Gotham Under World

Attack of the Snowpeas

The potted plant in the corner of the small office began to shake. Every second it seemed to shake more violently.  Suddenly the pot that held it shattered and it grew to twice its size.  The small buds began to bloom unnaturally fast like in a time-lapse video. Its roots shot out with lightning quick speed, toward the secretary, who sat at her desk.  The small pale woman looked up in surprise as the thick gray-green tendrils wrapped around her waist.  Another woman stepped out from behind the doorway.

She had red hair and emerald green eyes.  Her skin was a slight green color and she appeared to be  wearing dark green lipstick. She wore a dress made of leaves.  Ivy leaves to be precise.  Poison Ivy leaves to be even more precise.  This was Pamela Lillian Isley, Known as Poison Ivy, a former plant obsessed eco-terrorist,  who had been exposed to a plant growth inducing formula that had mutated her body.  While still appearing mostly human, her lips and skin held small traces of chlorophyll, she needed small amounts of sunlight to survive, and she possessed the ability to create and manipulate plants. 

"Poison Ivy?"  I...I...I thought you were locked up in Arkham!?!" stammered the frail lady as she was lifted into the air.

"I was."  retorted Poison Ivy,  "before I found out that this company was planning to tear down the Gotham Greenhouse at  the botany center in order to build a cursed shopping mall."  She clenched her fist  and the roots tightened themselves around the more elderly woman's middle.

"Let her go, Ivy!"  Came a male voice behind them.  He stepped out from the shadows and Poison Ivy's blood froze. 

She turned around quickly and heaved a sigh of  relief.  "Thank all things evil! I thought you were a cop...or worse, the Batman!"  She gasped to him.

He wore a dark blue refrigerated suit and a glass dome around his head, behind which his face was icy white and he wore ski goggles. 

"This is Dr. Victor Fries."  Poison Ivy introduced him to her victim.  "You can call him Mr. Freeze!"

Dr. Fries had been a cryogenist when he was sent to study the ice formations in Antarctica.  He had taken his wife with him but she had nearly died of hypothermia and frostbite.  After he had been caught in the backfire of a failed experiment in which he was trying to find a cure for her he had become unable to survive in temperatures above sub-zero.  He froze his wife in suspended animation to keep her alive and had moved to Gotham to find a cure.  He built himself an array of frozen weaponry and a refrigerated suit.  Although he didn't necessarily want to be a criminal, he saw it as the only way to save his wife.

"I don't care who he is!"  said the old secretary.  "Leave my office at once."

"Very well." Poison Ivy said, and released her. She then handed three small seeds to Mr. Freeze.  He dropped them as they began to grow. 

The small seeds quickly grew into a large plants.  Their tops were blue and cannon shaped.  They shot small blue orbs surrounded by frozen water vapor.  Their long stalks gave them deadly range. 

"What are they!" The lady said frightened.

"Common Snow pea plants mutated by Mr. Freeze's ice powers.  I bred them to adapt to frozen environments so they wouldn't die in a snow storm," came Poison Ivy's answer as she and Mr. Freeze walked out.  Mr. Freeze lifted a large bazooka-like weapon and covered the doorway with a thick layer of ice.

"I though you didn't like plants very much?" questioned Poison Ivy.

"You seem to be growing on me."  Came his deep hollow voice from behind the glass.