"Sirens"

Arkham City

Wonder City

12:40 A.M.

It was just another bad dream for Selina Kyle until the throbbing ache at the back of her head woke her up to an even worse reality.

Stirring back to life, she groggily peeled her head up from the floor as the feeling, better in some places but worse in others, slowly returned to her body.

The throbbing in her temple had only subsided slightly as she pushed herself up on her elbows, with the focus of her immediate pain and suffering now shifting downwards on her bruised midsection.

What felt like a thousand needles pricked her ribcage as she forced himself into a sitting position.

Noticing her blurry reflection in one of the damp floor tiles, she almost flinched at who stared back.

The same bruises and welts that had adorned her facial features had only reddened into nasty welts, with a slight cut running down her lower lip.

Feeling her now disheveled locks slicked over her sweaty forehead, she then remembered that her cowl was still draped across her apartment couch, miles away in the East End.

She then remembered how she got here, or rather, who brought her here.

"See Selina. This is what you get for taking it easy on the Bat's pet teenager," she told herself bitterly, before shifting her gaze to the sudden tightness wrapped around her gloveless hands.

As expected, she was handcuffed with vines, the serpentine plants binding both wrists together leaving little wriggle room.

The restraints were linked together by a single vine that extended outwards into the darkness surrounding her.

"Dog collar. Real classy Pam," she grumbled irritably.

Tugging at it experimentally, she wasn't surprised when the vines held firm, only tightening with every pull.

It wasn't going to give in so easily, but then again, neither was she.

Pushing herself up to a kneeling position, she took a moment to examine her immediate surroundings.

By the looks of it, it was a virtual ghost town.

The street she was currently on was barren, save for a few of her mutated plants that had sprouted out of the concrete and taken root within the pavement.

Buildings that looked like they belonged in a different century towered above her, with monstrous vines draped over the broken glass windows.

The rest of the area had been completely consumed by Pamela's plants, a literal urban jungle.

However, there was one patch of wall that had not yet been reclaimed by nature, its familiar gray lettering conspicuous to Selina even from her current distance.

Arkham City.

Shit. Again.

A few other choice words came to mind, but before she could continue mulling over her current situation a rumbling sound from behind demanded her attention.

Two vertical columns, comprised of leaves and roots, suddenly parted to the sides, revealing a circular tunnel built into the dilapidated wall across from her.

Pushing herself up on a knee, Selina listened intently to the sound of footsteps drawing nearer through the vine-infested darkness.

Then, out came the wicked witch herself.

Sauntering out of the tunnel with a sinister confidence underlying her every step, Poison Ivy took a moment to take in her floral paradise before resting her emerald eyes on the cat burglar.

Darting her eyes between the vine leash strapped around her hands and the nearing plant queen, Selina warily clambered up to her feet with her options growing more and more limited by the second.

Nonetheless, she hid her apprehension behind a sheepish grin as the plant queen finally strutted to a stop before her.

Cocking one hip to the side, Ivy's jade eyes dismissively sized up Selina's battered catsuit.

"Hello Selina," she stated coldly, speaking with pure disdain instead of her usual sultry overtones.

Sensing the long-simmering hostility radiating off of the redheaded woman, Kyle slowly dissolved her grin.

"Pam!" she greeted her, "Hey so listen, you're not still upset about that little mishap in Strange's vault, are you?"

Ivy responded by striking her across the face with a swift backhand, a stinging blow that caught the master thief off-guard.

Not even remotely anticipating this sudden display of physicality, she was instantly knocked to the ground as a result.

"Guess so," Selina muttered under her breath, rubbing the bruised spot sorely as the redhead towered over her.

"I should've killed you the moment I first laid eyes on you," Ivy hissed angrily.

Tasting the copper tinge of blood in her mouth, Selina only smirked back at her mirthlessly. "Believe it or not, you're not the first to say that to me."

"Oh, but I intend to be the last," she answered with a smile of her own, letting her threat linger in the air between them before suddenly shifting her gaze towards the dilapidated town turned floral haven.

Selina eyed the smug temptress as she slowly walked around her, the ground beneath her feet buzzing to life with every step.

"By the way, you didn't tell me you had a new boytoy," Selina called after her, now resting on her palms.

Despite her current predicament, she couldn't help but cock a coy grin, "Between us girls though, isn't he a little too young for you?"

Ivy's back remained to the brunette until she paused to glimpse at an exotic-looking flower that had sprouted out of a broken store window.

Reaching out with her hand, Ivy cooed tenderly as the flower reacted positively to her motherly touch, its vibrant petals wrapping around her finger.

Now composed thanks to the flower's calming presence, she spoke without looking at her former friend. "Do you know why you're here, Selina?"

"Because I did a bad thing, and you're here to punish me?" Selina answered sarcastically.

"You're here because I made a mistake. A lapse in judgment." Still caressing the blooming petals gently, Ivy almost had to force her next words out.

"I trusted you," she spoke through gritted teeth, before narrowing her eyes at Selina. "And you betrayed me."

The intensity from her glare alone made the tension between them palpable.

Sensing where this was going, Selina frantically racked her mind for something that would both appease the plant queen and stall for time before she came up with an escape plan.

Begrudgingly, she settled on something in between.

"I admit it, okay Pam? I…. overreacted, and in the heat of the moment, well, the plant slipped through my fingers," she confessed, finally admitting the truth.

"More or less," she added only to herself.

Ivy merely crossed her arms, her maternal anger only festering to a boiling point within.

Sighing, Selina's next reply was much more candid, for better or worse. "Fine. I'm sorry I killed your 'baby.' Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Walking towards the preserved remnants of an old horse carriage, Ivy's presence invited a nest of vines to slither out of the antiquated vehicle towards her.

"I was a fool for so long. Believing your lies, your deceit," the redhead growled, her sudden clenched fist causing the vines to instinctively wrap around her slender waist.

"Harley never had trouble believing them," Selina countered, only for Ivy to scoff.

"Harley thinks she can see the good in people like us. That's why she allowed herself to be used and abused by the clown. And that, while endearing, is what made her weak," she lamented, a sympathetic glint briefly flickering in her eyes before being replaced by her usual fiery fanaticism.

"And because of our partnership, I too was weak. Weak enough to show a pathetic meat-sack like you mercy. Because I mistakenly thought our goals were aligned, my precious little darling paid the ultimate price."

Now, it was Selina's turn to scoff. "Pamela, you talk to trees and think that plants should rule the world or whatever. Sweetie, I hate to break this to you, but we were never on the same page. Hell, we weren't even reading the same damn book."

An indignant, incensed look dominated Ivy's expression, but before she could retort Selina kept going.

"Our business relationship started and ended with 'help.' I needed help with a few jobs, Harley needed help growing a spine, and Pam, well- you just need professional help," she mocked the plant queen, no word left unsaid in her taunting dissection of their prior partnership.

"There never was a 'Gotham City Sirens,' Pam. I used both of you, to get what I wanted. And I know that being manipulated by, as you liked to put it, a lesser being hurts your ego, but guess what? That's just who I am. And maybe, if you weren't such a delusional, completely insane genocidal maniac, I'd almost feel sorry for you."

Upon uttering that last word, Selina felt a considerable weight finally lift off her shoulders.

Naturally, she anticipated that her outspoken nature might've cost her her life, but at least then she would die with no regrets.

And of all the things Selina Kyle was expecting, almost dreading, the one thing that she had absolutely not seen coming was the sudden grin adorning Ivy's surprisingly unaffected face.

Unmoved by her former partner's stinging words, the redhead tenderly petted the vine still wrapped around her waist until it retreated back behind her.

Tossing her fiery locks over her shoulder, Poison Ivy responded with only two words. "Thank you."

At that very moment, a hanging vine from above suddenly looped around Selina's neck and lifted her off the ground.

Gasping in surprise, she immediately began thrashing about with her legs now dangling helplessly just inches above the ground.

Her bound hands clawed desperately at the floral noose, but it was an exercise in futility as the vine only tightened its vice grip.

Gasping loudly, Selina's only instinctual response was to kick her feet towards the floor in an attempt to keep herself grounded.

Lacing her fingers behind her back, Ivy took her time sauntering back towards the struggling woman.

Grunting as the vine continued wrapping its slimy appendage around her, Selina just barely managed to stand on her tiptoes as the overwhelming aroma of the vixen's pheromones graced her nostrils.

Now mere inches away, Ivy wore a mask of pure rage as she addressed her again.

"I've always known, Selina," she spat angrily, her crimson lips dangerously close to Selina's grimacing face. "With her dying breath, my baby told me everything. I just wanted to hear it from you."

Selina's eyes, straining to stay open with the discomfort building in her throat, followed the redhead as she slowly circled around her writhing form.

A wicked snicker from the plant queen flooded her ear waves as she felt Ivy's presence from every direction, a fiery red blur that drifted in and out of her periphery.

"One little thought, and your neck would be broken like a twig. It's a relatively painless end, far more than you deserve," she hissed into one ear, before finally reappearing in front of her.

With the vine still constricted around her throat, Selina's struggles were becoming more and more desperate with her world closing in around her at a frightening rate.

Ivy savored this for just a moment longer, before relenting.

"But even that would be too good for you," she stated evenly, snapping her fingers into the air.

Instantly, the vine uncoiled around her neck, releasing her to the ground and retreating back into the darkness above.

Collapsing immediately, Selina let out a throaty gasp as the air rushed back in her mouth and nostrils.

Glaring down at the wheezing woman with disgust, Ivy allowed her to recapture her breath before crouching down in front of her.

Massaging her throat, Selina's eyes groggily lifted up to the sound of her taunting voice.

"You hurt me, Selina. Before I end you, you'll feel everything I've felt," she told her simply.

"I'm not going to beg, bitch," Selina shot back defiantly, eliciting an amused chuckle from the plant queen who tilted her head playfully.

"Are you sure about that?" Ivy purred, lifting up Selina's drooping chin.

"My little birdy has told me everything, Selina. Not just about those pathetic animals you feed, but also about the human ones too," she revealed with a knowing glint in her eyes.

"No," Selina gasped, her tone changing completely at this implication.

Poison Ivy tasted the next string of words in her mouth with an eager satisfaction before sharing them with her former ally.

"I know all about Holly. Robin was very forthcoming about what he found in your apartment," she continued, her patronizing grin gleaming across her smug visage.

Selina struggled to say something, anything to either deny or deflect, but she was in a rare loss for words.

A coy smirk painted Ivy's face as her words finally cut through Selina's notoriously hard exterior, revealing a vulnerability that delighted the plant queen to no end.

"Such a sweet girl. It's almost a shame she had to meet you," Ivy cooed at her, her sickeningly sweet voice spiked in malice and bad intentions.

"She's innocent, Pamela!"

"She's as innocent as the flower you 'dropped' in Strange's vault," Ivy retorted coldly, before standing up with a look of utter contempt on her face.

"I know everything now, Selina. Even your other partnership," she sneered, another verbal bombshell to the already shaken Selina Kyle.

Still reeling from her previous verbal lashing, Selina maintained a straight face almost out of desperation, but the redhead saw right through it.

"The secret's out. No point denying it now…." As her taunting words continued to ring out around her, the brunette could only grind her teeth together as Ivy hovered above her.

A sudden thought crossed her thought as she leered down on the downtrodden woman. "Out of curiosity, what have you told the Bat about me?"

"Nothing he doesn't already know," she replied sarcastically, meeting Ivy's scrutinizing gaze with her signature stubbornness.

Ivy's eyes flashed dangerously. "Don't lie to me, Selina!"

Leaning in closer, her voice then softened to a haughty whisper, "For Holly's sake, of course."

Knowing all too well that Ivy's vendetta against her would leave no line uncrossed, Selina reluctantly swallowed her pride.

"I told him about one of our old hideouts, alright? That's all he knows," she finally admitted.

"Then, he knows nothing. Good." Apparently satisfied with her response, Ivy turned on her heel and began sauntering away leisurely.

"You're going to die tonight, Selina. And once you and the Bat are nothing but dirt in my garden, the rest of Gotham will follow," she told the seething Selina, before adding tauntingly, "If it's any consolation, I'll take far better care of Holly then you ever did. You know how much I love children."

"If you hurt her..." Before Selina could finishing uttering her threat, her wrists restraints suddenly lifted up in the air, hoisting her off the ground and into the air in a similar position as before.

Now hanging with her forearms stretched overhead, Selina could do nothing but struggle helplessly as Ivy drew closer to her.

"You'll do what?" Ivy mocked her coldly. "Every breath you continue to take is mercy from me. The only reason why you're even alive is because you're of value to the Bat."

"Of value?" Selina scoffed at the bemused plant queen. "Pamela, if you honestly believe that then you're even stupider than I ever pegged you for. Then again, seeing as your best friend is Harley Quinn I'm not surprised there."

A shrewd look crossed her face. "Then tell me. How many nights have you spent in Arkham Asylum?"

Selina immediately opened her mouth to argue, to rebuke her completely idiotic claim, but found that she couldn't. Or rather, wouldn't.

"You're his weakness, Selina. With you, I have his heart," she replied coolly, roughly cupping her chin.

"And when I kill you…." Ivy's venomous lips curled into a wicked grin as her emerald eyes seared into Selina's. "It'll be just one more thing I take from Batman, besides his city of course."

Studying the cat burglar's defiant expression for only a moment, Ivy let out a patronizing purr as she found her true confirmation in Selina's eyes.

"You do care for him," she smirked, her hands now on her hips as she turned away. "Pathetic..."

Refocusing her attention upwards as her captor walked back up to the entrance, Selina tugged futilely at the vines but they only tightened with every resisting movement.

Grunting in frustration, she could only watch as Ivy retraced her steps back to the tunnel.

"You know he's coming for the kid, right?" Selina called after her.

"Darling, I'm counting on it." That was the last thing Poison Ivy said before the vines in the tunnel collapsed inwards all around her, sealing the entrance and possibly Selina's fate.

Alone once again, only one word remained constant in Selina Kyle's mind as the eerie silence of the dead city around her began to bear down on her.

Escape.