Tailors were in the expanse of numbers. Bodalaires, Bromswepts, and Crimbone hat store littered the street of Uv Third. These names, so strange in nature. That was the wonder of humans: where did their creativity come in, and where did the insanity truly begin?
"It's almost like seeing a film take manifestation, Bane," Ivy told her faithful friend as they walked down the corner of a Uv Third stone walkway to a small corner store called Impassioned Integrity. The store was advertising spandex among other varieties. Fitting well for a public allure. "The Gothamities are as characters, and the characters are as fiction. What does that make us, Bane? Bad guys? Antagonists?" She savored the thought. "Of course we are."
"Bad…guys…" Bane forced out of the mask. "Costume…?"
"You're going to have to learn to talk like a big boy soon, Bane. Other-wise I'll get bored with you. You used to be able to talk like a h- on second thought, stay the way you are. The reminder of humanity might set me off even more." She patted him kindly on the shoulder as she waltzed her towards Impassioned. The front glass bore plastic mannequins dressed with the most fine of allure to clothes. Latex rubber and sheening spandex. Her eye temporarily caught sight of one such mannequin before she pushed the jingling shop door open: a bright green, rubber suit, fit well to the slender mannequin, plain in all that it was, with matching rubber gloves to boot. It was sexy, inspiring. She briefly imagined herself in the tight fit. Green… everything had to be green.
The inside of the store smelled funny, something like powerful shoe polish. It was nauseating, to say the least, but she had smelled far worse scents. The arboreal preservation sight had been given permanent cologne of stench where her work was concerned. The most beautiful clothing adorned the walls, dresses cut to wondrous shapes with sparkling glitter crowning their inches. High heeled rubber boots of several different colors. There was even one pair that caught her eye that was the same shade of green that she had seen on the rubber suit displayed in the window. A smile. She was the bad guy, after all.
An elderly man, gray haired and withered, stood behind the counter, a smoking cigar in one hand, a Playboy magazine in the other. He looked up when he heard the door jingle shut, and at once his old features lit up when he saw his latest customer. Her bright red hair was quite alluring, and he blushed. She looked very much like his late wife.
"Welcome to Impassioned, fair lady of the flame," he spoke elegantly in a most flattering delivery. "My presence is burnt with the infatuation of the ages to witness such a gallant force. But to put the fanciness aside, is there any help that I can give to you?" He reached for her hand and seized it before she could react, and she felt hatred mix with disgust as he kissed her hands lightly with his old lips. She jerked it back at once, giving him a very angry look. Bane moved forward at once. "I'm sorry, did I- ugh!" Bane's fist wrapped around his withered neck and Ivy moved quickly, running to the door and flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED, as well as shutting the blinds to block the only view into the store (the mannequin windows were walled off in the back). The old man struggled against the giant's hold but Bane pulled the man over the counter, scattering several papers and folded dresses across the floor as be brought the man down onto the floor at their feet.
Ivy bowed down beside the man, and held his hand in hers. "Yeah, you can help," she told him, in her most threatening voice, a darkness within that tone that brought sickness with it. "I'm looking for something special. Something that will really give the guys that sultry buzz, do you know what I mean?"
"O-o-of c-course…" the old man breathed, his eyes wide with fear as the titan before him set his foot upon his old chest, holding him down. Ivy stroked the old man's hair comfortingly.
"Good. So, what do you recommend?" She kissed his hand lightly before standing up, grabbing at her black trenchcoat and pulling it off. Bare nakedness underneath, not a trace of modesty hiding her under that coat. She tossed the coat aside and kicked off her shoes, ripping away her stockings, until Poison Ivy truly had become one with the idea of nature: not a scrap to hide the au natural. The old man could only gaze in wonder, silent stricken awe at the beauty that graced before him. Never had he seen such a perfect body, not in the longest time had he felt such an intense feeling of attraction overwhelm him. The women in his magazine… they were nothing, nothing, compared to this undeniable work of art. Her legs were covered in dirt, as if she had not bathed in days, perhaps years, but she still let off the most wondrous earthy smell. She was bountiful to an abundance, a true Venus fully realized. "For someone my size…my effect," she emphasized, kicking his head lightly with her foot, "what would you like to see me in?"
His eyes glazed over. Was he dreaming? He had to be dreaming. This was some sort of strange sexual fantasy brought to life from his constant yammering with the magazines of inappropriate means. But he decided to feed the dream nonetheless. "Y-you s-should let me…let me help you…"
Ivy grinned, and nodded at Bane. Bane reached down and grabbed the man by the shirt, pulling him onto his feet so that he stood face to face with her. She stroked his cheek in a tender sort of way, her touch so warm, so very much needed. And her smell… such a smell it was. Something unnatural, but also something that he could not live without.
"So pretty…" he sighed, his hands reaching in the air for that which she did not permit him to touch. She giggled, pushing him away lightly, and Bane held him tightly in place.
"Let's do our chores and then afterwards we can play, deal? So, I ask again: what do you want to see me in?"
"N-nothing…" the old man whispered, his eyes widening madly with lust. "Nothing!"
"Wrong answer," she replied in a sing song voice, holding up one finger in the air. Bane grabbed the man around his right arm and squeezed tightly, thrusting upward. The old man screamed loudly, and quite terribly, as the bones in that arm broke, the crack so loud it sounded off in the small store with ease to hear. Ivy laughed, clapping her hands together excitedly as the man dropped onto his knees, Bane allowing him to, massaging his broken arm with tears in his eyes. "I ask you again, what do you want to see me in?"
"You crazy bastard! You focking whore!" the man screamed, his eyes burning with fury at the pair of them, but Ivy tutted loudly, shaking her head sadly as she nodded at Bane. Bane reached down quickly, and before the old man could fight, or even make a reactive mood, the titan had grabbed the man's other arm and the bones cracked loudly once more as that arm too was broken, and Ivy had to stifle the man's screams with her hands as he screamed even more horribly. Still, his pain and torment made her feel all gooey, and she simply had to torture him some more.
"Do you want your legs broken next?" she whispered to him, her green eyes burning into his old gray ones. "Maybe I could have him rip that off, huh?" She pointed at his crotch. "Or an eye. Yes, do you really need both eyes just to tell me if I look good in something? How about an ear? You can't hear perfection, unless it's my voice, but hearing my voice won't help in determining a physical appearance, now will it? So, stop your focking screaming or I am going to truly fock you up." Her last words were filled with a horrible venom that her hemotoxin may as well have poisoned the man through the words, as he fell silent at once, her hands stained with her tormented tears. She stood up finally, even as he continued whimpering, and she smiled lovingly at Bane.
"I love you," she whispered to him, kissing him on the cheek. "So, Bane, do you really think this guy will cooperate after all? I saw this working out much easier when I was planning it in my head?"
"No…" Bane replied, shaking his head bluntly. "I…no…won't help…"
"I thought so," she agreed cynically, and she kicked the man across the face, her shin crashing against his nose as he was sent onto his back, blood spurting out of his nose from the impact. Bane released him, for the old man could do little more than thrive upon the ground, shaking terribly as his tormentors looked on in amusement. "Bane, knife."
She held out her hand, and Bane obeyed at once, reaching into his pocket and producing something else that she had brought back from South America with her: it had been a gift from Daddy, a switchblade, carefully sharpened, concealed inside of a hilt shaped like a bundle of thin leaves. She took it from him and ran her finger across the ivy design across its hilt, fingering the branch off of soft metallic leaves on the end, savoring the green color and little dab of her own poison dried on its end point, to give its tip a sickly green color. The blade seemed to call to her. "Ivy, use me. Skin the mammal, skin the mammal!"
"Skin the mammal?" she whispered back to it, truly hearing its voice in her head. Its voice was like a man with smoker's lung, and it tasted like tobacco. She glanced down at the broken man, whose shaking head looked up towards her, shaking terribly in her fear. "You want me to skin the mammal?" she whispered to it again, stroking the poison tipped blade with affection. She began to suck on the end of it, and it was amazing just hoe moist the venom still was upon it, though she had applied it recently. And the poison tasted very good in her mouth. A bit of herself. The foulness, the bitterness, the utter self-repulsion that she so loved about all that made her perfection. "I think you're right. What about you, Bane? Where should I cut him first?"
Bane raised a hand, and pointed at his own neck. The man began to sob, begging, thrashing about but Bane bent down and held him still, forcing his giant fists against the man's forehead and chin as the victim looked skyward, into her crazed eyes as she crawled on top of him, the same way she had done when given the chance to murder Alejandro. But this time, it was more special. She could truly take her time with her homicidal desires, and she was naked. Naked in the way that suggested that this was sex. Because, was it not? Was this not her way of expressing sex? To murder, while loving? A lover rather than a fighter, because the weapon was her love.
She squeezed his cheeks and forced his mouth open, reaching inside and pulling his tongue forward, her fingers squeezing painfully against it as the old man cried louder. The knife struck down as she began to saw. His scream was beyond pain, beyond comprehension. This was true torment, true and utter horror, something beyond a scary movie. Life itself had become false, unreal, for how could anything like this ever happen in the real world? How could something that meant no less than a true Hollywood horror manifest in this way? It was utter agony and utter sickness, but the demon, that terrible Cambier who had stolen Pamela Isley's identity and made itself into Poison Ivy, enjoyed it. Loved it.
Half did she slice his tongue, the moisture from her spit toxic to him, and he began to choke as the poison made its way into his gums and into his throat. But she did not like her hermotoxin killing him alone. She laughed, more maniacally than she ever had, acknowledging even that she was an evil, murderous monster, because that thought made her feel more joy than she ever had in her life.
The knife sunk deep into his chest as she stabbed, her senses lost as everything vanished around her but the victim and herself. He wretched loudly and it was music. Music!
"Oh, sing again, lovebird," she whispered, stabbing him just below the throat. A terrible gagging sound, followed by blood pushed out of his mouth. "Oh, yes!" Bane was smiling from behind his mask. He watched as the knife struck again and again, a different spot every time, from the stomach to the cheek to the forehead. The man passed away shortly after that one, the blade sinking into his brain and killing him before the hemotoxin could complete its work, but did that stop Ivy the Demon from her skinning? Did Cambier let up, after that? Of course not. She sawed into his cheek and sliced the upper part of the right one off, ripping the tender flesh from the bloody tissue, and she offered it to Bane. "You've been starving for far too long, my friend," she told her enforcer, and Bane snatched it out of her hand quickly, throwing up the mask as he began to devour the cheek with the most intense hunger. He had not eaten in days.
Ivy's moanful laughter was insane as she herself bent forward and began to eat the raw tissue underneath where she had cut, her teeth crunching into the redness beneath and blood and muscle swelled in her bite. She fought against the toughness, tearing a large chunk out. Human flesh and tissue was disgusting, the most bitter taste of pure, sickening delicacy, but she would become acquainted to it in time. For a few minutes, Ivy and Bane both perched upon their knees and she continually sawed with her knife to slice off several different parts of the man's face, sharing the meal with her beloved Bane while blood dripped down her chin, her eyes blazing with utter madness, disconnected completely from the rest of reality.
When at long last their small feast was complete, the poor man's face was all but identifiable. What a mess, what a mess. What little did remain of his face was poisoned green, and sunken in with slashes and tears not unlike that of the work of a living, true lioness or tiger. She looked down upon her artwork and loved it.
"Beautiful," she sighed, heartbroken because she was so in love with it. "Dead…he's dead…dead…dead! Dead!" She began to scream it. "DEAD! HE'S DEAD, HE'S TRULY FOCKING DEAD, I KILLED HIM! I KILLED HIM! I STABBED HIM AND POISONED HIM AND ATE HIM! I ATE HIM!" She spun herself about the room, dropping the knife upon the floor, blood still saturating her face and blending in with her hair as her eyes rolled back into her head, a chill like no other rushing over her body. It was ecstasy. She felt hot beyond comparison. This, thus far, had been her favorite murder, and her body count had steadily grew into alarming numbers. This one had been artistic, passionate. She had truly lost herself in it, and that alone had meant the world to her. If only her parents were here. If only they could see what she done. How beautifully she had done it…
She practically ran at Bane and jumped into the air, the titan catching her like a father catches his playful daughter. Wrapping her legs around him tightly, she began to kiss him with such a passion that equaled her artistic motivation for the tailor shop owner's demise. Bane returned the affection, had been longing all afternoon for another painful dose of her poison, and he fell to his knees first, the power of her toxin overwhelming his as always. But so too did the second consummation. So too did the second coming together, bloody face merging with bloody face, and poisoned titan lost within poisoning demon. A release of seed, no less, and most likely corrupted by all that he was, making home inside of the evil murderess, their fate unable to be predicted. Could she process human seed? What had biology decided in Bane's case to that regard?
No matter the scientific answer, she felt happiness grow inside of her that was not merely his bodily happiness, but a happiness deep within herself. A joy like no other. Had Eden already begun to sprout? She had killed again, and found a true happiness within the act. Could she, perhaps, have already planted the seeds of Eden and not know about it?
"Bane, d-darling," she whispered to her lover, as the climax of inhuman feeling arose within her, overwhelming her senses and she emitted the pheromones in powerful doses, the smell so nauseating and vulgar. Bane lay retching on the floor, her poison tormenting him far worse than it ever had before. It seemed that not only her lips seemed to be doing the trick anymore. Her entire body seemed to be adapting to the poisonous tendencies, and the private sector was no less dangerous. But she would not complain, if he did die, right here and now. To have someone pass away during the act, whilst inside of her… that was the dream of ages. "Bane, d-darling! Darling! You and I, we're a hell of a team, aren't we!?"
"Uggh…" Bane gagged, poison flowing out of his mouth like a waterfall, dribbling down his chin. Ivy gasped.
"Yes, please suffer. Let me know it hurts. Let me know that you're in pain. Oh, please…" She was crying. Crying, crying, crying.
Crying because the demon had found utter peace. His happiness swelled through the body of the deceased Pamela Isley. But this acknowledgment came from the fact that he WAS in every way her, the new form, the new existence.
"What do you think?" she asked Bane finally, stepping out of the back wardrobe testing booth behind the counter. Bane, weak and only half awake, looked groggily towards the changing booth, his stomach burning with something like acid as he finished puking all over the floor.
Was beauty to be worshipped? Was it to be idolized in stone? Bane was evil, that she knew. He lived in the same repulsion that she had established for herself. Why would he not see the divinity that she strived for? The worship of a false idol… this was the demon's plan.
She had adorned herself in a light green leotard, something like a ballet suit, the tights stretchy and comfortably designed by the same man who had become feast upon the shop floor. Gems, red and green, hung from strings from the leotard, her arms and hands adorned with brilliantly colored gem rings and half gauntlets of green wrappings. Her torso and vulvic area were covered with a glittering, glass-like wear and she wore green ballet flats that perched her to a proper holding. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, and even in Bane's sickness and torment, he felt elation rise within him at the sight of her.
"I just knew we had come to the right place, Bane," she told him, holding her hand out for him to kiss, which he did weakly and shaking. "I feel…beautiful. The Caped Crusader… that's what he's calling himself. That's what the people know him as. Batman. What kind of a name is Batman?" She pondered the thought for a moment, but then considered the following: what kind of a name was Poison Ivy? The answer was clear: the name was the meaning. The promise. She was as Poison Ivy as the mammal defender was a Batman. That was their ascension, their rise above humanity, shedding the curse of human weakness for power. She needed to know more about them. Needed to understand them better. Then, the kill. The most savored kill. But there were two. Robin. A bird of a man? What was Bat to a Bird? Did animals have no shame?
"Come on, darling, let's get moving. We have to prepare ourselves to meet with them." She began to make her forward, but then stopped at once. The green rubber suit in the window caught her eye. She could see it through a tiny hole in the back of the door that opened up into the window. Inspiration! Slowly did her eyes glance down at the rows of rubber boots on the left side of the store. The bright green ones, with the heel…
"On second thought," she said, spinning around and bowing before Bane. "Let's pick up a few complimentary items, shall we?" She glanced down at the mess of a shop keeper that the two demons had left in dark wake. She dropped down onto her knees beside the mess, and prodded the destroyed head like an interesting child prodding at a new specimen of slug. "You don't mind, do you?" she asked him, picking up the knife where she had dropped it and digging it into the raw flesh.
Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab…
"Yes," she whispered in secret to the knife, petting it like a cat. "I know. I know, you need me to kill again. And again. And again. And I will, I promise, just…shh…" She shushed the knife's pleading voice and held it against her softly, as a child. A baby. "Hush little baby, don't you cry… mama's gonna stab you into an eye…."