It had been a dismal, gloomy day when Helena Bradley had first met the beguiling botanist known to the world as Poison Ivy. Helena had come to Arkham Asylum, dressed in a more trendy versus professional garb, in a flirty, very light gray knee-length chiffon skirt, a lilac, unstructured tweed mini-blazer, and re-issued Manolo Blahnik Mary Janes. Her only ornament was a simple strand of light gray pearls around her slender, ivory throat.
As Helena had walked down the corridors of Arkham, her heels clicking and clacking on the tiles, she heard a few catcalls from the inmates, some of them particularly obscene and threatening. The young woman ignored these. The things being shouted out didn't scare her in the least; they just annoyed her more than anything else. After a few moments she was lead to a thick glass door with metal framing. Helena turned to the guard questioningly, and he just shrugged.
"She likes the green house," he said.
"Not really surprised," Helena answered. "Do I go on in?"
"Yeah. One of the other guards'll bring her in, and we'll both be here outside."
"Great. All right then..." Helena pushed the door open and stepped into a room filled with exotic flowers and plants. It must have been a pleasant, sun-dappled room on bright days, though today's weather made Helena feel as though she had stepped into a tempestuous rainforest. Helena explored the small room for a moment, taking in the scent of hibiscus, jasmine, and gardenia before taking a seat on a wrought iron chair. The chair had plush, soft cushions upon it, and Helena settled back, pouring herself a cup of steaming white tea. After adding seven cubes of sugar, she took a sip and savored it, and then pulled out a thick file, one which she had taken from her father's library. In it was detailed almost everything that the public, as well as the GCPD, new about Dr. Pamela Isley.
Doctor Pamela Isley had been a brilliant botanist turned deranged death- trap by not one, but two males whom she had known consecutively in her life. The first had been a man named Marc LeGrand, who had been a professor of Pamela's. The second had been the brilliant, but creepy, scientist that Pamela had been an intern for, Doctor Jason Woodrue, also known in some circles as the Floronic Man. The former man had romanced her, and had misguided her into stealing dangerous Egyptian herbs from a museum. These herbs were an untraceable poison, and he fed some of it to Pamela after she had stolen it for him, so that all links to his stealing the herbs were gone. Things didn't work out as they should have, though, and Pamela did not die. Rather, the poisoned herbs fused together with her own blood cells, making her immune to poisons and toxins. Jason Woodrue, on the other hand, started using an unsuspecting Pamela as a guinea pig in his own experiments. He drugged Pamela, and injected her with plant toxins, causing her to become something beyond human. This took the transformation that had started with Marc LeGrand a few steps further, giving her the ability to produce poisons and toxins, and giving her a poisonous kiss as well. The discovery of what she had become had fueled her with rage, and unsure of which man to blame, Pamela killed them both with her poisoned kiss, and from there onwards, had taken up the name Poison Ivy.
She was about to continue on to another section of Poison Ivy's file when the door opened and a musky, sensual scent filled the air. Helena stood up and turned around, coming face to face with a green skinned goddess. Poison Ivy, in her late forties at best now, slinked into the room, and some of the vines that covered the walls and the ground came to life, slithering towards her and wrapping themselves around her sensuous body. She was dressed in a simple white cotton sheath, which made her sparkling green skin stand out in a fire of emerald glory. Her jade eyes bore right into Helena's aquamarine ones, and she gave the young woman a knowing, seductive, and slightly chilling smile. Helena, for her part, felt chilled to the bone. Poison Ivy exuded evil as though she were an orange blossom and evil was its sweet fragrance, cloying the air around her. Helena shuddered inwardly, but she kept her cool. Her mother had been the fearless Catwoman. Surely Helena could handle a dangerous sociopath in controlled environs.
"Dr. Pamela Isley, I'm Dr. Helena Bradley," Helena said politely, taking a seat.
Poison Ivy followed suit as some of the vines that were twirled around her came undone and started to form a chaise-lounge type seating for her. Ivy draped herself down; laying in a slightly seductive, though imposing, pose. "Please call me Ivy. Poison Ivy." Her voice poured out of her mouth like poisoned rose syrup, thick and sweet but horribly lethal. "So, Dr. Bradley, what is it you came here to discuss?"
"It's not a discussion as much as it is the road to yours becoming a decent citizen again, Dr. Isley. I'm your new psychiatrist."
"Oh, I see. I have to say, you are the first decent one I've had in a long time." Ivy said coyly.
"Who was the last one?"
"Dr. Harleen Quinzel."
"Harley Quinn."
"You're familiar with her?" Ivy asked, looking pleased.
Helena nodded. She had read about Harley's history with her mother, and some of it was worse than Selina's history with Ivy. No one knew where Harley had disappeared off to, though she had been presumed dead. Helena briefly wondered if Harley was working as an outside agent for Poison Ivy. She'd have to start searching for her too, then. "I've heard of her. You don't move to Gotham not knowing about all the psycho-loonies running around here at night."
"Of course not. And I'm sure that the Catwoman's daughter would definitely know who the bad guys were and were not."
Helena looked up from the notes she was taking, alarmed. Her mouth opened in a little "o" of surprise, and Poison Ivy chuckled to herself.
"You didn't take me for an idiot, did you, Helena? I'm sure you've read all about me in those notes of yours," Ivy said, pointing to the thick file that lay on a table between the two women.
Helena picked up the notes defensively and put them into a large tote bag. She turned back to Ivy who chuckled once more and said, "You have grown into a beautiful young woman, though. The resemblance you bear towards your mother is striking, and frightening. Selina must have been proud to have given birth to such a stunner. Funny, though, I see nothing of Slam Bradley in you. I wonder why."
Helena stared daggers into Ivy's mirthful eyes, suddenly wishing she could grab a shovel and pummel the bitch with it. She didn't quite appreciate Ivy saying anything about her family, and she was sure that Ivy knew it.
"That's a cruel look you're giving me, Helena. I think I'm hurt. When you were younger, you were so fond of me. I wonder what changed."
"You knew me when I was younger..."
"Of course I did. Selina and I might not have been friends but that doesn't mean I didn't pay the occasional...social call."
"What sort of social calls are we talking about here, Pamela?"
"Oh, you know, the usual. Crime. Murder. Extortion. All that good stuff."
"Nothing of which I'm sure my mother took part in."
Poison Ivy scoffed. "Not after her return from the dead, no. She played little miss goody two-shoes, trying to protect the lower east side and all that good stuff. She was very much the Mrs. Batman. It was pathetic."
"You much preferred it when she and Harley were rampaging through Gotham trying to kill Commissioner Gordon."
"She was much more fun then, yes. I didn't deal with her then, but the stories Harley told me later on. Catwoman had a very dark side to her. One which I'm sure you must have acquired, especially since you took a position within Arkham. I'm sure you know of the many breakouts that have happened here? One administered by the Joker, Bane, Holiday. Tell me, Helena. Are you playing a huntress, trying to catch your mother's killer?"
"It's not my job to do. That's why we have the GCPD, Pamela."
"So, no vigilantism? No Catgirl or Hellcat for you?"
"I don't think that it's really any of your business. As far as you and I are concerned, its I who will be asking the questions, and you who will be supplying the answers."
"It will call out to you, you know. Just the way it called out to your mother. It's a cry for blood, Helena. A cry for vengeance. Blood cries for blood in more ways than you think. I assure you...you will accept on the mantle of the Cat."
"I don't like cats, Dr. Isley."
"That has nothing to do with this." Poison Ivy answered, her voice firm, cocky, and extrenmely confidant. There were undertones of menace in the voice, though. Undertones which chilled Helena to the bone. "It's an innate part of you. I never got to take my revenge on your mother, but rest assured, little girl, once you give in to it's call, I will do everything in my power to kill you, to take every last drop of your blood." Ivy's face had a murderous expression upon it, and the vines around her slithered and snaked out, coming close to Helena and caressing her. "Eye for an eye, little kitty, eye for an eye."
Goosebumps crawled along Helena's flesh, and she shivered. She could feel her pulse racing and her heard throbbing. Ivy wouldn't kill her here, would she? She couldn't be that cruel, that evil. And it would definitely give Ivy a front seat spot on death row. Wouldn't it?
Helena jumped out of her seat and moved back to the door, trying to calm her breathing. Ivy was insane. Completely and totally insane. No, Helena decided, Ivy wasn't insane. She was completely in her right mind. Ivy wasn't evil through insanity, she had a darkness that surpassed anything that Helena had thought she would ever come across. Ivy was evil incarnate, through and through.
Poison Ivy chuckled at Helena's fear. It was a murderous laugh, a hardened cruel laugh brought about by a life that had felt betrayal, a person who had spent years in an asylum, a person who had run a vicious crime spree with another woman who was truly out of her mind.
Ivy's laughter was the last thing that Helena heard as she grabbed her files and her bags, and ran out the door and down the corridor, praying that her next meeting with Ivy wouldn't be as venomous and disconcerting.
As Helena had walked down the corridors of Arkham, her heels clicking and clacking on the tiles, she heard a few catcalls from the inmates, some of them particularly obscene and threatening. The young woman ignored these. The things being shouted out didn't scare her in the least; they just annoyed her more than anything else. After a few moments she was lead to a thick glass door with metal framing. Helena turned to the guard questioningly, and he just shrugged.
"She likes the green house," he said.
"Not really surprised," Helena answered. "Do I go on in?"
"Yeah. One of the other guards'll bring her in, and we'll both be here outside."
"Great. All right then..." Helena pushed the door open and stepped into a room filled with exotic flowers and plants. It must have been a pleasant, sun-dappled room on bright days, though today's weather made Helena feel as though she had stepped into a tempestuous rainforest. Helena explored the small room for a moment, taking in the scent of hibiscus, jasmine, and gardenia before taking a seat on a wrought iron chair. The chair had plush, soft cushions upon it, and Helena settled back, pouring herself a cup of steaming white tea. After adding seven cubes of sugar, she took a sip and savored it, and then pulled out a thick file, one which she had taken from her father's library. In it was detailed almost everything that the public, as well as the GCPD, new about Dr. Pamela Isley.
Doctor Pamela Isley had been a brilliant botanist turned deranged death- trap by not one, but two males whom she had known consecutively in her life. The first had been a man named Marc LeGrand, who had been a professor of Pamela's. The second had been the brilliant, but creepy, scientist that Pamela had been an intern for, Doctor Jason Woodrue, also known in some circles as the Floronic Man. The former man had romanced her, and had misguided her into stealing dangerous Egyptian herbs from a museum. These herbs were an untraceable poison, and he fed some of it to Pamela after she had stolen it for him, so that all links to his stealing the herbs were gone. Things didn't work out as they should have, though, and Pamela did not die. Rather, the poisoned herbs fused together with her own blood cells, making her immune to poisons and toxins. Jason Woodrue, on the other hand, started using an unsuspecting Pamela as a guinea pig in his own experiments. He drugged Pamela, and injected her with plant toxins, causing her to become something beyond human. This took the transformation that had started with Marc LeGrand a few steps further, giving her the ability to produce poisons and toxins, and giving her a poisonous kiss as well. The discovery of what she had become had fueled her with rage, and unsure of which man to blame, Pamela killed them both with her poisoned kiss, and from there onwards, had taken up the name Poison Ivy.
She was about to continue on to another section of Poison Ivy's file when the door opened and a musky, sensual scent filled the air. Helena stood up and turned around, coming face to face with a green skinned goddess. Poison Ivy, in her late forties at best now, slinked into the room, and some of the vines that covered the walls and the ground came to life, slithering towards her and wrapping themselves around her sensuous body. She was dressed in a simple white cotton sheath, which made her sparkling green skin stand out in a fire of emerald glory. Her jade eyes bore right into Helena's aquamarine ones, and she gave the young woman a knowing, seductive, and slightly chilling smile. Helena, for her part, felt chilled to the bone. Poison Ivy exuded evil as though she were an orange blossom and evil was its sweet fragrance, cloying the air around her. Helena shuddered inwardly, but she kept her cool. Her mother had been the fearless Catwoman. Surely Helena could handle a dangerous sociopath in controlled environs.
"Dr. Pamela Isley, I'm Dr. Helena Bradley," Helena said politely, taking a seat.
Poison Ivy followed suit as some of the vines that were twirled around her came undone and started to form a chaise-lounge type seating for her. Ivy draped herself down; laying in a slightly seductive, though imposing, pose. "Please call me Ivy. Poison Ivy." Her voice poured out of her mouth like poisoned rose syrup, thick and sweet but horribly lethal. "So, Dr. Bradley, what is it you came here to discuss?"
"It's not a discussion as much as it is the road to yours becoming a decent citizen again, Dr. Isley. I'm your new psychiatrist."
"Oh, I see. I have to say, you are the first decent one I've had in a long time." Ivy said coyly.
"Who was the last one?"
"Dr. Harleen Quinzel."
"Harley Quinn."
"You're familiar with her?" Ivy asked, looking pleased.
Helena nodded. She had read about Harley's history with her mother, and some of it was worse than Selina's history with Ivy. No one knew where Harley had disappeared off to, though she had been presumed dead. Helena briefly wondered if Harley was working as an outside agent for Poison Ivy. She'd have to start searching for her too, then. "I've heard of her. You don't move to Gotham not knowing about all the psycho-loonies running around here at night."
"Of course not. And I'm sure that the Catwoman's daughter would definitely know who the bad guys were and were not."
Helena looked up from the notes she was taking, alarmed. Her mouth opened in a little "o" of surprise, and Poison Ivy chuckled to herself.
"You didn't take me for an idiot, did you, Helena? I'm sure you've read all about me in those notes of yours," Ivy said, pointing to the thick file that lay on a table between the two women.
Helena picked up the notes defensively and put them into a large tote bag. She turned back to Ivy who chuckled once more and said, "You have grown into a beautiful young woman, though. The resemblance you bear towards your mother is striking, and frightening. Selina must have been proud to have given birth to such a stunner. Funny, though, I see nothing of Slam Bradley in you. I wonder why."
Helena stared daggers into Ivy's mirthful eyes, suddenly wishing she could grab a shovel and pummel the bitch with it. She didn't quite appreciate Ivy saying anything about her family, and she was sure that Ivy knew it.
"That's a cruel look you're giving me, Helena. I think I'm hurt. When you were younger, you were so fond of me. I wonder what changed."
"You knew me when I was younger..."
"Of course I did. Selina and I might not have been friends but that doesn't mean I didn't pay the occasional...social call."
"What sort of social calls are we talking about here, Pamela?"
"Oh, you know, the usual. Crime. Murder. Extortion. All that good stuff."
"Nothing of which I'm sure my mother took part in."
Poison Ivy scoffed. "Not after her return from the dead, no. She played little miss goody two-shoes, trying to protect the lower east side and all that good stuff. She was very much the Mrs. Batman. It was pathetic."
"You much preferred it when she and Harley were rampaging through Gotham trying to kill Commissioner Gordon."
"She was much more fun then, yes. I didn't deal with her then, but the stories Harley told me later on. Catwoman had a very dark side to her. One which I'm sure you must have acquired, especially since you took a position within Arkham. I'm sure you know of the many breakouts that have happened here? One administered by the Joker, Bane, Holiday. Tell me, Helena. Are you playing a huntress, trying to catch your mother's killer?"
"It's not my job to do. That's why we have the GCPD, Pamela."
"So, no vigilantism? No Catgirl or Hellcat for you?"
"I don't think that it's really any of your business. As far as you and I are concerned, its I who will be asking the questions, and you who will be supplying the answers."
"It will call out to you, you know. Just the way it called out to your mother. It's a cry for blood, Helena. A cry for vengeance. Blood cries for blood in more ways than you think. I assure you...you will accept on the mantle of the Cat."
"I don't like cats, Dr. Isley."
"That has nothing to do with this." Poison Ivy answered, her voice firm, cocky, and extrenmely confidant. There were undertones of menace in the voice, though. Undertones which chilled Helena to the bone. "It's an innate part of you. I never got to take my revenge on your mother, but rest assured, little girl, once you give in to it's call, I will do everything in my power to kill you, to take every last drop of your blood." Ivy's face had a murderous expression upon it, and the vines around her slithered and snaked out, coming close to Helena and caressing her. "Eye for an eye, little kitty, eye for an eye."
Goosebumps crawled along Helena's flesh, and she shivered. She could feel her pulse racing and her heard throbbing. Ivy wouldn't kill her here, would she? She couldn't be that cruel, that evil. And it would definitely give Ivy a front seat spot on death row. Wouldn't it?
Helena jumped out of her seat and moved back to the door, trying to calm her breathing. Ivy was insane. Completely and totally insane. No, Helena decided, Ivy wasn't insane. She was completely in her right mind. Ivy wasn't evil through insanity, she had a darkness that surpassed anything that Helena had thought she would ever come across. Ivy was evil incarnate, through and through.
Poison Ivy chuckled at Helena's fear. It was a murderous laugh, a hardened cruel laugh brought about by a life that had felt betrayal, a person who had spent years in an asylum, a person who had run a vicious crime spree with another woman who was truly out of her mind.
Ivy's laughter was the last thing that Helena heard as she grabbed her files and her bags, and ran out the door and down the corridor, praying that her next meeting with Ivy wouldn't be as venomous and disconcerting.