Supergirl blew through the double doors of the control room, nearly knocking them off their hinges. "Barbara!"
"Stop entering like that!" The redhead shot over her shoulder, an unusual franticness to her voice.
Kara flew to the back of Barbara's chair, standing over her. "Do something!"
"All I can do is effect the environment! I can make the sun set and rise, I can change the weather conditions, or I can open the arena. That's it." Barbara again tried and failed to free the camera that Ivy was holding in place with a root.
"Then open the arena." Supergirl urged.
"And let Poison Ivy loose when she's this pissed? No way, Kara." Oracle shook her head vehemently. "She'll tear the city apart. I've seen it."
"Well you have to do something!" Kara told her, forcing herself to watch as Batman grabbed Catwoman around the neck. "Turn the cameras off, at least."
Barbara again tried to hack her own system. "I can't. The feed is hardwired. To shut it down I'd have to shut down the whole arena."
"Then drop the temperature." Supergirl suggested. "Plants don't like the cold."
/
Catwoman writhed around on the ground, landing blows as often as she could, but her skin was beginning to pale from blood loss and Ivy could tell it would be over soon.
Ivy paced back and forth, her roots still twisting in the air around her, ensuring that Batman wouldn't dare attack her, not when taking into account the sharp ends of the snake-like wooden lengths and Joker's gruesome demise. Ivy never broke eye contact with Catwoman. Although she knew she should be reveling in the pain this was causing Batman, little things were beginning to come back to her…Selina taking she and Harley in, the arguments yes, but the comradery always. Selina helping to clear her name of those murders in the park, rescuing her from that pit, helping to defeat Ivy's one true equal, and then here, mourning Harley with her, laying the jester to rest in her grave, sharing her stories, helping to defeat Cheetah…Selina truly was her friend, and yes, her sister. Perhaps Batman wasn't the only one Ivy was hurting…She watched the anguish on Selina's face as she fought and clawed at the man on top of her, only able to grunt in pain because Ivy kept the woman's mouth clamped shut.
Pamela began to let go, to relinquish her grip on Catwoman's mind, but then Batman spoke up once more.
"Think about Harley, Pamela! She wouldn't want this!" He may as well have thrown a Molotov cocktail at a bonfire.
The roots grew thicker- stronger, and rose higher out of the ground, whipping about violently in the air. Ivy's eyes blazed and her hair floated as if lifted on a wind that existed only for her. "HARLEY BETRAYED ME AND HARLEY IS GONE! IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT HARLEY WANTED; SHE'S NOT HERE!" A vine wrapped around Batman's waist and lifted him upwards. He reached quickly for a batarang, but found that his utility belt was gone, and as he looked at the ground below him, he saw it dangling from Catwoman's palm.
"Remember when I was able to exist without Harley?" Ivy asked, her rhetorical question sounding almost genuine. "When no one cared what that FUCKING IMBICILE did? WELL I DO! SHE MADE ME WEAK! She sapped every last morsel of energy from me, and I asked for one thing in return, JUST ONE! Her loyalty, that's it! Simple concept, right? Well EVIDENTLY NOT!" The root slammed Batman into the ground and drew him back up, another joining to tighten around his legs. "I am POISON IVY! I AM NO ONE'S SIDEKICK. I AM AT NO ONE'S BECKON CALL. I AM NO ONE'S DOORMAT. THIS IS MY DOMAIN!" This time, she slammed Batman down so hard the ground shook. "What did he have that I didn't? Was I not sick enough? Not TWISTED enough?!" Slam. "Was it that I didn't have a COCK?" Slam. "That I did not DESECRATE her?" Slam.
Catwoman was able to pull herself over onto her stomach and began to crawl through the grass towards Ivy. Ivy wasn't truly paying attention, she was seeing red. Didn't care much about Batman either, at this point. She was furious at a woman who would never hear her. Batman being tangled up in her roots was just an unfortunate coincidence for him.
"My mother told me that no one would love me if I were unattractive." Ivy continued, slamming Batman into the earth once more. "But look at me!" Slam. "I am the most beautiful woman on the PLANET but Harley STILL," slam, "WOULDN'T," slam, "LOVE ME!" She threw Batman's unconscious form against a tree. "WHY WAS I NEVER ENOUGH?!"
"Red…" Catwoman croaked as she grabbed hold of Ivy's leg. "Red, stop."
"W—" Pamela faltered, the words catching in her throat as she looked down at the broken Catwoman at her feet. "Why are we here?" Her voice cracked, coming out tired and gravelly.
"R…Red," Catwoman raised a shaky arm and pointed at Batman, who was slumped over against the tree trunk by Harley's grave.
Ivy took a shaky breath, feeling herself slowly come down, her heartrate evening. As she lost some of the adrenaline, she began to notice the cold creeping in. She held her hand out for a snowflake as Selina moaned with pain once more. Ivy understood what she wanted. She picked her up in her arms the same way she'd done Harley and walked her over to the tree, reverently laying the woman's head down on Batman's lap.
Ivy just stood there, watching them, knowing that Batman probably wasn't finished because he just had a way of cheating his way out of death, but wanting to give Selina some degree of serenity in her final moments. Because ultimately, no matter how many times the two chose another, they'd always choose each other in the end. Ivy didn't check Batman's pulse, nor Selina's. She could see the life slowly draining out of her with the blood. Although the now freezing temperatures were aiding in the coagulation, it was clear that the bleeding wouldn't stop. It was far too late.
The redhead glanced over her shoulder, seeing that she'd maintained the capture of the flying camera. She beckoned the root over and it held the thing above her, pointing the lens right at the two broken bodies. Slowly, Ivy leaned forward and grabbed Batman by the ears of his cowl, pulling it back off his head to reveal the battered face of Bruce Wayne.
She turned to the camera, her voice quieter than before and her chest deflated. "Your heroes are not gods. They're just men in masks. Beware of false prophets."