When the thug awoke from his black out period, his head swum around with a heavy sense of pain and torment. His brain seemed to be pulsating, a migraine of a feel that burned at his nerves. His vision was blurry for several seconds when he first opened his eyes, and he shook his head roughly, trying to make sense of sight. When his vision cleared and things began falling into focus, he gasped.

Where was he?

He was no longer in the old Turkish Baths building that he and his gang had adopted as their mini- empire. This was something far more exotic. It was the jungle! A strange smell lingered in the air. The world around him was a mess of thick, heavy vines and ivy strewn from a black sky with no stars. He lay upon a thick layout of bush and ivy that made a makeshift bed. Had he fallen into a dream….?

The last thing that the thug could remember was the beast…the beast, and the beauty. They had come for him, him and his gang, had broken them and hurt him beyond bodily repair, as it had felt. He shifted his body, and realized that his hands and feet were bound. Bound with some sort of very strange, tender sort of rope. It held very firmly and he could not break free of it. This jungle scared him. He felt an odd sense of lack of solitude. Eyes… Eyes, always watching…

"Hello!?" he screamed, though in truth he could not decide if that were a stupid decision. The jungle had predators… He struggled in vain against whatever ropes held him in place. Nothing. "Please…" Tears began to fall. It was so hot in this jungle. A dense steam seemed to linger in the air. "Please… is anyone around…?"

"Just me…" a voice whispered suddenly. His heart stopped, an iciness rising over him. He knew that voice…

"Show yourself!" he demanded at once, furious and wanting to kill. If indeed it was her… he would gut her the first chance he got.

But when she stepped out, all thought of murder suddenly evaporated, and new desires rose in his dark heart instead. Complete nakedness, her breasts and private regions fully exposes, but wrapped around her legs were fresh cuttings of what he recognized as poison ivy, the red dots perfectly illuminated in the fire that seemed to be burning close by. She also had the ivy wrapped around her wrists and woven through her hair, which was hung loose and wild looking, leaves decorating the flaming red crown she bore. Her body seemed lace with sweat in the heat, and she was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The one true thing that demanded lust.

She leaned against something in the dark, which must have been a tree, and gazed down at her prisoner lovingly.

"Hi there…"

He gaped mindlessly at her legs, examined lustfully the carpet, feeling himself grow down below. She really did look good enough to eat…

"H-hi…" he replied dumbly, unable to say anything else. She giggled.

"How do you like the Roots of Eden?" she asked him, her voice swollen with pride as she looked around the jungle.

"The…wha….?"

"The Roots of Eden," she repeated firmly. "Eden's birth, fully realized. The brilliance of Mother Nature's call. Madre de Verde's will given life. What do you think of it, now that you see it, mammal?"

He frowned. Mammal? "Ugh… pretty. Yeah, sure… pretty, pretty…"

"Pretty?"

"Yes, pretty. Very beautiful…." Was this not what women liked to hear?

Ivy stared down at him angrily, the largest pang of annoyance flashing across her face. The man saw it, and felt the most icy, horrible feeling lower upon him. It scared him. His heart began to race.

"Pretty? Beautiful? You look upon the roots of Eden… and it's pretty?" Her voice spoke in barely less than a whisper. Now the man was truly terrified. He could feel fire coming, an intense anger that would surely tear him about and leave him for dead… "You look upon this kingdom, my throne of the planet, the art of Mother Nature, and all you can say is pretty? Beautiful? I am pretty, I am beautiful, and I am perfection, but my work! MY WORK IS SO MUCH MORE!" She screamed furiously, her eyes bulging madly as her teeth gnashed together. The thug closed his eyes, whimpering as tears began to fall. Ivy dropped down beside the man and threw her hands around his neck. She was going to kill him! "You sit here, you filthy, focking mammal, pathetic and useless as anything has ever been, witnessing perfection like me and knowing that you are in the presence of all that is admirable and desired, and you can only say pretty!? You lay here, bound to life by the mercy that I, goddess of this world, have given to you, enveloped in my kindness that has allowed you to suck up the air of my children, and you whore yourself out with answers a pre-schooler could vomit up with as much caringless and false admirations to PRESERVE YOUR MISERABLE LIFE, YOU SICK FOCK!"

She began to squeeze his throat, and he choked out, gasping for air. Her hold was so powerful, her might something he had never come across before. To think that such a thin, fine woman could hold such strength. She looked like something beyond a supermodel, beyond the most lusted after porn star… and yet such power!

"You sit there, giving me false assertions to beg for mercy and what else? Huh, what the fock else!?" She flipped him onto his back, so that he could gaze into her eyes. The eyes of his killer. Her eyes glowed bright green, radiating the energy of the Venom, the soul of the demon Cambier. He tried to scream, but could not muster it. His windpipe was being crushed. He could not break free of the things that held him. He was going to die!

And then she released him. She was breathing hard, winded by the fury and power she had administered, and the thug choked out, loudly and very hoarsely as she struggled for breath, his throat throbbing, his heart pounding far too painfully fast. Ivy lay her head against his stomach, her face shifting at once. Happiness, a soft contentedness.

"I love you," she whispered, cuddling her face into his belly. The thug gasped, a high squeak of a pained sound. What…? "Yes, it is beautiful, isn't it? The way it all holds itself together, the might of Mother Nature calling you through the vines…and the flowers… and the bodies…"

She raised her ivy wrapped arm into the air and motioned up and then down with her index. At once, as if called from some invisible being, something like telepathy, a secret understanding, thick vines crashed down from the black sky. And the thug screamed. Screamed in a terrible horror of a man who had seen every imaginable nightmare as it was forced down his throat and into his very soul. Dead men hung from the vines, the thick plants wrapped around their necks like nooses, and he knew the men. They were his men. The glow in the dark paint still decorated their faces, but something was different about them. Their veins seemed to be bulging out and filled with a thick green substance. Poison? Every one of them had been mutilated, too. The eye sockets were empty, and deep cuts had been made into their foreheads and necks, whole chunks seemingly tore from them. They were naked as well, stripped of all clothing from their bodies, and he could see that their skin had turned a pale greenish brown, and that the veins all over their bodies were filled with the same green substance. Someone had also castrated their privates…

Eight of them. Eight of them hung above the thug and Ivy, and as Ivy admired them, giggling uncontrollably at the sight, the thug continued to scream as he sobbed. This was truly beyond the nightmare. Never had he anticipated such evil to exist. He felt utter degradation and mental collapse suffocate his mind. The sight of the mangled, poisoned corpses of his friends cracked his perception and made him feel cold…alone…

"I-I…" She snorted loudly, her laughter far too much for her to control. You would think that someone had told the most hilarious joke in the world. "I… ha ha ha ha… I'm sorry, I'm sorry… hold on…" She was sweating madly from her intense laughter, and it took several seconds (during which the thug continued to sob uncontrollably) before she could bring herself under control. "I had Bane round them up! Had him hunting all night!" She positively was snorting like a hog. "And when- when he found- when he found them, he drug them back here and I poisoned them, I sure did! And we cut them all up. Ate them! Your friends had exquisite taste! Some of the parts I've put into a jar collection, but me and Bane had to eat, you see? Then we strung them up here, so that you would have your friends as company. I just…I just didn't want you to be alone, you know?"

She stroked his cheek, smiling kindly at him as she wiped his tears away. He looked at her with as much hatred and fury as he could muster. She was a monster! A freaking MONSTER!

"This room bears witness to the future of mankind, my friend. The dead…and the living." When she said the word "Dead", she motioned at the hanging bodies. When she said the word "Living", she motioned at the jungle before her. "This is what the world is going to look like. This is what the Earth will forever stand as. A utopia of Mother Nature, fully realized, littered with the corpses of the billions of mammals who I will personally see to the extinction of. This is my promise." She stroked his lips with her fingers. "I make this promise to you…"

Her hand found his pants and he felt her lower the zipper. "But first," she whispered, in a seductive tone, "I need help. You see, Eden's roots were not made from magic. It was not made from wishes or prayers. It was made from years of extensive research, and it was made from passion. I produced the seeds from my own body. But I needed help…"

What she held in her hand brought a rage of hormones upon the man, and his senses began to blur. "I need your seed… so that in turn, it becomes the Seed of Eden."

"You're…nuts…" he choked out, his breath hoarse through the tears that strained his voice. "You're…just…nuts…"

"Am I?" she whispered back, twisting the man's erection in her hand to a painfully degree. She began to pull it upwards, and he screamed. It felt as if she were going to rip it off. But a smile stayed plastered upon her face and it never died. She almost seemed to be staring off into space as she tormented the man. "Am I insane? You need to join your friends, up there in Mother Nature's arms, but first you have to give me something in return. Your friends did. Each of them gave themselves to me, they simply had no other purpose in life. I took them, one by one, and our passion was like nothing ever written by mankind. If you could have seen it… the intensity of the lovemaking, and when we kissed… the kiss was so much more than you could ever imagine. My lips are filled with the most deadly poison. To have them kiss me like that, to have them die while inside of me… have you ever wondered what a corpse feels like in the heat of passion? To have someone's life whisked away, because of their love for you…?"

This woman is… is there even a word for it? He thought to himself miserably, feeling sick to his stomach as he listened to her evil words. He had been a street thug for as long as he could remember, making a living off beating the crap out of senseless street wanderers who had bore the misfortune of entering his kingdom… but this… this was true evil. True horror. His heart broke when he acknowledged the terror of his situation. She was eyeing him with a sick kind of hunger in her face, squeezing him down there with a tension that, although naturally made him hormonally rageful, also tormented his mind. His body may be enjoying this, but his heart and soul were far from it. She was going to rape him…and then kill him… kill him with…what had she said? A kiss? Her lips…were filled with poison…?

"Your lips…?" he managed at last, feeling weak as he begged the question. Ivy smiled, stroking his face.

"Yes…my lips…" Her tongue came out of her mouth and licked her licks in a most arousing way. "I bet you just can't wait to have a taste… but I need something first. I need you inside of me. I need you to bring the animal out in both of us…"

"Hell…no…"

She frowned. This was not the response she had expected.

"W-what?"

"I said…hell….NO!" He screamed the last word. She looked surprised, hurt even. A deepest frown of concern that made her question if her charm was truly working.

"You… you can't just…"

Her face was so close to his. Inches from her. He knew he was going to die. But he refused to give her the satisfaction of raping him and using his sperm for any kind of crazy plant experiment. And so, mustering up all the strength that he could, he lurched his body forward and opened his mouth, his teeth clamping down upon her lips as hard as he could. She gasped as the thug pulled her forward, biting deep into her lips as he forced a kiss upon her.

Pain shot through his body in a most horrifying way. He felt utter sickness envelope him as liquid secreted out of her lips and entered his mouth. It tasted incredibly bitter, like something dead and rotten, and the poison worked quickly, travelling into his throat and down into his stomach where it massed out into his bloodstream with lightning quickness. The thug's body shut down and the life disappeared out of him at once, his body falling back as his teeth released her mouth and she crawled away, yellow blood gushing out of her own lips as she moaned in pain.

"You sick fock!" she screamed at him, her eyes tearing up at once. The thug had died with a satisfying smile on his skeletal face. He had committed suicide by poisonous kiss, knowing that he could at least deprive her of the pleasures she had sought from him. The triumphed expression stared up at the black ceiling in death, and Ivy stood up at once, striding angrily from the room. She pushed her way through the ivy laced halls and back into the main room that served as her new throne. The central pool that had once been empty was now filled with a deep pool of water, and lily pads had begun to grow in large sizes upon its murky surface. Bane stood in one corner of the room, examining her with interest as she strode into the room, tears falling as she sobbed uncontrollably. "I HATE HIM! HATE HIM!" she screamed at Bane, pointing towards the room in the back. "He bit me! He refused to have sex with me, Bane! Refused! He killed himself using me! I hate him!" She threw herself onto her floral throne and seethed uncontrollably, her hands shaking violently as she grabbed at the vines covering her chair and crushed them in hand. Killing her own children…

Bane moved forward, holding up a concerned hand.

"No…"

"Shut up, Bane! Just shut up! I am NOT going to be told no! No is NOT given to Mother Nature! I am the Madre de Verde, the Mother of Eden! I will not be denied!"

Bane shook his head. Pitied the poor fool…

"Go and get my clothes from the car, Bane," she ordered him after several seconds of stewing. She stood from her chair and began to make her way from a side room on the left of the throne. "The rubber one and the boots, Bane, and the belt as well, the one we crafted in Millingtons… I want them all brought to me at once…"

Bane obeyed at once, crashing through the distant vines that covered the entry way as she strode into the room where Bane had set up for her a tall mirror and a clothes rack. Her make up kit and hair essentials were strewn across a table top, as well as her trusty knife. She snatched up the switch blade and unsheathed the deadly blade, falling down onto her knees where she began to carve into her own skin. The self-mutilation was dreadfully painful but also rather satisfying. It took her mind off of the dead man in the next room who had defied her, when so many countless others had been unable to. Her yellow blood flowed down her arm and she stuck her tongue out, licking at the deadly poisonous substance like a ravenous dog who had been deprived of food for so long.

When Bane returned, a few minutes later, she walked towards him as he stood in the doorway, a bundle of clothes in his arms, and promptly stabbed him in the side of the neck. Bane let out a terrible scream as the knife penetrated his tough flesh, dropping the bundle of clothes at her feet as he stepped back, pulling out the knife even as Ivy slammed the door shut to separate the two of them.

"Don't even think of retaliating, Bane! Don't even!" she screamed furiously, as she snatched up the rubber green suit and the gloves that had come with it. She had recently made some changes to the long rubber gloves, cutting at the bottom to make triangular ends that made them resemble leaves. She had painted the ends of the fingers bright red, to symbolize the blood of mankind that she would paint this depraved world with.

For several minutes, during which Bane remained eerily quiet on the other side of the door (she half expected him to break through the wood and throttle her), Ivy dressed in peace and quiet. The slender, extraordinarily skin tight green rubber rubbed hard against her bare skin as she fit herself into it, her body anatomically matched perfectly to its tightness. A deep cut down the front the chest area exposed the top of chest, which was perfect, but then she had to fix her hair just right.

She picked up the electrical iron curler and stared at the hot device with an intent malice. What was she? A Mohawk? A ponytail? A short trimmed, wavy haired goddess? No… no she was not. She was a devil. A demon. She was the Devil, and the thought alone was a sensual one to her. She had to play her part well. She was going to murder again, soon, for the cold one's time had come. The papers had identified him by the name, "Mr. Freeze." Well, Mr. Freeze, she was going to kill for you. She was a demon of the Earth, and as such, she would play the part well…

For the longest time the curler did its work, heated well and twisted through her blood red curls as she swirled the motion, fixing her hair into a set of round ended, mountainous cone shapes, devil horns the color of blood. When her work was finished, she admired herself in the mirror. She looked odd, completely set apart from the normality that commanded the social norm of the human race that she so despised. The gloves fit well upon her hands, the long high heeled boots travelling up past her knees. The skin tight rubber suit almost seemed to make love to her body itself, as she felt perfectly at home in it, a true, self-proclaimed domestic goddess. She had a pheromone carrier attached to each glove, and any man who was hit with it this day would be killed on the spot, with no exception. It was a promise that she made to herself. Any man that she did this too would die. It was the decree of Mother Nature, the command of Madre de Verde. Her will would be done. That most foul, evil will.

A minute later, she threw open the door of the room. Bane was resting on one knee, massaging the spot upon his neck where she had stabbed him, but when she stood there, her legs crossed in the tight green suit, he stood up at once, staring silently at her. She blew him a kiss.

"Forgive me?" she whispered to him, pulling his mask back and kissing him for a second upon his lips. Bane fell back onto his knees, choking miserably as he caught his throat. Ivy laughed, pushing his head aside as she passed. She heard him vomiting behind her, and sweetly called out, "When you're done squirming around, my useless friend, join me in the limo. We're due for a prison visit."

And she promptly left the room, her heart blazing with a sudden intensity as she envisioned the mighty walls of Arkham Asylum, and the cold "god", as she had called him, awaiting Mother Nature to come and save him. The two of them together… would be more beautiful than a million corpses. Well…almost…