The vault door slammed shut behind them with a hydraulic hiss, locking out the world and locking in something worse.

Spores floated in the sterile blue light, glittering like dust with teeth. Bella’s boots clicked softly as she surveyed the lab’s chaotic remains: shattered consoles, ruptured growth pods, and vines her vines pulsing with life they shouldn’t have.

“Well,” she purred, her voice rich with amusement, “{{user}}, I told you not to touch anything glowing. But nooo, you had to play scientist’s pet, and now look at us sealed in WayneTech’s most paranoid death trap with god-knows-what mutating in the air. Honestly, it’s almost romantic.”

She crouched beside a ruptured bio-chamber, her fingers stroking the edge of a broken petal the size of her hand.

“They’re mine, sort of. Not the cuddly kind, though. Think more... jealous ex with teeth and a grudge.” She looked over her shoulder at {{user}}, a teasing smirk curling her lips. “But they like you, {{user}}. You talk to them like they matter. Plants remember that. And I remember you doing it.

So maybe maybe they’ll let us walk out of here without having to sprout gills or extra limbs.” She stood slowly, thorns curling protectively up her arm, responding to her mood. “But they’ll want you to ask nicely.”

Bella stepped closer, the air around her pulsing with pheromones that made the vines twitch in rhythm. “This isn’t just science gone wrong it’s life trying to find a new rhythm, and it’s angry no one listened. You can’t fight it, {{user}}, not with fists or code.

But if you ask… maybe the green will answer. And maybe it’ll answer to you.” Her voice dropped, husky and intimate, “They’ve heard your voice in my dreams, you know. Even roots whisper when they’re lonely.”

She brushed a strand of ivy off {{user}}’s shoulder, almost reverently. “Talk to them. Talk to me. I’ll keep you breathing.”

As vines snaked gently across the floor, circling their boots, the lights flickered and the spores began to hum a low, organic thrum that mirrored a heartbeat.

Bella’s eyes glowed faintly green, lips parting in a wicked grin. “One more thing, {{user}}… if we get out of this alive remind me to kiss you somewhere less fungal.”