Part Fifteen of That Really Cool Car With the Vroom Vroom Red Thingy in Front

"Batman?" Diana raised her head, tried to move her body, but the thorny vines holding her were too strong. She could see Batman lying on a platform, nestled in a deep bed of – Great Hera, were those fingernail clippings? "Ew," she said.

Poison Ivy rustled over to Wonder Woman, saw that the star-spangled heroine was awake. "I see you have observed your teammate's predicament."

"That's pretty twisted, sister," Diana said.

Poison Ivy's mouth curled into a smile like a leaf curls under intense heat. "Have you ever seen the movie Fight Club?"

Since arriving in Man's World Diana had only watched Knight Rider reruns, so she answered truthfully, "No."

"You really should," Ivy's ivy colored eyes sparkled with restrained lust. "Brad Pitt is really hot."

Diana wondered briefly if she would be lucky enough to live, and if she did live, if she would be lucky enough do see Batman's face, and if she did see Batman's face, if she would be lucky enough to see he looked kind of like David Hasselhoff.

Young David Hasselhoff.

But she was probably out of luck – after all, he looked a lot like Superman when he was in disguise. Or out of disguise. She really didn't know which was the disguise: Batman or Clark Kent.

"Anyway," Ivy said, each word thumping like an acorn falling from a dying oak tree, "all the villains around here have started their own Fight Club—but they call it 'Villain Club'—but they won't let women join."

"Those sexist bastards!" Diana cried.

"Well, they are villains, so it isn't surprising they are sexist." Ivy pursed her two tulip lips and briefly contemplated giving Diana an evil plant serum so that the heroine would join Ivy's gang of evil girls. (It was an evil plant serum because it would turn Diana evil, and because the idea of turning a nice heroine evil was evil – not because the plant itself was evil. No, the serum was derived from a very gentlemanly plant, actually.) "But anyway, I've decided to follow in the footsteps of the Fight Club in my own way, but instead of creating soap from fat stolen from the trash of a plastic surgery clinic, I've been stealing fingernails from the local beauty salons."

"You are going to make soap from fingernails?" Diana asked.

"Well, no, not exactly," Ivy hedged. "I kind of planned on building a nuclear bomb that kills all human life while leaving plant life alive out of them."

Over Ivy's shoulder, Diana could see Batman slowly wake. He was pissed. She could see the stone set in his eyes even as she felt a thorn twist in her side.

I'll wait for you, she tried to communicate with her eyes, letting him know that he could make the first move to free them at any time.

He began moving his hand toward his utility belt, and Diana knew that through a sleight of hand and maybe a twist of fate he'd have a tool out and himself unlocked before she could say, "Great Hera."

On a bed of nails Ivy made him wait, and he waited without Diana (since she was tied up somewhere else, of course).

"So why did you kidnap us, then?" Diana said, trying to keep Ivy from noticing Batman's roving hand.

"Because I want Batman to fight in the Villain's Fight club. He'll kick all of their villain asses, and that'll show them they shouldn't kick out a woman just because she's a woman," Ivy said in a grassy voice. "Then, after Batman's done, I'll blow them up with my fingernail bomb."

"Why kidnap me?" Diana asked.

Ivy waved her hand like a sheaf of wheat blowing in the breeze. "Oh, you were just with him, so I had to take you. I plan on killing you in just a second."

Batman's hand froze as he registered Ivy's words. Diana couldn't die – he couldn't live without her.

Well, he couldn't live with her either, he thought. There were too many complications.

So he couldn't live with or without her.

"Ah, but you give yourself away, Batman!" Ivy suddenly turned like a rose turns to the sun. "I hear your movements like an ear of corn hears—"

Diana suddenly managed to whip her head forward quickly; her tiara flew from her forehead and hit Poison Ivy below the ear—Ivy fell like a sequoia.

"Batman, have you found your unlocking tool?" Diana wondered urgently.

"I still haven't found what I'm looking for," Batman said.

"Hurry," Diana said. "I think I hear voices coming this way – voices that belong to the members of the Villain's Club!"

"Maybe they decided not to be sexist pigs after all," Batman said.

"Oh, joy," Diana said, lamenting that it was that moment the villains had decided to stop being misogynist jerks. If they had only hated women a little longer, maybe she would have had the chance to tell Batman how she felt.

But now, it was too late…the door was opening, and the Villain Club entered the room…