Tim looked out in the moonlit night at what was left of Gotham City. Only a few days since the attack, and half of the skyscrapers were already covered with vines. The streets were overgrown with grass and weeds, and trees were beginning to sprout up all over the place. The occasional scream would still be heard every now and then, as the monstrous tree-like creatures found another survivor and carried him off somewhere.
From where he was perched on top of the remains of the Gotham Police Department building, he had a fairly good view of the carnage. Not as as good as if he and Barbara were still in the her hideout in the Gotham Clock Tower, but still decent.
For the past day or so Tim and his girlfriend had been hiding in a secret control room inside the Gotham Police Department building, built specifically for Oracle by her father, Commissioner Gordon. As he viewed the state of the city, Tim had couldn't believe it had only been a little over a day since things had gone to hell.
Batman had taken the Joker to Arkham Asylum after another capture, but it had been a trap by the mad Clown of Crime. He had staged an uprising as soon as he was through the gates, and the inmates had taken over. Apparently, the Joker had discovered one of the doctors there had modified Bane's Venom into an even more potent toxin, Titan. The Joker had planned on claiming it for himself to create and army of crazed super soldiers to conquer the city with. That's not what had happened, however.
In a way, it was ironic. The riot that Joker had staged to procure Titan had enabled one of the escaped prisoners to harvest it herself. Poison Ivy had acquired Titan, and used it to become more powerful than anyone had ever seen.
Tim wasn't worried as Barbara had initially been explaining this to him, he had full faith that Batman would thwart any attempt to wrest control of the dangerous substance, but that's when Oracle really broke down into tears. She insisted that Poison Ivy had seduced Batman, and that he had become one of her witless pawns.
Tim hadn't fully believed her, though he never would have said so out loud. He had wanted to rush to Arkham himself, if Batman was in trouble, he needed all the help he could get. Barbara had insisted they needed to warn her father, Commissioner Gordon, and the rest of the police. She had been in near hysterics, so Tim had agreed, hoping it would help calm her down.
Thankfully, a special elevator had been installed in the clock tower that Barbara could take down that would place the wheelchair she was in directly into a vehicle on street level, so they wasted no time in getting to the main building of the GCPD.
Robin had radioed ahead, and Commissioner Gordon was waiting for them at the entrance when they arrived, a concerned look on his face. As soon as Barbara wheeled herself out of the car, he rushed up to her.
"Dear God, Barbara, what the hell happened over there?" Gordon demanded, walking behind her wheelchair to help steer her inside. "One minute Batman is trying to find a cure for this Titan bullshit, the next thing I know all of Arkham Island is one big fuckin' greenhouse!"
Before Barbara could answer him, the ground shook as the sound of a cataclysmic explosion reverberated through the air. The thunderous sound barely had time to fade before screams and lesser rumbles began to fill the air.
"What now?" Gordon muttered through his clenched teeth as they ran inside. Gordon pushed Barbara's wheelchair. "I suppose it's as good a time to show you, we built a hidden room in here specifically for you," he said, talking to Barbara. "Hopefully it's up to your standards, but I felt it was time you had a place to work from her as well."
Before Barbara could even ask how he knew of her secret identity as Oracle, he rushed them back to a newly built room, hidden away and fortified behind secret doors. It had been built especially for his daughter, an almost identical war room to her location in the clock tower, complete with wall-to-wall monitors, a state-of-the-art computer where she could access security cameras and even take remote control of some of the departments more experimental and high tech weaponry, and it was even supplied with plenty of rations in case it had to be used as a safe room.
Barbara immediately turned the consoles on and hacked into police drones throughout the city, their video feeds coming on along the wall the monitors. As the images began appearing, they could only gasp at the horror they were seeing. Vines had begun to sprout from the ground, climbing up buildings and swinging at anyone within striking distance. Barbara gasped as she saw a large concentration of vines climb up her clock tower, until the tall structure was completely covered with them. In an instant, the vines twisted around and squeezed the sturdy building, and with booming crash, tore her secret home down to the ground. It only took a few minutes, and Tim couldn't help but realize that she hadn't insisted on seeing her father, she would have been crushed by the murderous plants.
Gordon had no time to ruminate on the fate his daughter had escaped, however, as the building shook from an explosive crash as screams came from the entrance and alarms started blaring.
Gordon pulled out his handgun and started for the door. "Stay here," he commanded Oracle and Robin. "It's safer and you can be my eyes and ears to what's going on."
Gordon didn't give them any time to argue as the large metal door, disguised as a wall on the other side, opened and he stepped through.
"Wait!" Barbara called out, overwhelmed at everything that was happening. She wheeled to the door, grabbing her father by the hand. "I don't...how did you know?" Was all she could bring herself to ask in the moment. Screams and gunshots rang out from the rooms beyond, and taking one last look at his daughter before turning away, he gave his Gordon smiled lovingly.
"You're my daughter, Barbara," he said softly, pushing some buttons on the side of the door. "I always knew." And in an instant, the door slid back in place, and her father was gone.
Oracle stared at the cold metal barrier only for an instant, then quickly went back to the computer screens, sniffing back a tear. She quickly changed the views of the monitors from the chaos going on in the city to the chaos happening inside the police department. Like in the city, vines and plants had started to grown inside the building, with large pods that would shoot spores at anyone in their near vicinity.
Oracle quickly set up the security cameras on her feed, and she and Robin both watched as the Gotham City police tried to put up a fight. But like weeds in a garden, the plants and growth seem to regrow and spread faster than it could be fought back.
Soon, they could only observe as Gordon and a few other survivors fought their way into heavy weaponry, donning flame throwers to hold back the growth overtaking them.
For a moment, it seemed they had the upper hand, as the vines quickly withdrew from the burning flames, and the pods succumbed to a fiery destruction. Barbara sighed with relief as her father and the rest began to make their way back to them, but then, emerging from one of holes in the ground left by a vine, a tall, tree-like creature emerged.
