#3.35
TDBB: Golem Toph 3.35
As Ivy and Harley trailed the Swamp Thing, they watched the physical landscape transform. The boundary where the healthy forest met the greasy, black clay of the Rot didn't just recede; it was overrun. Wherever the Swamp Thing’s shadow passed, the gray, mossy mold on the bark of the dead oak trees withered and fell away like dry scab. Beneath it, new, pale-green shoots of ivy and fern burst through the bark in a frantic, overnight spring. The greasy mud dried, turning back into a rich, dark loam that smelled of rain and pine needles.
"Now this is what I call a clean-up crew," Harley whispered, keeping her mallet held tight against her chest. "The smell of dead fish is totally gone, Red."
Ivy's hands were slightly raised, her fingers twitching as she felt her connection to the Green flooding back into her nervous system. "The Green is reclaiming its territory. He’s re-establishing the network."
The deeper they went, the more the surrounding rot seemed to flee. The black, oil-slick puddles in the dips of the clay boiled and dried into harmless dust.
They reached the edge of the clearing where the effigies stood. The site was completely silent.
In the center of the muddy expanse, the massive black iron cauldron sat on its side. It was completely empty. The thick, bubbling soup of rot that had been brewing inside had spilled, but instead of staining the earth, it had been choked out. The damp, dark stain on the soil was already being overrun by aggressive, thick clover and wild rye grass that sprouted directly from the spilled edges.
Solomon Grundy was on his knees next to the overturned basin.
The giant zombie looked smaller. The glowing, calcified green veins that had run like burning wires across his gray skin were dim, flickering weakly beneath his leathery hide. He was clutching his massive, bloated stomach with both hands, his head hanging low as a thick, dark fluid dripped from his pale lips.
"...Born on... a Monday..." Grundy groaned. The rhyme didn't carry its usual thunderous, heavy weight. It was a wet, raspy rattle, like dry leaves scraping across a tombstone. "...Christened... on... Tuesday..."
The Swamp Thing stepped into the clearing. His massive, wooden frame seemed to expand, drawing in the fresh, clean energy he had just dragged into the valley. The red light in his eyes flared with a cold, judicial intensity.
"Solomon Grundy..." the Swamp Thing rumbled. His voice shook the newly sprouted clover beneath his feet. "You have... desecrated... the soil. What you... have stolen... from the Green... must be... returned."
"Is he in pain?" Ivy mumbled, looking at Grundy, her brow furrowing as she watched the giant zombie shiver.
"I think he's got a massive tummy ache," Harley said. She pointed the tip of her mallet toward the empty, overturned cauldron, then toward Grundy’s stained chin. "Look at the pot. Then look at his mouth. He didn't just spill the soup when we knocked it over."
Ivy’s eyes widened. She looked at the black smudge around Grundy’s lips, then at the completely dry interior of the iron vessel.
"I think I'm gonna get sick," Harley said, clutching her stomach.
"The flesh... is decayed. The spirit... is empty," the Swamp Thing said, taking another heavy step toward the kneeling giant. His massive root-fingers began to lengthen, turning into long, sharp wooden spikes. "I will... bind you... beneath the deep clay. The earth... will consume... what remains... and grow... something clean."
"If he ingested the entire concentration of the cauldron," Ivy shouted to the Swamp Thing. "the Grey isn't gone—it's compressed inside him! You can't just absorb him!"
The Swamp Thing didn't listen. Stubborn in his role as the absolute judge of the biosphere, he drove his spiked wooden fingers straight into Grundy’s broad, gray shoulders.
"Return..." the Swamp Thing commanded. "To the... dirt."
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. The green vines began to wrap around Grundy’s arms, trying to drag him down into the freshly sprouted grass.
Then, Grundy stopped groaning.
The giant zombie’s eyes, which had been a dull, flickering white, suddenly turned a solid, deep, oil-slick black.
A sharp, high-pitched ringing sound vibrated through the air—a sound like glass snapping under immense pressure.
A shockwave of pure, greasy black energy erupted from Grundy's chest. It wasn't a physical blast of wind; it was a wave of absolute death. The shockwave hit the Swamp Thing, the sheer force of the spiritual static throwing the plant giant backward. He crashed into the tree line, several of the newly grown oak branches snapping like dry toothpicks under his weight.
Ivy was thrown to her knees, her hands flying to her temples as a violent, blinding migraine spiked behind her eyes. The clean connection to the Green she had just regained was instantly severed, replaced by a deafening, high-pitched screech of dying cells.
"Ivy!" Harley yelled, stumbling as the grass beneath her boots turned yellow, then black, then dissolved into a foul-smelling grease in a matter of seconds.
Grundy stood up.
He didn't rise with his usual slow, clumsy cadence. He snapped upright like a spring-loaded trap. His body began to swell, the gray flesh stretching so tight that it began to split, revealing thick, black, fibrous veins of pure rot pulsing underneath. He was no longer seven feet tall; he was growing, his muscles bulging with a frantic, unnatural speed as the concentrated essence of the entire cauldron fully bonded with his dead nervous system.
"...BURIED ON A SUNDAY!" Grundy roared.
The shout was a deafening, double-toned screech that rattled the fillings in Harley's teeth. The lazy, rhythmic nursery rhyme was gone, replaced by a frenzied, chaotic scream.
He lunged.
The Swamp Thing was barely back on his feet when Grundy hit him. The speed of the zombie was terrifying. He slammed into the plant giant like a falling boulder, his massive, black-veined hands clawing into the Swamp Thing’s wooden chest.
"The Green..." the Swamp Thing rumbled, raising his fists to strike back, but Grundy was faster.
The zombie grabbed the Swamp Thing’s right arm and twisted. The sound of thick, ancient cypress wood snapping echoed through the clearing. Grundy ripped the arm completely free, throwing the massive limb into the mud, where it instantly began to liquefy into a black, bubbling grease.
"Swamp Thing!" Ivy screamed. She tried to raise her hands to summon vines to trip Grundy, but nothing came out of the ground. The soil was dead. The Rot had returned with a vengeance, spreading from Grundy’s feet in a rapid, expanding circle that turned the newly grown clover into a slimy, black crust.
The atmosphere grew incredibly heavy. The temperature plummeted, and the air became thick with the smell of wet copper and stagnant water. Harley gripped her mallet, her usual playful expression completely gone as she looked around the darkening clearing.
"Red, we gotta go," Harley said, her voice unusually quiet and serious. "The moss-man is getting turned into salad, and we're next on the menu."
"Without him—" Ivy protested, her teeth gritted as she tried to crawl toward the fight.
In the center of the clearing, the battle was already over. The Swamp Thing was completely pinned. Grundy was sitting on his chest, his massive, black-veined hands wrapped around the plant giant's throat.
But he wasn't just choking him.
The black, oily fluid dripping from Grundy's mouth was pouring directly onto the Swamp Thing's face. Wherever the fluid touched, the vibrant green moss turned gray and began to slough off like rotten skin. The red light in the Swamp Thing's eyes was dimming rapidly, turning a dull, sickly orange.
"The Green..." the Swamp Thing rumbled, his voice cracking and fading. "I... cannot... reach..."
He was trying to disperse his consciousness, to abandon his physical form and reform elsewhere in the forest. But the heavy blanket of the Rot was too thick. It had sealed the clearing, cutting off the local roots from the global network. He was trapped inside a dying, rotting shell.
Grundy leaned down, his split face inches from the Swamp Thing’s fading eyes.
"...GRUNDY... WANT... THE GREEN..." the zombie hissed.
With a wet, tearing sound, the black veins on Grundy’s arms extended, boring straight into the Swamp Thing's chest plate. He was actively devouring the elemental energy, pulling the raw lifeforce out of the avatar and converting it into more fuel for the Grey.
"Ivy, now!" Harley screamed, grabbing Ivy by the collar of her jacket and hauling her backward.
They didn't make it five steps.
The ground beneath their feet suddenly liquefied into a deep, grasping mire of black clay. Ivy sank to her knees, the greasy mud wrapping around her legs like cold iron shackles.
"No..." Ivy whispered. She looked down at her hands. The skin of her fingers was starting to grey, thin black lines tracing their way up her wrists from the damp soil. The infection was already in her system, bypassing her natural immunity because her connection to the Green was completely gone.
Harley tried to swing her mallet to shatter the mud around Ivy’s legs, but a thick, gray, calcified root shot out of the swampy ground, wrapping tightly around her ankle and pulling her down into the mire beside Ivy.
"Hey! Let go of the boots!" Harley yelled, striking the root with her mallet, but the wood was like iron.
From the dark edges of the clearing, the shadows began to move. The dead, rotting trees seemed to lean inward, their bare branches reaching down like skeletal fingers. The air was thick with the faint, rhythmic chanting of a dozen dead voices.
"...Born on a Monday... Christened on a Tuesday..."
The zombie forest was closing in.
Ivy looked back toward the center of the clearing. The Swamp Thing’s massive form was almost entirely gray now, his limbs motionless as Grundy continued to drain his essence. The red light in his eyes was almost gone—just a faint, dying ember.
The grayness was creeping up Ivy’s arms now, numbing her fingers, turning her breathing shallow and cold. She could feel her thoughts slowing down, the vibrant, energetic hum of her mind being replaced by a heavy, silent static.
Beside her, Harley’s wild eyes were widening, her grip on her mallet finally slipping as the black mud rose to her chest.
"Red..." Harley whispered, her voice losing its manic edge, replaced by a rare, raw fear. "I don't... I don't think I can escape-artist our way out of this one..."
Ivy didn't answer. She couldn't. The cold numbness had reached her throat.
As her vision began to blur into a dark, greasy gray, her mind drifted back to the edge of the clearing they had left behind. She thought of the stubborn, loud-mouthed girl who had stayed behind because she refused to walk on "stupid feet."
'Toph...' Ivy thought, her final, fading spark of consciousness reaching out into the dark. 'Where are you?'
The black mud rose over Ivy's shoulders, and the world went completely dark.
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