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The Silhouette and The Forge
Chapter 79
The strength and speed boost of each gate was not to be looked down upon. With my talent in jutsu, which is rather broad since it encompassed both genjutsu, ninjutsu, and taijutsu, I was capable of far more than I could before. It was like an untapped well that had just been unleashed.
All of the tendrils that rushed towards us, even with other forms of enhancement stacking off the first three gates, would have pushed me to even keep three-fourths of the plants away from not only myself but the others. Not only from the sheer numbers Woodrue commanded them, but their speed wasn’t slow either.
How he was capable of doing this I didn’t know. What I did know was Pamela wasn’t going anywhere near him. With the fourth gate open, and my body being made of slime, I didn’t have to worry about muscles tearing, and if damage was accrued then my body would simply reform and if that wasn’t enough then healing potions.
Plants were cut to paste with my hands shifting into long blades that split apart, becoming eight whip-like appendages that sliced the various plants to shreds before they caught on fire, going up like napalm from a quick spell cast to the eight tendrils. Even with the world heavily slowed around me, they just kept coming and moving fast enough that the cops couldn’t hope to react quick enough.
Some of them opened fire, but it accomplished nothing since a long plant tentacle wasn’t going to be bothered by bullets that may as well be spitwads hitting it. After pushing back the tide of rot and death that made everyone, myself included, disgusted, I rushed back towards the towering plants that were harder than their wet and rotting appearance would suggest.
Not that it mattered to me when I turned the flames off and the tendrils twisted around one another and began to spin. The impromptu drill pierced through the hard wooden exterior that was more like steel than simple wood. Bits of green and black plant matter flew away in what was the equivalent for me of about eight seconds, but to everyone else it was faster than the blink of an eye.
Woodrue was monologuing something about how he would get back at everyone who ever wronged him and proving his theory about plants having a collective consciousness that connected all of them to each other, but it was now a slow drone that made me want to gouge out my ears if it weren't for the fact my entire body could hear him.
The tunnel was carved out, followed by lightning jutsu not dissimilar to Sasuke’s lightning spear from the ends of newer tentacles with hands, and of course a chakra network connected to each one, burning away and hardening the layer of ooze, followed by earth-style ninjutsu to create a hardened, almost concrete-like layer when water was added.
Slowing most of my body down while the tentacles remained at the maximum speed I could keep them at while pushing back the growing tide of corrupted plants. The cops' collective mouths dropped, with the sole exception being Jim Gordon.
“Get moving. I can handle him.”
They gave me some looks but did as told, having realized they would be out of their depth when it came to a fight like this. More plants tried to grow and stop them, but to both the cops' and my surprise, regular plants grew somewhat slower and acted as a barrier against the corrupted ones.
They quickly made their way through the tunnel while I could fully focus on Woodrue. Instead of the plants pushing forward, a horde of Jasons came rushing out of the growing mass.
“You will not take her from me! I will not be denied my destiny!” They all screamed before getting mulched.
The various tentacles cut them all to pieces before my hands moved through various hand signs, making far fewer than I had before, becoming much more efficient in both my control and understanding of jutsu. It was like having the know-how and memories of doing heavy lifting, but your body was out of shape just enough to make doing it difficult but not impossible.
Another hand appeared beside the others with a second head growing beside it. The hand signs finished, and a constant wave of flame came out, followed by a powerful gust of wind strong enough to make cars slide. The flames became much more intense, growing in size, and the temperature skyrocketed.
Woodrue’s screams of anger and pain were drowned out when the mass of disgusting plants was engulfed like sand on a beach by the ocean. Buildings were melted down, cars turned to molten slag, and everything looked like it had been introduced to the sun.
I quickly retreated when I heard more gunshots coming from the direction the cops had run. Then I saw what they were fighting against. Several people rushed towards them that had green goop covering their bodies, with them looking more like zombies than actual people.
They stumbled back when shot, even headshots weren’t doing anything. One of them expanded like a suit that had someone too big for it before it burst with a sickening crunch and pop, and out came Woodrue, looking like a clown from a nightmare Joker could only dream of doing.
He knocked a car aside despite how thin his limbs appeared. A cop dived, avoiding getting turned into a red smear on the road. “Give me that woman.” He snarled towards Gordon, who backed away, firing away into Woodrue’s body to no effect despite the shots blowing fist-sized chunks out of him.
They all sealed back up, proving the bullets were just an inconvenience. Pamela by this point was squirming and moving like she was in incredible discomfort. A root tied around Jim’s feet made him trip while he shielded Pamela as best he could from Woodrue, whose hand was raised, fingers growing out into spear points poised to attack him.
Only to have his body turned to wet splinters with not a single drop of that goop touching either of them. I stood above the two, looking around now, concerned far more than I had been.
“You're proving to be a rather difficult parasite to be rid of, Moronic Man.”
The zombies stopped in their tracks, all heads turned towards me and the remaining police and Commissioner Gordon, who by this point had gotten off the ground and was protectively holding Pamela. My heart ached seeing her like that.
“It’s Floronic Man! And I am no parasite, but the bringer of the new world! A world I will herald for all plants everywhere, whether they want me to or not.”
He ranted and raved like a madman high off of his newly gained powers as I could see the corruption he spread had covered more ground far faster than I could have imagined. If this was what he could do with an incomplete transferral and connection to the Green, I don’t want to find out what he could do when he finished what he had started before I got Pamela out of there.
I know the destruction of both chambers would only be a minor inconvenience. For all of the insults I would give the man and how stupid he was, when it came to some intellectual pursuits, he was far from a brain-dead idiot.
With his powers, it wouldn’t take him long to create another chamber, if not develop an organic equivalent.
“Oh great, we lose one maniac and get him replaced with something from a horror movie… also, who the hell calls themselves that?!” Harvey Bullock spoke up, complaining about how this city never catches a break. Everyone nodded and hummed in agreement about that retarded name.
“I am not a mad man!” Woodrue pointed a gnarled, crooked finger ending in a sharp point towards Bullock, only further proving what he said was correct. “And my name is perfectly fine, it is intimidating and shows my connection to plants.”
We all turned towards one another and shared a long look. “You could have gone with any kind of name, even one an edgelord would come up with, like Toxin, Bramble, Kudzu, or Nightshade, or hell, you could have gone with the Strangler for fuck's sake.”
I butted in listing off several names I could think of on such short notice. “Huh, those aren’t half bad. Nothing super amazing, but way better than what’s his name came up with.” Bullock said with a smile and a laugh jabbing his thumb in Woodrue’s direction.
Woodrue looked apocalyptic. His shoulders were hunched, his hands twitching at his waist like he was ready to strangle someone, even one of his eyes somehow twitching like it was flesh and blood instead of wood and plant residue.
“To be fair, it was on short notice, and let’s be honest here, I am not helping him come up with a better name than what he chose.”
“I’m right here, you know?” He said loudly before I just waved him off.
“Yeah, yeah, we know. What names would you suggest?”
My attempt at getting Woodrue to focus solely on me worked as the plants and zombies all rushed towards me instead of the cops. Gordon and a few of the others had realized what I was doing and took full advantage. That didn’t mean Woodrue had lost his ability to reason with a few heading towards them, but most of his attention was directed at me.
Whatever hivemind crap he had going on was proving to be annoying just like everything else about the guy.
“Oh goodie, I get to knock your block off again, Woody!” I exclaimed happily.
“Not this-”
His head was quickly crushed along with the rest of his body while I evaded spears of his plants erupting from the ground.
“-time. You little bastard. That’s it! I have had. Enough!!!” He yelled so loud everyone, myself included, winced.
Then the ground rumbled, then cracked, breaking apart as tendrils rose up from both the land and the water before they soon moved towards dragging themselves through the earth, knocking over any building in their way and killing who knows how many people before blocking out the sky when they wrapped around each other.
Now trapped inside of his impressive display of power, I sliced down several zombies, noting how the people were dead and only controlled by the plants and whatever that toxic goop that Jason left everywhere was. It ate away at everything it was touching, even the plants were falling apart from it being on and inside of them.
“Well… shit,” Bullock said, looking up at the now blocked-out sky with the massive plant limbs moving.
“Oh boy.” I didn’t even get a chance to warn the others before, with a hand seal, the rock and concrete rose up and encased all of them inside of the barrier before what had to be countless thorns the size of fingers launched from the massive plants that trapped us.
They looked like distant specks that quickly grew in size. Rushing towards the barrier and getting inside with the walls finally sealing shut before it shuddered, we all heard the cracking and chipping of the earth wall, with me constantly being forced to repair the walls.
“What do we do?” One cop asked Jim Gordon.
“We try to tunnel our way out.” I said matter of factly knowing full well that if it wasn’t for me constantly repairing the damage done, those thorns would have long since torn through the stone barrier.
“How are we…” They trailed off when a hand seal and the ground formed a slant that went into a tunnel. A tunnel that was soon closed when numerous roots that had a disgusting rotted fish smell rushed towards us.
More rock and stone covered up the tunnel, with the reinforced rock doing its best to keep the surprisingly strong plants at bay. “Never mind. Any other ideas?”
“Can’t you just torch all of it?” One asked, getting more frustrated from how much fear was pumping through his veins.
“That green goopy crap that is all over the plants will go up like gasoline. I do that, and you guys and probably a good chunk of the area will go up in flames. I am not doing that again after I just flamebroiled a block already.”
“No one is hurt, I hope.” Commissioner Gordon said tensely while side-eyeing me. His gaze was even as he kept every wall under watch to see if something else came for us.
“As far as I am aware, none. Didn’t exactly have time when he decided to try and kill me and finish his experiment with my girlfriend.”
Jim Gordon let out a sigh at that. “… I doubt anyone around would be alive with what he is doing. How far do you think he has spread… whatever he is doing to other people?”
“Hard to say. I hope it isn’t far. Because if it is, I don't know what we are going to do.”
It was me being honest at that. I genuinely had no idea how I was going to contain him. Killing him was out of the question unless I wanted to try wiping out all plant life across Earth, and right now that was a pipe dream. It wasn’t an option, besides destroying entire ecosystems, it also wasn’t going to be possible in a timely enough manner, with the current situation proving that, if left unchecked, Woodrue could do some serious damage.
Speaking of which, I formed more appendages and spread my body out like a bubble, forcing everyone further inside me despite their protests when several plant tendrils made minor cracks and tried to snatch them. They were soon melted down with acid secreted out.
More walls were placed up and reinforced through a combination of magic and jutsu. I could shred them with more gates if necessary, but I either leave them all behind here and they become vulnerable or I stay here and let him potentially spread his cancerous self across Gotham…
“Any ideas? Because I am running out of options.” Several blasts of fire jutsu with wind added into the flames blew the walls apart when they had become too compromised. The street turned to molten slag while everyone was protected in my gelatinous body, making sure they had oxygen to breathe.
“Kid, can you do your super speed thing while we are inside of you?” Bullock looked unsure of the sentence that just left his mouth and he also didn’t look comfortable with it either.
I can’t blame him. I doubt I would be comfortable being inside of someone like this either. “Hell no. Not unless you guys want to become chunky salsa. The speeds I would be moving at would be way too fast for any of you to handle.”
“Ah shit. How much ammo do you guys have left?” Bullock grumbled, checking his pistol magazine, not looking thrilled.
“Almost out. What about you Commisioner?” One of the others asked.
The Commissioner in question looked like he wanted to pull out a pack of cigarettes he kept in his pocket before looking towards the others. “Four shots. Batman isn’t responding… so we’re on our own for now.”
“So this is it… this is how we are going to die?” Bullock said when the flames smoke hadn’t even burned out but was instead smothered by more plants but thankfully no more bodies.
“No one’s dying detective. Just because I can’t go all out or kill the son of a bitch doesn’t mean he can’t get to you guys.” I said with confidence, knowing that Woodrue had to be getting angrier the longer this went on.
His ego is too big to allow someone like me to slow him down like I have been. So he was getting angry and more desperate. So maybe just maybe he had been so focused on us that he hadn’t spread the spores or whatever the hell that goop is to the rest of the city.
Going through several more hand seals and telling the others the plan, they grudgingly went along with what little I could come up with on such short notice. It wasn’t much, but it was something. I couldn’t stay on the defense considering Woodrue was getting stronger and figuring out his powers at a rate that made me concerned.
He wasn’t a threat to me just yet, but the fact he went from barely capable of using his new plant based body, to controlling simple plants, to then forming multiple bodies all controlled by him with massive plant tendrils and now controlling people’s bodies…
It painted a picture that made me concerned. He wasn’t someone I could kill like everyone else. So I wasn’t.
My body soon let the others out as several dozen of the officers and Pamela, carried in each of their arms, ran out with me, shredding the several meter high mass of plants, ranging from hideous flowers that were wilted and all life sucked out of them, yet their wilted petals were as big as a man trying to grab them. Crabgrass-like serrated whips tried to slice through them.
All of it was shredded and then blown away by powerful gusts of wind, freezing magic tossed out that flash froze what was left. All of the illusions were still intact. Jason himself, standing a safe distance away, looked around in a panic, hands grasping the sides of his head, an enraged look in his eyes that bulged at the sight.
“No! No, no, no! You have wasted enough of my time, I cannot be defeated. Not like this!” The plants grew into a frenzy, and the sheer speed and ferocity almost managed to get the real people.
It was an endless battle. No matter how much I cut, crushed, shredded, or even burned, more just kept coming. It put into perspective how busted Poison Ivy was in various media when I watched what Woodrue was capable of doing right now.
I moved faster, hit harder, even using explosive fuinjutsu to detonate areas in the rows behind the front of the rushing tide of green. It was unfortunate my fuinjutsu was lagging behind on nearly everything else. It was good, but it wouldn’t give me anything I could use to contain Woodrue since I didn’t know how to create a storage seal that could have been used to potentially contain him.
That’s if it worked. The issue lay with his connection to the green, and I doubt sealing a city’s worth of plants would help me get rid of him. It would be like doing that to Ultron's physical bodies in Marvel, it wouldn’t do a damn thing when his mind would just move around the internet and make another body.
Woodrue might be affected by it, but it wasn’t guaranteed, and I didn’t have time to practice making a storage tag right now. Deciding to add some extra power through some runes that were carved alongside the explosive seals in anything the plants were around, even on themselves.
The fire runes added far more power, sending gusts of wind everywhere as if artillery was firing. More just kept coming. Pamela’s struggles were reflected in all of her illusions as she became increasingly distraught with her body covered in sweat or whatever she had for sweat now.
To my horror, Woodrue showed far more power and this time I felt it through that weird sense of divinity except it wasn’t divine. At least… not necessarily for Woodrue but what he was connected to. Before there was no shine, no feeling of any kind besides the sense of direction I had from Wonder Woman and Thunderbird across the country.
Now, it felt warm and had the sensation of being surrounded by nature. But that was quickly smothered by the sensation of taint that was fouler than any disease or cancer could hope to be. The toxicity easily put everything Gotham had coursed through what was supposed to be water to shame.
A drop of it felt wrong. The kind that could kill billions from just that one droplet, and he felt covered in this filth. It didn’t just cover the beauty of the green light he saw and felt, it was working its way through it like a poisonous parasite corrupting every bit it touched, and the surroundings didn’t like it.
Unlike the familiar feeling of silicon and metal, I couldn’t make out anything that the denizens of that place spoke, but I knew they didn’t like it and weren’t happy about it. I couldn’t blame them. What little I could feel just by watching it and being near it made my skin crawl.
Then the feeling grew as the corruption surged. “Bow before me, Daniel.”
He gave me a sickly smile that dripped that disgusting slop from his blackened lips. Before I could retort I fell silent when my eyes widened when fungus and small plants erupted from my body.
The others fell over with vines and other greenery growing off of them, the illusions continued running uninterrupted with no harm done to them while Woodrue ignored them.
Pamela finally woke up, crying out like she just had the worst nightmare. She blinked and looked around, realizing whatever she had seen either wasn’t a nightmare or she was better off in the nightmare than being awake right now.
“W-What’s happening?” She asked aloud as I struggled to move even with the gates active. The plants formed outside of my body along the surface, and they grew everywhere. They didn’t penetrate into me or the others as the foliage grew outwards, instead, it seemingly spawned from thin air and was used to subdue us.
The plants shouldn’t be this difficult to break free of. I was capable of snapping through several vines that were more sludge than plant and saplings whose limbs and roots made them look like sickly spiders. Despite their appearance, they were easily well beyond the strength of normal steel, and any I did break through, snapping them apart, more took their place until I was nothing more than a massive ball of plants and goop that made me want to throw up.
Acid did nothing but act as an mild irritant to the ball, and I froze halfway to opening the fifth gate when Woodrue spoke. “Yield or else Pamela will be hurt.”
My eyes widened, and I was about to move before Woodrue’s steps clacked against what was left of the road, and he was near Pamela. “You need her alive. You wouldn’t dare harm her when you need her, and if you do...” I tried to call what I thought was a bluff, but Woodrue’s laugh and his demeanor told me enough. My threat made him giggle like a schoolgirl, or it was his attempt at one. Instead, it sounded like someone drowning.
"Oh, I need her, but if my little flower has a few broken limbs, it’s not the end of the world.” He cooed, hand moving close to touch Pamela, who looked horrified and disgusted by what Jason had become.
“J-Jason? What have you done to yourself?” The sheer disgust and revulsion in her tone made Jason pause before a cry of pain almost gave me the strength to break free from my anger alone before I stopped with my head poking out of the ball.
Woodrue wore an angry snarl, hand grasped around Pamela’s throat as she gasped for air, desperately trying to get free of his grip. “Move, and I make cactus thorns grow on her inner layer of skin.” Woodrue threatened to bring her close and force her head in my direction.
My expression went from pure hate and anger to reluctant acceptance. I slowly nodded while never leaving his eyes until I forced myself to look towards Pamela, who looked at me in concern.
“That’s more like it. You tried to take everything from me, and now I shall take it all from you. And I will make you watch as I do.” He smiled sadistically, loosening his grip on Pamela’s throat enough she finally got a breath of air. Her eyes widened like she just heard someone tell her something of great importance, and it hit her like a bombshell. When this happened, I didn’t fail to notice her smothered presence grow brighter, connecting better to that plant-like feeling.
Unlike Woodrue, she wasn’t tainted or spreading a disease that harmed the spirits of the plants, she felt warm and inviting, like coming home to a warm meal and running into your mother's waiting arms.
“Jason, stop. This isn’t right, not just what you have done to Daniel and the others but the plants… you're hurting them so much.” She said, almost breaking down and sobbing.
“I say what’s right.” He hissed, his grip choking her out again as Gordon looked angry, trying to break free and grab his revolver to shoot the bastard.
“Don’t. Move.” He told me, as I slowly moved about, ready to turn Gotham into a crater for what he was doing to Pam. “I said don’t move.” His grip became much tighter. Pamela's eyes looked about ready to pop out of their sockets as she grit her teeth.
I stopped, deciding on what I was going to do. Two more gates, and I should be capable of moving fast enough that Jason couldn’t hope to move or react to, shredding all of the plants, scouring Gotham for any trace of him, and then getting Light to get me some means to burn the plants away.
He has proven he was willing to harm Pamela, and despite what he might think would stop me, it only made me want to intervene even more. If I could move fast enough, I could get her away from him and then go to town.
If he was willing to harm her to stop me thinking he could hold her as a hostage and keep me at bay, he was very mistaken. My grip tightened, ready to open the next gate as Woodrue gloated at me, thinking he had won. In reality, we both were about to get one hell of a surprise.
His grip on Pamela finally loosened. She coughed and breathed heavily with Woodrue completely unbothered by what he had just done to her. Then again, if he wasn’t bothered by what he was doing to these plants, according to Pamela, or the people he killed and piloted their bodies, I doubt he had an ounce of empathy for anything.
Pamela’s pained expression twisted into horror before a look of fury formed on her face when the nasty goop started to travel over my face. “Good. Never forget your place, Daniel. Through you Pamela will learn the errors of her ways since you helped create that rebellious streak in her.”
He said delightfully as his disgusting hand slid along Pamela’s side through the coat Gordon had draped over her. Her eyes narrowed before Woodrue stumbled back as if struck.
“What?!” He held his hand up and watched, mouth agape and eyes wide, as his hand turned from a rotten, dead tree branch to a solid hunk of wood that wouldn’t move at all for him.
He stumbled back looking between it and Pamela. Pamela, now free of him, had plants not afflicted by him rush towards her. The coat dropped off of her with the plants, hiding her modesty from the world while still showing all her curves.
Woodrue’s eyes narrowed before he snarled. “Bitch, that will be the last time you ever defy me. Let this be the first of many losses you will suffer, my former assistant.” He said coldly when the plants moved to kill us all.
Or they did until they paused, and I could feel it through my ethereal sense of the otherworldly. Pamela’s connection to the plants was growing, breaking through the cancerous gunk Woodrue had left in it in his attempt to hijack and control it for himself.
The plants nearest to her froze on the spot and the ones about to kill the cops and Jim Gordon were freed of the ooze falling off of them. The decay was gone, like rewinding a video of something and deaging it in the process. The old rotted or dried husks were replaced with pristine plants that looked like they wouldn’t be out of place in one of those magazines showing off someone’s garden on their front lawn.
Not just emerald green, various flowers of every color and shade imaginable and plants, both common and endangered, formed.
Pamela stepped forward with a newfound confidence and plenty of rage.
“If anyone is getting punished, it’s you, Moronic Man. For what you did to me, Daniel, and so many other people.”
Woodrue opened his mouth to speak only to let out a rasp as the fresh healthy plants wrapped around him, tightening so much his spindly limbs were snapped like twigs and his corrupted plants tried to fight back but they were overwhelmed and smothered by the tide of healthy green.
The various copies of him moved jerkily before stilling and falling over, turning to mush on the ground. “H-How?! I have control. I have the power. You worthless bitch, what are you doing?!” He snarled out after moving his mouth enough to remove his gag.
A vine snapped forward and gave him a series of slaps that would make any pimp proud to witness. Woodrue’s expression showed genuine pain. For once, showing more pain besides when I used magic or chakra to set him on fire, which was more of a mild irritant.
The plants that had been growing off of us and constricting fell away to the ground, drying up before new life sprouted where they had been.
“This- This isn’t over! You hear me? When I get out and I will, you will all suffer! Suffer!!!” His mad ramblings came to an end when several plants wrapped around his head and dragged him down into the ground, his loud mumbles turned into disturbing cries of terror.
Cries that soon turned to silence when he was fully dragged into the ground while Pamela let out a long breath she had been holding before almost falling over. Catching her in my arms before pulling her close to me.
She looked up at me, her mouth open, questioning my appearance with the gates open.
“It’s something I did to save you. I’ll explain later. Are you going to be alright?”
Seeing my genuine concern for her, she looked down at a plant that brought her a piece of glass that showed her reflection. Her eyes widened seeing the change her body had undergone.
“I will be after some time and plenty of therapy.” She finally said. She turned towards the cops and her gaze settled on Commissioner Gordon. “Thank you.”
He nodded, a small smile on his tired face. Then their collective radios sprung to life, breaking the calm peace we had in this small section of the city.
Bullock rolled his eyes. “Never a moment of rest in this city, I swear. C’mon, we can take you two to the station to get a report written up on this… Jesus, that is going to be a weird one too.” He realized his head was slumping, how absurd of a police report he was going to have to write by Gotham standards.
“If it helps, I think we can help you out with the current situation," Pamela said. Commissioner Gordon looked like he was about to argue it but paused when he properly assessed the situation and saw both what I could do and what Pamela was capable of now.
He made the decision and had given us some radios to stay in the know and help out in the city. When Batman was currently unavailable, you worked with what you had. I withheld the wince and thankfully no one noticed the near stumble I just did. It faded and soon enough my thoughts felt even more fluid than before… the realization I could hold more than one concurrent thought almost made me face plant.
Stop Woodrue, the Moronic Man! +100
Change Pamela’s future so she doesn’t become a supervillain +100
Perks gained:
-Comic Book Science (DC Multiverse - Earth 11) (600CP)
You're extremely intelligent, easily one of the smartest people on the planet. You could build a massive company from scratch and revolutionize the sciences if you so choose. Your genius allows you to remember everything you've ever seen in great detail, hold multiple trains of thought at once, pick up new information and master skills very quickly, and build futuristic technology that seems to ignore conventional physics. Intellectually, you rival Lex Luthor and Ms. Terrific.
