Poison Ivy

        Ivy is an attractive, no, a gorgeous woman in her late twenties,
by appearances. She stands about five and a half feet in height, her legs
seeming to make up an almost disproportionate amount of that height. Her
flaming red hair tumbles down over her shoulder in a wild mane, drawn back
from her face by a beautifully placed wreath of green laurel, offsetting
the deep emerald of her eyes. Delicate brows arch over her eyes, seeming
always slightly drowsy, the lids heavy. Her full lips are deepest cri
mson, always moist. She moves slowly, seemingly always conscious of every
small shift and movement of her form as it glides gracefully in her
meandering gait. 
        Her skin as it runs down the nape of her neck and across her
shoulders is pale, though not without a certain flush at times. Another
wreath surrounds her neck delicately, a small leaf placed also at the lobe
of each ear. Her abdomen and stomach ar e coated by what looks like a thin
hedging of leaves, rising up into a tight bustier, lifting and supporting
her chest as the line of her flesh dips down in the center, exposing even
more. On each wrist is a ring of slender leaves like a bracelet, her fin
gertips ending in the almost talon-like points of her nails as her hands
flex. Sheer lighter green coats the length of her long legs, rising up
over much of her rear surrounding the high cut of her leafy covering. A
long trailing vine runs down each leg, small leaves scattered down the
length. Her perfect legs trail down from the slight bend of her waist to
end in the loose cuff of her low boots, a darker green matching her
gloves, and boosting her up on a pair of thick, three!  -inch heels. 

Joker(#1012Pwfces)

Six foot four, maybe five, this tall thin man with the chalk-white skin
and the blood-red lips cannot be ignored. His hair is stunted and almost
shaved, growing out in untidy green clumps. His hands are long, and his
fingernails are an equally green color . His arm is in a sling, and a
bandage is attached expertly to the back of his neck. Blue eyes sparkling
with some unguessable mirth stare out of his long, thin, and wholly
unmistakable face. His appearance, and burbling, musical, ever-changing
voice give him a demented sort of charisma only slightly lessened by his
injured state. He holds the attention of onlookers with the casualness of
the seasoned performer or the long-stalking and now suddenly-visible
predator.
        At present, he is wearing clothes that are a strange parody of a
rich man at leisure: a silk smoking jacket embroidered with the faces of
the Marx Brothers, a warm-looking sweater vest (bright purple), but
beneath it, a comfortable-looking T-shirt whose inscription is so faded as
to be unreadable (the light brownish stains, possibly blood, that cannot
wholly be washed away also do not help.) His pants are green, with purple
pinstripes. His shoes, wingtips, alternate yellow and green. 

A Ha-Hacienda(#1159RFJ)


This is a disused and ancient vaudeville house. The velvet curtain is
little more than a motheaten rag, more fluttering threadbare holes than
fabric. The audience's chairs have been removed, making the cavernous
space more than a little vertigo-inducing.  A rickety platform has been
erected in the rafters, high above the shattered stage. Sitting on the
stage is a mundane, fold-up card table lit by the flickerings of the
ancient, but still somehow running, gas lamps on the front of the stage,
though careful examination reveals that the lamps are actually newer and
safer than they appear. Further back in the darkness of the backstage
area, an extravagantly appointed office and a dingy little area of seating
are separated only by a stage door and a prop wall. 
   The ladder extending upwards to the platform is iron and leans crazily
upwards. 


Contents:
Poison Ivy
Obvious exits:
Out <O>

Ivy steps out of the tunnel with a dull click of her heels on the floor. 
She looks around the room, and stops, dropping her hands lightly to her
waist, her hips cocking fairly automatically at the gesture. A smirk plays
across her lips, "This place is very....you....Joker." She doesn't really
wait for a response before continuing, "I heard about your little dance
with my Batsy at the hospital, goo to see your still on your feet." . o 0
(Better to see you carted out feet first...) 

Poison Ivy looked you over.

Joker brings his feet down and leans smoothly forward, thrusting his
grotesque grin into the light, his teeth white as skulls, his eyes blazing
with amusement. The motion is so swift and sudden that it is difficult to
notice his injuries. He apparently doesn't notice them at all.

Joker lets out a little chuckle, it scratches through the dusty still air
like fingernails on a chalkboard or a breaking bottle. "Oh, well." he
says. "You have to be professional about these things." He smiles. "I
heard he went to see you, too. How did he look? No wings scorched, I hope?
Nothing...important broken?" 

Joker indicates the chair opposite him. "It's been a while. Nygma's still
on work therapy. Harvey's in lockup. Oswald, too. Croc still can't count
past four. It's just you and me this week." 

There's a long pause, and she strides up toward the stage, sliding into
the seat opposite you, seeming to dispense with the seduction act, knowing
it isn't worth getting it to work anyway. She seems a bit bemused by you,
if anything, as she crosses one leg over the other, and her arms beneath
her breasts. "I don't really know, I haven't gotten to see anything of his
important...recently." She winks slightly, "He really is an idiot
sometimes for such an incredible figure....though...he is still a man I
suppose. Can't be helped." She eyes you a little more carefully, "How long
till next showtime for you, ya think?" 

Joker chuckles a little again, and the echoes make it sound like a dozen
Jokers laughing from shadows all over the corners of the place. "It's
always showtime." he says. "But some shows are bigger than others. Right?" 
He shuffles the deck of cards with expert hands, then snaps the cards
flashily in a quick BRRAPP from one hand to the other. It sounds like
gunfire. He tosses the cards back to the first hand in an artful rainbow,
cuts the cards, then cuts them again one-handed before starting to deal.

Ivy gives the kind of little flirty shrug that excites the salivary glands
of adolescents somewhere in the world every day, "Nothing big....earning a
little money to pay for a honeymoon. Making sure the lunatics running
around in costumes chase their tails long enough for me to get it done. So
many distractions in this city." She pauses, "Though, I went to Seattle
and they followed me..." her brow furrows a little, and she looks back to
you, grabbing her cards as their dealt and looking at her hand. 

Joker laughs slightly. "I meant the cards. Where's your priorities? Let
you off medication for ten minutes and look what happens, hm?" He sneers a
little. "We'll just play five card draw straight up this time. I've got
some interesting stakes for you in a minute. Where are you going to take
your honeymoon?" 

Joker deals 5 cards to Poison Ivy.
Joker deals 5 cards to himself.

Joker tosses off the cards with expert handling: they land right on top of
each other, about two inches from Ivy's knuckles. 

Your hand consists of: 9C 5D 3D 4D 7C.

She eyes her cards, and raises an eyebrow, "Medication doesn't work real
well with my chemistry, Joker. You're the one I've seen fixed and
dilated..." she trails off again, "But...happier things....I'm not sure
yet...once I've got the free cash, I'll letmy Batsy decide where we should
go." She eyes her hand for a moment more, then discards. 

Poison Ivy discards one of her cards.
Poison Ivy discards one of her cards.

Joker laughs again. "You and your chemistry." he says. "We all know what
-that's- a euphemism for." He drops a couple of cards carelessly to the
side and says "Where are you going to have his funeral?" He grins broadly. 

Joker discards one of his cards.

Joker deals 2 cards to Poison Ivy.
Joker deals 1 card to himself.

Your hand consists of: 5D 3D 4D 7C AC.

Joker frowns at his hand. He turns it upside down and beams.

She smiles, eyeing her hand again, and looks to it, rather than you as she
speaks, "I'm not going to kill him....I'm sure he'll come around and
remember how much he loves me once he finds out I have a bun in the oven. 
I really don't know what's happened to him. Running around in a rodent
costume is kind of cute, but not remembering our romance? I think he needs
professional help." She looks over the top of her cards at you, "I
certainly hope it wasn't you who damaged him." Then she seems to relax,
smiling at the hand again, "We have anything riding on this?"

Joker shakes his head. "Not this one. This one is for fun." he says. 
"They're all for fun, of course. It's -always- for fun." A demented giggle
slithers out of his throat. "I've got..." He pauses and sits up in his
chair, tilting his long face to the side. "You better not have said what I
think you said." he says. "If you did, I'm going to be. Well, I'm going to
laugh very loudly, for one thing, because I'm in -no- condition to do
anything proper about it. A...bun in the..." 

Joker lets his cards slip to the table as he eyes Ivy carefully, suddenly
the keen look is in his eye rather than the mere distracted amusement of
the distant madman... 

Ivy unfurls her hand across the table with a broad gesture, then sets her
elbows atop it, interweaving her fingers, and letting her chin rest on
them lightly, "Mmmm....yes, you heard me right. I've got a little Bat-Baby
growing inside. Maybe she'll have red hair, and she can be the next
Batgirl...Lord knows I haven't seen that one in awhile...and she was
always so obnoxiously cute." Her voice trails as she rambles off. 

Poison Ivy is holding: KC JC QH KD AS.

Joker, true to his word, bursts out laughing, the sound shrieking off the
rafters and slicing back downwards to meet a later laugh, dancing along
the stage like long-dead performers in some horrific waltz. He clutches
his stomach with his good arm and gasps for breath, then coughs a horrible
hacking cough. "Oh, god!" he says, wiping a tear from his eye. "You know
what ninety percent of comedy is, Ivy?" 

She raises an eyebrow even higher, and whispers, "Timing?" Only half to
you, mostly to herself, since she knows by now you won't let it interfere
with your punchline anyway. 

Joker interrupts Ivy halfway through her response. "Timing!" he cries out,
and giggles again. "If only I'd known about this before. Ah well...nine
months is a long time, I'm sure I'll be -much- better by then." he
babbles, giggling around his words. "That's...that's -marvelous-." he
says. "Wonderful. Oh, I can't -begin- to tell you. It would spoil the fun.
Oh my." 

Joker gets a grip on himself, sighing to a halt. Then he starts giggling
again, uncontrollably. "Looks like...looks like you won." he says,
indicating the cards. 

Joker settles down into mere chuckling, then manages to subside, though an
occaisional snort of laughter spasms his face. 

Ivy sweeps a hand over the table, gathering them up, and slides them
across the table to you, "Well, luck is a lady." She winks, "But....of
course, this means that your future fandangos may be a bit more confined
to little birdies and their dark-as-night wings. Think you'll be able to
go on with the show? Though, maybe one of the others will take over for
mine, once we retire to our estate..." 

Joker shakes his head slightly. "Oh, no." he says suddenly, blurting it
out. "I -hardly- think retirement will do. -Hardly-." His smile disappears
with unnerving suddenness. "When I say I can't begin to tell you, I really
mean it. Don't get me wrong. I always like to hear about..." He grins
broadly. "...new material." And before the impact of what he says can sink
in, he leaps to his feet. "Next hand!" he cries. "I've got some
interesting stakes. Come on back here, and give me a hand with it." He
turns and starts walking towards the dingy seating area of the stage.

Ivy stands with a sigh, wondering you've got up your sleeve this time, and
actually still rather amazed, on that count, that there weren't a few more
aces in your last hand. She follows you over to the dingy area, and you
can tell by the change in her movements that she is fully aware of its
dinginess. She mutters under her breath, "Hrmmm...two bad that daughter of
his turned out to be Harvey's...we could have started Teen Arkham...or
something...." She finishes her ruminations again and looks where you're
headed. 

Joker grins up at the lighting, pausing at the stage door between the
seating and the office. Why didn't he just walk to the office? "So," he
says. "This guy goes to the doctor, and he says 'Doc, I've got this broken
arm and I'm all burned up and it hurts when I twist my neck this way.' and
of course the doctor says 'Oh my god, please, god, please don't kill me,
please, I'll do anything, oh, Jesus God, please, I don't want to die.' And
the guy says 'Because it feels so good when I stop!' Get it?" he adds. 

Joker opens the door. Bound and gagged on the table in the office, with a
sheet thrown over him to hide him from view of the stage, is a balding,
fortyish man with broken glasses, a slowly-healing scar on his head, and a
terrified look in his eye. "This is Doctor Alan Carstairs. Say hello to
the nice psychopaths, Alan." He moves Dr. Carstairs' mouth around the gag
and says, unconvincingly, "Hello, folks." 

Joker shakes his head a little. "Don't worry." he says. "Good Doctor
Carstairs here has quite the little cocaine habit, in addition to a number
of mistresses and a fat little share in....ta da! The Sunnydale Country
Club!" he proclaims in a broad parody of an announcer's voice. "Located in
southern New Jersey, this beee-you-tiful stretch of useless green stunted
grass used to be non-picturesque and wholly economically useless
old-growth forest!" He smiles blandly (if he can be said to do that) at
Ivy. "It'll be chalked up to a drug deal gone awry. And in a way...that's
exactly what it will be." He pats Carstair's cheek with a pale
green-fingernailed hand. "Never ever wondered who his supplier's
supplier's supplier was..." he croons. 

Ivy smirks jaggedly, "You're on Joker...I've never been a fan of
clear-cutting, unless it involved me doing the cutting, that is." She
winks at the man, then, hands still on her slightly cocked hips, she looks
to the Clown Prince, "Lets play some cards."

Her brow furrows, and she picks a bit of lint off of your jacket, then
looks back to you, smile returning. 

Joker chuckles. "You got it, sister. I'll get his legs. He'll want a front
row seat for this one." He moves around behind him and wraps a long thin
purple arm around the man's legs. 

Ivy moves over and latches onto his arms, yanking him off the desk without
any real cue to you so his head takes a nice bounce on the floor before
she starts tugging toward the door. His arms are now stretched back enough
that one's sure to get dislocated, but she's planning to kill him anyway,
so no harm, no foul. 

Joker whistles "Sweet Georgia Brown" as he plops Carstairs feet up on the
table. "Cigar, Doc?" he says, poking one into the doctor's gag, as he sits
down at the table and reshuffles the cards. "I call this time around. 
Generally, I like Jokers wild, but...well, it's a little embarassing, but
I've used up all the Jokers in the decks I've got lying around the place.
Don't worry. I'll get some more in a little while." He grins. "How about,
in honor of the doctor's golf course, nines wild." 

Joker shuffles together the tossed pile with the remaining cards.
Joker finishes shuffling the cards.
Joker collects all the cards and starts to shuffle them.
Joker finishes shuffling the cards.

Ivy's smirk remains as she takes her seat, and crosses her legs again. She
leans forward enough to see the fellow's expression as she speaks,
"Hrmmm.....maybe whoever wins should put 18 holes in him?" Her eyes narrow
into his dangerously, and then she leans back, waiting for her cards. You
note she's letting her softly perfumed scent waft out now, perhaps giving
the doomed one last taste before dying, or perhaps merely to taunt him
further. 

Joker giggles insanely. Carstairs' eyes glaze weakly, fear and panic still
paramount in his face. He deals the cards. "One ring-y-ding-y..." he says
with glee. 

Joker deals 5 cards to Poison Ivy.
Joker deals 5 cards to himself.

Your hand consists of: AC 7H 6D 5H 3C.

Ivy looks at her hands and frowns, "Hrmmm...no joy." She discards most of
her hand, "You know Joker..." She peeks up over the man on the table to
you, with an honest (for her) smile, "...not only are you a snappy
dresser, and a first rate showman....you know how to throw a poker game.
Now give me one of those cigars...the kind that won't explode on me." 

Poison Ivy discards three of her cards.