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The night was still and warm, a comfortable late summer evening in Hub City. The spires of its erect downtown were alit with countless pinprick lights, twinkling against solid black sillouhettes of skyscrapers and towers. The light bled over the outline of the city lights, creating a smooth purple halo ensconsing the city canyons, which quickly deepened to dark violet and then to almost-black as the sky rose.

Victor Sage gave a breathy whuff as he pulled himself through the windowframe, his legs sliding quick over the sill as his shoulder hit the ground with a hard thud, drawing a muffled grunt of pain. He was quick to restore himself to a ready stance, poised for trouble.

The man known by night as The Question stood beside a well-upholstered chair, its clamshell-pleated back curving directly into its arms. Its stuffed red cloth fleshed out a frame of finely crafted but blandly designed wood, moulding affixed to all its corners. That phrase, "finely crafted but blandly designed," described the whole room in a phrase. There was nothing particularly expensive-looking about the flecked-marble tile floor, or the soft shade of yellow plaster walls, rippling white moulding covering its base.

Sage stood in a rectangular chamber. Tall, rectangular windows beginning at about waist height lined up along one wall, the other three windowless. A segment of the room, ahead of Sage and to his left, broke off into a descending staircase. Along with a rich mahoganey banister, the stairs led down into lower floors below. Behind the staircase, a tall pair of cold metal elevator doors filled up the left side of the far wall. An identical elevator occupied the right. Centered between the two was a three-legged half-table stand, with two small drawers. A white doily was layed over its top, with a row of purely decorational leatherbound books atop that.

To the right of that comfortable looking chair, a long sofa was pushed into the corner, its length turning sharply in an "L" shape to press against two walls of the lobby, slouched beneath the wide-spaced windows. Within its right angle was a glass coffee table, a flower vase centering its surface with reams of People and Glamor magazines strewn across. The table's legs were whimsically shaped curling wrot iron. Off to the sofa's side, a fat-bladed fern exploded from its earthenware pot. A mahoganey door was further along the right wall, a glass cutaway at its head bearing the label "Johnson, D.T: Vice-President."

To Sage's left, a large desk was positioned just in front of the wall behind him. Its broad surface was mostly buried under an organized chaos of paper stacks, a heavy computer monitor in one corner and a plastic storied turn-in box in the other. A gold and black plaque at its fore read Jean Whitherspoon. Further down the left from the plane desk, a door identical to the one at its opposite bore the stenciled letters Hughes, M.P, CEO.

It was the waiting room outside the private, top-floor office of Mark Hughes, CEO of Coeller & Willhelm. C&W was one of the top ten national leaders in energy service to the country. Their newly constructed nuclear plant had brought a lot of jobs to the distraught Hub City, often described as the Lost Soul of America she was so corrupt.

Hub City, a municipality the rest of America had been willing to give up as lost and abandon to the thugs and lowlives that now ran its streets. Government and law were a joke. These days, no one even bothered to hide the rampant graft and corruption. It said something when corporate fatcats like Hughes were the last bastion of honesty and law in this city-gone-mad. But beyond such mundane foundations was one entity willing to strike for justice. There was The Question.

He stood at a broad-shouldered and heavy six feet two inches. His streamlined form was all poured muscle, hard as rock and cut like a weightlifter all across his body. Despite his powerful frame, the Question carried his weight with the ease of a practiced fighter. This was also at odds with his form of dress. The renowned "Human Enigma" was sharply garbed in a light blue suit of business. The slacks and jacket he wore were form-fitting without being uncomfortable, well-pressed though not immaculately clean. Within the lapels on his business coat was a bright red button-up shirt, a canary yellow tie tightly knotted under its pressed collar. The felt gloves on his hands were a darker blue, tightly conforming to his fingers and the spaces between. His shoes matched his gloves, slick patent leather with a varnished shine.

The most striking of the Question's features was his face--or jarring lack thereof. A layer of pseudoderm false-skin transformed his face into a perfectly smooth slate from his chiseled chin, to high cheekbones and temples. The outline of a broadish nose could be made out, but there was no other detail to his lantern-jawed visage. The Question's hair was coal-black, just long enough for the bangs to hang askew over his brow. A stiff fedora, sky blue to match the suit, was pulled down tightly over his head, pinning errant locks of hair under its brim.

He had considered a more dramatic means of enterance, but ultimately decided straightforward assault would play against this particular opponent's weaknesses. And it didn't get much more straightforward than going through the front door.

On the other side of that very door, crime had very literally taken root in the highest echelons of corporate power.

Poison Ivy rested her curvacious body atop the desk of Mr. Mark Hughes, CEO of Coeller & Willhelm. Impossibly gorgeous, Ivy didn't look very much at all like a real person--she was like a nymph from Greek Myth, too curvaceous and slender to be true. She held that graceful sylvan poise even resting on one thigh, her top leg drawn up, her body leaning over to the desk's other side.

Her skin was bone white, which highlighted the dark, subdued greens of her outfit. Clinging oh-so revealingly to her form was a tight legless unitard, only half-covering her generous cleavage and turning around to the middle of her narrow back. It was texturized with thick leaves, arrayed in a feather-pattern down her body. Over her hips and down her long, long streamlined legs, she wore tights of bright lime-green spandex. V-topped boots with a slick, pointed toe were soft crocodillian green cloth, bunching at the ankle.

From the back of her leaf-feathered slip, two scrawny vines sprouting sporadic ovoid leaves trailed up her shoulders, and wound around her arms down to two leaf-bushy armbands at her wrists. Below that, her slender hands terminated in dagger-long nails of deep emerald. Two more thin vines wound over either leg, crossing her thighs and knees before disappearing under her boots. Two offshoots of the vines settled on her shoulders led up into a thick ring of leaves around her neck that almost resembled a lady's choke collar.

Her face was a full, wide ovoid with perfectly balanced, high cheeks and a slender, soft chin. Her snow-white skin was detailed with heavy, light green eyeshadow under arched brows and over large, almond eyes. The green irises within were floodlight large, like a Japanese cartoon character's. Her nose, as white as the rest of her, was small and thin and almost disappeared when viewing her face straight-on. Beneath that, her full lips were painted an almost-black green, standing out like nothing else against her snowy skin. She had a full head of shock-red hair, flowing in perfectly brushed waves behind her shoulders, its curling tips just beneath them. Her bangs were parted evenly over her temples, shading her eyes in the corners. Behind her ears, curving over her brow, was a sort of tiara of diamond-tipped maple leafs.

The desk she was lounging on was the centerpiece of a grand office. The entire wall opposite the enterance was a grand window, divided up into tall rectangular segments by a grid of airbrushed white metal. It offered a grand vista of the city lights and the flushed night sky outside, and led to a small cement deck outside cut off with a black metal railing. The office chamber itself was at least three men tall, its walls seeming to lean slightly inward as they rose to create a vaulted, sepulchural look. Across the top of the glass wall was a brass pole, from either end of which hung long, velvet drapes of subdued red. The other three walls were an offbeat not-quite-white, purer white in the moulding at their foot. The short carpet was toneless beige.

To either right or left side of the centering desk were two long, low cabinet-counters. Their rich, dark wooden bodies were detailed with fluted trim around the edges and checkerboard drawers over the front. A long train of burgundy cloth ran along either one. Atop these surfaces were various things---a tray of glasses, a stand of winebottles, some commemorative awards and a few ornate clocks. On the wall to the desk's right, above the table, framed commendations, diplomas, and an M.B.A were spaced in dancing patterns along the wall. Two replica paintings, black soldiers charging from a snowy trench in WWI, and a stiff portrait of bushy-mutton chopped Joseph Rainey, the first black congressman, were framed up on the opposite wall.

On the desk itself, papers had been knocked aside, tossed onto the ground at its feet. A black phone hung over the edge, off its button-strewn base. A red and white phone remained on their carriers beside it. The heavy black monitor of a computer dominated the desk's center, Ivy arching her stomach around its squarish frame, sliding one sharpish nail over the monitor's top. Just beyond where her bootips dangled, two stuffed chairs had been set before the desk.

Two men in the dark blue uniforms of security guards stood behind either chair, hands at their sides and backs painfully erect, as if they were seizing up. Beneath the peaks of their guard caps, trailing behind their ears, thin green tendrils dotted with little round leafs slithered down under their pressed collars. Their eyes were an even, light green. And although one was of Mestizo descent, both men looked pale and drawn.

In the chairs themselves sat Ivy's two other servants. Two sleek, athletic women of identical figure, obviously fraternal twins. Both wore tight-fitting sleeveless vests of tough, smooth nylon with double bandoliers resting on their powerful hips, with tights close enough to reveal hard musculature wrapped around their legs. Every part of their outfit, including the tough thick boots they wore, were green. Their skin was as slate-white as Ivy's own, but a thicker trail of several entangling vines incircled their limbs. On their bare shoulders, patches of furry pete moss were growing. Their smooth faces, with green lipstick and eyeshadow, were also spotted with small round patches of moss. Their short hair, dyed bright green and swept back, was also thick with tangles and leafy snares. Either one held a green-sheathed ninja-to sword in their vine-snared hands. Sunglasses, obviously tinted green, rested on their noses. Unlike the stiff guards, they were relaxed in their posture, legs crossed identically.

Ivy was regarding the man behind her desk with half-lidded eyes and a set smirk, her pouty lips appealing at any angle. The man in a charcoal-grey suit and black tie was, of course, the CEO himself. And like the others, a crown of leafy vines incircled his head and trailed down the back of his neck. He was a black man, his swept-back hair pronouncing a distinguished widow's peak, a heavy mustache under his broad nose. And like the others ensconsed in Ivy's control, he was as stiff as a finger puppet, his hands resting on the keyboard before him, his green eyes blank.

"Darling man, you are being too helpful," Ivy's husky whisper was almost a tickle on the ear. Mr. Hughes didn't appear to notice her comments, his eyes fixed squarely on nothing. "And this computer makes things so much easier. I remember when you had to snare whole bank boards for this sort of thing, but digital transfers these days makes accounting so.... user-friendly."

Her lilting monologue was interrupted as the far door opened with a sharp bang. Books toppled off a standing case beside the office's one door, now occupied by The Question. The Human Enigma stood with his feet spaced wide, ready for a fight. One gloved finger jutted straight towards the startled Ivy.

"Pamela Isely, if you want to save me some trouble and yourself a lot of suffering, release these men." The Question didn't yell, but his voice projected naturally.

Ivy recovered from her surprise quickly though, drawing her legs in and turning to sit up on the desk. Her smile was quickly adjusted, the botanical temptress resting her hands on her knees and looking cheekily up from a lowered head at Vic Sage. "Oh my, my. Look at you. What a strapping figure you cut, mister vigalante. I could use a man like you..." at some hidden signal from her, the two starch-backed guards turned and pulled their sidearms with a pair of hammer clicks.

"I'll give you what you need, lady," the Question strode out of the doorway and settled his weight with one foot forward, arms up in a loose boxing guard. The two zombified guards clutched black pistols in both hands, spread-eagling their legs and then firing. But before they had even begun to squeeze their triggers, the Question was moving.

Sage leapt forward into a hard dive, coming down on his palms and immediately transferring his weight into a summersault, just as two fist-sized sections of carpet exploded behind him. He came to his feet again at the end of the cycle, twisting his upper body sideways as two more shots whizzed past him, one hitting a row of books in the far cabinet and sending an explosion of wood chips and paper outward, the other putting a hole in the door's glass window.

One more far step brought Sage within arm's reach of the guards. They were just about to squeeze off their third round, point-blank, when Sage's body pinwheeled on one leg, and a high roundhouse kick knocked the right guard's head right into his partner's. Both men went sprawling to the Question's left, the bottom man losing his gun with a grunt. The top man turned and leveled his pistol up at Sage, firing. The Question was sharply ducking to a squat as the silver flash of an unsheathed sword hissed over his head, one of the seated women drawing steel and turning into a swipe in one fluid motion, even as the bullet whizzed above.

The lower guard was rolling out from under the man atop him, going for his gun, even as Sage made a serpent's low lunge at the gunman. One hand forced the pistol's barrel downward, the other decked the Mestizo across his face, slapping his head into the carpet beneath. Sage made the strike with the heel of his palm, breaking the man's nose and splattering blood over his pale skin. The other man, still on one knee, turned with gun in hand but Sage's leg swung out with a bullwhip's crack and again knocked it from his grasp.

Before the newly disarmed guard could do anything else, Sage was banking leftwards in a roll towards him, even as one of the now-standing women swung her sword down, narrowly missing his back as he rolled away. Sage rolled head-over-heels and made a kick off the seat of his pants into the kneeling guard's stomach, doubling the man over and knocking him onto his back.

The swordswoman had stepped forward, poising her blade over one shoulder, ready to strike downwards in a stab at Sage. Rolling off his rear end, the Question shifted his weight onto his shoulders, pressing his hands against the ground. He stayed like that for only a moment, just long enough to swing up both feet pressed together and kick the woman right in her solar plexus. She held on to her sword, but was kicked over the rear of a chair and landed with her back in its stuffed seat.

Sage pulled himself to his feet and turned in one smooth motion. The guard sprawled behind him was also clambering to his feet, but Sage seemed focused on the other green-garbed woman on the opposite end of the two chairs. Not bothering with his gun, the guard lunged at the Question hands leading, only for the Human Enigma to snap his hand back in a tight fist, delivering an over-the-shoulder blow to the guard's face. His nose broke too, and two teeth came flying from his bloody lips as he went down on his back hard, this time out of the fight for sure.

"He wants to play hard-to-get ladies!" Ivy kicked up both heels and turned on her shapely bottom, slipping over the rearwards edge of the desk. Her henchwoman rolled out of the seat and came to stand directly opposite Sage, only the low chair between them. "Show mister vigalante we don't take no for an answer!"

One was about a yard ahead of Sage. The other was as well, but removed five feet to his right. The two women arced their short, Japanese-style blades in both hands, drawing a zigzag of silver in front of them as they settled their weight back. The one on Vic's right held her sword point-up at the shoulder, like a batter at the plate. The other proferred a low guard, arms hanging directly in front of her shapely body.

Given a moment to catch his breath, the Question shifted to the balls of his feet and again assumed a loose boxer's guard, subtly switching his weight from one foot to the other in tense readiness. His slate-blank face was like a smoothed stone, but beneath the pseudoderm Sage was fighting to regain control of his eyes.

They were locked, drawn, to the smug and sleek form of Poison Ivy. What is it? Sage wondered, his heart hammering in his chest and breath rising. Why can't I.... for the first time he noticed a faint, but cloying odor in the room. A sort of spice that tickled the back of his throat. Sweat was beading under the pseudoderm, and trailing down his neck, itching his collar, and it wasn't from the fight.

Pheremones. He should have guessed. Ivy's simple proximity exuded some kind of.... musk? Dander? What was the word for women? It was filling Sage's mind with ideas everytime he looked at her, and he couldn't stop looking at her. But he had to. In that one moment of conflict, the Question called upon his years of training under the crippled master Richard Dragon. Centering himself, focusing and letting the world drop away....

The woman directly in front sprang like lightning, pushing off into a short hop backwards, her boot soles knocking against the edge of the desk behind her. Her arms swung up, bringing her sword over her head as she pushed off that edge and sailed at Sage. The Question had already started to move, though, and brought a heel up to the tip of the chair's backing in front of him. Bringing down his foot, Sage knocked the chair back, snatching a corner of its overstuffed seat before the back had even touched the ground.

With whiplike reflexes, Sage recoiled his arm and bent it up at an elbow, his shoulder facing the attacking woman. The big cushion dangled from his grasp, hanging over his shoulder. And as Sage had predicted, the woman's lightning strike from above sailed right into the heart of the cushion, drawing a deep gash across with with a dry rip. Pulpy white stuffing tumbled out, as Sage twisted the cushion by unbending his hand and forced the woman's sword from her grasp.

She barely had time to put on a shocked face before her partner was there, striking at Sage from the right. The Question turned, the disarmed woman now on his left. Dropping the cushion, he stooped into a jerky bow just as a sidelong swipe passed over his head, the streamlined fighter racing right past him.

The disarmed woman reacted then, shooting a knee up and aiming for the stooped Question's chest. Sage took the hit with a muffled grunt, and rolled with the blow by turning his entire body into a corkscrew spin rightwards, away from the woman who'd kneed him. Both his legs swung upwards from the left as his entire suited body spun in midair. The barefisted woman was forced to arch her back drop into a backroll away from Sage, springing off the upturned chair's edge and landing on its other side, clear of the Question's reach.

The other woman had pivoted on one toe and swung her sword in another high sweep, slicing left as Sage's feet turned in the air towards the right. The swordtip caught the sole of one of Sage's shoes and sliced right through the leather--only to scrape against hard steel lining underneath. Sage landed on his feet in a staggered stance, his knees bent and back arched, a little ahead of the swordswoman's righthand side.

Just as the disarmed one was leaning over the sticking-up seat of the overturned chair, grasping the hilt of her sword, Sage slid backwards on the toes of his feet with a skilled slide that would have done any dancer proud. He turned his upper body leftwards, right hand clutching his left's knuckles and shooting a left elbow back into the collar of the woman's throat. Her sword was still pointed to the left as Sage's cobra-quick strike struck home, elbow landing in the pit of her collarbone. With his elbow thus implanted, the Question snapped his forearm back and rapped his knuckles on the woman's face, striking right between her eyes and shattering the bridge of her thin sunglasses.

Now repossessing her sword, the other woman sprang off her stomach into a roll, aiming to knock the Question's legs out from under him. Her sword was tucked flat in her lap as she summersaulted towards him, Sage swinging both feet backwards and forwards. With amazing athleticism, he held himself with legs at a wide straight angle, balancing on the tip of one shoe and the heel of the other. This also delivered a sharp heel into the shin of the struck woman's right leg, the already battered and choking henchwoman stumbling down on her weakened knee.

The woman from left indeed rolled right under Sage's scissoring legs. Her body a sinewy blur of green and white, she halted the roll on one knee and twisted her body around in a sidelong strike at Sage's rear leg, meaning to hamstring and cripple the Human Enigma.

From his heel and toe, Sage launched into a high backflip, both legs sweeping up in one pendulum maneuver as his back arched. His jump took him well over the low swordstrike, his legs carrying his weight as they completed a high arc through the air. Both Sage's knees came down on either shoulder of the battered henchwoman behind him, the slender female completely crumpling under the powerful man's weight.

Now she was down on her stomach, arms and legs limp and head in side profile. Her eyes, revealed, were completely green--a dark green iris against a lighter lime "white." Sage's legs were spaced out around her frame, his right leg back by her thigh and left spaced forward at her shoulder. The kneeling woman in front of him swung her right, kneeling leg around her left and rose to her feet in one fluid motion.

Now she stood four feet away from Sage, spacing her weight back and leveling the tip of her sword at him. Her arms trembled, as did her calves as she pushed her weight onto the balls of her feet, almost an exaggerated parody of readiness. Clearly, from the sudden flush in her chalky skin and the hard rise and fall of her shoulders, Sage was rattling her.

He took a sweeping step forward, his fists leveled and slightly turned inward in front of his stomach in a karate position. The woman ahead of him took an equally sweeping step back, and almost petranaturally Sage could smell the fear on her. As he removed himself from standing over the prone woman, she painfully rose to elbows and knees, groaning as she arched her back up. Her bone white shoulders were only highlighting the growing bruises staining her skin at the top of her arms. Moving in total silence, she set one foot forward and tremulously rose to her feet, as Sage and her partner locked in a staredown.

The tense moment was shattered with the snap of a cracking whip--a hiss and thunderous crack drawing Sage's glance over his shoulder. Behind him, a long pale-green vine, dotted with stubby thorns, had hit the arisen henchwoman right across her nose. A zigzag line of blood was drawn on her face from embedded thorns as the woman stumbled back, the vine dropping from her bloodied visage.

Both Sage and his remaining adversary glanced back and saw the line originated with Poison Ivy. Standing beside the desk, she held the whip in her right hand, its base disappearing in the leafy band about her wrist. Her face was slack in surprise, and a light green flush came to her cheeks as she realized she'd hit her own henchwoman. Clearly she was grossly unskilled with the weapon, and had good reasons for staying out of the melee until that point in any case.

The beaten lady staggered back and dropped one last time, the dull thud of her back rattling the carpet and breaking the almost embarrassed silence that had ensued. As if it were the starting gun for a race, the remaining henchwoman and Sage lunged at each other as soon as the other hit the ground.

She charged ahead with sword tip straight forward and a ragged yell on her craning lips. Sage was silent save the snare-drum crash of his intense footfalls. Just as she would have pierced him, he turned his body right, the gleaming shaft of her blade scraping his coat as it passed over the Question's lower right flank. He brought a gloved hand down just before she passed him and caught both her thin wrists with one grip. His left shoulder indented forward, Sage shoved his forearm into the woman's throat and forced her weight back, even as he continued his own run unabated.

She barely had time to gag before Sage slammed her into the wall just above the low cabinet-table, her back knocking over a framed photo, sending a handheld globe and a concave wooden clock crashing over the table's edge. The back of her skull slammed into the drywall and splintered it with a sharp sound, a spiderweb of cracks tearing themselves outward from where the back of her skull made an impression. There was another sharp crack as Ivy's whip embedded itself in the wall inches above her head, sweeping right over Sage himself. They were directly beneath the thirty-two inch tall painting of Joseph Rainy, which was now loosed and toppling from the wall.

Releasing his grip on the woman, Sage deftly caught the painting and took a step back from the woman. Limply holding her sword in one hand, she weakly pushed herself into a stand just in front of the table. Her shades had been knocked down her nose, and Sage saw her green-green eyes swimming in a daze, her head hanging heavily. Joseph Rainy's stern face came down on her like the judgement of heaven, the Question slamming the portrait right over the woman's head. Glass shattered, the thin wood backing splintered, and the portrait was hanging off the woman's shoulders. A network of bloody rivulets poured down her brow, the glass covering practically jigsawing her cranium. She toppled forward, the frame's edge catching her unconscious body and forcing her back into an arch as she sprawled.

The vine-whip loosed itself and quickly slid back to Ivy, now standing between the chairs and pulling back her right arm for another lash. Sage turned slowly, and fixed her with his invisible stare. Ivy's smug expression and blank surprise were both gone, replaced with a pouty snarl (there was nothing she could do with her lips that was unattractive, willfully or no.) The Human Enigma took advantage of the pause to pound his left palm with his right fist, cracking his knuckles in the grip of his other hand.

"Hy-AAH!" Ivy inexpertly threw her back forward with a staggering step as she sent another whip crack against Sage. The Question sidestepped, the thorny limb smacking into the ground against his feet and trailing back as Ivy settled in for yet another swing. The Question didn't intend to give her an opportunity, however, pushing himself into a run at Ivy.

He made a mistake in moving straight for her, though. Even a novice wielder like Ivy couldn't miss as the Question barreled towards her. Her whip came straight down at him, and Sage cursed his cocky plan even as he threw up a forearm to protect himself. The line snagged around his forearm, and he felt a sting as its thorns bit through his sleeve and into his skin, the Question grunting in pain even as he easily resisted the whip's downward tug without breaking stride.

But just one step from being in arm's reach of Ivy, his legs gave out on him. Sage grunted as he landed hard on one knee, his back pitched forward and both hands splayed outwards to catch himself. Ivy was immediately restored to her confident smirk as the blank face looked up at her, subtle shade patterns on the slate indicating Sage's eyebrows were nearly to his hairline. He suddenly felt a sensation like his innards were trying to crawl up his throat, pain shuddering up his back as his head spun.

Poison. Of course. It was a hallmark of Poison Ivy's criminal profile, her expertise in toxicology enabling her to craft designer chemicals that she loved to transfer through her "babies" the plants she raised, wielded and worshipped. Sage's weaving head pitched downward, suddenly heavy, and he was intently staring at the floor wondering if he'd shortly vomit into his own mask.

"Ah, poor little strongman." He heard Ivy's luscious voice above him, and realized he was staring at her feet. But just a moment ago she'd been standing about six feet away. Now Sage was really worried. To make matters worse, that pheremone she exuded was rolling all over him, and Sage felt the urge to embrace the booted feet even as his insides pitched. "Hurts, doesn't it?" Her voice was dripping mocking concern. Sage heard the sliding hiss of something metallic being drawn. "I promise Mama Ivy's gonna make it all better..."

He was off his hands and knees and throwing himself into a flying tackle in the next second. Ivy gave a high yelp, kicking one loose boot up with a jerk as her wiry body folded under the impact of Sage's shoulder into her stomache. The green-colored dagger she'd drawn flew from her left hand, Ivy crying out in pain as her back hit the carpet. Straddling her, Sage balanced himself with a spread-fingered hand over Ivy's shoulder, a shapeless flood of bright red hair framing her startled face.

The Question was.... feeling a bit better. He could literally feel the sickness sinking deeper into his stomach, beginning to feel more contained and manageable. "Shopping at the discount toxicologist's?" He grunted in rhetorical cheek. Whatever Ivy had laced her whip with only lasted a few moments, presumably long enough for her to finish an opponent through coup de grace. No doubt the poison's impermanence was made in testament to Ivy's own inexpertise with the weapon.

Then, with startling strength, Poison Ivy kneed him in the stomach and sent Vic Sage sprawling. She was off her back in an instant, her feet literally running nowhere for a moment before she righted herself. Then Ivy was darting for the door, running as fast as her gamey legs could pump. Sage himself rolled off his back and pushed off just one arm as she made her B-Line for the exit. He was almost to the door when she slammed it in his face, Sage tossing it wide to pursue.

Now he was back in the waiting room. Just in time to see Ivy at the apex of a vault over the descending stairway's banister, kicking up both legs over the railing in another remarkable acrobatic feat. She might have not been a fighter, but Ivy was well practiced in running for her life. Sage ran straight for the slanted railing and gripped it in one hand before leapfrogging right over, coming down hard on a staircase of the same pseudo marble. It went down a ways under the yellow walls, until the stairway turned left. Sage saw Ivy banking hard into that left turn, and pursued jumping four steps at a time. He was already halfway down the stairs and made it to the turnpoint in two steps, crashing after Ivy.

She had emerged into a white-tiled floor with slate-grey walls and ceiling, a corridor wide enough to permit two wide men shoulder to shoulder. Spaced along either side of the corridor, sleekly gleaming under the starched light of plastic light fixtures, were the doorways to other executive offices. The light maple doors, with standardized window-opening and name stencil, signaled the domains of various Vice-Presidents and Directors at Coeller & Willhelm.

The woman's pointed boots were fashionable and its lifted heels accentuated her calves nicely. But they were terrible for running, as Ivy learned to her cost. She had hardly advanced two strides from the mouth of the stairwell when Sage charged right out and barreled a shoulder into her back. Ivy was pitched onto her hands and knees, immediately flipping onto her rear and backpedaling on heels and elbows as a looming Sage advanced.

Pulling her legs up under her, Ivy rose to her feet as Sage met her in one stride. The Question's gloved hands gripped either of her slender shoulders hard, rooting her in place as he seemed to size her up behind his pseudoderm. Far from looking like a captured criminal, though, Ivy was smiling, her lips set in a small and wicked smirk. She looked up at him from under those green lids as if they shared some secret---and one of her thin arms slowly reached up and brushed Sage's, Ivy's fingers tracing the tear in his sleeve her whip had made.

"So you win, masked crimefighter." The Question's impossible to read face was tilted back, as if he were determinedly staring at the light fixtures overhead. "You got poor little defenseless Ivy in those big.... strong arms of yours," her voice was dropping to a hush as she pulled her body in closer to Sage's, her little nymphet frame weaving around his taut body easily. Her pheremones were in overdrive now, glands pumping at life-or-death pace, and forcing the Question into paralyzed inner struggle.

Mine? Some part of Sage's mind best left hidden tremulously whispered as his gaze was drawn downward, against his will, into Ivy's. Mine? His gaze lingered on her impossible physique as if she was physically pulling him along, his muscles no longer his own but Ivy's. The sultry smell of her pheremones was like a blanket, Sage's hair slick with sweat and a visible flush showing beneath his pseudoderm.

Ivy's slate-white skin had turned a light, faint shade of green. Her nails traced their way up Sage's shoulders, until she held him the way he held her, and her skin was flushing a deeper color of green with every moment. She was already the color of a healthy jungle leaf, the whites of her eyes standing out strikingly now.

And then something sliced right through the steaming smell of pheremone.

It was the smell of pine, a higher sweetness than Ivy's musk. It was carried on a cold wind, freezing the sweat on Sage's naked back as he chopped wood outside Richard Dragon's house. The ground under his bare feet was frozen hard, as Sage hefted a black-headed maul in both hands and brought it down on a cylindrical log atop a fat stump. There was a dry splinter as the wood cracked down the middle.

Sage paused and sniffed. The cold air poured through his empty nostrils and massaged the back of his throat. The broken crags of distant mountains were a purple haze beneath the white horizon line, which filled out into a baby-blue sky overhead. Crossing it were whimsically drawn, ragged clouds that drifted silently beneath a white sun at the sky's apex. Beneath that, the massed tips of a coniferous forest rose and fell over rolling hill country, until it broke off into empty plain. The grass was a light counter-point to the forest's black shag, thickly spaced and lush.

He smiled because something occured to him. All the endless hours of lectures on focus, the attempts at meditation.... sitting in cells of stark stone, crossing his legs and balancing impossibly atop a narrow wooden pole. Outside of all the spartan and painful methods of inducing heightened awareness, Sage decided none were better than this stark yet verdant field and the gorgeous panorama above it.

He felt more aware of his surroundings here and now, more centered, than on a hundred poles with a hundred needles in his rear. One of those rare moments of life everyone has where all the wires are connected, and you feel like the Lord of Creation. The secret lay in being at peace with oneself, and Victor Sage knew no better way than this.

In a flash, his eyes were focused back on Ivy's smirk. "That's right," she was leaning into him and whispering under his chin. "You woudn't want to hit a g--"

Sage's head snapped down and his brow crashed into her nose with a sharp crack. The tip of Ivy's nose was pressed into her lips as shock-red blood squirted out either nostril, her skin suddenly drained of color as her perfect porcelain face snapped back. Ivy went down on her back again, landing with bent knees together and ankles spread far apart on her rear and elbows. She was still looking up in utter shock as the Question reached down and grabbed a handful of her red hair.

With one motion, he threw her into the wall to his left, Ivy smacking into it front-first with a hard slap of skin-on-plaster. Dazed, she took a single step away from the wall, and then toppled weekly to her knees. She had spent hardly a moment kneeling before the Question when a leather shoetip struck her in the stomach. Ivy choked and her eyes watered as she fell over hard, rolling onto her right side. Sage stalked around her, and then swept another toe into her ribs.

Ivy yowled in pain and rolled over, shooting her knees up nearly into her chest and curling in a fetal position. The Question stood erect but unbound over her, fists at his side. Slowly, painfully, Ivy turned her head and glanced over her shoulder at him with one sullen eye. Her limp, battered form offered no resistance as Sage knelt beside her and slid an arm under her body. He easily scooped her up and foisted her over his shoulder, turning to stalk down the hall with a semiconscious Ivy hanging over his back.

By the time the door to Mr. Hughes's office were once again swung open, Ivy was recovered enough to stand. The Question had his left arm locked arond her throat, pinning both her hands behind her back with his right. Poison Ivy tried to kick her heels into the carpeting as they crossed the threshhold, but she only succeded in garnering a tighter hold from Sage. "What--are you--DOING?" She demanded shrilly as the Question dragged her through the room.

Hughes still sat frozen, fingers arched over the board numbly. Until Sage and Ivy passed his desk on the right--the CEO exploded into motion as they passed by, springing from his chair to dash at Sage. He made it three steps, and then Sage shot his elbow out to the right. Hughes took it right in his gaping green eye, his head snapping back as he stumbled against his chair, weakly grabbing its leather back before sliding to his knees.

"Did you HEAR ME!?" Ivy swung both knees upwards, composure totally gone, and twisted for all she was worth. Sage turned her sharply to the left as they came to the back of the room. In the middle of the window grid's base, white pipe-metal sectioned off a pair of glass double-doors framed with white wooden panels and bearing two brass knockers. Ivy on the side, Sage snapped his right heel up and knocked both doors back, clearing the way onto the short balcony. Before stepping outside, he threw Ivy forward, the ecoterrorist vixen bouncing off the black railing with a wince. Crouched and holding a bruised shoulder, she looked up at the advancing Question with murder in her eyes.

But those hard eyes quickly widened as she saw the Question reach under his white sleeve. With a hiss, he drew out a length of thin, black rubber tubing, pulling a good measure of the hollow tube across his chest. "W-what are you gonna do with that?" Ivy asked, although she already had a good idea and wasn't liking it at all.

Sage was upon her in one step, and Ivy too slow to prevent the tube from being wound around her slender neck. Sage pulled it taut in the next instant, Ivy's eyes bugging as she gagged. Sage lifted her just a hair's distance off the ground, her toes brushing the floor. Ivy's hands went to the tube, clawing frantically. Sage lessened it somewhat, although the cord remained snagged around Ivy's neck as he proferred a boot, pushing lightly now against Ivy's stomach, inching her back towards the edge of the curving railing.

"Funny thing, Ivy. Robbery's not your M.O. You're an ecoterrorist. So what were you adjusting C&W's accounts for? Thinking you'd supplant it into a dummy account and retire to some botanist's paradise in the Carribean? Unlikely. You're not going to stop until every facet of society that can harm your precious plants is gone under. Where did you want that money to go?"

"I saw this blouse I liked..." Ivy set her jaw, gripping the railing behind her with both hands. "We both know you won't strangle me," Sage felt her pheremones return with her confidence, although he could easily ignore them now. "And hm, how should I put this? I'm not feeling cooperative after getting my ribs bruised."

Sage thrusted a knee into her stomach, forcing her body up, sitting her rear on the railings. The Question himself put one shoe on a lower rung under Ivy's dangling feet, her body tilting back--only the cord around her neck kept her from teetering over. "This isn't Gotham," the Question said flatly. "In Hub City, A is A, and war on crime means war."

"Don't kill me!" Ivy rushed out, her gaze drawn inexcorably to the street ninety stories below. "Don't kill me, don't! I, I wasn't even doing anything that bad!"

"Oh?" Sage let his grip on one end of the line ease, and Ivy slid clean off the rail. She caught herself with one desperate hand, now clinging to the other side of the rail with her feet dangling over the balcony's pricepiece. "What was not so bad about what you were doing?"

"I was just.... if you knew.... nature's crying, you know." Ivy was fighting her own breathing. "We're all so short-sighted and greedy, we don't understand. If we had the perspective of a tree that lives over one thousand years..." The cord slackened just a little more. "Iwastransferringtheaccounts!" She squeaked. "Hughes. I was using his authorization. I wanted funding on a project cut."

"What project?"

"Just..." Ivy sniffled, voice broken. "Just check the computer. It's all on the computer." Sage ignored her sympathy act and turned around, Ivy pulled along with the cord as he stepped away from the railing. She landed hard on the cement behind him and squeaked again, body shuddering. On her scuffed hands and knee, the last thing she saw was the heel of the Question's shoe swinging into her face. A sharp thud signaled the rush of blackness and Ivy knew no more.

Sage was back in the office. Hughes was in his seat again, sitting slouched and spread-eagled, sporting a shiner over his left eye. He remained inert as the Question stalked up to him, and pushed the seat aside. A dummy with no further instructions from its mistress. The screen had shifted to a managerie of brightly colored fish flitting through jutting coral across the monitor. The screen saver winked away as Sage shifted the mouse a little, and slouched over the monitor to see what was onscreen.

SPECIAL LICENSE GRANTED, FEDERAL ENERGY COMMISSION
Brig. General Nathan Peters confirming: Project "Event Horizon."
CODE, TOP SECRET.

Again, subtle shifts in the Question's mask reflected gaping surprise. The Human Enigma's jaw worked as he frantically read, pouring over the poorly stated and restated jargon, sifting meaning from the errata. "My god," he said at length. He glanced over at Hughes, the CEO's lolling head beginning to trail drool over its chin. "You can't be serious," he accused the inert Executive.

But if what he was reading was..... Sage could only mull in horror at the implications.


TO BE CONTINUED (MAYBE!)

um, congrats and all but we actually have a fiction forum. You could just put a link in your sig or something if you want people from these forums to read it. In any case, I can't move it now (no powers in this forum) but good luck with the rest of your story.

Oops. Looks like I've got egg on my face. Sorry about that, I never even looked outside these two forums here.

I guess I'll wait for a mod to move this before I put up Chapter 2. Sorry.

EDIT: But in the meantime.... did you read it?