DC's Path of Ruin: Book I

December 21th, 2014 - Part 1

(A/N: From now on, dates will be used as chapter markers)

Day 5 - December 21th, 2014 : Mid Day - Around Noon

Joseph and Grant were walking down the road that led to what was formerly "Gotham Central Park". Nowadays it looked more like it were somewhere else entirely, as if it were always just a random jungle in the middle of an urban landscape. As they walked, each of them began to inject themselves with the inhibitors. "Alright now Grant, you know what to do if it comes down to..." Joseph trailed, looking toward his son.

"Hell yes I do! What kind of question is that?" Grant asked, looking at his father questioningly. "You just put it in the--"

"Yes. You've got it then." Joseph interjected with a chuckle. "Just take caution, because for as much of a woman that she is, you still need to control yourself." Joseph chuckled again.

Grant smirked under his mask. As they neared the Sanctuary, Joseph noticed that lined up around the front of it were bombs. However, these weren't ordinary, these were top military grade. Only few people had access to weaponry like this, and it wouldn't be anyone from Gotham. In the specific formation in which they were set, Joseph realized, that he had to have been the one to set them. But why?

It was unlikely that anything he did in Gotham had to do with Ivy's Sanctuary did it? He slowed once they were much closer to the entrance where some were lying on the ground. He raised an arm to stop Grant from moving forward. He squatted down and inspected them.

In the position they were in as well as the condition, he knew that they were no longer functional, this most likely being the work of an EMP. Interesting. He stepped forward, with Grant following. They now stood directly in front of the sanctuary. The trees groaned and shook at their presence as if disgusted by them - a strange expression of nature unseen by either before. Leaves slowly fell from their high perches, landing on the ground softly.

Grant looked up at them with a narrow eye, not completely sure what they were dealing with. Joseph just looked straight ahead with his arms crossed. "Lex told us to pay you a visit." He called. The trees and all of the nature paused - eerily so. Whatever affect his words had, it was highly effective.

Poison Ivy's face soon appeared on one of the trees in a strange surfacing from the skin of bark. Somehow it managed to replicate her feminine features and bark-y resemblance to the bangs that decorated her face.

She scornfully looked at the both of them.

"Whatever you have to say can be said here..." Ivy's voice came out of the tree's side from her hard lips.

Grant's eyes widened a bit beneath the mask. So was this supposed to be what he meant by a lot of woman when he referred to her before? There was no way he was fucking a plant. That had to be crossing some sort of line somewhere.

Joseph stared back at the representation of her. "I've been simply told to deliver this message. Why haven't you done what you've agreed to?" He asked. Ivy delicately scoffed and looked down - she was bottling down a dose of fear. She had little be afraid of, not in her crusade for earth, not for the life she had or the power she wielded...but there were things that could be taken away from words alone. The guilt of a promise to Dick made her pause longer than she had intended to.

"I am reconsidering" Ivy finally said, guarding everything to the best of her ability.

"Reconsidering what?"

"I will find a way to give him back the Botulinum-chimera toxin." Ivy said shortly. "Is that all?"

"'Fraid that isn't one of your options." Ivy grunted quietly and they could see etched wood that made her small teeth lightly grit. She had no reply - conflicted. Dick promised a better way...