<div class="floatleft">(http://godsofart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/poison-ivy.jpg)</div><br/>Prior to the chaos that erupted due to the arrival of the minions, Poison Ivy's flourishing Gotham City park had become a no-man's land in terms of lingering spores and slithering serpentine vines. For months prior to this... Poison Ivy's hobby consisted of working on the delivery and intensity of her spore network. The toxins within her very blood that made her immune to all kinds of diseases, be they chemically induced or simply linked to her biological structure were doomed to fail. It was the control over these toxins that allowed her to use her spores to a few different effects, healing, drugging, poison... but control over the different effects required experiments.<br/><br/>Despite not being the greatest authority figure at her job, Poison Ivy's ability of mind control and hypnosis through spore manipulation gave her a perfect opportunity to manipulate those who truly were in power. Throughout the course of a day she could bring any number of people under her influence. When you think about it, how many people do you touch? How many people do you have a conversation with? Someone with the creativity and abilities that Ivy possessed along with the approachability and responsiveness associated to her Pamela persona allowed her to affect anyone she could target rather easily.<br/><br/>It came to a point where these individual targeting methods weren't going to cut it for her. Because of the wearing-off of her spores, Poison Ivy had been looking for ways to create long term slaves to serve her goals. More intense and longer lasting doses... mechanisms that would allow her to infect groups at once instead of individuals all the time. Most of the people who vanished wandering into her park were the ones who found themselves partially zombified by her process. Captured and drugged, their bodies were actually even hidden beneath the ground for some time. Heavily subjected to her spores and manipulated plantlife, she looked to remove any semblance of independence from their spirit and the will power was to vanish with it.<br/><br/>With time, the science lab she worked at was being run and operated efficiently and consistently by those who were constantly lightly subjected to her spores on a regular basis. It was not heavy enough to bring them to such a degree of submission, but those higher up were subject to her suggestions as though they were commands, and with one simple request to the right person, Poison Ivy was able to dictate a new rule, or a new obligation, a new task or a new operating procedure. With this gift firmly under her control, having gotten better and better at hypnotizing and manipulating the minds of those around her, it became entertainment as much as an experiment, a hobby, a recurring effort she prided herself in working towards.<br/><br/>For months now, she had planned on producing a weapon that would replicate her Gotham Garden the world over. To work towards this end with discretion, a pocket of easily and intensely manipulated scientists were guided to working on the substance she developed. As time passed, she added more and more people to her own task force, people who would be loyal to her, people who's loyalty would not be predicated on anything realistic, except for their feeling of complete and utter devotion to her. It was likely they would never even be able to tell anyone who questioned them<em>why</em>they felt this devotion to her, they just...<em>did.</em><br/><br/>In her garden, in the park itself... her spores raged through the plantlife like an ant colony. They existed in the trillions upon trillions. Flowers gave off firm doses of her scented spore clouds, invisible to eye sight, but the faintest scent of cherry and grape could be smelled. The bushes and vines were useful for entangling and restricting those who tried frantically to get away, only to find themselves immersed in the plants themselves. One such plant that Ivy was proud of creating was a large Venus Fly Trap plant which was designed to close on a victim and sustain them while exposing them to the chemicals and Ivy's spores. These Venus-Fly Trap plants would open and out would stumble a human who's sole purpose in life for the next while would be to serve Poison Ivy herself.<br/><br/>She had no interest in individual thinking, individual ambition. To her... mankind had proven it's destructive nature with so many people all operating with free will, inspired to climb their ladders to success. So often the climb seemed to reward those who damaged the planet most in the name of profit and when the climb rewarded them, it inspired many others to follow in their example. The human beings Poison Ivy felt most confident in were those who were directly influenced by her spores...<em>for obvious reasons.</em><br/><br/>During the chaos of the invasion, Poison Ivy found amusement at the opening clash of the assault. The invaders were tenacious and persistent. The police did what they could, and it was highly expected the army would do better, but disappointment was all anyone had seen so far from Gotham's perspective. From a highly towering central Park tree, Ivy watched, seated casually on a firm branch that was decorated by plush leaves and a soft coil. Most of the fighting seemed to steer clear of the park early on, buildings were far more notable targets, as well as the heroes who were engaging the attackers from the get-go. Cars roaming this way and that were soon abandoned by drivers who felt the ability to duck into corners and narrow alleyways at a second's notice gave them a better chance of surviving than staying in a car that could at any point be targeted.<br/><br/>To the left, Poison Ivy observed as one individual made his way running into the park greenery. It was likely not something he intended to do, or he simply didn't believe the rumors. Most likely... he was driven by desperation to get away from a pursuing minion. The man stumbled as the vines began to respond, but before he could adapt or adjust his path, the alien being was atop him, striking him firmly and glancing around left, then right, preparing to take off.<br/><br/><em>At first, it seemed as though the minion were looking for another human to kill, another creature to engage, but looking left, and right, he saw nothing to satisfy his factors for a target. It was at this point that it's head darted down facing it's ankles that had inconveniently been weighed down by some serpentine vines. Ivy tilted her head with curiosity as it swept viciously with it's right arms, its claws striking fast and true at the vines that had latched onto its right ankle. The vines shriveled a little, then pushed forward once more, clinging and snaking around the ankle that lifted itself trying to pull away. The vines that were cut began to grow anew, like worms... not connected to anything in particular but growing and growing until it could connect to something else, another active vine. It resulted in the vine elongating and increasing in size and given the task of the garden momentarily seemed to be to defend itself against this invading creature, the longer... the better.<br/><br/>As the creature moved to swipe it's left arm... it found itself lassoed by two vines from directly behind it, the intention being to latch onto it rather than a slow and steady snaking process. It seemed reactive... as if the plant itself were thinking about something, or being controlled by someone envisioning that particular tactic being moved. Failing to land a strike this time, the vines around the legs began to snake upward, curling along the leg in advancing circles. The minion seemed to shake this way and that snarling before part of it's body exploded into a pair of rockets driving propulsion; trying to send the creature into flight rather than stumbling out of the park it had chased its victim into.</em><br/><br/>Ivy watched from her treetop as the creature took to the air a few feet before being entangled by another series of vines darting overhead. The vines darted left and right, from tree to tree, different bases and arrival points as though a last minute spider-web were being concocted. The vines alone might have been slashed aside by the heavy material and the pressure of the technology itself, but for this one moment, leverage was on the side of the defending garden and Ivy observed as her amplified vines in force of numbers managed to sustain the pressure of the pulling power. Vines that bogged the top of the creatures arms and shoulders began actively coiling around them until it began also looping around his neck, chin and ... face. That is to say, if you could call it a face, and Ivy chose to view it as just that.<br/><br/>More impressive still was a surge of a handful of vines throwing themselves into the propelling rockets. It was immediately sacrificial as the vines did not look to latch on or entangle that part of the green equipment, it was rather thrown exactly at the propelling force to try and damage the machine. Yet another example of either thinking plants... or plants being directed by a thinking being, in this case one who happened to be sitting atop a tree branch watching the curious alien and attempting to bring it down for... study.<br/><br/>One propelling unit fell... then another, and while a few vines were ripped regardless, due to the sheer technology of the armor and the heat of the flames as well as the pressure trying to take to the air, too many vines were congregating upon this lone target for it to actually break away enough that it could make it back into the air. The creature was brought back to the ground by not only the pulling vines at it's legs and waist, but the heavily thickened vines that entangled its arms and neck.<br/><br/>Despite this, it struggled seemingly without end. Poison Ivy leaned an elbow on the bark of the tree and rested her neck against her open palm observing the creature's body swarmed, hacking and slashing until moving at all seemed impossible. The creature tumbled forward but it took a level of effort from her vines that she'd never thought would have to be used on one body to subdue this lone attacker. There were any number of excuses sure... it was fast and powerful at first, able to shift this way, then that... but eventually it fell and the ground beneath it began to extend, small mole-hill like formations as a venus-fly-trap design of green began to fold along either side of the subdued creature.<br/><br/><em>"Now-... just what <span class="bbc_u">are</span> you made of on the... inside."</em>she uttered softly. Alone as she was, it wasn't spoken to anyone in particular but the creature clearly caught her attention. Her eyes glanced around watching as the skies were decorated by the arrival of so many others. Their targets were unknown for the time, and she assumed that this was a force that would immediately respond to whoever were the first ones to fight them. Invaders without a plan? Invaders who shot from the hip? Just looking to cause chaos and draw out the army that would oppose them?<br/><br/><em>It would be interesting to see.</em><br/><br/><em>There certainly are -... alot of you.</em>