"Nightwing, this is Oracle, come in."
Dick Grayson was down. Prone on the floor.
A line of crimson red trickled down his hairline from a laceration hidden in his jungle of unkempt locks.
"...Nightwing, please respond."
His masked eyes finally opened.
Down but not out.
"Yeah, I'm still alive," he grunted, lifting his face off the ground as he came back into full awareness of his surroundings.
Both his escrima sticks were scattered on the floor in front of him, some feet away.
"Thank God. Have you found it yet?"
"Nope." Pushing up to a knee, the first Boy Wonder started to push up on hands and knees. "We uh, ran into a little bit of a snag here, Barb."
The trepidation was palpable in the hacker's voice. "What kind of snag?"
Looking up with a bloody lip, he spoke with sobering candor, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Selina Kyle's latest swift crack of her bullwhip just barely warded away the swarm of serpentine vines all circling around her with deadly intent.
A fresh bruise adorned the woman's face, her usual confident stance gone in favor of something much more defensive and desperate.
"Back!" Even her usual banter was at its most basic as she snapped the whip at the animalistic tendrils all rearing up to lunge.
Unfortunately, they didn't stay back.
One particular vine had slithered around a table to her blindside, creeping around the edges of her wide berth to exploit the right angle.
And once that was found, it pounced.
Directly at the back of her hea-
Tsssskt.
Right until the electric-charged tip of a well-gripped escrima stick smacked it right out of the way, held by a now standing Nightwing.
Instinctively, Selina looked over her shoulder just in time to see the young man stomping his booted heel into its downed body until it writhed and whined no more.
"Look out," he told her with a slight, crimson-lipped smirk.
Dual wielding his signature batons once more, Grayson battered away another vine with a deft swing as Selina went back-to-back with him.
"So Red can bring people back from the dead now." She cracked her whip again, keeping the serpentine horde at bay before rearing back. "Why am I not surprised?"
"The woman makes flowers eat people. Necromancy just seems logical at this point," he remarked with his own wit, well-sharpened by the dangers of his vigilante lifestyle.
Looking ahead, Selina Kyle saw the progenitor of their peril: the entity that once was Dr. Jason Woodrue.
Now something else.
Something not dead. Not alive. But somewhere in between.
His eyes, glowing with jade apathy, seemed to be the only parts of his body still moving as he silently commanded the floral legion against them.
"So what's the plan?" she hissed over her shoulder, waiting for his lead.
All the vines suddenly coiled up at once, primed to pounce.
"For now…" The masked man took in a breath, readying himself. "Try not to die."
Then they all converged at once.
Both the Cat and the Bat's first son threw themselves to the ground in a spontaneous duck-and-roll.
On his feet in an instant, Grayson moved with the wind, swiftly and with graceful urgency.
He sidestepped one vine lashing at his face before parrying another with similar intent.
An athletic side-flip would save the vigilante from several vines all whipping at him at once in a flurry of slicing motions.
Landing his feet and moving in no time, he kept on going- all the way to the near wall.
Jumping and briefly running vertically along the surface, he flipped himself upwards and backwards right as a particular heated vine rocketed towards him.
With the margins between his head and the piercing tip of the serpentine creation deathly thin, he would nonetheless execute the acrobatic flip, coming back down with both escrima sticks pointing down-
TSSSSKKKTTT!
And slamming thousands upon thousands of electric volts into the stem of the vine.
Delivering a higher voltage with the dual strike, Grayson would drive the now writhing tendril to the ground, delivering a discharging shock that rendered it limp as an unplugged watering hose.
"How we doing, Selina?" Nightwing turned around just in time to duck certain decapitation in the form of a vine slashing at his neck.
Unsurprisingly, the cat burglar had plenty on her plate to deal with in the way of ducking and dodging the floral tendrils.
"Please tell me your plan has a part two," she quipped while cracking her whip out again.
"Yeah, about that-" Interrupting himself with a timely parry of his escrima stick against another slashing vine, he finished the sentence, "- I just make shit up along the way. Usually things work out in the end."
"Usually?"
Deflecting another attack, he responded candidly after catching something in his periphery, "Probably. You think you can keep them busy for a while?"
"Probably not. What are you think-?" She turned around to see Grayson already on the move.
He was moving, and moving fast, towards the thing formerly known as Dr. Jason Woodrue.
Darting towards the aptly named Floronic Man, he brandished both batons while rapidly approaching the antagonistic amalgamation of humanity and nature.
First yards away, then feet, and finally-
"Uggghhh!" And finally a larger than normal wine suddenly whipped against his side out of nowhere, knocking the vigilante off his feet and diverting his path.
Sending him not just against, but through a section of the moss-covered wall!
He grunted heavily as the degraded infrastructure ultimately gave way to his airborne body, the momentum carrying him into another area of the building.
Rolling over and over until finally landing on his belly, Nightwing grunted and gritted his teeth against the ground as his escrima sticks clattered to a stop around his head.
"That…hurt," he acknowledged with a groan, soon pushing himself to all fours while looking up at this new but just as hostile environment.
He was in what vaguely resembled a storage area for chemical supplies and equipment.
There were broken vials and shattered flasks on the floor, tables overturned, vines hanging down from the ceiling, and eyes staring at him from every direction.
"You gotta be-" The words that were forming in his throat never fully materialized as a vine wrapped around his neck, with more coiling around his forearms and shoulders.
The combined strength of the many dragged the male vigilante to his feet before he could grab hold of the escrima sticks.
Hauling him up and then keeping him up as humanoid forms peeled out of the walls surrounding him.
Those same eyes belonged to bodies made of mossy material that morbidly mimicked a regular human's flesh-and-bone composition.
Arms. Legs. Torsos. Heads. It was all there.
With small, fledgling vines slithering out from forearms and thighs, their faces hideous maws of thorny teeth, and misshapen chests, these five or six figures made almost entirely of floral matter started to stagger towards him all at once.
And with his own torso and arms still restrained by vines from behind, Grayson was physically restrained in place against their menacing advance.
But where abject terror would grip the hearts of someone else in his current position, Nightwing was thinking of something else.
"Hey Barb, remember those old zombie movies we used to watch together?" he suddenly said, seemingly out of the blue.
"Er, maybe. Why?" came the quizzical answer that he was expecting.
"You remember how they dealt with those undead bastards?" He spoke as they got closer. And closer.
"...they went for the head, right?"
He smiled. "Right. Thanks for reminding me."
One of them reached him first, reaching out with claw-like hands to rip and tear-
"Not today!" Bringing both legs up, he kicked the humanoid assailant back with a standing dropkick to the sternum.
Using that same momentum to flip backwards in the air, he tore free of the vines holding him in the process.
Slipping free and landing on his feet, the former apprentice of the Bat then dove into a forward roll as others continued to converge on him.
Moving swiftly across the ground, he reemerged in a battle-ready stance.
Escrima stick in one hand. Escrima stick in the other.
"Alright, fellas…" Looking all around as they had him surrounded, he cocked another smirk, "Who's first?"
One of them apparently volunteered by lunging at him- only to get taken off its feet when Nightwing performed a legsweep as an immediate counter.
And once it was down, Grayson made sure it stayed down by jamming the blunt end of his baton right between one of its eye sockets, sending a torrent of electric volts through its body that caused much convulsing, much writhing, and then, stillness.
His hypothesis successfully field tested in real time, the young man sprang to his feet and began his attack proper.
Jumping up into a flying knee to the chin that jolted back one plant humanoid, he twirled around and battered the head of another with his baton.
Then turned right as one more was upon him.
Jumping and somersaulting right over its outstretched hands, he brought back both escrima sticks against his sides once he had stuck the landing behind it, slamming a dual electric blast against its spine to send it stumbling forwards.
"What's the update on finding the cure?"
"One sec." He elbowed against one plant humanoid to force some space before throwing one of his escrima sticks against the nearby wall.
It bounced with a loud clang, ricocheting back towards the air…and smacking one of his assailants from his blindside on the back of its skull before finally he snatched it back with the same hand.
And then drove the taser-point directly into the humanoid's face he had previously struck, dropping it down to the ground where it would not rise back up.
He jumped and delivered another spin kick to the other humanoid that sent it flailing backwards.
"The update…" Sidestepping another lunge, he permanently disrupted that humanoid with another escrima stick to the base of its head.
Stopping then, he managed a brief sigh before reporting, "...is that there is no update."
"You're serious?"
He turned and was driven back to one of his attackers suddenly barreling into his midsection from the side.
Taking him off his feet and to the ground, Nightwing instinctively brought his forearm up against its throat in a defensive move as its jaw unhinged even more.
Like a serpent preparing to devour its prey, he grimaced at the horrifying sight of its razor-sharp maw snapping at his facial features.
"...one sec, Barb. Dealing with something at the moment," he grunted, somehow keeping composure even as its unhinged jaw got closer and closer.
"Dick, Bruce is counting on you. You have to find it."
Grabbing at something attached to his belt, he grunted out the next few words while working intently with his other hand, "Never…said…I wasn't."
Then he kicked the humanoid off him, rolling backwards to his feet.
Stumbling to its own vertical stance, it made a snarling sound before beginning its march anew, surrounded by the other remaining plant/human creatures.
Right as Dick Grayson brandished the detonator to his Explosive Gel in one hand.
The same Explosive Gel sprayed right across its sternum.
"Boom," he said, before pressing the button.
And BOOM! was indeed the right word as the detonation sounded like a round of artillery fired at close range.
Momentarily averting his eyes, he remained upright despite the concussive force that knocked back everything in the vicinity, the vigilante just barely out of range.
When he looked back to center, the humanoids were all laid out. Writhing on the ground.
Getting up, he quickly went to work making sure they stayed on the ground.
One by one, he smashed in their heads with his melee weapons, the electric volts disrupting whatever nervous system allowed them to stand, snarl, and otherwise do as humans could do.
After finishing the last of them, he finally paused to take a breath.
"Has Alfred talked to you about time frame yet?" He then went to look around this new room he was in.
"...he said maybe minutes at this point, if that. I…I still don't know how to tell Tim."
"You won't have to," he assured her, his eyes searching the immediate area for anything. "Bruce trained me for this. Trained all of us. We're not gonna let him down."
"Now I know this is the end times. You're actually saying something nice about him," she remarked sarcastically.
"Don't tell him I said that, or hell, tell him. He probably wouldn't believe you any-" Crunch.
Mid-quip, he paused and looked down at the sudden noise beneath his boot.
Lifting his leg, he saw what he had stepped on.
A picture frame.
Bending down, he collected it in one hand and got a closer look at it.
It was a picture of a young woman, familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time.
Her red hair was in a professional bun, a white lab coat neatly buttoned together with a dress shirt underneath.
Her face was a pale white.
In both hands, she held a potted plant with the stem leading up to a flower with blossoming petals.
And next to her was a man, noticeably older in age, also wearing a lab coat.
He had dark, well-cut hair, a very severe expression on his face, and a nametag that read-
"Dr. Woodrue," Grayson muttered to himself, inspecting the frame more closely as certain pieces began to become clearer.
Written in the margins with a black marker that had hardly faded with time was a message from the man himself: Before we save the world out there, how about we make our world a little bigger first? Jason.
He looked one more time at the redhead.
A snapshot from a lifetime ago.
Then he turned the frame over.
"Oh-"
"-shit!"
The cat burglar moved fast but not fast enough to avoid the lashing fury of the vine catching her mid-jump.
Knocked off her feet and through the air, she was slammed against the wall.
Much harder and much harsher than before.
This time she slid down to the ground, sprawled out with old aches reawakened and new pains surging all throughout her body.
The sounds of earthly malevolence were present everywhere, from above to below.
She grunted. Grimaced.
And got up eventually with one arm under her stomach.
"Come on…" Teeth stained with crimson, she looked to the closest thing to her that wasn't animatedly hostile.
Her whip.
It wasn't within reaching distance, but it was reachable if she moved quickly.
And so she did.
Going on all fours, she crawled towards it. Faster and fast-
"Nnngghh!" But not fast enough to stop another constrictor-sized vine from coiling around her midsection and snatching her off the ground like she was a weightless feather.
Limbs flailed and fought frantically through the air as the cat burglar was hoisted in the air, and then brought forwards towards one particular side of the room.
His/its side.
Unable to drag her boots on solid ground, Selina was stopped mere feet away from the Floronic Man.
His body remained immobile while hers was still full of movement.
Thrashing and struggling, the brunette fought valiantly against her capture.
Even as another smaller vine came out of nowhere and wrapped around her throat, squeezing against the windpipe.
The man in the wall only stared with unchanging eyes.
She gasped out as the pressure was poured on immediately.
More struggling did not stop the suffocation.
Seemingly, it only quickened things.
"I've…had worse," she managed to grunt out, grabbing at the vine choking her with one hand while the other, much larger vine began constricting around her midsection.
Air turned to wisps. Black spots began to fill her vision.
"Selina."
The master thief was unable to breathe.
"Selina."
But still able to hear.
"Heads up!" And still able to catch the airborne escrima stick thrown at her by Nightwing with her free hand.
No time to waste, she struck- slamming the fully charged baton right into the ear of the Floronic Man!
With every fiber of defiance and adrenaline, Selina jammed it as far deep as she could manage.
And then she watched the subsequent overload.
Whatever nerves were resurrected and recurring in his brain were immediately short-circuited as the mutilated face registered the sudden, searing blow with visible twitches.
She groaned…and then gasped out as the vines went slack around her like loosened up rope, dropping the brunette to the ground.
Free of the slithering restraints, Kyle collapsed to her knees, grabbing at her throat while the Floronic Man shuddered and shook…and then went still.
His eyes, previously so stoic, finally just closed.
And didn't open again.
Going up to a half-kneel, she took in breath after breath, still feeling the ungodly squeeze against her slender frame as every plant in the building just seemed to cease.
Every surrounding vine was now limp and devoid of the dogged hostility that had previously inhabited them, the ground now steady and secure.
It was (seemingly) over.
"You good?" She felt a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm fine." Shrugging off his gesture, she took a step back to re-compose herself after such an ordeal.
She turned to see Nightwing standing next to her, the picture frame still in hand.
"Trade?" he offered, holding out the item while gesturing at the escrima stick she was still gripping tightly in one hand.
Nodding while regaining her usual composure, she gave him back what belonged to him while she took hold of the frame.
"The hell is this supposed to-?" And then she flipped it over, revealing a full syringe with a piece of twine wrapped around it to bind it to the frame. "-oh."
"Yeah," he confirmed wearily, sheathing both batons over his back as she laid eyes on the thing they had risked their lives over. The thing that could now save Batman's life.
"Guess she really did like me," Selina commented with a sigh, taking out the vaccine and holding it gingerly in one hand while giving him back the frame.
"You sound surprised."
With yet another near-death experience behind her, her typical sarcasm returned. "Your plan sucked, by the way."
That brought out a genuine smile on his face, right before his fingers went up to his comlink. "Alfred, send the Batwing to my location, ASAP. We've got the cure. Nightwing out."
Her eyes briefly flickered over the now lifeless face of the Floronic Man as she further remarked, "So much for your 'no-kill' rule, huh?"
Regarding the frame one last time, Grayson looked at what became of that scientist before commenting with the cynicism of his old man. "Whoever- whatever that was, he died a long time ago."
With that, he gently laid the frame down on the ground before taking his leave.
Selina Kyle would pause for a moment, too, her face ultimately resolving into agreement with what was said.
And then she joined him.
Leaving the picture, and its message where it's always been.
In the past.
Author's Note: Thanks again for reading!
Writing this chapter felt like getting a great weight off my chest in terms of all the backstory I've kept in my head for so long. Just like every hero has (or should have) an origin story, I believe the same should be true for their villains. I've always felt that Ivy's origins in the Arkham-Verse were relatively understated, as you get just enough from various interview tapes and other bonus content in the games to piece together what made her the way she was. But what if there was more than just what you see on-screen? That's what interested me enough to really dig into the roots of the plant queen and find out exactly what solidified that transformation from Dr. Pamela Isley to Poison Ivy. Maybe I've answered some of my own questions from within the walls of the Kanigher & Infantino Memorial Greenhouse. Maybe there are some that are still lingering...
Next time, the predators become the prey. Reviews are much appreciated!