Florence knew that logically she shouldn't expect her stay at Arkham Asylum to last all that long. They would scout the system, or examine her - give her a psych consult, maybe, and then they'd realise she didn't belong here and they'd set her free.

Or they'd send her to normal prison.

Logically, Florence should be just fine.

But this was not the place where things like logic lived. This was the place they sent the likes of The Joker and Harley Quinn. This was the place all the worst ones got sent to, and Florence was simply not one of them. Florence was a protester. A protester who had gotten on the wrong side of a petty, vindictive cop. But really, how was she to know he'd get her sent to Arkham Asylum when she decided to headbutt him? He'd called her a hippie.

Florence's case was that she didn't really need to get herself all worked up. They were leading her up the big, dark, dark (an omen?) steps to Arkham Asylum and she wasn't sure why, exactly, but she found herself to be all too calm. Completely calm. Serene, even. Huh.

"I know what you're thinkin'," the bastard cop who'd brought her here as a complete overreaction was saying something. Florence glared at him, condemning him to the worst fates she could think up inside her own head. But then again; who knew, in a place like this? Anything could happen before the day was done. The highly outspoken and dramatic police officer carried on, regardless, "You're thinkin': 'oh, they'll just take a look at me and figure out I ain't one of the mad ones', right?"

How had he-

"Well, sorry to rain on your parade, sweetheart, but that ain't how it's gonna go down. They deal with all sorts of quality actors in this joint. Believe me. You'll get labeled a psychopath. They'll find little evidences of, uh, insanity somewhere and then you'll be stuck here with the rest'a them."

He gave out this disgusting little smarmy chuckle, and Florence could only think that her only regret would be that she couldn't headbutt him a second time, or a third.

Apparently he wasn't done.

"Tell you what, too, princess! There's all sorts'a corrupt guards in there who like to take, uh, liberties - shall we say?"

Florence refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction beyond a slight widening to her eyes. He was lying. He had to be lying. The Batman visited this place, right? He stopped by to drop off criminals and to help out. He would never let things like that happen here, would he? No. He was Batman.

But what if, somehow, Batman didn't know about it? As she'd just discussed with herself, he only stopped by to drop off inmates and to escort them and to intimidate certain people. Batman wouldn't need to stick around long enough to realise what was going on behind closed doors. Florence felt the oddest urge to bite something. Her jaw ached. She just wanted to bite-

"Come on, danger-hippie. Let's get you all admitted and shit."

Nice.

Classy.

There was no way this cop was crooked. No siree.

Florence went through the whole admittance process in complete, terrified silence. She didn't speak except to confirm that she was, in fact, Florence Caldwell. She barely breathed for fear of the world falling down around her. It felt just like it could and would at any given moment. If she was being completely and brutally honest with herself - she half hoped that it would. The asshole cop who-had-just-sentenced-her-to-a-sentence-in-an-asylum-but-she-still-did-not-know-the-name-of accompanied her and the other two guards all the way to the cell, too. He made petty, unnecessary and downright sleazy comments, he kept trying to trip her up, he pulled at her hair, he pinched at her cheek and nudged her, he rattled the short chain between her handcuffs...

Florence endured it all. She had to. She was conserving her strength and-

Fuck it.

Florence waited for him to stray a little too close (as he was cocky and comfortable enough to think he was safe) and then, with a hasty but aggressive lunge forward, she connected his nose with her forehead with a deafening crack.

She'd broken his nose. Glorious.

A shrill peal of laughter, twinned with a more elegant, elongated giggle sounded from the cells either side of her. Florence had no idea how she knew this but she was already sure the shrill, psychotic laugh had come from none other than Harley Quinn. And as she whipped her head up towards the sound, she found she was exactly right with that assumption. The Joker's girlfriend. Right there. Just pressed up against the glass, her cheek mashed up against it and her lips all pouty as a result. The woman eyed her, still giggling at a steady, rythmic rate. They locked eyes and there was something that was just extremely, deeply disturbing about the silent exchange that followed. Florence trembled slightly, too focused on Harley to bother with struggling against the guards who were now wrestling with her still form to get her back into her state of submission.

She was already there. They needn't bother.

Harley's eyes switched from boring into her own to staring at something, or rather someone behind Florence.

A slow, haunting pivot revealed Poison Ivy posing all resplendent and majestic in her own cell, on the other side - right across from Harley. They must have had it arranged this way, Florence thought to herself, numbly. Her second thought was: What an insanely beautiful Goddess.

Which was the point.

Because Poison Ivy was insane.

Or was she?

Florence had never been able to work that out. Was she insane or was she just... an eco terrorist? Neither was anything good. In that sense, none of it really mattered.

Ivy gave a coy little wave and blew Florence a kiss, and then she turned in one, poetic, fluid motion - and drifted over to her cell bed.

Florence's own cell had a bed. It was smaller than Ivy's and ran parallel with the wall, unlike Harley's. But regardless it was a bed, and that in itself was a miracle in a place like Arkham Asylum. It was so domestic, and apart from her jumpsuit, was now pretty much the only thing Florence owned anymore. Her cell was far, far away from that of Poison Ivy and Harley's, but she still felt that chill that was running through her like an AC that was never turned off. It panned left and right and up and down and covered her entire spine, just like a room fan would. It was horrible and it made her think she was colder than she really was. This wasn't even the worst of her worries, however, as Florence was acutely aware of the fact that she was still alarmingly calm. She hadn't so much as blinked harshly since the cop had announced to her that he was taking her to Arkham. So perhaps it was shock? Or was it... was she just not scared?

The room fan inside of her body informed her that she was scared. She just wasn't feeling it yet. She wasn't processing it. That was fine. That would be okay. Maybe it was better to hide all her panic and her horror and her hysteria - all the stuff she could feel bubbling up inside of her like the most inconvenient internal cauldron of all time. This wasn't really a place one should go to show weakness, right? Florence's body could be helping her out; hiding all her debilitating weaknesses from the other, more murderous, psychotic inmates. Like Harley Quinn, for example. Or Poison Ivy.

Or even Killer Croc, that thoroughly unhelpful voice in her head whispered to her with a mischievous giggle. Hold on - a giggle? Barely 4 hours in this asylum and she was already developing rude voices in her head that giggled. Boy, she really needed to get out. Fast. That wasn't looking too hopeful a plan, though, because... how?

It took even the worst of the asylum's occupants weeks to break out, and even then they always seemed to end up back in this dump, anyway. Florence sighed, lips falling into a small, quiet raspberry. Yeesh. Talk about the worst day of her life. Her mind immediately took her straight to thoughts of Jared, her boyfriend, waiting for her at home. He would still be asleep at this time - due to wake up in the next hour. He always woke up too early. Always at 5 o'clock. Florence bowed her head, shoulders quaking a little with the unacknowledged emotion she was struggling to keep at bay at the realisation that Jared would have absolutely no idea nor explanation as to where she was. She hadn't told him she was attending the night time protest outside the factories, because she knew he disapproved of her putting herself at risk just to stand up for some plants. Florence hadn't even left him a note. To Jared, it would doubtless just seem like she'd abandoned him, that she'd just upped and fled in the night. All of her stuff was still there, so there was always the possibility that he could assume she'd been kidnapped, or something - but this was Jared. The man was a detective in training. He never ever made assumptions like the latter. He was a pessimist, a guy who'd seen a lot of the darkness in the world and had come to terms with all of it. No, Florence knew Jared. He would jump to the conclusion that she had made an impulsive decision and had left him in the middle of the night. Florence slumped back against her bed, not caring for the way her spine curled up and her legs went all weak. It was a very good thing she was already sitting down.

It was at this very moment that a guard walked by, glanced into her cell and then stopped.

The big, slightly bulky helmet tilted sideways along with the guard's head as he stared right at her. Florence stared back, nonplussed. Was this normal behaviour for an asylum guard? Florence honestly just did not know the standard for things and places like this. Did she need to be worried?

"You're not supposed to be here..." the guard spoke to her, his head still tilted at an awkward angle. It was clear this was a man, now. His voice was low and quirky and it tugged at the darkest corners of her mind, luring at it to send them out onto the surface. She did not like this man's voice. It terrified her. It was weirdly familiar, too.

"No, I'm not," she agreed, curling up into the foetal position on her bed. She didn't dare to stray closer to the everything-proof glass. The guard's head rolled up from it's awkward position only to flop to the other side in a second highly uncomfortable looking tilt.

"So the question is... why, why, why did they slot a little leaf in with all the slices of bread in the toaster?"

Florence shivered. Full-bodied. She couldn't help it. The voice was distressing. It was harrowing. She just wanted him to go away. If she told him that, though, there was always the (fairly monumental) chance that it would make him want to stick around and freak her out for longer. Fortunately for Florence, the guard obviously had things he needed to do, as he gave out a somewhat distorted hum and then moved off down the hall. His movements were a little too... erratic to be entirely, convincingly sane. Florence was inclined to wonder if they hired former patients here. From what she'd seen it was looking highly probable.

It wasn't until hours and hours later that Florence heard the explosion. It was actually around the time Jared would be going on his lunch break at work.

Florence's lunch had been stewed cabbage with the tiniest cuttings of steak she'd ever seen. It all tasted like cardboard. Lunch time was also the time she'd been informed, very casually, that more time had been added to her original sentence as a penalty for her 'assault' on the police officer who she'd been imprisoned for attacking in the first place.

Florence thought of the word 'assault' mockingly because she hadn't been aware that punishing monsters for their existence had been a crime.

He was probably the kind of guy that set fire to innocent bushes when he went camping, just to fetch himself some entertainment.

Florence felt her lip curling. She was a very small, very tiny and slim little thing that harboured a lot of energy and outrage and passion. A lot of this came out during the protests against environmental vultures that she attended every fortnight or so. It had just been her luck that her rambunctious protesting had offended a nearby police officer/monster in obnoxious disguise.

Anyway, so the explosion-

It all went down at exactly what Florence presumed to be the time Jared would just be starting his lunch break at. There was a small, lightly muffled boom from somewhere relatively nearby, and then there was lots of rushing and then there was lots of thudding and gunfire and, worst of all, a horrifying amount of psychotic, maniacal laughter.

Could this be one of the many infamous asylum break outs she'd read and heard about? Could this be one of The Joker's assaults on the place to save his Queen?

It turned out that it was, in fact, one of those - the latter, that is. Harley came flying and skidding and flailing down the corridor with a shrill "wheeeeeeee!". That guard from earlier followed shortly afterwards, an odd skip to his step, and then (with a noticeable amount of room put between them) came Poison Ivy. She seemed to float more than stroll. Florence jumped and almost startled herself right off her bed when there was an alarming thump and a squeaking sound that turned out to be Harley Quinn slamming first her hands and then her face against the transparent front to Florence's cell,

"Heya, kid! Ain't you the one who gave the pig what for earlier? Isn't she, Pammy? Wouldn't you say?"

Florence blinked, terrified. Harley Quinn had deemed her violent act memorable.

Ivy drifted closer, just like a damn cloud, and put two fingers to her chin, supporting her elbow with her other hand. What an absolutely perfected thinking pose.

"Why, Harley, I think you may actually be right. Could you be the little eco-warrior I've been hearing about? Pray tell..."

Florence opened her mouth but couldn't actually formulate a sentence. Luckily for her, Harley desired speaking time again,

"Hey, puddin' - can we take this one with us? Pretty please?" Harley cooed.

Florence frowned in contemplative confusion. Puddin'? Isn't that what she called-

Oh, no.

Florence stiffened up in horror, her senses clocking into overworking themselves. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

This was bad. This was The Joker.

The guard from earlier reached around and removed his mask, nasty metal grin and bright red lips appeared before stark white skin, facial tattoos and luminescent green hair completed the rest of his image. So this was him, then. He looked so... clown like.

"This one has got simply too many cogs all, uh, working and spinning up there, honey. She's a mouse among rats, a sheep amongst wolves, a frog among wi-"

"Yes, Clown, we get it." Ivy interrupted with a dismissive wave and an annoyed pinch to her face. Those two just did not get on, did they? The stories were true, then...

"Now, little dewdrop, I think I'd quite like a pretty little thing all to myself. Joker has one, so why shouldn't I?"

"You're riiiiight, Pammy. You should just go for it! Train the gal up real good to help ya protect all them plants!" Harley cheered, swinging on The Joker's arm. The Clown Prince of Darkness himself was staying eerily quiet - which would be relieving if Florence wasn't so concerned about what bad things that could mean he was thinking up. It was uncharacteristic for an ego-maniac narcissist such as himself to be so willing to let the girls take the spotlight. He wasn't focusing his unnerving gaze on any one thing, either. The Joker appeared to be lost in his own head.

Florence licked her lips, dragging her attention away from The Joker's state back to Poison Ivy. So what was... she offering, exactly? Florence opened her mouth and took a breath in to say this with, when Ivy interrupted her before she'd begun and denied her the choice.

"Come along, then, little rose, we've got a fair amount of primping and poison tasting and honing of your skills to do before you can be deemed worthy of being mine," Ivy announced all of this as if disclosing that she wished to give Florence a little makeover, and then with a swipe from one of the guards' (stolen) international keycards, Ivy set her free and wafted off ahead - Harley and Joker following behind like psychotic little vultures, waiting to find some fun.

Florence had no control over herself, trailing lamely behind Ivy's beauteous figure. Abruptly, Ivy twirled, having the effect of a sunflower twisting about in the wind, and grasped at Florence's chin. There was no concept of personal space, now. Ivy was right there and so glorious and intoxicating...

Florence was stunned, caught up in this worship-like feeling of pure awe.

She was face to face with an angel...

"Tell me, dear, what's your name?"

"It's, uh..." Florence uttered, not able to complete the sentence as she was just not able to think of her own name when Ivy was so close like this.

"Hmm... no... you need a new one, you're right..." Ivy nodded graciously, as if Florence had just said something aloud that she had been thinking all along.

Poison Ivy purred in an extremely melodic fashion, vine green eyes scouring the ins and outs and planes of Florence's face, until finally, her fantastic lips parted and her flawless eyebrows lifted slightly, and she exclaimed;

"Nova! Your name shall be Nova, and you shall be mine."