working on the same thing…

"An immunity to toxins and viruses," she whispered aloud, blinking. "Reaching a goal like that is difficult and dangerous."

"The coma," Woodrue said, "is permanent and will remain so. Despite all of my efforts, I've been unable to find the source to repair her body. It's been… so long… I wonder if she would even be able to function. I've kept her alive, so barely. There have been so many points where I wanted to end her. But I have never been able to bring myself to it."

"She's…alive…?" Pamela swallowed. "Where is she?"

"Safe," was his only answer, for the moment. He stared off into the empty fireplace, shaking his head and sighing. "She's safe. She's with friends. And one day, she won't be. I will build for her the Eden she so passionately desired, and she will never see it."

"She will see it." Pamela said it so quietly and so firmly that she actually felt her body shake at the force behind those words. Woodrue considered her.

"Is that right?"

"She will see it. I promise you she will see it. Why were you drawn to me, if not for this purpose? If not for this mission? Ask me the things that I can do, the things that I am capable of doing long-term and short-term." She stood above him, looking down at him with a dark smile. "This is my calling." She turned to face Woodrue's machine. "This machine is my future!" She grinned twistedly and collapsed against it, embracing it with love, her fingers smudging across the glass with tenderness. "Turn me into what I always have bee… a plant. A flower. A flower to be loved by Pampadora because of the change it will bring to this pathetic world." She glanced down at a newspaper nearby, lying on a table near the chair in which he sat.

DEATHS FROM MYSTERIOUS POISONER INCREASED IN LAST MONTH, read the headline. Shocking remains discovered in Sionis industrial factory.

Naturally the city was becoming more and more aware of her presence. They knew, now, that Poison Ivy existed, and they knew of her work. The bodies she had left behind… the twisted way in which she had created those bodies… and the promise that it held for their future. But if she was going to save the world, she could not be nice and flowery. She had to be a weed, choking out life, detested by the common mockery of justice. She felt love for herself grow in that moment. More love than ever before. Poison Ivy… Poison Ivy… It was a promise. And it was this promise that filled her soul with joy that Mother would be, at last, given her demand. Demand for a world filled with flowers! Flowers for Pampadora!

Holy shit… I was always meant to carry on her work, wasn't I? It's almost as if Pampadora was reborn as me… how else would we be so… so ALIKE!? Ha ha ha! Yes! YES! YES, FUCKING A, YES! I get it now… I get it... the Poison Ivy who lived inside of me for so long, begging me to take a move, COMMANDING me… it was HER!

She did not voice this aloud. She kept this locked away in the privacy that comforted her the most. She knew her mission now. As Woodrue continued to study the effects of his toxins and mutagens on the subjects she had acquired, she herself would return home and perfect her own little assignment. The antigens would benefit well from Woodrue's resources… just as his work has benefited from her help. Together, they were working towards their great goals, and success at the end of it all. Gotham was a city of miracles.

A city that will witness the uprising before all others. If only Pampadora could be there… but I suppose she WILL be, won't she? She touched her breast, as if trying to touch Pampadora, locked away inside. Yes, Pampadora was in there. She was living, breathing Thereness.

Woodrue, content in his smile, stood and left the room silently, leaving her to her thoughts. Pamela now understood the purpose of him telling her everything. Pampadora's love had put the woman into a position that hindered the work of Mother. Pamela understood it all now. She was to learn from Pampadora's mistake, and not allow her own passions to stand in the way of what had to be done. Passion had to come later. It was something that Pampadora had not realized. Her love for Mother Earth had not been too much, of course. There was no such thing. But the method in which she had showed her love… that had to be improved upon in the form of Pamela Isley… in the form of Poison Ivy.

And naturally, as she thought of all these things, the distractions came! Oh how she loathed them, oh how they swarmed her!

Otto Rock and his trafficking sin… she had such marvelous fantasies about all of that.

Building a secret shrine to honor her lovers, Archibald and Donovan. Otto needed to join them, of course, to complete her collection.

Dr. Stefan Mamiste had left her several messages. It had taken him a few weeks, but once the full effects of the pheromones had worn off, the man had begun to question as to how he had signed Pamela's release forms from the watchful eyes of Coreman's Ridge… There would come a time when Pamela would murder him. His death would be for nothing less than just…something she had to do.

Yvonne Killinger… the only human she had slightly approved of during her time at Coreman's… That woman had to die soon, too. She was a part of Pamela's past, and a positive element that made Pamela feel almost human. She had to rid herself of that connection. With Yvonne's death, Pamela could cast off human relations. Alissa was no longer human. No. Not at all, not in Pamela's eyes… and pretty soon that would be even more evident. But Yvonne and Mamiste… their deaths were required to make Pamela feel free of her human bonds.

Naturally there were many missions that she must undertake. But she must not allow her passions to distract her, lest she endured the fate that Pampadora had brought upon herself. She moved forward from this room of illumination and went out into the rest of the world, feeling elation at knowing that Pampadora's spirit was alive inside of her. She leapt across voids of doubt and into a world of assurance.