Pamela was only vaguely aware of the transportation of her body. When she awoke from unconsciousness the first time, she saw only the darkening sky and felt the bumpity bumps of someone carrying her… She slipped out quickly enough.

The second time she awoke, she was lying on leather seating, and the bumpity bumps were from potholes in the road that struck whatever car she had been placed into…

The third and final time was much calmer. Her eyes slowly brought back the waking world to her. She recognized at once the electronic beeps and chemical hisses that regularly accompanied the lab of Jason Woodrue. This time, she found, she was the one in the bed, IV's hooked into her limbs, pumping anesthetics and other medicines of Woodrue's making into her system. Aliisa was sitting nearby, still dressed in that strange, plantey attire of hers… She noticed Pamela coming around, and pushed her chair forward, her eyes filled with concern.

"Ivy," she whispered. Her hand was on Pamela's at once. Pamela groaned. Her head throbbed, a mental anguish rather than a physical one.

"Alissa…" she managed to breathe out. She managed to blink slowly, her lids heavy. Alissa squeezed her hand, and smiled sadly.

"You're gonna be fine," she told Pamela comfortingly. "I swear it, Ivy. You're going to be just fine."

"Where…where did you come from?" Pamela strained to move, but she was still far too weak. She turned, slowly, to her side, and stared up at Alissa in awe. "You came from the sky…"

Alissa nodded. "I did. For you, Ivy. I'm so sorry I was not there earlier than I ended up being. If only I could have stopped him…"

"How…did you find…us?" Her head spun. She felt sick. But she needed to know. "You…you found us…you jumped out of a tree…"

Alissa nodded again. "Woodrue awoke me from my slumber, Ivy. He awoke me, he said, earlier than he had intended… He said that you had not responded to his calls, that you had not reported in. And then, he told me that the plants had told him that you were being held hostage in the woods."

Pamela blinked. What? Frowning, and struggling for more strength, she managed, "The plants told him…?"

"Yes. He said the plants had told him that a man had taken you into the woods and was hurting you. He ordered me to come and find you. I understood everything he asked of me. He… he told me I was ready enough."

"Ready enough?"

"To move out. To deliver action. He said the process was complete, that I was in a fit state again. Naturally, you're all I could think about when I awoke. You are my mistress, Ivy. My empress. I live to serve you." She bowed her head, to a very shocked and awed Pamela.

"M-mistress?"

"Yes. Woodrue told me that my purpose was to serve you. That I must serve you, and Ivy, I intend to do just that!"

"Listen to yours-self," Pamela struggled weakly. "What d-did he do t-t-to you…?"

Alissa beamed. "Perfected me, he said… I feel stronger than ever. I feel faster and greater than ever before. I feel alive and…perfect." She shrugged. "I am better than a human now, Ivy! That's what he said!"

That's what he said, eh?

"He woke me from the most wonderful sleep," Alissa reminisced. "He woke me up and gave me my mission. To find you. To save you. But… I found you too late, and I saved you too late." She was gripping the blankets of Pamela's bed fiercely. "By the time Woodrue told me where you were, that bastard had already… had already…" She slammed a fist against the bedside rail. "For crying out loud! What the hell was the bastard doing!? WHAT THE HELL DID HE THINK HE WAS DOING!?"

"Calm yourself." Woodrue had appeared at the doorway, carrying with him a tray and three black bottles, along with a syringe. He was dressed in a filthy white smock, stained green and black in several spots. His hair was crazed, and he was very pale. He walked over to the pair of them and set the tray down beside the bed, gazing at Pamela with firm eyes. "You're awake. I was hoping it would not take so long after the medicine kicked in. Head?"

"Better," Pamela returned weakly, so happy to see Jason Woodrue again. She reached out a shaking hand for him, and he took it in his heavily gloved one.

"Alissa has demonstrated the success of my assimilation procedures," he told her briskly, nodding at Alissa affectionately. "She will keep you safe and tended to as you recover."

"What…did you do to her…?"

"Removed imperfections, and bad dreams. That's all I'll say for now. We can discuss the science of it later, Ivy. For now, I need to give you this." He picked up the syringe from the tray, and stuck it into one of the bottles, filling the thing with black liquid. "A powerful restorative, courtesy of a close friend of mine. He sends you his wishes and regards."

"Who?"

"Never you mind. What matters is that this will help. Hold still."

Fortunately, the anesthetics being pumped into her nullified the feel of the needle, and it passed through her without the slightest indication of pain. She felt a sudden rush of energy course through her, felt tensions breaking apart and energy flowing back. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, flourished by the effects of this black medicine.

"So much better…" She tried to smile, but found this impossible. Memories were flooding back to her now that her strength was returning. She turned over on her side, pulling the covers protectively around her. "Alissa must have told you what he did…"

"In detail," Woodrue replied quietly. "And she has informed me of the young man's demise."

"It went too quickly," Alissa whispered, her eyes closed in anger, her knees pulled up and her chin resting upon them. "He should have died slowly… and far more painfully…"

Pamela loved her.

"Too true. But Ivy, Alissa-"

"Toxica."

"Toxica?" He looked amused. "A name you chose?"

"A name that will define my work," Alissa whispered quietly. "Our work. The work that me and Ivy will do together."

Woodrue nodded. "Fitting. Alright, then. Toxica… Alissa did a very good job of leaving the man mostly intact. I've had him collected."

Pamela spun around, looking up excitedly. "You have him?" she whispered.

"He's quite deceased… but his body is fresh. I've had him placed in stasis. I've already dissected him." He gestured at his stained smock. "The boy was large and filled with fine muscle. With a little effort, he could be a basis for a new experimentation. Transmutation post mortem."

"No!" Pamela cried out, her eyes widening at once. Alissa jumped at her exclamation. "No. Don't do that, not to him!"

"And why should I not? After what he did to you, he deserves nothing less than to-"

"Give him to me," Pamela demanded slowly and firmly. "Give him to me. I want him."

Woodrue frowned. "You…want him?"

"Yes. For my collection…" She bit her lips, not meeting his gaze. "Archie's still frozen…at least what's left of him. I want Donovan too… I was thinking once I got a much more private place, I would build a shrine…" She laid back and gazed at the ceiling lovingly. "Display them… all three, once I get Otto… the men who changed my life." Her expression was fierce. "I have rights to Donovan Ventimago…"

Woodrue's expression was caught somewhere between disgust and amusement. He looked as if he were unsure of how to feel about this exactly. Alissa, however, puffed out and said coldly, "You heard her… give her what she wants."

"Watch your tone, child," Woodrue warned, giving her a dark look. Alissa was on her feet at once, standing up to the man and concentrating furiously upon him.

"Give-her-what-she-wants." The air went cold. Pamela stared at Alissa in amazement. This was the same fiery woman she had known before… but that fire had been amplified. Woodrue smiled.

"Alright, Pamela: you may have him." He turned around. "I will return with another dosage in two hours, just to make sure the stuff works."

"Aren't you going to stay with me?" Pamela demanded to know. "After what just-"

"I am not a coddler," Woodrue said shortly. "And I most certainly not a sympathizer. You should have been more careful."

Pamela and Alissa stared at the back of the man venomously. "What!?" Alissa demanded.

Woodrue did not look around, but merely kept standing with his back to them. "You were reckless, Ivy. You were rash and childish. You abandoned your mission, your priorities, and allowed yourself to be put in a very vulnerable, almost permanent position… and do you know what?" He looked around at her. "Had I not been searching for you through the correct kind of means, you may never have been discovered."

"How did you find me!?" asked Pamela coldly. "Alissa said-"

"I have a connection," he cut in. "A powerful connection with powerful friends on the other end of that connection."

"Spies? I was followed? Is that what Alissa meant by saying the plants told you? Is that what they are called?"

Woodrue smirked. "Yes. Spies is as good as any word… and they certainly are called plants, because that is the basic name for what they are." He turned back to face them now. "The plants speak with me, and I with them. We are connected. A family."

"How!?" Pamela felt her heart expanding considerably. "How can you do that?"

"Time. Time and commitment. Why? Do you desire this gift?"

"That's the stupidest thing I have ever been asked."

"You're obsessed with plants, Pamela—you do not share my love for them."

Pamela hissed, lurching out at the empty air with a clawed hand. "Don't call me that! And my love for Mother Earth's gifts goes beyond anything you could imagine, Jason!"

Woodrue shook his head. "Obsession and love are far beyond measure. You have proven this tonight with your recklessness. You endangered the mission and the preservation of Eden. Without you, my research gets delayed! How then will we reach our end goals!?" He turned fully on her and marched up to the bed. Alissa shifted on instinct, standing up, but Woodrue held a hand before her face, shaking his head. "Your recklessness is a danger to Mother Earth and her gifts, Pamela Isley. I will call you nothing less until you realize this. You fail to understand this—from the moment we entwined on our grand quest, you submitted yourself to my evaluations and my disciplines." His hand shot out, and suddenly Pamela was being yanked forward by the shirt, their noses colliding. Alissa made an odd sort of noise, something like a growl, but Woodrue ignored her. "Make no mistake, Pamela… I will not hesitate to punish you should you act out of order again. I will see to it that you are punished, I swear to it! You will understand this now. Confirm it!" Flecks of saliva hit her cheeks. He was so…vicious. And she liked it. She liked the way he handled her, even now… his anger was a bliss. But she feigned this and instead nodded intently, forcing her eyes to stay locked on with his. He released her, and turned around, marching across the chamber haughtily. Alissa stood in front of her now, shielding Pamela.

Before he exited, Woodrue called back, as he went around the door, "I'll expect more subjects by tomorrow evening."

And he was gone. Just like that. Alissa was fuming, still staring at the stop where he had vanished, her eyes savage.

"I would very much like to hurt him," she whispered, rubbing her gloved hands together. "I want to see him in pain…"

Pamela forced herself into a sitting position, crimson and boiling. "In due time… I'm not prepared to let his attitude go, either… but we can't hurt him. Not yet. He's essential, Alissa, for the restoration of the Eden that Mother has given me in my dreams." She climbed out of the bed, yanking out the IV's as she went, feeling the full energy of the medicine within her. "He wants subjects? I'll give him plenty. Will you come with me?"

"Lead and I'll follow," Alissa promised quietly. "Where are we going?"

"A half and half," Pamela said coldly… and her fist went down at once. The medicine jugs attached to the IV's were smashed at once. She grinned with animalistic joy. "I've been too sterile, too easygoing and subtle. And right now, I'm angry. I'm very, very angry!"

"What's a half and half, then?"

Pamela reared back and slammed her foot into a nearby table. Empty beakers shattered all over the floor, toppling over and crashing. Her breathing was intensifying. "A half in half," she said, "is a simple matter of action, Alissa. Namely, a killing spree… and a collection. I'm a serial killer, Alissa, do you forget? One of Gotham's most notorious?" She leaned against the table, hands gripping the edges tightly, her breath shaky. "I want to maim right now. Kill. Poison. I don't care what it is, Alissa, but I want to take this out on innocent bastards and see people in pain! I want to punish people who have nothing to do with this! I want to make myself worthy to burn in the fictional pits of Hell that those fuckers preach about constantly!" She banged her fists up and down, up and down, sending glass shards everywhere, cutting herself (but not noticing) and screaming out in a terrible rage.

Alissa quivered and awed in terrible unison at her friend… and felt only compassion. Nodding, she came up to Pamela from behind and placed a reassuring hand upon Pamela's quivering shoulder, hearing the soft crying coming from the other side of those shoulders. She did not need to see Pamela's tears to know the kind of mental anguish that was being endured there…

"I'll follow you… I promise. You have the right idea. Sometimes the world needs drastic examples. And there are violators in our garden that must be dealt with."

Pamela loved her again. Alissa understood the anguish, understood the anger. She squeezed her friend's hand firmly, nodding too.

"Nice outfit," she chuckled, wiping away the tears. "Where can I get one like it?"

"From Sir Asshole… but I don't think he'll give you one right now. And once he sees the mess you've made in here, he probably won't give you one for a while…" But she was smiling widely. "Doesn't mean we can't get you something better than your birthday suit, here."

Pamela chuckled darkly. "I like the idea of my birthday suit, Alissa. Pretty soon, I won't ever have to worry about the limitations of human law again. Let's find something suitable. We're going out."

And out they went. Worshipers crowded Pamela and Alissa at the circular booth that had been situated in the less noisy, nearly smokeless back parlor of the Fisherman's Highrise. Most of them, brutes and druggies who belonged to the Penguin, giggled madly and acted like fools under the heavy amounts of pheromones that Pamela bathed them in. She was not discriminatory, either, in the homicidal desires that swelled within her, needing to be implemented in order to calm her from the way Woodrue had treated her!

And so she killed without bias. She kissed the man on her left, then the one on the right in quick succession, lingering on each for a few seconds, allowing the deadly poison in her lipstick to make home. They both died horribly enough, sitting there in that leather booth beside her, but she did not relent. She reached forward and forcibly grabbed another from across the table, killing him with the same passion and mercilessness she fought hard to embody.

Even as their comrades dropped like flies around the table, the infatuated, hypnotized slaves did not seem to comprehend the situation, and came to her by her command, until the table itself had become a small mountain of corpses, Pamela seemingly ignoring their presence as she absorbed herself in the blasting rock music from the front of the room, beyond the doors of this private parlor, where she had brought her victims to kill in privacy and peace. But…it still seemed to be in vain.

Killing these men brought her absolutely zero satisfaction. There was no sexual stimulation from the act, no joy, no bliss of any accord. Whatever she had been looking for in these murders, she found it not. She did not even know what she was looking for, or why she had even thought to come here and commit to these thugs. Did she hate men like the Penguin, who was foul, beyond disgusting and a constant threat to nature with his small military complexes and weapons manufacturing? Did she just hate people in general? She supposed, but she could find no genuine reason to fulfill her these terrible deeds with such intensity.

So she burned the fucking place down. She kept applying the lipstick again and again until all ten of the slaves she had brought back here lay dead in their mass grave, coldly stepping away, their personal treasures feeling her pockets: credit cards, earrings, cellular phones and cash… and when she had stepped far enough away, the bottle went to join the dead, smashing onto the ground and exploding in a fiery frenzy of orangey red promise. Molotovs had very, very quickly become an interest of Alissa Jagner, who threw an extra one into the backstage of the concert hall. Pamela and Alissa quietly exited out the back door, leaving the club (and its inhabitants) to burn. Who knew how many would escape? Mesmerized bouncers guarded the doors with guns (courtesy of the two merry murderesses), and Pamela's orders had been to fire upon anyone attempting to flee… and then, once there was no one left, she had made sure to give them the most important command: "Shoot yourself in the head. Then, I will come to you, and I will belong to you forever. Do this… and I am yours."

It was funny, the things her weapons could do. Control over a machine gun was nothing compared to the power one could have over the very mind itself.

Three drunken, homeless humans in the back alley.

"Kill," Pamela commanded.

Alissa was on the dazed, slumbering men at once, leaping upon the first with an excited squeal, her knife flashing in the dim light of the street lamp. Such a sharp knife, and so much blood to accompany it. She slashed the first man in the throat, and immediately leapt to the second, across the way, sinking the blade up through the man's chin. The third was startled awake by the commotion, but Alissa giggled madly, and she actually cartwheeled towards the hopeless drunk, catching his neck between her chins and twisting in the air. He fell into a crumpled mess, his old body useless against her youthful energy, and she was upon him in an instant, slashing and slashing, stabbing and stabbing…

It was beautiful, to be sure. As Pamela watched Alissa at work, at play, she felt a certain poetic grace rise within her chest and sweep her away into fantasy lands of gain and prosperity. It made her think of many things, such as the future and the possibilities that one's body was merely a temporary prison, awaiting the release of their spirit into an endless void of power.

The two stole away into the night, hand in hand, skipping like children, leaving the bloodied, mutilated bodies to accompany the burning inferno that had become the Penguin's east side club. At length, Pamela and Alissa found a taxi. Alissa got into the seat behind the driver, and with a silent nod from Pamela, slit the woman's throat before she could even ask about their destination. She grasped at the deep gash, blood pouring out of her wound in heavy amounts, and Alissa helped Pamela pull the frail little thing into the backseat, Alissa taking the driver's place at once. Pamela pushed the woman's corpse far against the other window, watching out her own as Alissa drove away into the night.

"Where to?"

Pamela thought about that, staring at her reflection in the well-polished mirror. Alissa had given her a wonderful look for their rowdy outing. Pamela's lips were black and shining (the Nyrox poison naturally applied carefully to the rubber coating), thick green shadowing applied to her eyelids, her hair braided into two long, twisty tails. Her green satin gloves fingered the window as she truly, truly studied herself: tight, dark green corset, long, black tights and dark combat boots… and a silly little, forest green dancer's skirt…

In her personal opinion, she looked everything as beautiful and stupid as she could possibly be. More stupid… but sometimes more beautiful. She truly had never had much of a fashion sense, and now, she was not even sure Alissa did. Of course, Alissa had been an athlete, in her old life. They were both learning. She supposed she liked the way she looked, for now. In fact, in necessary narcissism, she quite fell in love with her reflection, and knew others would too. Pheromones were magic.

"Let's see… Ah, here we are." A man was sitting on a lone street bench, a suitcase sitting near his leg. Alissa pulled onto the side of the road, and Pamela stepped out. The man was at least thirty, only slightly thinning out, and when he saw Pamela, he blushed and looked away at once… but she saddled right up to him and, in a daring move that made her giggle a little on the inside, she actually sat atop him, staring down at his bemused face with a dark sense of satisfaction.

"W-what are you doing?" he stammered, his hair standing on end. Pamela moved her satin hand down his face, ending at his pointy chin, and grinned.

"Whatever the hell I want," she whispered, reaching to her side. She unsheathed the first weapon from her little "holster": a hypodermic needle, filled with Woodrue's special anesthetic, enhanced with extra work from Pamela. She grabbed his chin forcibly, feeling a wicked sense, brief as it was, of the sexual intensity she had suspected she may find on her spree tonight. Something about how terrified he looked up at her brought it out. So there it was, then. That elation. It came from when people showed her fear… perhaps because infatuating them was too easy. "Take one last look, love, around… because you're never going to see the world again."

She stabbed him in the neck with the needle tip, and he jerked wildly, throwing her back and away from him… but the needle was still in him, and she had managed one nice squeeze before she went flying. Even as she hit the ground, she was laughing hysterically, her eyes widening with joy as she watched the man flailing about, his limbs shaking wildly as he lost control of his motor functions in a fruitless attempt to extract the syringe. Pamela was on him at once, still laughing maniacally as she forced him against the bench, injecting him fully. The man crumpled almost immediately, staring forward with wide, open eyes… but he was not dead. Oh no. Paralyzed in perfect suspension, his nerves induced into powerful shock. The things that would be done to him were far worse than death.

Alissa helped load the man into the trunk of the taxi, and they were both gone before the scheduled bus arrived, to find the empty suitcase sitting beside the bench.

It did not end there, either. Ten minutes later, a mesmerized, late-night convenience store worker walked out of the store. One eyewitness report would later confirm that a taxi had pulled up to the drive-in window, and that seconds later, the worker had quickly stumbled out of the store, come around, and hopped into the taxi. The taxi had then sped off into the darkness. The man himself was never seen again.

The rounds went on and on, hour by hour, as the sun slowly came to rise in a flourishing Gotham City. Jason Woodrue would later awaken to find no less than thirty men and women stored away inside of his massive containment unit, all drugged and paralyzed, bound and ready to be perfected. On the glass of the large containment center, a single note in Pamela's neat handwriting: Forgive me now?

Woodrue did.