i_am_poison
It seemed all Ivy's hard planning was finally coming to fruition.
Since her very first day in the city she had concentrated on one thing: finding Harley. She scoured newspaper articles, trying to find crime reports that would match her partner-in-crime's style. She checked hospital lists for anyone matching Harley's description, and visited half a dozen women without success. A seduced warden at the stated penitentiary gave her insider access to the inmate lists, but even that hadn't helped at first.
Then, it seemed, the city did Ivy an favour and swallowed Quinn, spitting her out into a heavily guarded block in the prison.
Still, Ivy was nothing if not resourceful. A week of careful cross-pollination of a few of her special tricks had produced a gift that would certainly help Harley on her way to freedom, if not carry her right into Ivy's arms. It hadn't been easy. The plant had to be small enough to seem safe, and had to be free of any poison or toxin to pass the mandatory screening.
Ivy was rather proud of this one.
Her seduced prison guard could get the gift inside and up to the cell, and from there it would do all it could to get Harley out into the open air. She hoped her friend was in a fit state to utilize the opportunity.
---
"Quinzel!"
The guard clunked his baton against the door a few times to get her attention, before jerking it open and tossing a small box in Harley's direction. It was plain brown card, tied with string.
"It ain't poisonous, so don't trying chewing the leaves." He wasn't quite sure why he was delivering it to her in the first place. His head felt...odd. "I'll take it off you if you do anything dumb, understand?"
He clanged the door shut, and left her to read the card that accompanied her gift, a pot no more than and inch and a half tall, with three tiny ivy leaves sprouting from it.
The guard was a sap. Mind completely gone. Done in by Ivy no doubt. Given that she now held a lovely little plant right in her hot little hands. Harley crowed like a jackal, skipping on first one leg and then the other.
"Why, hello there precious. Did your mommy send you to me ? Did she ? Did she send you with that big dumb oaf ? Did she ? Awwh, yes she did. Yes. she did."
Harley crept to the bars of her cell and peeked out. Yeah, a total sap that guard. Just yesterday she'd tried to gouge a guard's eye out. They were so soft compared to Arkham guards. And not at all as respectful.
Harley moved back to her bunk and scratched her head a moment. "A kiss, huh ?" Well, it wasn't as if the plant could hurt her.
She brought it to her lips and planted one right on all three little stems, then put it on the bed to see if anything happened.
From: [info]i_am_poison Date: 12/09/2005 17:18:41
Harley's kiss, while not poisonous like Ivy's, still contained a few special enzymes, a lasting legacy of Ivy's gift to her friend. And this plant was specially bred to react to them.
And oh, how it reacted.
Within seconds it was growing, stretching out towards the window and real sunlight. It unfurled like a snake, probing and teasing around the edges of the framed, pressed against the toughened glass. And slowly, using the tiniest cracks and fissures, with same forced that gives weeds the strength to push through concrete and roots the power to upset foundations, the ivy forced it's way into the wall.
Within five minutes the ivy was breaking trough the plaster on the outside, sending wiry feelers down to the ground. As soon as they burrowed beneath the surface they expanded, sucking up every nutrient they could. Further up, the expansion forced bricks and mortar apart, sending them tumbling to the ground. The bricks that weren't knocked out were loosened considerably.
"I love yah, Red." Harley said in a slightly awed exhale. But she didn't waste any time. The moment the vine was strong enough she was scrambling up it. She knew she had to get high enough that the guards couldn't grab and pull her back down.
It meant ducking falling debris, but that was easy enough. It wasn't like she had anything but the clothes on her back to hamper her. There was nothing she especially wanted to keep. This cell hadn't been her home away from homes, like back in Gotham.
She patted the plant as she made her way up. "Your mommy does like the classics, doesn't she." A swing and an acrobatic flip and she was shoving at the loosened bricks, scrambling to find a way out into the air.
"Now to see if you can take me over that big ugly wall. Who're they trying to keep out anyway? Sales men ? This place could do with few nice curtains, maybe some new carpet."
From: [info]i_am_poison Date: 12/09/2005 17:36:46
It was almost as if the plant was listening to Harley. At ground level it began to snake toward the wall, taking deeper root and covering any obstacle in the way. Once there, it spread upwards and flared out, creating a natural ladder of think vines.
Now all Harley had to do was get to the wall from the roof, avoiding the attentions of the wardens who were only now investigating the new arrival to their lawn. One got a little too close, prodding a stem with his baton. Creeping tendrils snatched it off him and, as he made a futile attempt to grab it back, he was rapidly enveloped by the ivy. Venus fly trap, eat you heart out.
Harley paused to giggle. Yup, these poor saps weren't at all as smart as Arkham orderlies. Those boys knew to stay the hell away from one of Red's little friends.
She patted the plant again, as she started working her way across it's ladder spun vines. Down or up. Up made her an easy target trying not to fall. Down and across made for fun times with the uniforms.
Harley began bouncing down the broad leafy stems. She dropped to a handstand, swung and did a somersault through the air to land in front of a startled guard.
Her index and middle finger grabbed at his face. "Gotcha nose." Harley grabbed his baton and cracked the back of his knee with it. "But I'd rather have this instead."
The pale blue shirts were streaming out over the compound now as she ran for the flora ladder on the other side of the yard.
Harley began to cartwheel and skip. "Deck the halls with poison ivy, Falalalala, lala la la. Tis the season to be naughty, Falalalala, lala la la. Here I go now, I'm escaping. Falala, lalala, la la la. Try to stop me, your bones'll be breaking. Falalalala, lala la la!"
From: [info]i_am_poison Date: 12/09/2005 18:03:11
A few of the uniformed guards made the same mistake as their associate, and paid the price for getting too close. Harley was the only person who seemed able to escape this fast-growing menace. It might not have be poisonous, but it was very...probing. Not at all pleasant.
Gradually it crept down the other side of the wall. It was slowing now, the vines thinner and the leaves smaller. It wasn't producing any seeds; Ivy may have loved this little baby, but she wasn't stupid. It would strangle other plants as easily as it would humans, so it was short-lived, and she didn't want it reproducing. Just enough to get Harley out of her prison.
A bullet winged over her head, and Harley paused in utter shock, balancing on one hand, peering back over her shoulder in the direction it came from.
"You shot at me."
"Get your on your knees, face in the dirt." The gun holder said.
"You. Shot. At. Me!" What in blue blazes was the world coming to.
"We will shoot to kill. Get on your knees, now. Face in the dirt!" Came the order again.
"Get on my knees ?! My knees!" Harley threw the baton, wacking the guard right in the face. She followed up in three short flips with falling on him as he held his hand to his nose in shock, blood gushing.
Harley didn't care. She started pummeling the idiot. "My knees ?! Is that anyway to treat a lady ? Is it ? Just who do you think you are ? My knees ?!"
His already broken nose wasn't getting good treatment nor were his cheekbones.
A shift of blue moved to her right and Harley reached back, picked up the gun he'd dropped and shot at the motion. There was a scream as a man went down with a bullet in the leg.
"I am trying to discipline someone here." She looked over, knuckles bruised and blood covered and gently patted the side of his face. "There now, all better, see ? You know better now, don't you ?" Harley grabbed his broken nose and made him nod his head.
Then, smiling, gun in hand, she made her way towards the ladder at a more leisurely place, the other guards close to her somewhat confused and shocked.
They didn't start moving again until she was halfway up the ladder. There was conversation through walkie talkies. A guard tower was beaded on her.
Harley couldn't hear what was being said, but she didn't like how close the other wardens were getting. Holding her hand out, thumb up to estimate the distance, she capped another one, right in the knee.
"If you'll excuse me, gentleman, I have a prior engagement."
It only took her a minute more to be up and over the wall. Where the plant was growing out thinly.
Harley half screamed when the leafy vine under her broke. This fall was gonna hurt. Damn!
A waft of chlorophyll caught her nose, and the soft snap of leaves breaking. The baby's last attempt to save her. Harley landed on the ground outside the prison with only a mild bruise.
"Awhh baby. You did good. Thank you." Rubbing her ass, she leaned over to kiss it, just as the front gates opened and more prison wardens came running out into the streets.
Thumbing her nose at them, in her prison greys and soft stupid slippers, Harley ran off into the nearest alley, gun in hand.