Alissa never remembered the time that she had awoken from her deep slumber. She had been dreaming. In her dream, she had seen many wondrous things: city sized, steel armored crabs and castle sized, spiraling Nazi officers. They waged war and brought down an infinity of flame upon their lands in war like no other. The screams were life in that dream. However, when she did awake, the euphoria of witnessing the beautiful destruction was almost immediately taken away.

Someone was standing in the doorway, silhouetted in the hall light. At first, she simply opened her eyes and found the man standing there, staring back at her, illuminated in the hall. It was the jingling of his keys that had pulled her out of slumber. The officer was scrawny and nervous looking, African American in color, tall in height. He gripped his keys tightly when he saw her blue eyes glinting back at him.

"M-ma'am?"

And suddenly her memories came back to her. She sat up slowly, and the officer saw her saturated in blood. Now he was pulling out his 9mm, his face twisted into dread. The television was still going. She had fallen asleep like an idiot.

"Ma'am," he repeated slowly, "are you responsible for what's happened here?" His voice shook, silent and fearful. Alissa gazed at the floor, not meeting his eyes. She nodded briefly. Now an edge hit his tone. "Out of the bed and approach me slowly with your hands up." The gun was aimed and ready. Alissa complied silently, standing up and slowly approaching him, her mind reeling with a long list of possibilities. The officer held his ground firmly, anger in his eyes. "What is your name?"

"Bitch."

The officer shook his head. "Okay, stand right there."

She complied again, standing perfectly still, halfway across the room. Oh the blood that stained her body and soul in that moment. To him, she probably looked like she had just crawled out of a bathtub filled with tomato sauce. Thick, bloody sauce.

"Alright, Miss Bitch," the officer attempted calmly, but she could tell that she unnerved him. "I'm going to call this in, alright." He kept his aim on her with one hand, and fumbled with his radio. Rookie mistake, Alissa privately observed, but not one she was going to take advantage of. After all, he still had a gun on her. She could wait. She stood there calmly, waiting patiently for him to bring to radio up to his mouth. "Code five, code five, this is Officer Kant. Suspect discovered in upstairs bedroom, claimed responsibility for the murders. Over."

"Roger that," a female voice responded. "What's your twenty? Over."

"Still in the Alvarez home. Bringing suspect in now. She refuses to identify herself. Blonde female. Looks about twenty something, early twenties. Over."

"Affirmative. Beginning file now. And just off the record, Gordon's raging up a storm ever since you called in. Get her out of and get her down to the GCP. He's on his way now and he might killer her. Over."

"Roger. Over." Officer Kant put his radio down and positioned both hands on the gun. Alissa blinked politely.

"Finished?"

"Yes. Now turn around."

Alissa beamed, and obeyed at once, spreading her limbs wide. "Are you going to frisk me?" she whispered.

"I'll leave that for the boys downtown," he muttered, reaching to his side for handcuffs.

"How many of you are there?" she questioned, watching him closely in a mirror that hung on the wall. Watching and waiting…

"Just me. Neighbors heard the screaming. We've had domestic issues here before so we took our time…"

"Shouldn't have done that," Alissa cooed.

The officer's gun lowered a few inches in his attempt to remove the cuffs from his side. That had been what she was waiting for. She moved fast. She leapt upward, slamming down into a belly flop upon the floor, her legs stretching out beneath him. He jerked, but did not move quickly enough. Her foot kicked upward, and the gun went flying out of his grip. She gave him no time to make another move. Twisting her body around, she wrapped her legs around one of his and upended the man. He slammed onto his back, crying out, and Alissa quickly forced herself upward, throwing herself on top of him.

Her fingers went right for his eyes. She dug deep, and Kant screamed. However, she caught his reflexive counterstrike with one hand, and put a heavy amount of force in retaliation with a head butt. The scrawny officer's head hit the floor, and he became dazed. Alissa struck out with her hands once more, and dug again into his sockets. This time, they went right through, and Kant's scream was agonous as he was blinded. Alissa kicked herself away, rolling backwards and sweeping up his fallen pistol as she went. Standing above the writhing, blinded, bloodied man, she wasted no more time. Sirens were singing in the distance.

She fired two shots into the man's head, stilling him at once, and blew his body a kiss goodbye as she leapt over the corpse and into the hall. Little Patricia still lay where Alissa had finished her off. Down the stairs, past the bodies of the other Alvarezes, and Alissa was speeding out into the night. But waiting for her outside was a large group of people.

Alissa froze. No less than twenty neighbors were assembled on the sidewalk, all of them standing around the flashing police cruiser that Kant had left behind. When they saw the bloody, ragged looking blonde woman before them, several screams were let out, cries of anger and shock. Those eyes… all of their eyes… God, why are they STARING at me like that!? WHY!? Each pair of eyes were the same: they were the eyes of God Himself, staring at her, judging her to Hell for her crimes…

NO! She fought against these fears and fired wildly into the crowd, desperation overtaking her. The screams intensified as the crowd scattered. Two of them dropped, hit by Alissa's untargeted, directionless ammunition. And then she was running, as fast as she could down the street, in the direction of the park. She could see the distant swingset and the teenager that she had murdered there that evening. No one had found those bodies yet!

She sprinted as fast as she could in the direction of the trees where she had disposed of the smokers. She would lose any pursuers in the thickness of the grotto and then exit on the eastern side, making her way for the docks-

FIZZZZZCH! Alissa screamed, sliding to a halt. Something very fast and black went sailing past her head, grazing her hair with perfect accuracy. She was standing in the middle of the road, just on the threshold of the park, and she saw the little black thing impale itself into the grass before her. It was an odd little device. Something like a crescent shaped… wing. It looked just like a wing! And not just any wing, either. A bat wing…

God… no… Her heart stopped. No… no this was not happening! She turned.

Oh for the love of mercy… it was happening. He was standing there in the middle of Barker Road, tall and menacing and dark, shrouded in his armor and cowl. His arm stretched out, a single, gloved index pointing right at her.

"Don't…" He said one word, and she felt ice sink into her body and freeze her solid. He did not speak very loud… but he spoke very fiercely.

So this is what my life has come to… whatever life I had before, anyway… Alissa Jagner, the Toxica herself… standing before…. before…. before the Batman!

Part of her wanted to scream. The majority of her told her to stand her ground… but how could she!? It was him. The real one. The Batman. The Dark Knight. The terror of Gotham's underworld, the scourge of this city's injustice! And not only had she just butchered an entire family, and walked out covered in their blood and the blood of one of Gotham's police officers… she had fired into a crowd of innocent bystanders. He had seen that! He had seen it all! She… was as good as dead.

No… no I can't be…

The Batman approached. She could not even see the creature's eyes. It was funny, seeing him standing here before her. She had vague, vague memories of her past life, of her imperfection days, when she had aspired to be a psychologist. What little she held onto from that old life, she saw the Batman and felt something like familiarity there, and deduced, in a moment, that at one point, she must have idolized the dark one approaching her. Had she had a crush? Had she had a fascination with discovering the interior of his actions? Had he even saved her at some point? Whatever it was, she felt a small dose of… liking… as she looked upon him.

"Don't judge me too harshly," she begged, trying not to tear up. "I'm just confused right now. This has not been a good night for me."

The Batman shook his head. Or, was it more appropriate to say, 'The Batman shook its head'? How could such a human shaped figure… give off such an inhuman, almost animalistic-like aura. "What have you done?" It was not a question. He knew what she had done. Everyone on Barker Road would soon know. It was an observation of her guilt that he voiced aloud, wishing to believe that he could understand the whyness of the action. "Why have you done this?"

"Please," she whispered, her fists clenched, "just… just don't." She backed away, slowly, stepping onto the grass of the park. She was terrified. He was closing the distance between she and him, and still she could not see his eyes in this terrible darkness. She suddenly tripped, stumbling backwards over the black wing that he had thrown at her. Alissa cried out as she fell. The tip of the weapon cut into her leg as she hit the grass. The Batman stopped, only half a foot away, staring down at her with what she now saw were the most intense blue eyes of the only the most intense judgment.

"You're going to Gordon," the Batman promised her quietly. "You're going away."

Alissa closed her eyes, not wanting to see her doom overtake her. She was a helpless child.

"I think not."

A voice suddenly rang out of the darkness. And this voice was even more terrible than that of the Batman's… Alissa's eyes snapped open. The Batman turned his head slowly, his eyes firm and concentrating. The voice that spoke was very gravelly and high, almost wind-like… wispy…

"Show yourself," Batman demanded.

"With pleasure…" And suddenly, the ground around Alissa shook violently. She let out a cry of shock, yelping as the grass beneath her rippled as if hit by a powerful seismic tremor. Then, from somewhere to the left of the Dark Knight, the grass exploded, and something erupted from the ground. Alissa paled, becoming stony as she and the Batman beheld the terrible form before them.

There was massive creature climbing out of the earth! It must have been a demon, for all Alissa knew… perhaps a demon sent to drag her down to the Hell that awaited her. But the demon stood tall and looked down not upon her, but upon Batman. Its body was dark green and organically plant-like, hundreds of vines and strands of ivy hanging off of its body. Its limbs were thick and elongated, its head triangular and sagging. Where eyes should have been there was nothing… nor a nose… but there was a mouth! And its mouth stretched down long and dark, green fog misting from it as it made the most terrible, rasping sound.

"I've shown myself, Batman… what now?" The creature's mouth did not move at all, and yet the voice seemed to come from its unmoving lips regardless. Terrible screams were orchestrating the street as distant onlookers watched from doors and windows. By now, police cruisers were speeding into the fray near the Alvarez home. Officers were leaping from the cars with shotguns, barking orders as the surrounding civilians.

The Batman stepped back, pulling something from the yellow utility belt that he had fastened around his midriff. It was a metal sphere, about the size of a baseball.

"TOXICA! COME TO ME!" Suddenly, the creature reached out with one of its terrible arms, and it descended down upon Alissa. She made no noise as it swept her into the air, removing gravity and its associations from her as the arm retracted back into the creature's body… along with her. She was suddenly aware of the sensation of being tossed into the slimiest, writhy abode, blackness and muck overtaking her as she was pulled into the depths of the green monster's body.

In the darkness of this new world, she felt the ability to breathe stolen away from her. Her lungs imploded upon themselves, her vision meaningless to the purpose of eyes. All sound became distorted, and her body was compressed into pure numbness…

Outside, the Batman threw the spherical object at the demon's body. The device exploded, true to the promise of specialized bombs, searing part of the creature's body with orange-red. The creature, however, set ablaze, merely shrugged off the attack, and a terrible laughter issued from its unmoving mouth again: "Try harder."

From inside, Alissa felt the warmth and saw the light that was bleeding through the plant creature's form, and knew of fire in that moment. And then suddenly, her entire body was jerked violently, and she felt herself sliding through the dark mass, down, down, down-

-until she exploded outward, seeing the world around her once more, able to breathe again… but also aware that she was being drug down to and across the grass of the park by a massive black vine that was reaching out of the grotto where the bodies of the smokers still lay… As the massive vine drug her, she saw the giant creature burning, saw its slam down a fist upon the ground, nearly missing the Batman, who rolled out of the way and tossed a series of small, crescent shaped projectiles into its gaping, now flaming mouth…

And then she was pulled into the thickness of the grotto, and the vine released her. Staring up into the star ridden sky, she saw a hooded, masked face staring back. The mask was dark, as was the hood, and for the second time, a firm index was pointed at her.

"Come," he whispered in a masculine tone. In the distance, Alissa heard the voice of the demon: "Come…"

My God… it's the same person. That person reached out with a gloved hand, and she took it at once. The man yanked her hard to her feet, and quickly pulled her through the mess of grotto and into the street on the east side. A black limousine was waiting on the curb. As the two of them ran for the car, Alissa looked over her shoulder, and saw the plant demon collapsing in on itself, dissipating into fiery ruin, the silhouette of the Batman on the other side…

And then she was being forced into the backseat of the limousine. Within seconds, the car was silently turning around, before it sped off in the opposite direction of the park and the battle that had taken place at it.

Alissa took in the backseat.

The hooded man sat staring at her beside the window. Alissa glanced up at the front. Pamela Isley was staring at her from the passenger seat. Alissa's heart leapt.

"Ivy…" she whispered. Pamela, however, looked very sour.

"What," she said quietly, dangerously, "have you been doing?"

Alissa's stomach lurched. She winced at hearing how much venom was in Pamela's tone of voice. She looked, slowly around, at the hooded man… except that the man was no longer hooded. Jason Woodrue looked back at her, beyond furious.

"Oh no…."