Endless Legacy Ch. 47 (DC Comics)

A/N: Lucien does a little trolling.

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As Poison Ivy’s plant crawler carries them through Gotham’s too-big sewers, Lucien finally comes to a decision… and stays put. While he certainly COULD take out both Ivy and Harley right now with minimal risk to himself, he’s not sure it would serve him all that well. Everyone knew he’d been taken by the two villainesses after all, and they would wonder how he got away.

Not to mention it would earn him the enmity of both women. Even if he tried to wipe their memories of these events, they would inevitably find out that something had happened when they heard news coverage of their abduction of him later on. So in the end… it was better to just let them take him to Black Mask. It was the path of least resistance.

All he had to do was sit there quietly, pretending to still be under the effects of Poison Ivy’s toxins. While doing so, he plays around with what he’s gleaned from her kiss and his brief touches of Harley Quinn. Both women are… interesting specimens. Not quite human, either of them.

This is much more pronounced in Ivy’s case, of course. The plant controller isn’t JUST a plant controller… she’s part plant herself. She can even regenerate body parts in the same way plants might regenerate branches and vines. She’s also not going to be aging out of that beautiful figure of hers any time soon. Thanks to the way her DNA has been mutated, she’s going to live longer and age slower than your average human being so long as she manages to get enough sunlight. Photosynthesis at its best.

Harley on the other hand, is far closer to baseline human. Closer… but not quite there. What Joker had done to her hadn’t just broken the insane woman’s mind, but also altered her physiology. For one thing, she was immune to the sort of toxins that Ivy could deploy. Which made sense, given she would have to be in order to be around Joker’s own crimes against humanity.

She was also tougher, stronger, and faster than a baseline human. Not quite as tough, strong, and fast as a Tamaranean though, but Lucien’s power didn’t make him pick and choose. He could combine, mix and match, and all around stack such things on top of one another.

He wouldn’t right now though, if only because making an entirely new template based on a mixture of his new gains would take time and concentration, both of which were in short supply at the moment.

Indeed, no sooner had that thought crossed his mind than they’ve pulled out of the sewers and into Gotham’s warehouse district, located up against the shoreline. Ivy’s plant crawler moves even faster now, until eventually they arrive at what he assumes is their ultimate destination if the goons outside of the warehouse are any indication.

“Hold it. You got the goo-urk!”

The goon who tries to stop them barely gets a handful of words out before one of the plant crawler’s limbs lashes out and impales him through the shoulder and into the front of the warehouse. Not an immediately fatal injury, Lucien absently notes as the other goons all tense up.

“Trash like you doesn’t talk. Open the door, so that we can deliver Black Mask his prize and claim our reward.”

Ivy’s tone is icy and brooks no argument… and so no argument is attempted. The large garage door at the front of the warehouse is opened up, allowing for Ivy, Harley, and him to all travel into the warehouse itself in proper style, like a pair of Queens and… whatever he would be in that situation. Servant Boy, maybe?

Regardless, Lucien is reminded of what Ivy had told Harley back in the sewers. They couldn’t afford to show weakness to these men, not even for a second. Otherwise, Black Mask would go back on their deal, stab them both in the back, and try to take him without paying.

Harley stands now, still on the plant crawler but with one foot up on the railing and her massive hammer hoisted on her shoulder. She’s wearing a wide, wild-eyed grin on her face that makes it clear she almost hopes violence will break out. She doesn’t leap down though, even as the plant crawler comes to a stop in front of a man in a Black Mask and about two dozen goons toting guns of varying degrees of size and lethality.

Ivy also doesn’t bother climbing down from the plant crawler. Instead, she stands there with her legs slightly spread and her arms crossed over her ample chest, projecting pure strength and confidence.

“Black Mask. Where’s our money?”

Lucien can’t quite make out everything from his position in the back of the crawler, and he can’t crane his neck without giving the game away. He thinks he sees Black Mask moving about though down on the ground.

“Ivy. Where’s the merchandise?”

Without missing a beat, Poison Ivy snaps her fingers at Lucien, and he dutifully rises from his seat and walks up to her, making sure to have a blank expression on his face as she grabs him by the neck and roughly pulls him down to show his face to the crime lord waiting on the ground below.

“One Luke Maximillian, Doctor of the new Luthor Foundation Clinic, as ordered. One million dollars and he’s yours.”

There’s a brief pause and Lucien can all but see the cogs turning in Black Mask’s head despite the… well, the black mask covering his features. It’s obvious the sadistic crime boss is currently contemplating what he might be able to get away with. But Ivy and Harley’s show of force was clearly not for nothing, because in the end, he simply snaps his fingers and one of his henchmen comes forward, bringing a metal briefcase with him.

Black Mask opens the briefcase and shows Ivy and Harley the contents, which at a glance definitely look like a million dollars. Then, he closes the briefcase back up and tosses it through the air to Harley, who catches it with one hand easily.

Rather than open it and count it herself, the crazy female clown just hefts the briefcase up and down a couple times consideringly, even sticking her tongue out the side of her mouth as if she’s deep in thought… or rather, calculations. Finally though, she gives Ivy a cheeky grin and nod.

Ivy grunts and pushes Lucien forward off of the crawler. He could have caught himself, but that might have given the game away, so he lets his body impact painfully with the ground.

“I would say it’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Black Mask… but we both know it would be a lie.”

The plant crawler begins to back up at that, only for Black Mask to call out.

“Wait!”

“… What?”

For a moment, tension ratchets up again and Lucien prepares himself to be in the middle of a fight between villains. But as it turns out…

“He’s still under the effects of your damn toxins. He’s no use to me like that. Undo it!”

“Ah. Is that all? It’ll wear off in another fifteen minutes.”

With that, the plant crawler closes up, blocking Ivy and Harley from view and transporting them swiftly out of the warehouse before Black Mask can even think of giving the order to close the garage or stop them from leaving. Lucien, meanwhile, climbs to his feet slowly, still pretending to be blank faced as the crime lord who’s just paid a million dollars for him approaches and looks him up and down.

“Tch, I’d say you’re not much to look at… but honestly, you’re built like a fucking truck. Sit him down and tie him up, boys.”

Lucien doesn’t resist as he’s tied up and restrained to a chair, nor as a gag is put in his mouth. He’s not sure why the gag though… if they have questions for him, won’t it just get in the way?

Minutes pass by as Black Mask and his goons wait for Ivy’s toxins to ‘wear off’. Lucien, meanwhile, is not idle. Honestly, if he ever meets Ivy again, he’ll have to thank her for the unintentional boon she’s given him. Fifteen extra minutes to prepare? How lovely.

Once he’s ready for the confrontation, Lucien slowly pretends to come to, coming out of his blank faced expression by blinking rapidly and jerking against his bindings as he looks around himself in a bit of a stupor.

“Ah, pretty boy is awake. Good.”

Black Mask walks up to him then, and Lucien can practically feel the sneer through the mask as he grabs hold of his hair and yanks his head back in what’s probably meant to be a painful manner.

“I don’t know what Luthor was thinking. Maybe he just got complacent. Maybe he thought because he got one over on the Mayor’s Office and Wayne Industries that he was in the clear. But he should have known better. Everyone knows he’s not just a businessman. Deep down inside, he’s one of us. And if he wanted to set up shop on MY turf, he should have come to Gotham himself to pay me some motherfucking tribute!”

… Seriously? That was what this was about? Black Mask was upset because he thought Lucien’s father had made a play for a piece of Gotham without taking into consideration it’s criminal underbelly? Paradoxically, that both made a lot of sense and very little sense. On the one hand, it was utterly moronic and completely idiotic. On the other hand, that seemed about right for a crime lord like Black Mask.

BAM!

Something in Lucien’s eyes must give away his lack of fear, because Black Mask suddenly punches him in the face. Lucien has his head rock back, and he allows a small trickle of blood to come from his nose… but truth be told, it barely even tickles.

“I’m going to use you to send Luthor a message. He needs to understand that there’s a price to doing business in MY city. So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to cut off your pinkies… and then I’m going to let you go. And you’ll tell Luthor that he needs to have a talk with me if he wants his little clinic to continue existing. Otherwise, it’ll be a lot more than your pinkies the next time I have to drag-!”

Wump!

Black Mask pauses and turns to the sound of one of his henchmen just… falling over. The others all do the same. And then…

Wump! Wump! Wump!

Like dominoes, one by one, the two dozen gunmen in the warehouse begin to drop to the floor. Black Mask curses, pulling away from Lucien and pulling out his own handgun as he looks around.

“Did that bitch Ivy come back?! Where is she?! Find her!”

It’s a fair assumption, really. But it’s not Ivy. Lucien might not have had the time to make an all new biological template for himself, but he certainly had plenty of time to create a sleep toxin that would present as a colorless, scentless gas and begin exuding it from his skin.

Soon enough, every single one of Black Mask’s goons are on the ground, unconscious. Black Mask himself is either made of sterner stuff… or more likely, his mask is special and protects him from airborne toxins.

Finally, after a long minute of losing his goons to sleep and no sign of Poison Ivy, Black Mask turns back to Lucien, seeming to come to a conclusion.

“Fuck… Luthor must have hired her to reverse kidnap you. Well fuck that shit! I’ll fucking shoot you right fucking now!”

He all but rushes forward, preparing to plant the barrel of his gun against Lucien’s forehead and a bullet in his brain. But Lucien, of course, isn’t going to have that. His hands come up from where they had previously been restrained to the chair, and he grabs Black Mask by the wrist, yanking the gun up into the air so the single shot that the crime lord manages to fire off goes into the ceiling instead of his face.

Shock and surprise radiates off of the struggling, squirming crime boss as Lucien reaches up with his other hand and pulls the gag from his lips before grinning savagely.

“Luthor doesn’t even know who you are.”

He waits a beat to see the words impact in the masked villain’s eyes, and then he knocks Black Mask out. Truthfully, he shouldn’t have said anything, because in the end it’s not going to matter. He goes ahead and induces amnesia in Black Mask and all of his goons, wiping their memories of the night as well as Black Mask’s memories of even hiring Ivy and Harley to go after him in the first place.

For good measure, he instills a great fear in Black Mask using an incredibly potent and concentrated dose of one of his new toxins, one that should paralyze the masked villain and make it almost impossible for him to make any sort of move beyond trying to keep ahold of what he already had. That should keep the bastard in his lane, Lucien figures.

Dropping the man to the floor, he dusts his hands off just in time for a familiar presence to arrive in the warehouse. Turning, he smirks at the sight of ‘Kamara Blackwater’ hovering there with her hands clenched into fists, looking around with a frown.

“Not to worry, my dear… it’s been dealt with. All that’s left to do is decide how best to end the evening.”

That gets a raised brow from Blackfire, but Lucien just shakes his head with a chuckle. He doesn’t mean sexually.

“Everyone saw Ivy and Harley take me away, but now only those two lovely ladies know that it was at the behest of this idiot. So now I have a choice… either quietly go back to the clinic and act like nothing ever happened either way… or announce my safety to the local news and let them know that once they got far enough away, Ivy and Harley ‘let me go’.”

Lucien tilts his head to the side, weighing both options and humming consideringly. On the one hand, just quietly returning to his clinic would… well, it would leave people wondering precisely what happened, but unsure of anything one way or another.

On the other hand, going to the news to announce the fact that he’d been ‘let go’ by his abductors would place a nice little bow on this entire night… while also baffling the fuck out of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, heh.

Oh and either way, he should probably call ‘Hope’ at some point, to let her know he’s safe. Even if she’s not who she says she is, he’s not supposed to know that.

Finally though, feeling a little indecisive, he looks to Blackfire.

“Well? What do you think?”