Brian was just trying to catch some illegal loggers in the act.

Going Green by Amy Daemon

Author’s Note: A Retroactive Continuity, or Retcon if you will, is the changing of previous facts in an established universe so it will conform to new story lines. This is my attempt to write in the Comics Retcon Universe, which Lilith Langtree created. This is a retcon of Poison Ivy. Detective Comics owns the character of Poison Ivy. Image is by Stéphane Roux. My thanks go out to my housemate/heart-sister Liz for pre reading this. And special thanks to Lilith Langtree for reading this and providing some valuable feedback.

Brian Cross peered through the eyepiece of the camera. He had been hiding in his self made blind for hours, hoping to catch some incriminating film of the loggers that he had gotten a tip on. This forest was supposed to be strictly off limits for any harvesting of trees.

Even though he had forced himself to stay in shape, stakeouts like this were harder on him now than they had been when he was 26. That had been two years after his wife had died of a rare disease. He had found out in an medical journal that he had read while waiting on his annual physical that she could have been cured with an extract from a plant that had been driven extinct the year before she died. The only area it had grown in had been chosen as the site for expansion of a neighboring city.

That was why he had dedicated the last thirty years of his life to trying to at least slow down the deforestation of the planet, and the generalized wanton destruction of plant life. He had organized rallies, lined up famous people to speak on the matter, and in a few cases, stooped to outright sabotage to stop such depredations. One of the televised efforts he had had a hand in getting started, A Forest of Stars, had drawn so much attention to the large scale cutting of trees and slashing and burning of undergrowth in one relatively small area of a rainforest, that the destruction had stopped.

He had been tipped off that the company that had been behind that horrible ‘harvesting’, a multinational based in the US, ironically named Harmony Incorporated, was the one that was about to cut some of the very few remaining large American Chestnut trees just so some rich man could have his den paneled with it.

As he kept looking through the eyepiece, he heard the snap of a dry twig behind him. Before he could react, strong hands grabbed him and pulled him from the blind. He tried to struggle, but even at his height of 5' 11" and the muscles he had kept toned, the even larger men than held him just laughed. One of them gave him a backhanded blow that left his head ringing.

“None of that now. I want him alive, awake, and very aware of what is going to happen to him.” came in a cultured baritone voice.

He was turned around by his captors to see Preston J. Thornton, the current, and long standing, CEO of Harmony sneering at him. “So, Cross, you got the ‘tip’ that I arranged. And of course you rushed out here to catch my company in its evil ways.”

Thornton was a cold man, having grown up in an orphanage. He had been smarter than the other children around his age that were there, and had used that to lord it over them. He had preferred his small 'kingdom' there and had deliberately scared any prospective parents off. He hadn't counted on being basically kicked out to go it on his own, friendless and penniless, when he had turned eighteen.

People that knew him now were divided into three types. Those that admired him because he had pulled himself from poverty as an orphan to be the CEO of Harmony, which was worth a staggering amount. Those that hated him because of the methods he had used to get there, the people he had crushed on his way up, and the disregard that Harmony had of anything but profit with him as CEO. Then there were those that feared him, because of what he could have done to them financially.

“So what now, Thornton, are you going to have you thugs beat me up? Maybe break a few bones?”, asked Brian.

“Ha! I know that wouldn’t stop you for long. And I’m not going to let you become a martyr either. You’re just going to vanish. I had my men dig a nice hole to put you in. You’re going to be planted … alive. And just as a topping, I had a special shroud made for you. It is of a plant from the Amazon that is very highly irritating to the skin, like a distant relative that probably grows around here. And it also slows down your metabolism, but not your thinking process or the feeling of pain. The way it will be wrapped will give you enough air to be in agony for hours. And now to make certain that you get the ‘most benefit’ from contact with one of your precious plants.”

He made a motion and more men stepped forward and started cutting Brian’s clothing away, but taking care not to cut Brian himself. Enough of the men that had captured him held him so he couldn’t fight.

“This is insane Thornton! You’re going to kill me because I’ve saved some forests and plants from you?”

“No, because you’ve already cost me billions. That area in the rain forest that my company was clearing would have been turned over to some acquaintances of mine who would have grown a quite profitable crop and given me a cut each year of the money it brought.”

“You made a deal with a drug cartel? That’s lower than even I thought you were.”

“I think that was supposed to be an insult, but from you, it makes me feel proud. Ah, now you are ready for the next step.”

The men who had been holding him were replaced one at a time with equally large men in hazmat suits. Then four more large men in hazmat suits started walking out with what looked like a blanket woven of some sort of leafy vine. They started wrapping Brian in it, feet first and then up the rest of his nude body. He could feel a burning and intense itching sensation start up everywhere the blanket touched him. When they got to his head, it was made so as to trap a fair quantity of air for him to breath.

Brian couldn’t help screaming from the agony the contact with the plant blanket caused, “Get me out! Please! I’ll do anything!”

“It’s a bit late for that. I could never trust you not to go back to your crusade against me and my company. Okay men, plant him.”

Even in his pain, Brian could feel himself being picked up and carried. Then he was placed on a rope cradle and lowered into a hole.

When the enshrouded Brian had reached the bottom, Preston motioned and the men started shoveling in the dirt. “Careful, we wouldn’t want to crush him or smother him. He should have a long time to enjoy his plant friend. Ha! Now he’ll know what a seed feels like.”

After the hole was filled in Preston and his men cleaned up any evidence that they had been there. They even put the pieces of sod they had carefully cut out before digging the hole. Then they left.

Brian tried to writhe and twist from the agony that the plant was causing but was wrapped too tight, and weighed down by the soil above him. He decided to try and distract himself at least a little, and called up the way his wife had looked on their wedding day. She had just been 19, and he had been 21. She had been so very beautiful …

Brian felt the agonizing sensations caused by the plant seem to start to ebb, he started sweating, and his senses started to swim. It even seemed as if something was working its way around his shrouded body and lifting him through the loose soil. He felt even more faint and then everything went black.

As Brian slowly woke up, he felt the wind on his skin. Wind? But I’m buried alive in a plant-blanket., he thought. He opened his eyes to see the limbs of the forest above him. He was laying on churned soil that was where his burial spot had been. As he sat up, he realized several things. One, he now had breasts, two, it felt like he .. she had clothing on, and three, she could ‘hear’ the plants. It wasn’t a sound, but a mental mixture of emotions with mixed sensory impressions. There was concern/gladness/welcoming, the sense of a long wait ended, and more. Her mind whirled with the new inputs, until they calmed down and blended into each other. The new entity had the ‘feel/smell/sound/taste/look’ of Green. That made no sense to her still human mind, until she realized that it was all the plants blending into one mind. The plants were somehow using her to join into this entity, but still leaving her own mind intact.

She got up and walked in a direction that she knew through the Green that a stream was. She had to see what she looked like to people, not as the Green saw her. When she reached the stream, she found a section calm enough to reflect and looked at herself. The face that she saw was that of his .. her dead wife when she had been 19. But the skin was a faint green, the lips and irises of the eyes a dark green, and the hip length hair a bright fiery red. Brian had been black haired, his wife had been a brunette. She was dressed in a form hugging short dress that she recognized as formed from the plant-blanket that she had been buried in. The dress left her shoulders and arms bare. There was a multiple strand coil of the vine around her waist like a belt, bracelets of the vine around each wrist, shoes made of the leaves of the vine, and a tiara of the vine woven through the front of her hair.

She examined herself under the dress, and confirmed that her body at least looked like a woman’s. But she knew that she was something else, something more. The plants had been aware and intelligent in their own way before her. But they had needed her to join together into one mind. She had always tried to be the protector of the world’s plants, and now she could do so for real. And the Green would help her do what she wanted. And the first thing she wanted was Revenge. She concentrated, until her skin took on a more human tone, a light brown that mimicked that of somebody with some Mediterranean ancestry. She decided to use her wife’s first name and her own mother’s maiden name, so she would be Bryony Carlton when she needed to be human. All other times, she decided to use the name Poison Ivy.

First, she would need normal human clothing. She used the Green to ‘see’ where some people were camping and had hung some clothing out to dry. Vines sprouted up at that area, slithered across the ground like snakes, lifted the clothes off of the line, and then carried them into the deeper woods. At the same time, she stepped in and out of the Green bodily, appearing for moments walking in the forest, then vanishing, only to reappear much further on. She reached where the vines were holding the clothing for her, and chose some that would fit, if not well. She could get better in the human’s city before taking care of Preston.

She walked out of a park in the city, and looked around. The very low number of plants in this city distressed her. She was tempted to just bury the city in a riot of growths, but she restrained herself. She supposed even humans had their place in the natural order. It would be her job to teach them what it was. She walked down the sidewalk until she came to an expensive looking clothing store.

“May I help you?” said a woman wearing a nametag that said Gale, in a tone that clearly said that she thought that Bryony had no business in the store.

“Yes,” said Bryony with a breathy voice that served to send some very special psychotropic spores towards the salesclerk’s face, “you may help me find clothing suitable for me to wear to get in to meet Preston J. Thornton.”

Gale’s eyes took on a glazed sort of look and she said, “Of course, I live but to serve you.”

“That’s a better attitude.”, replied Bryony as she walked deeper into the store with her first human thrall.

Bryony walked into the ground floor of the Harmony building. She was wearing an expensive and sexy green dress. She had found out that she was now 5’ 5” while being fitted for the dress. Gale walked slightly behind her and to one side. “Gale,” said Bryony, “distract one of those two men guarding the elevator to the penthouse for a moment.”

Gale walked up to one of the guards, threw her arms around him and kissed him deeply. “Anthony! Why didn’t you call me back? I thought that you’d be happy that I’m pregnant!”

“Lady, you got the wrong guy. My name isn’t Anthony, and I don’t know you.”

As that distraction progressed, Bryony walked up to the second guard and said “Hi, you’re going to take me up to the penthouse, aren’t you?”

The guard’s eyes glazed as the spores did their work on him. “Of course, whatever you want me to do.”

She then turned to where the other guard was still trying to disentangle himself from Gale. “And you, you’re going to stay down here and make certain nobody suspects anything.”

His eyes glazed also and he said “As you wish.” Gale looked a little sad that she had to let go of him.

As she stepped into the elevator with the second guard, Bryony said to Gale “Wait for me here, I may let you two play later.”

As the elevator ascended, Bryony took off the human clothing and let her skin go green. So by the time the doors opened onto the penthouse, it was Poison Ivy who stood there with the guard.

“Wait for me here. and don’t let the elevator be called back down.”

“Yes ma’am” he said.

“Silly, my thralls can call me Ivy when I’m like this.”

“Yes Ivy.”

She walked into the penthouse, and over to the door that led to Thornton’s office, and opened it.

“What! I left orders not to be disturbed! Who ...” he trailed off as he saw her walk in and step to the side of the doorway.

“The name’s Poison Ivy, Thornton.”

“Is this some sort of eco-freak publicity stunt? How did you get up here? The elevator is guarded.”

“Your guards are being very cooperative with me. And no, it isn’t any sort of stunt. It is judgment day for you.”

Without getting up, he opened a drawer and pulled out a large gun. “Lady, you saying that gives me the right to blow you away. Even the security camera records will back it up now. So why shouldn’t I just shoot you?”

“Go ahead if it will make you feel better, and thanks for reminding me about the security records.”, she said, as she reached with one finger under one of the leaves of her dress. When she brought the finger back out, there was a grey powder on it, which she promptly blew at one of the cameras in the office.

“Ha! That won’t even coat the lens.”

“It isn’t supposed to, but it will find the electrical insulation to its liking, and it will grow back along it. All the way to the building’s security central. I could have it destroy all the records there, but the ones from the front sidewalk, lobby, and penthouse elevator for today will do. You see, I want others to see what I do to you. I hope it will serve as an object lesson, but I doubt that whoever is picked to take your place will learn from it.”

“Okay, now I know you’re certifiable, and you asked for it.”, he said as he emptied the gun into her.

The bullets passed through her and embedded themselves into the wall behind her. The holes they left in her just closed neatly back up.

“You can’t hurt me, Thornton, but I can do more than hurt you.”, she said as the cured wood of the expensive chair Thornton was sitting in came alive and grew thick wooden loops holding him to it.

“W.what are you? What are you going to do to me?”

“What am I? Why I’m just mother’s little helper. Mother Nature, that is. As to what I’m going to do to you, hmm ... I could enthrall you and make you commit suicide. Or use something like aconite to kill you. But no, that is too quick. And to paraphrase what you once said to somebody ‘I want you alive, awake, and very aware of what is happening to you’”.

“Whaat?! But ... how did you know what I said about Cross?”

“You have other things to worry about. Like how long it will take you to die.” she said as she pulled one stand of the vine from around her waist loose and flung it at his feet.

The vine started growing, and sent a climbing tendril up each of his pants legs. “ARRGH! Stop it! No! What is it doing? The pain!”

“Its just growing Thornton. But it’s using your living flesh as its soil and food. Along with that, you also have the ‘highly irritating’ toxin effect from contact with it. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and somebody will find you soon and put you out of your misery. But I wouldn’t count on it.” Poison Ivy walked out of the office and closed the door as she left, muffling Thornton’s screams.

She walked back into the elevator and told the guard, “Take me to the lobby.”

She changed her skin’s appearance and put the human clothing back on as the elevator descended. Once at the lobby, she turned to the two guards. “Nobody is to go up to the penthouse for at least a week. When you are relieved, you will tell the new guards that it is Thornton’s orders. You never saw me or Gale here today, and nobody went up to the penthouse.”

“Nobody went up, and no visitors for a week.”

“Good boys.”

She walked out of the building and took Gale back to her store. “Now as for you, you are going to take the clothing from this store and donate it to Good Will. Then you will forget that you did it, and you will forget me.” she said as she changed her clothes back for those she had worn into the store in the first place.

“Yes ma’am.”

Bryony walked out and into the park and down the sidewalk. There was one more task she had to do in this city for now.

Bryony walked down a seedier part of the city near the docks. She walked up to a disreputable looking warehouse and flickered into the Green just long enough to get inside. There were crates of opium stacked everywhere. She reached under her human clothing, and under one of the leaves of the ivy dress. She brought it back out smudged black. She touched the wall with that finger, and black mold started growing very rapidly over it. She touched one of the crates, and the mold started growing on it to, spreading from crate to crate. She walked back to the wall and Green-flickered back out and headed for the park.

She stood in the park and looked back out at the city. She was fighting down the urge to re-green it, but the grass at the edge of the park started growing in the seams of the sidewalk, and tree roots started buckling sections of the same sidewalk.

She thought to herself, I’m not out to destroy humankind. Just slow down and hopefully reverse its destruction of the plants. Without us, this planet will die. I’ll work on stopping the slash and burn of rainforests first. Then I’ll move on to stopping some of the large scale clear cut logging. I’ll try not to kill too many humans. They have their place in nature, but they think they rule nature. But ... if the situation is them or a rainforest ... And I’ll be re-greening parts that I take back during doing those two. Then, well, I’ll see.

She realized that when she had thought of the plants, that she had used the term ‘us’. But she was still human ... Or was she? She realized that she didn’t know, and didn’t care. She was needed, and that, for now, was enough.

With that she smiled and faded into the Green.

Deep in the forest, in fact right where she had been ‘born’, Ivy faded back into the physical world. She lifted her hands and the trees around her bent branches down to tenderly caress them.