It happened at midnight. Precisely, 12:03, but midnight enough in any such case of horror such as what occurred down there in the greenhouse of the old observatory. The first person to hear the screaming was one Dr. Merrian Beck, who foolishly decided to tempt fate and entered the greenhouse alone. This was against every protocol that Dr. Woodrue and Dr. W had established… and she almost immediately paid for it with her life, as the vines snatched her into the darkness to devour her the moment the elevator doors opened. They did not even have to wait for the doctor to go through the sterilization chamber: they broke right through it and defied its strong, defensible wall, snatching the idiot researcher to her death… Even now, as Lasetta Rilee bawled in the middle of the greenhouse, her plants wildly thrashing about and hissing, she held the dead, heavily poisoned doctor in her arms, crying and wishing the woman would wake up…
It took Woodrue ages to calm the crying woman, sitting down upon the dirt with her and rocking her about in his arms, singing some kind of soft tune that sounded to Anassa Wesker like the Elvis classic, "Heartbreak Hotel." As he did this, the vines about him thrashed not at him, but rather seemed to pull away from him, dragging themselves through the very dirt. They dared not touch him. When at last Lasetta's cries had come to a halt, Anassa began her journey down to the greenhouse, pushing researchers and guards aside who tried to stand in her way. Woodrue had given strict orders that no one enter the greenhouse… but Anassa was not one for listening.
"Silence," she commanded the nobody guard who held his automatic before her, shaking as he gritted his teeth and have a pleading look.
"Miss Anassa, please-"
SMACK! An uppercut slap and the guard went flying into the wall behind him, hitting it hard and slumping into unconsciousness.
Anassa was in no mood to play around. She had been up all night. First, after having not heard from her assistant Luna following the landing of the private jet at the airport, she had discovered that the airport had been attacked by the Joker… and Luna had seemingly vanished into thin air. The Joker himself was not responding to any contact from the Woodrue or Anassa, and neither of them knew the location of the clown's headquarters… but it did not take a mentally impaired person to estimate the truth of the matter: the Joker had come calling… and Anassa knew why. The great beast, the Leviathan child, it had finally been brought down, driven from the river by the U.S. military and taken out by a barrage of concentrated fire. The damage and death toll had been dismal. Not much of a demonstration.
Anassa had spent hours and hours poring over a map of Gotham City and past records of the Joker's antics, trying to deduce the location of his hideout. The coffee was just not helping her nerves, and now Lasetta had thrown some kind of tantrum, and had killed a researcher… She wanted answers from something, damn it!
No one else tried to stop her from entering the elevator: they all backed away in fear. Good, you bastards. Woodrue, however, was waiting at the bottom for her, standing in the middle of the ruined sterilization chamber.
"SHE'S CALM, NOW," he told her, shaking his mossy head. "YOU'D BEST BE HEADING BACK UP, MISS BLACKWOOD."
"In time, Dr. Woodrue," she replied curtly, stepping around him. She was still in her nightgown and her hair was a terrible mess… This was just not the night for any of this. "But I have to see to my charge."
"SHE WILL SPEAK WHEN SHE IS READY TO SPEAK!" Woodrue hissed, stretching out his arm for Anassa… Anassa's instincts activated at once, and she spun around in a blur, catching the extending branch in hand. Her eyes narrowed.
"Plants hate fire," she warned him quietly. "I'd hate to burn you."
Woodrue's glowing eyes widened, and he pulled the arm back at once, staring incredulously at her. Anassa nodded, satisfied with putting the man… no, the creature, in his place, and turned away from him, her goal Lasetta Rilee. Woodrue followed her, however, keeping his distance…observing…
When Lasetta saw Anassa, she immediately leapt up and ran for her. Anassa, not expecting this, jumped into the air, high, high above their heads, her heart racing. She landed upon the branch of a tall oak, and stared down at the desperate Lasetta.
"Lasetta, dear, what's happened!?" she called down. Lasetta's arms hung limply at her side, and the young woman stared up at Lasetta with wide, tearful eyes. Woodrue came to stand beside her… perhaps Anassa could get her to talk…
"Ansa… Ansa, I had a bad dream!" she called up to Anassa, her lips quivering as tears fell down her face. She sniffled loudly and rubbed her swelling eyes. As she did, flowers sprung to life from her very cheeks, activated from the contact of the tears… but Lasetta did not seem to notice them, and they fell from her body quickly enough. Anassa frowned.
"A bad dream," Anassa called back down, frowning deeper. Woodrue stood with crossed arms, still observing quietly… "What kind of a bad dream?
Lasetta hung her head. She was shaking really badly. Something about this bad dream had very much startled her… Anassa sighed. She would have to do it. Lasetta needed it. She went flying down quickly, landing before Anassa some feet away. The haziness around the woman was frightening. It could expand at any moment…
"Lasetta," Anassa said quietly. "Lasetta, staying right where you are… and staying calm, tell me and Daddy about what you saw."
Lasetta fell onto her bottom, holding her legs closely and staring with tears at the ground. "There were lots of people around me. They were happy. Happy people. Smiling people."
"Yes, love."
"They were happy to see me. They said my name, and smiled big. They went to hug me."
"Go on." Anassa was calming her heart rate. Lasetta was fine. She was going to be fine. Woodrue, still, looked empty in his intense observation.
"They came to hug me. A boy. Two grownups. The boy ran at me. Wanted to hug me. He was smiling big… and when he hugged me, he fell down. He was got sick. He got still…" She wiped her green tears away. "The grownups fell down too. They got sick too…"
Woodrue shifted uncomfortably… and Anassa noticed. Frowning, she said softly, "I'm sorry to hear that, dear."
"They wouldn't wake up," Lasetta whispered. "They stayed down… they died. I know they died… The boy first, then the grownups… The boy was big. Oliverado…" The last thing she said came out in a sudden burst of… was it realization? "Oliverado. 'Oliverado, Jaquez… it's her!' The grownup lady knew who I was…"
Woodrue not only fidgeted uncomfortably this time. He swayed on the spot. Ivy and thorns became disturbed all over his body. He took steps back, away from Lasetta. Anassa was curious as to the reason for the man's sudden discomfort. Lasetta was still shaking… but still calm, as Anassa had instructed.
"She… she said my name. Lasetta… She knew my name. And then all sorts of people were falling sick, falling down… People in pretty dresses and suits… The grownups and… and the boy, Oliverado… they held each other… and died!" Lasetta grabbed her head. "I was so scared. But the boy and me were friends. I had another dream. Me and the boy were playing in the grass, wrestling with each other... we weren't wearing cloths… I don't know why we were wrestling without any clothes…"
Now something was beyond doubt wrong with Woodrue. He was shaking. He was looking at Lasetta with a new look, one that Anassa had never seen him give her: it was fear. Above, the researchers listening in on the bugs were whispering to each other… frantically. Anassa seemed to be the only one in the dark. She did not like that. She hated being in the dark.
"It was just a bad dream," she told Lasetta, stepping away. "Lasetta, I want you in bed now. Go to sleep and I want to see you in the morning, alright dear-"
"NO!" Woodrue had found his voice at last. Anassa jumped as the suddenness of it. "WE DO NOT HAVE ANY TIME. I WANT HER TAKEN TO THE TESTING LAB NOW."
"What exactly would that accomplish, might I ask?" Anassa demanded, tugging on the man's arm. It was a mistake. Poisonous tendrils and thorns snaked about and darted at her arm. She barely pulled away in time. Woodrue, however, felt the need to comply, and drug her to the side, Lasetta watching in earnest… but Woodrue pulled her far, far away from the young woman, barking a simple order at her not to follow. Woodrue did not stop until he reached the ruins of the sterilization chamber, and then he turned to face Anassa.
"DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME! THIS IS SERIOUS, MISS BLACKWOOD."
"If it's serious, it's my job to appropriately respond," Anassa fumed. "So inform me. Educate me."
'LISTEN TO ME… THAT WAS NO DREAM SHE HAD." He shook with fear. He shook with anxiety, and watched Lasetta in the distance, who was tracing doodles into the dirt, just as Anassa had instructed her to do during times of stress. It pacified the girl and kept her head clear… and the spores and deadly plants away. "NO. THIS WAS SOMETHING FAR WORSE. FAR, FAR WORSE… THESE… THESE ARE MEMORIES, MISS BLACKWOOD. MEMORIES… OF THE DAY I HAD HER KILL HER FAMILY… HER FIANCE, OLIVERADO… HER SERVANTS AT RILEE MANOR… SHE'S HAVING MEMORIES OF TIME SPENT WITH OLIVERADO. SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO MARRY THE MAN. THIS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM."
Anassa listened but painfully did she truly hear the words. She thought that Woodrue had just said that Lasetta was being revisited by old memories… memories of murdering her family, her servants… her lover… She went pale, inside and out, a hard lump in her throat. Suddenly, she was very much aware of how not beautiful this tree man really was… But she nodded curtly, waiting for him to continue.
"LSITEN TO ME! IF LASETTA IS REMEMBERING THINGS, THEN WE ARE IN SERIOUS DANGER. HER EXTENSIVE TRANSFORMATION, THE PROCESSES… THEY WIPED HER CLEAN. THEY… THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO WIPE HER CLEAN! BUT THEY DID NOT. THEY FAILED! SHE IS REMEMBERING THINGS SHE SHOULD HAVE LOST FOREVER! AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THESE THINGS COME BACK TO HER, FULLY?"
Anassa knew. She knew exactly what would happen.
"NOTHING… NOTHING WILL BE ABLE TO CONTAIN HER! MISS BLACKWOOD… SHE'LL REMEMBER WHAT WAS DONE TO HER. SHE'LL REMEMBER BEING TAKEN AWAY… SHE'LL REMEMBER BEING KILLED, AND REVIVED IN TRANSFORMATION… SHE'LL REMEMBER EVERYTHING THAT WAS DONE TO HER! AND WITH HER POWER… THERE WILL BE RETRIBUTION OF AN APOCALYPTIC SCALE! SHE IS NOT READY YET! SHE CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO REMEMBER!
"I understand." Was that her voice, this strange, croaky sound that emitted from her body? Was she that overwhelmed by all of the information she was suddenly receiving?
"WE MUST STOP HER, NOW, BEFORE SHE PROGRESSES ANY FURTHER. IF HER MEMORIES ARE STILL STORED INSIDE… WE HAVE TO REMOVE THEM. WE HAVE TO BLOCK THEM. I EXPECT YOU TO DO JUST THAT."
"Sir!" One of the doctors above, on the walkway, was calling down to Woodrue anxiously. "Sir, we can initiate Protocol Black on the subject!"
"NO!" Woodrue roared. "WE CANNOT AFFORD TO TERMINATE LASETTA AT THIS POINT, DOCTOR BRANSOM! SHE'S TOO POWERFUL, TOO PREPARED! IT WOULD BE THROWING AWAY OUR TRIUMPHANT CARD! NO… NO… MISS BLACKWOOD, WE MUST REMOVE HER MEMORIES NOW!"
It was…just too much.
Within the next hour, Woodrue had brought Lasetta into that terrible place, that testing lab… and more and more Anassa's heart yearned to carry out the plan that she and Albert had agreed upon. But she was still not ready to get near enough to Lasetta to steal her away… especially when she considered that she would have to face Woodrue and her small army. They she could take, if not burdened by a girl that she could never touch… Damn this all…
Lasetta was fastened to her usual table, looking scared beneath the powerful glass dome that contained her and her deadly cloud. This time she would not be receiving the Aterium treatments, and she seemed to know. She fingered the glass, silently begging Anassa to get her out with that look of hers… and Anassa touched the glass back, if only to give the girl some illusion of comfort. Then the anesthetic was applied… and her body rejected it. Woodrue's doctors were murmuring to themselves. That… had never happened before. Woodrue worked the controls at the terminal, typing in a series of commands, mixing the right chemicals and strengthening the dosages… He applied the anesthetic again.
She continued to finger at the glass, unaffected by the anesthetic.
"What is this?" the man named Doctor Bransom asked Woodrue in a panicked voice. "What are we seeing here!?"
Woodrue pushed the man away hard, typing a long series of commands, his arms moving lightning quick and frantically of their own regard… and still, for the third time, Lasetta showed no indication that she would go to sleep. Woodrue was shaking at this point.
"I'M GOING TO HAVE TO DO THIS WITHOUT THE DAMN STUFF."
"No!" Anassa cried, marching towards him. "The pain will be too much for her to bear! What do you think will happen then!?"
"I HAVE TO DO THIS!" Woodrue screamed. "OR WE WILL PERISH, BLACKWOOD! I WILL NOT LOSE LASETTA AS MY WEAPON! I WILL NOT LOSE HER, DO YOU HEAR ME!?"
"She's too dangerous!" Bransom exclaimed, steadying himself. "You have to exterminate her now-" These were the man's last words. Tired of the man's insistence, Woodrue reached out with his long, elastic branch of an arm, and suddenly the woody tendrils were wrapped around the man's head. Compression was the act. His muffled screams were drowned out at once. From the back of the man's head there exploded a single black, thick thorn, almost like a small spear… and when Woodrue released him, the corpse that fell back had a great hole where the face had been. Anassa paled even deeper. What had that been about?
But she could not concern herself with that. The drill!
"Woodrue!" Anassa cried, her mind desperately pounding at the question of whether or not she could do something. This, after all, was not her operation. She was a mercenary researcher, as low and meaningless as Doctor Bransom had been.
The needles struck. Lasetta screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed
And screamed.
God, that scream…
But the screaming soon became drowned out by something far worse. Back in the grand chamber, something was happening. Something loud, and explosive. Before any of them could run to check, guards and researchers were running into the room.
"Containment breach!" one of the women in security armor shouted, her automatic shaking in her hands. "The plants in the greenhouse containment are going crazy!"
"What's bloody happened!?" Anassa screamed over the raging noise of the distant booms and Lasetta's screaming. But the noise was just too much. The guard was drowned out at once.
Lasetta had been bound by the metallic binding cuffs within. The needles were positioned accordingly and were pumping Anassa's chemicals into Lasetta's brain. These chemicals had been slightly altered from the pacification suppressers Anassa used during Aterium sessions. Lasetta's temporal lobes would be saturated and the process would-
REJECTION.
It was funny how a simple word in bright red lettering on a computer screen could make everyone in the room freeze. Rejection… her body had rejected the suppressers. God, she rejected it! Woodrue had become statue still. Anassa swore loudly and decided to move, pushing Woodrue's archivists aside as she reached the terminal beside Woodrue and punched the Abort switch on the machine. The needles retracted at once from Lasetta, who continued to sob hysterically inside of her capsule, banging her fists against the glass as the bindings that restrained her fell loose… and the booming sounds from the main chamber intensified at this.
Still, Woodrue stood silent and still. Anassa could not make out the man's face… but she could feel the chill in the air.
Suddenly it was looking like a good time to contact Albert and get the hell out of this place.