"How?" she demanded, sliding to the floor, staring up at the man with shaking awe.
Jason Woodrue sighed. It was a sad sigh. "I've always been special," he muttered, "but it took a special woman to help me be that way. I told you… Pampadora taught me so much. She gave me so many gifts."
"That poison is beyond lethal!" Pamela screamed, throwing the spray bottle aside and wishing he had died… to save herself from the humiliation. At this point, she was still in her crazed mode, and was still forgetting what she felt for the man, and how important he was to her and the future. So it was that she began to feel glad that he had not died… even though she wished he had died… it was all so jumbled.
"Beyond lethal, and would kill the fittest man." His eyes twinkled at her. He sounded and looked pleased with her. "You're a fine craftswoman of weapons that will change the world… but turn those weapons against those who would die from them, Ivy."
"Please, tell me where she is…" Pamela begged, almost on the verge of tears. Woodrue decided to take pity upon her.
"As I told you, she's been moved to much safer, more sanitary quarters. And there she'll be cared for. She needs to be fixed, Ivy. If I am correct, you were trying to help her, were you not? Fix her? Help her to see your ways?" His lip curved. He did not even wait for an answer. "I've been there, done that. It's a dark road, Ivy dearest, and one that requires experience. You'll never help people see your way through torture and starvation."
"Never doubt the power," she whispered, clawing at the floor, "of the mind… or rather the lack of power."
Woodrue nodded. "Yes, I know. As I said, I've been there. Too many times before. And I tell you this: you must treat them like humans. Torture, pain, all of it is insignificant. Do so for your pleasure, but not for purpose. Not for a mission. A mission requires levelheadedness and compassion."
Pamela stared at him incredulously, and turned away quickly, fuming to herself. Only a small portion of her wanted to demand aloud the question of What do you know?, but the rational side of her, the scientist in her, said instead He's correct. Faith in an early hypothesis destroys the purpose of hypothesis. Method is meant to be evolved, and if a liability, disposed of.
"Compassion…"
"Like you have for your plants," he explained, gesturing around the room at her ivy, vines, flowers and fly-traps. "You care for them, you show them subtle love because of how tender they are. You work with them to ensure that their fragileness becomes non-existent. Thus, Ivy, you realize the truth: if you want to break Alissa Jagner… you must do so with subtlety, and refinement." He smiled now, very kindly. "Allow me to demonstrate." He offered her his hand. "I will take you to see her. I want you to see her, actually. Your friend is going through wonderful changes, Ivy… and I promise you that by the end of this day, she will have had her eyes opened. The world will be real and alive to her for the first time in the appropriate way."
"What's the appropriate way?" Pamela insisted, standing up quickly and sending little leaves scattering from her hair. She stepped forward to close the gap between them, and Woodrue did not hold her at bay. She would be under his influence as long as she was close… He brushed her hair with a gentle hand, giving her a sympathetic smile.
"Understanding. Gentleness." He picked a little green leaf from her crimson strands and held it before her carefully between two fingers. "Even the dead need comfort, Ivy," he said. He pressed the little leaf to his lips. "Even the meek are powerful when given the correct love. Look at this leaf, Pamela… broken away from its main body. Shambled… but not forgotten, and not any less loved. The things I could do… that you could do… that we both could do to this little leaf…"
"What?" she whispered, eyes glistening with joyful tears. "What could we do?"
Woodrue gently placed the leaf upon her left breast, and admired it there for a small moment… "Can you imagine becoming a true Mother of Eden?"
The question seemed so simplistic, and yet so abyssal. It was deep, deep into the world of her logic and reasoning. What did he mean?
"I am," she answered desperately, pointing a shaking finger at the basement door. "I've… I've served her…"
"Yes, yes, you've been her bounty hunter. You've removed humans from the planet, in small doses, to prove your unwavering loyalty to the Earth, removing human problems one-after-another." He stroked her cheek. "But the human problem will not be solved through murder alone, Ivy. Murder can bring us to grand lengths, to amazing heights, but it is a slow process, and a lonely, unfulfilling one if you do not realize what else must be done."
"Like what?"
"Like becoming more," he stressed, and he fell to one knee, gazing up at her as if he meant to worship her. She felt her body quake, inside and out. His adoration, the look he gave her… this was real. This was definite. "Like truly ascending for the very first time in your life, Poison Ivy. Becoming Poison Ivy in more than just name… becoming Nature itself."
Pamela nodded vigorously, hugging his head against her leg… wanting him again. "You truly understand me," she whispered, loving him. Truly loving him. "You truly understand me…"
"I understand you," Woodrue whispered, kissing her leg. "And I want to help you, Ivy… I want to change you…"
Her heart leapt… and a cold, cold feeling overcome her as she heard his words. Change her?
"Change me…?" she voiced aloud. Woodrue nodded. His kiss moved lower… lower and far more personal than the mere leg. This gave her a much needed boost of energy, pacifying any doubts and replacing them with the blissful feeling of vulnerability: a seed to suggestion. Her heart arced backward, and she bit her lip… but his words still came true to her.
"Into trueness," he whispered. His hands convinced her body. She was on her back at once, spread across the floor of the room… and he stared down at her with an intense promise, secretly brewing such fine ideas within: ideas of Ascension and usage. But he did not make any more moves on her, not yet… His words were far more important than the intimate, sexual advances he could make, and she must hear them. Her mind was clouded by the natural pheromones he produced… but he must have her hear his words. He, fortunately, could control the very pheromones he created… He lowered the field of influence around her, listening carefully to her thumping, drumming heart… It was music inside, and he felt every vibration. He had her. "I will make you into something new, Ivy. I will make you into something that will change the world instantly."
"W-w-what!?" she insisted, dazed by the man… dizzy by the man…
He brushed her hair apart, gazing into her deep, green eyes. "I will make you into Mother Nature herself," he said. "I will make you into her very incarnation, Ivy. Give you control over the earth. Give you the mental and spiritual connections to manipulate the planet… to control the plants around you, and give you the means to create new life at the whisk of a finger!" His voice shook as he recounted his dream to her. The same dream that they had both shared for so long. New Eden… Viridi Deus… one day, I will be able to call myself Viridi Deus… and Pamela… you will be my reason. "I will make you a being capable of real power. I will help you shed away your humanity. You have no need for it. Humanity is a blemish upon an otherwise perfect body. And you must be the perfect being."
She collapsed into some odd, spiritual realm of bliss and dreamliness. His words were reason. His words were logic. They were destiny. Not fate. Destiny!
"How?" she whispered, pulling him in now. She wanted to kiss the man… she wanted to kiss the man and never stop kissing him. She wanted her lips to be her purpose. She wanted her affection to be her drive. And he allowed it. It was easier that way.
"Simple," he breathed. "So, so simple… There is work to do... but the rewards are eternal."
Pamela remembered her days spent with Jason Woodrue as she looked upon the table before her. Various potted plants of the Prometheus strain lay before her, each one labelled at a different cycle of life. It seemed the more it aged, the smaller it became. This anomaly was incredible. It was living, and it was as if one of her own kind. On the other side of the table, Albert Wesker was injecting via syringe a pale blue formula into the oldest plant, a withering, light yellow herb. She was reminded of potted Basil as she examined each. She began to work.
Her work was existence. It was life now. When Albert had returned from his absence, he had immediately set her to work in the botanical labs of the facility (of which Pamela was yet to discover the location of). He provided her with stores of chemicals and plant extracts, requesting her assistance in finding a suitable application that would keep the Prometheus strain from degrading too quickly in the human body. Adaption, he told her, was everything, and the goal was to combat the human suppressants. This, naturally, went against everything she believed in: her goal, after all, was to remove humans, not aid them with miracle recoveries… and yet if she did not comply, Wesker had already made it clear, upon his return, that there were other uses in which Pamela could be put… and none of these would involve her being conscious. She knew how dangerous the man was, and dared not defy him so easily. She would have to aid him in perfecting the Prometheus strain… but the ultimate reward of being able to kill Jason Woodrue would make it all worth the while. Wesker had promised her that the man's research would go to her, and that she would be allowed to continue and perfect Woodrue's work, preparing her great attack on the human population…
And, naturally, he told her about… her. And being told about her had been everything that was needed to encourage Pamela's unwavering cooperation. As she worked diligently, combining different extracts and combinations of mutagens and plant cells, splashing about the chemicals and working endlessly to combat the degrading effects of Prometheus, her mind stayed glued to the thought of the goddess…
The goddess, in truth. A true incarnation of Mother Earth, or so Wesker claimed. Her name: Lasetta Rilee. And this Lasetta was a living incubator of Eden, distributing spores and growing new life continuously… it was everything that Woodrue had promised her, Ivy… he had promised her that this was to be her mantle, her power.
He had lied, naturally. He had left to her die… he had betrayed her and tried to kill her… and then he had gone off and taken another woman, had given that woman the gift that should have been given to her…
And so she worked. And worked. And worked. And worked. She never stopped working, and stuck to Wesker endlessly. She demanded answers from him, wishing to know more about Lasetta and the woman's amazing power. So Wesker told her many things. No man or woman could approach the goddess and live… the air around her was very, very poisonous… A touch, a footstep and flowers and other forms of vegetation would spring to life, amplified by her emotional state… And her mind was rapidly growing from a child-like entity to a comprehensible girl of understanding. All of these things Wesker told her, insisting that in time, Pamela Isley would be required to meet with this living goddess. Lasetta, he told her, was in need of someone like her. One of her own kind. For that was indeed the case. She, Pamela Isley, and this Lasetta Rilee, they were both their own kind of person. Floric Children, Wesker called them both. And apparently, Jason Woodrue was among their ranks too…
So it was that as Pamela worked on the Prometheus, she kept these things in mind. Mother Earth's victory was becoming clearer and clearer each day. Her kind, the Florics, were growing in number, and Lasetta Rilee… she was the ultimate one. The true leader, the true queen… Pamela registered this. Had to. Lasetta was the answer, was Woodrue's victory. What she, Pamela, would have become was now in the hands of another. Pamela resigned herself to fate…to destiny: Lasetta Rilee would be the birth of New Eden, and Pamela would do everything in her power to help Lasetta grow and carry out the great task that had been appointed to her. And Woodrue… well, he had no future at all. He would die. Simply.
How she craved to meet Lasetta. How she yearned to understand and know the goddess better. In these times, Pamela was growing up, too, from her own child-like state. She was coming to terms with the reality that had been set forth: she was no longer to be the goddess of New Eden. Simply a goddess. A demigoddess. Someone to serve Lasetta and help her become Queen…
And if that is the desire of Mother Earth, then so be it.
Wesker promised Pamela that this meeting would come soon. Very soon. Within a matter of days, which excelled her heart. She longed to at last escape this place. She had been given no record of time, no account of the passage of events. She knew not how long she had been in this facility. Had it been weeks? Months? It felt like either and everything, to something and nothing, a combination of displacement. However long she had been prisoner here, it was time to get fresh air. She needed the sunlight. She had been weakened of late without it. Without the light, she felt she would die. Wesker had set things up to where she had artificial UV in her quarters, but true sunlight was a necessity. At last, she would be free.
And Bruce? Why, he had simply vanished. Ever since the confrontation at the Neptune tank, Wayne had simply disappeared. She wondered just what Wesker had in mind with the Batman… and what the P30 injections meant for the vigilante. Batman would be a formidable foe against anyone in a drugged, controlled state: more so than ever before, his aggression beautifully amplified by mind-altering chemicals. She had to admit, though, it hurt her. She resented Bruce Wayne with a passion. He was murderer and a tool for the public to cascade mutated proposals upon a helpless world… but Batman…
She loved Batman. Truly loved him, as she had loved Woodrue… as she had loved Archibald Helan on the day of his murder… as she had loved Otto Rock on the day of his… and Kevin… and Officer Patterson… Love was an action. Love was a drive. And for her, Batman was to be loved. It was a rule. He was an example of everything she believed in: action and results. As Batman, not Bruce Wayne, she loved him because he did not just hold onto his ideals: he acted upon them. He did things with them. He was not like the empty environmentalists who waved their signs about and did nothing more than shout. He took the initiative and became his own solution, and what a solution it was. In that way, she supposed, she also loved Bruce Wayne… but only if he could forever hide behind the face of the man of action.
Any man who was willing to carry out action instead of word could win her affection. And thus they earned their ultimate reward: a sacred kiss of her sacred lips. She had learned to love her lips ever since Woodrue had failed to destroy her… ever since her rebirth. It was not killing that drove her, but rather action of her own. People died because of her love, because of her infatuation with bringing about solution and order to a planet under peril. And one day, these precious, poisonous lips of hers would cross Bruce Wayne's… would cross Batman… and her love would steal away his life, reminding him of why she had loved him: because of action. Because of willingness.
Naturally he had to die. As would Albert Wesker. Oh yes…
The man was annoying. Although he himself went about with his own action, he looked at her as an experiment, not a being in any magnitude. Those fierce red eyes of him saw her as an inferior, as a creature of temporary means. With Lasetta Rilee, she was second best… and second bests did not hold forever purposes.
He strode about, Wesker, with confidence in his stride. Pamela knew the signs of connection. He was with someone, she knew, and this someone made changes in his life that he both needed and craved. She wondered if someday she would meet whoever it was that was so special to her. With her enhanced senses, she had, on the first day of his return, caught the scent of someone not him. Someone who had left their own chemical trace. It had saturated his skin and had left impressions. Her senses were only just so, of course. She could only barely pick up on the subtle signals. She was more receptive to plant signals, truly, and perhaps, more than anything, this is what had given her an advantage: the detection of chlorophyll. Whoever Wesker was attached to, the person had traces of chlorophyll and had left their mark. A botanist, perhaps? Someone who spent long hours in a garden…?
Not Lasetta, naturally. He has already told me of how dangerous that would be. No… this is something else… something far, far else…
Why did it make her so angry? She felt bitterness when she acknowledged it. Was it because he had kidnapped her, and was allowed to go about his own life, with his own loves, whereas she had to remain in the dark of this metal world…?
Sometimes she had come very, very close to seizing one of the researchers around the facility. She wanted to know if she could still entice them, still bring them to their knees. After all, the need for artificial pheromone doses had long since passed. Her body now produced them naturally, another effect of Woodrue's failed murder attempt… but she was afraid of what Wesker would do to her if she tried it. She wanted control, damn it! She wanted control in this fucking mausoleum! She needed it, required it…
Damn him! Damn you Wesker! I'll seize my moment… just you wait…
But it could not be too soon, she knew. When Wesker took her to meet this Lasetta Rilee, she must behave. She needed Wesker's resources and access to the incarnation. Furthermore, she needed access to Woodrue.
And this was another thing that had been bothering her. Woodrue…
When Wesker brought her to where Lasetta was being held, he had assured her that Woodrue would be in the dark. Woodrue desired Pamela for his research, among other things… and Wesker could not allow her to fall into the madman's hands. Wesker had said that he would set things up to where Woodrue was absent during the time of her visit. He would draw Woodrue away, somehow… and that she must trust him when the time came. So she would. So she must. For Eden's sake… and for the sake of the goddess Lasetta.
By the end of another week, Pamela had successfully bonded an agent of Kallosian sardioc, a remedial flower from northern Egypt, to the younger variations of Prometheus. She had suggested acquiring the flower because of its history in medicinal cases of bacterial infection during the old wars… and naturally, her hybridization had been the key to something greater. Their first test subject using the application demonstrated as such.
A man of forty-three, his body was plagued with disease, a flesh-eating bacteria that was slowly stripping away the man's life in painful, foul smelling periods of time… Wesker's staff had wheeled the man, strapped tightly to a gurney, into the testing lab, and Pamela had administered the shot. Within a matter of minutes, Prometheus had taken effect, and the man's body began to repair itself, the dead, rotting flesh stripped away as new tissue grew before their very eyes. The Prometheus had been a success.
The data recorded, the man properly disposed of with a gunshot to the temple, Wesker had at last given her the praise she deserved, shaking her hand firmly.
"You do have a future, don't you?" he had said. He had said that to her. Naturally, she had agreed, with a curt nod, a small smirk, and a departure without another word. Pamela was slowly and surely leaving her mark on Albert Wesker. Fixing the Prometheus strain had been simple. Fixing the problem with how Wesker perceived her… the solutions would intertwine, like vines, but only time could truly hold bearing. But Wesker was not fully satisfied with the aging crone. More bodies were needed. More test subjects.
"Bring them all," she had suggested heartily, dancing about the lab in a slow and steady way, relishing her self-made glory. "There are billions of them out there, just waiting to be snatched. Been creative and show some variety."
And so he had. Test subject after test subject was wheeled into the lab, several by the day, men, women and children of all ages, sizes and medical issues. Each one found relief in Pamela's perfected Prometheus… and each one was disposed of accordingly. Test subjects were only good for recording data. They needn't return to the outside world and speak to the public of the places they had been taken to… of the men and women who had abducted them…
It certainly did bring Pamela back… back to those wonderful times…
It had been wonderful times. First, Alissa… and then the real work.
Woodrue uncovered Pamela's eyes. He had been shielding them with his hands, and now she saw the adorable little place in which he had blindly steered her. The room was an elegant lab of its own right, metallic walls and floor shining with polished brilliance. All over were holes, emitting a fine smelling sterilization gas. Tables were set up with glorious arrays of chemicals and beakers alight with merry, bubbling dance. Charts displaying the growth rates of plants given special chemicals dotted the walls. Television monitors showed lab results from recent studies… and there…
There she was…
Pamela had a word for it: beautiful. Well, what other word could there be. Alissa saw strapped to a long, metal gurney, which by default looked very cold against her bare skin… and yet she did not seem to mind. She did not seem to feel. She did not seem to be. Strapped down with thick black bindings, Pamela studied closely the tubes connected from the large pumping machine to her head, studied the pale blue liquid within the tubes and heard the bubbling mirth of the stuff… She was blindfolded by some kind of metal covering over her eyes, and Pamela saw more, tinier tubes pumping some other kind of tannish substance into her stomach. It was the device of a madman…
"Do tell," she asked quietly. She was looking at a series of monitors to the side that seemed to be accounting for the woman's heart rate and other vital recordings. Woodrue smiled, stepping forward and pointing at the reader machine.
"Notice the pumping status there. Ravin strain. Ravin strain, an artificial supplement of my own making. To date, there have been three human test subjects, before Alissa: each one displayed the proper signs after the initial injections."
"Proper signs?" Pamela scanned Alissa's body. She saw nothing.
"Loyalty, Ivy."
She turned to him, blinking. "Loyalty?"
Woodrue nodded. "I told you… the process of resetting one's mind needs tender care and a compassionate edge. Subtlety, Ivy. Your methods of isolation and starvation, the mental abuse you put her through… and physical… It was the wrong way. This, before you, is the only true way to guarantee one's forced respect."
"But what are the guarantees?" Pamela persisted. "What are you looking for?"
"Submission, of course. You'll see for yourself, soon enough. This process, this Ravin strain, it's been crucial in my research. I want to show you my research and demonstrate to you what it is capable of, Ivy."
Oh? Does he now? She smiled. Woodrue's secrets. His beautiful secrets. He led her to another part of the room. There were strange machines lined along the wall. Capsules, really, cylindrical and glassy. Inside three of these things were the strangest of sights, and as she stood before them, beholding their forms and their color, she felt an odd sense of physical escape. She was fleeing, far, far away, gazing into…evolution? Horror? The justification for such things was entirely vague… and yet here they were, and they were beautiful. Beautiful and terrifying.
Humanoids… but that was not flesh covering their bodies. It was moss. It was organic and green, definitely moss-like and… familiar. Faces? Vaguely. Narrow slits where eyes should have been, and wide, gaping mouths that stretched far, far down… Webbed hands and bent knees, these creatures rubbed their ghastly green palms against the glass. From them came ominous moaning sounds. Desperate moaning sounds.
But when Woodrue approached these creatures, they stopped their moaning at once. He placed his hand against the glass of one of their capsules… and they matched his touch equally. He gazed lovingly at them… and the sound that emitted from them now was… longing and passionate! Pamela's knees were quaking. Her heart was racing.
"Children," he told her as explanation, without looking at her, without taking his gaze off of his creation. He knew her question before she said it. "All children, so small and so meek. They need nourishment… and in time they will thrive. Once human… now Ascended." He smiled around at her now, beaming with wet eyes. "Living plant matter given new meaning. Bound to me, by a hive mind… a beautiful, beautiful hive mind."
H-hive mind?" Pamela gasped, her voice quaking audibly. She pointed a shaking hand at the creatures… and finally collapsed onto her knees. "That's a… that's a…" She could not say what it was… but her soul knew it. It was the answer. What she saw before her was the answer. Living, breathing, trueness… True examples of Eden's children!
"They were perfected," he whispered back to her, nodding fiercely. "As she will." He pointed at Alissa. "But we need something to further our work, Ivy. I need your help. Your mind… and your body."
"I'll do anything," she gasped, clutching at her beating heart, "if you'll make me into one…"
"Oh, I intend to," he said softly. "But you have to be greater than them. These creatures don't have their minds. You're superior to them, Ivy. You're meant to be their Queen."
"Yes!" Pamela hissed, crawling forward and staring at the creatures with worshipable reverence. She was going to worship them. Right here, right now… These creatures were the Ascension! They were the solution, the answer, the end result! Her dream made reality… by this wondrous, wondrous man… "What do you need, Jason?" she whispered, touching the glass… and the creature swiped violently back at her. Not that she cared. She was so much lesser than it. So much lesser. Trapped in her human body, she knew of her inferiority, and demanded its ill contempt for her while trapped in the mammalian rags she called flesh!
"I need," Jason whispered back, "test subjects!"
And Pamela smiled. Test subjects? Is that all, Jason?