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Cassandra found a park with a goddess in it.
The goddess had green skin and red hair with leaves in it. She wore a dress of more leaves and vines and moss. When she lifted a hand, plants grew towards it, massively larger than they had any right to be, more mobile than any plant should be.
She was a woman who controlled plants.
Cass was a plant.
She was intrigued.
She followed the goddess out of her own personal park-turned-jungle and into the city. She slipped on her human glamor as she slipped into sight of the crowds. She hated using her glamor. Gave her a headache. She could only maintain it for a few hours at a time, and that was a stretch.
But people paid no attention to the homeless kid with ratty black hair and dirt-smudged skin, looking as human as anyone else. Aside from the occasional glare or suspicious look, no one paid Cass any mind.
Just the way she liked it.
She strolled down the street, casual as anything. Just another human person. Light as petals on the breeze.
People gave the goddess a wide berth. Averted their eyes, crossed the street. Ducked into buildings or alleyways.
Perhaps she was a darker sort of goddess.
That’s okay. Cass was a poisonous sort of plant.
Cain had made sure of that.
The goddess slipped into a highrise at the other end of the street. By the time Cass caught up, she was nowhere to be seen. Security muttered into radios and glanced, but paid no mind to the homeless child in a place she shouldn’t be. People were scattering, eyes down, whispering and hurrying.
Definitely Cass’s type of goddess, then.
She followed a security guard into a hallway. A swift uppercut had them down on the ground and their key card in Cass’s hand. From there, it was easy. The monitoring room was always, without fail, in the center of the building on the ground floor. Two guards and one manager were in there. Two guards and one manager quickly fell asleep.
The goddess was working her way upwards. She was in the elevator, button pressed for the C-suite level.
She was going to get there before Cass would. Disappointing.
Now: to run up and catch the tail end of her work in person, or to sit back and watch from the screens?
Screens were boring. Cass was fast. She slipped into a stairwell and launched herself up at the railings of the next platform, leaping and flying from flight to flight. Much faster than walking.
She walked into the C-level. Place was deserted. Papers floated down. A sink in the break lounge was running. A potted plant had been knocked over. Coffee was spilled on a desk.
She went room by room, finding the same emptiness in every one.
The goddess walked out into the hall.
“I’m done,” she said. “Don’t go in there.”
She sauntered away.
Cass frowned. Goddess or not, she did run away just to have someone else tell her what to do. She pushed into the room the woman had left. The CFO’s office.
A man was dead on the floor.
Cass glanced around quickly to make sure no one was watching. She closed her eyes and breathed. Where she stood was now a hyacinth— soft purple starburst flowers in a huge, rounded plume, big leaves shooting up from the ground, almost the height of her stem.
Cass rested. She had no eyes to see, no ears to hear. No voice to speak. There was only cursory perception of her surroundings, but perception all the same. She could sense the light—or the lack of it, right now. Her sense of smell was dialed up to a thousand.
There was activity and inactivity, for a plant. There was stasis and there was growth. Right now was a time for stasis. A time for rest.
The sun rose. Runners entered the park, pounded down the sidewalk. Then came the parents and nannies with young children. The dog walkers. Cyclists. Finally, older kids fresh off from school. Teenagers with their skateboards. The walking clubs. The drug dealers.
Cass wandered for a few hours and saw no sign of the Batman or of Poison Ivy. She started backtracking.
And that was where and when she found Poison Ivy.
Cass dropped her glamor.
Ivy’s eyes landed sharp on her. “A humanoid flower. Well, I’ll be. What’s the term for that again? An anthousai?”
Cass became carnations, solid purple. Capriciousness. Changeable.
Ivy smiled. “You’re lucky I know so much about plants, little one. I’m guessing that’s the only way you speak, isn’t it? Plants don’t typically have voices.”
Cass dropped into a fighting stance. Ivy smiled wider.
Belvedere. Beautiful peach rambling roses dripped from her head, her skin shifting orange and pink and white to match.
I declare war against you.
The plants of the park grew larger. Denser. They curled closer, vines reaching maliciously. Tree branches reached downwards. Thorns grew out of plants that had no natural thorns. Cass sensed poison on the air.
She started up her ultrasonic electrical signal. The superauditory screech of a plant in distress.
“The audacity to think you could fight me,” Ivy scoffed. “You’re a flower! You should be worshipping me as your god!”
Cass became dogwood, false pretensions, and struck.
The fight was vicious. The park, already sparsely populated, cleared out entirely. Vines lashed out and swung at Cass, but she was fast, faster than most humans. She fought like the world-class assassin she was made to be.
She fought without mercy. Lethally. These plants weren’t people, not like she was.
Chlorophyll spilled out on the ground in splashing arcs, green being ripped from limbs and leaves. Ivy didn’t get her hands dirty; she commanded other plants to do her work for her. A puppeteer.
She was no goddess. She was a monster.
A queen with no regard for her subjects. Someone who claimed to be fighting for her kind while using them as cannon fodder. A turncoat activist, who fought for the greater good of the Earth and didn’t care who she had to kill to protect it. She was no plant, no matter what she pretended.
Cass was a plant.
Cass was a person, too.
And no more people would ever die if she had the power to do anything about it. Ivy had gotten away from the Bat last week, but she wouldn’t get away from Cass.
She was in the form of black walnut, lethal, allelopathic, the plant that killed other plants, when suddenly—
“Stop!”
And she froze.
Ivy’s eyes widened.
She motioned her forward. Cass walked. She didn’t choose to walk.
Ivy did.
Ivy moved her.
Ivy went pale, spring green light. She looked sick.
“Stop,” she said, then paled further. “No, don’t, I mean…” She swallowed. Breathed deep and looked Cass in the eyes. Stared at her.
“You’re coming with me.”
Disobeying wasn’t an option.
Pam lived in a condo on a plot of wooded land large enough for her greenhouse. It was just past the outskirts of Gotham.
“Harley!” she called out as she entered, the little girl trailing behind her. “I, uh—I brought someone home!”
“Oooh!” Harley cooed. “Another plant?”
“Um,” she said. “Kinda?”
“Kinda?” Harley came trotting down the stairs. “Whaddaya mean, ‘kinda’?”
It was at this point she entered the big open main room. She saw the purple child standing next to her girlfriend.
The child glared at her. Harley stared back.
“Hi, I’m Harley,” she said, sticking out her hand. The child folded her arms.
She unfolded her arms. Shook hands with Harley.
Fear climbed up her throat.
“Oh!” Ivy said. “Shit, sorry. Reflex.”
“Reflex? What do you mean?” Harley asked.
“I, uh. I can control her?”
Harley sat down in one of their chairs. “Now, why don’t we all sit down? What do you mean by that?”
They both obeyed, more or less willingly. “Well, she’s a plant. An anthousai. And I can control plants.”
Harley nodded.
“She took offense to me killing McComb, I guess, even though the bastard deserved it. Fought me in the park today. But I… stopped her.”
“Mhmm. And then she followed you here?”
“No, I ordered her to come here with me.” Ivy ran a hand through her hair.
“Pam!”
“I didn’t know what else to do! It wasn’t safe, okay? I couldn’t just leave her there!”
“Yes you could have!”
“She’s a plant! I take care of plants!”
The little anthousai flipped her off.
Harley took a deep breath. “So you kidnapped a kid.”
“I did not! Not intentionally.”
“What part of this was an accident, Pammy?”
“Well…”
“Exactly.”
“Well what do you suggest I do now?” she asked.
Harley glanced over at the child. “Sweetie,” she said. “Do you mind giving us some space to talk? Can you go out to the greenhouse for me?”
The kid glared. Ivy gave her a bit of a nudge, and the anthousai got the message quickly. She was out the door in seconds.
“You kidnapped a kid!” Harley hissed.
“What was I supposed to do?! She’s a plant, Harley! Anthousai grow up out of the ground. She has no parents. No one. I…”
“Are you prepared to be her parent, then?”
“I guess?”
“No, not ‘I guess’! This is serious!”
“It’s been like ten minutes!”
“You kidnapped a kid with no plan!”
“I know!”
Harley tugged on her pigtails. “Oh my god,” she said. “Oh my god, I’m not ready to be a mother.”
“I’m not asking you to be. I would never ask you to—”
“Well you can’t do it on your own!”
“Yes I can!” she said. “I can do this! I can do this. Oh my god, I’m going to do this. Fuck! I’m a mother now. Holy shit.”
“Holy shit,” Harley agreed.
They brought the kid back in. The glaring, scowling, preteen kid.
This was going to be an adventure.
“So,” Harley said. “We decided we’re keeping you.”
The girl’s face twisted.
She became striped carnations, red and white and angry. No.
“That means no,” Pam murmured.
“Thanks,” Harley said. “Kid, listen. We know our methods are… unorthodox. But you need someone looking out for you. Whether you want us or someone else is up to you, but right now, you ain’t got any other options. Now if that changes, then we’ll be having a different conversation, okay?”
The kid folded her arms.
“Do you have a name?” Pam asked.
The kid became amaryllis.
Pride. Determination. Radiance.
“We have to match the meaning,” Pam said slowly. “A name that means the same thing as those flowers, right?”
The girl nodded.
“Alright. Challenge accepted.”
Cass couldn’t leave.
She tried. She didn’t even think Ivy was doing it consciously. She controlled all of the plants in the greenhouse so effortlessly, even unconsciously, in her sleep. They grew and moved like animals. Cass grew and moved like a person, but she was still a plant too.
Still under Ivy’s green thumb.
It was the most flawless cage she had ever been in.
Neither Harley nor Ivy had regular jobs. Their “work” was just them killing and/or beating up people. They went out at night, they fought the Bats, they worked with the Bats. Cass had very mixed opinions on the Bats. They should make up their mind on whether they were for or against Harley and Ivy.
Then Catwoman dropped by.
“Hey Harls, Ivy, you won’t believe what Bruce just—” she stopped. “Who’s the kid.”
Cass became amaryllis again.
Maybe it was pointless to try to communicate, but she would do it anyway. Cass never stopped. Never gave up.
“This is our new foster kid!” Harley said. “We don’t know her name yet.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Catwoman asked. She sounded tired.
“The child is an anthousai. Anthousais have no voices. She can’t tell us her name.” Ivy started making tea.
“What’s an anthousai?” Catwoman asked.
“Flower nymph,” Harley said. “Like from myths and stuff.”
“And…” Catwoman sat down at the kitchen table. “Just. Tell me everything.”
“I found her in Robinson Park,” Ivy started. “I can control her with my powers, so I brought her home with me to take care of her and keep her safe.”
Catwoman buffered.
“I… You kidnapped a kid?” she asked.
“No, of course not. Why does everyone keep saying that?”
“Because of the facts?” Catwoman said. “If you didn’t kidnap her, then is she free to leave?”
“No, but in the same way no child is free to leave their parent without permission.”
Catwoman pressed her hands together. “I need you to understand that this is illegal.”
“So is everything else we do. I’m acting for the greater good.”
Catwoman threw up her hands. “Does she even want to be here?!” she turned to Cass. “Kid. Child. Do you feel safe here?”
She shook her head.
Catwoman folded her arms and glared at Poison Ivy.
“Sweetie you don’t feel safe with us?” Harley Quinn asked, sounding hurt. “Can I ask why? Was it something we did?”
Cass took her own head in her hands and made a jerking motion, almost a snap. She pointed at Poison Ivy.
“Oh,” Ivy said softly. “She saw me kill McComb. I didn’t think…”
Catwoman sighed. “Maybe she’d be more comfortable with… someone the same as her.”
“Do you mean the Bat?” Ivy asked, voice dripping venom. “I won’t turn another child over to him to be cannon fodder in his war.”
“A civilian, then.”
“They won’t be equipped to care for a meta like her. She has special needs,” Harley murmured.
“Protective custody?”
“With who? The Justice League? The Titans? It all circles back to the Bat.”
“Kid,” Harley said. “Would you rather live with us or with Batman?”
She stared at her.
Who the fuck was Batman?
What if he was even worse than Ivy? What if—Who knows. All Cass knew about him was that he was a man, he had something to do with bats, and Ivy didn’t want to give him another child soldier. He sounded like their enemy. He was associated with the Justice League and the Titans.
Cain had always told her to be wary of the Justice League and the Titans.
Cain was a bad man. He had raised her to be a child soldier.
…She did not like either of these options.
She shook her head, flowers bouncing with the movement.
“Kid, you haves ta pick,” Harley said. “You need care from someone who’s on your level and who knows the game. That’s either me and Pammy here or Mr. Batman.”
Well, fuck that.
She stuck her tongue out at Harley.
Why couldn’t they have just left her in the park? She had been doing just fine on her own.
Catwoman sighed. “I guess she’s staying,” she said. “Hi, kiddo. Sorry for the less than ideal circumstances, but I’m your Aunt Selina.”
She glared at her.
“What can we do to make you feel more comfortable staying with us?” Harley asked.
Cass became birds-of-paradise, freedom, sharp-looking yellow flowers covering her head. The color washed over her skin from head to toe.
“That means freedom,” Ivy translated.
“This is how she communicates?” Catwoman asked. Harley nodded. “Yeah, okay. I don’t think B has memorized a floriographic dictionary quite yet.”
“How about this,” Ivy said. “I promise I will never control you unless it’s to save you from harm. Does that make it better? I know my abilities are—can seem threatening—”
Cass flipped her the bird.
“Child,” Ivy said. “You need parents. Whether you want them or not. I can’t let you run away either.”
She shook her head.
Yellow tulips. False and gay.
Ivy’s lips thinned.
“What’s that mean?” Harley asked.
“She called me a liar,” Ivy said.
Harley cast her a sad smile. “It’s gonna be a long road.”