Pamela stepped out of the endless corridor and into a wider passage where the walls gave way to rusted pipes dripping condensation. Dim emergency lights glowed overhead, their buzz echoing down the chamber. She exhaled slowly, only for her breath to hitch when something whistled past her shoulder. A seedling slammed against the wall with a wet crunch, its twisted body convulsing as blue sparks danced across it. The acrid smell of burning plant-flesh filled the air. Pamela flinched, shielding her face with her arm until the twitching finally stopped.
When she lowered her arm, she turned sharply. A silhouette moved from the shadows at the corridor's edge, sparks snapping at the walls like restless snakes. Pamela's eyes widened as the figure stepped into the dim glow. Barbara Gordon walked toward her, calm and steady, arcs of static licking her fingertips.
"Barbara?!" Pamela's voice cracked, disbelieving. "You're okay!"
Barbara's mouth tugged slightly at one corner as electricity curled between her fingers. "I'm better than okay," she said evenly. "I'm fully charged."
She raised her hand and loosed a sharp bolt into the ruined seedling. The corpse jolted once more before slumping into silence, smoke curling into the stale air. Pamela's chest tightened in stunned awe.
"What the hell happened to you?" Pamela asked, eyes darting over the sparks dancing across Barbara's hands. "You're shooting lightning like a walking Tesla coil."
Barbara let out a short breath, not quite a laugh. "Back when I kept getting kidnapped, I started skimming off the top. You'd be amazed how careless guys like Two-Face, Penguin, and Joker are with their cash. I lifted whatever I could—every dirty dollar—and funneled it into a project I kept under wraps."
She lifted her hand, electricity humming faintly against her palm. "I built a batch of one-of-a-kind evolutionary nanites and ingested them. They bonded to my nervous system. Turns out the human body runs hot enough with bioelectricity to make me dangerous."
Pamela blinked, her lips parting in a slow breath. "Oh my god, that's so cool."
Barbara's eyes sharpened with pride, though her tone stayed dry. "I know, right?"
Pamela steadied herself, then raised her left arm. A vine coiled tight around her wrist, pulsing faintly with a green light. "Check out what I've got," she said, her voice dipping lower. "The professor must've taken it from my dorm and left it in that lab. But now it's bonded to me."
The bracelet shivered, and in an instant it expanded, wood and thorns wrapping her hand and forearm until her arm resembled a monstrous talon. Pamela flexed her fingers and the thorned claw creaked like living wood.
"I can impale enemies with this," she said, her voice trembling with an edge of thrill. "It drains them dry."
She twisted her wrist, the talon unraveling into a long, spiked whip of living thorns. With a sharp snap she lashed it across the chamber, the tip embedding into the corpse of the seedling. Pamela's shoulders rose as she drew the whip back, green light streaming from the withered body and racing along the vines into her chest. A flush of warmth spread through her limbs.
"Then I get a nice snack," she said, her eyes narrowing as power settled into her body. "Feeds me and makes me stronger."
Barbara's eyebrows lifted, her expression hard to disguise. "Well damn. Looks like we're both rocking upgrades."
Pamela's lips curved slightly, her eyes gleaming. "I guess we make a pretty electrifying team."
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