Kara stared at the scared eyes of Theo Adams, the magic-draining device on her gauntlet glowing with barely contained power.

Gone was his confidence, gone was the cruel glint in his eyes and the power of his body, instead, all she saw was a common criminal. A murderer, yes, but one now powerless and scared for his life.

With a swift movement, Kori released her chokehold and pulled the Sword of Beowulf from Theo’s shoulder without widening the wound, flicking the blood aside before slowly stepping away, her posture relaxed but ready for any surprises.

Kara’s hand still kept the man's mouth closed, ensuring he couldn’t call upon his power again. The draining device on her glove was beeping with a yellow light on her screen, but the energy container wasn’t about to explode anytime soon.

None too gently, she ripped the Amulet of Teth-Adam from his neck and got up, dragging him up with her by the neck, his legs flailing as he desperately tried to find a foothold. Kara’s size with the armor making that impossible.

Now that he was neutralized, she spared the time to check on the rest of the crew and cursed.

Behind her, the ground floor of the hospital exploded, giant vines covered in thorns the size of daggers spilling out of the damaged walls like a wave of green tentacles. Thicker than she was tall, they lashing out at nearby houses with enough strength to crush them before refocused on the taller building.

Kori floated up to analyze the situation, sword ready to fight even as she took distance from the plant. “Indeed, I was correct,” she commented on their private channel.

“What?”

The plant seemed entirely focused on climbing the building, vines breaking through windows and doors to try and get to the rescue team faster.

Throwing Theo Adams behind herself with enough strength to break bones but not kill, Kara quickly ordered a shield drone after him and had her armor’s computer start to analyze the vines while reconfiguring her main weapon.

“Kara,” Kori said, adjusting her position. “Considering your accrued experiences, our mission could not possibly be so unchallenging, yes? I was entirely correct in coming with you.”

“Come on, not everything I do goes to hell. Professor Morrow’s raid turned out fine!”

Kara hadn’t actually needed to create a flamethrower configuration on her main gun —Her heat vision was more than enough and she could modify the helmet to change its appearance— but the challenge in finding a way to keep the heat contained had been a fun project.

Lifting her weapon, she took aim and pulled the trigger, releasing a concentrated jet of fire hot enough to melt titanium at the plant, the flames illuminating the night like a small sun.

“Indeed,” Kori nodded her head. “Conceivably, your missions can be uncomplicated, it is merely not expected.”

Kara just groaned and decided to use the time it took the plant to burn to activate the replay function on her drone cameras, watching the last minutes of her recording at 100 times the speed. Unfortunately, while it only took her a second, the effort was still distracting.

Faster than she ever expected, a smaller vine broke through the asphalt under her feet, wrapping itself around her leg and squeezing, thorns sharp enough to actually scratch the metal.

At least the recordings had told her what had happened. Of course, it had to be the Joker.

On her helmet’s monitor, Kara’s feed had caught up to events and she watched Poison Ivy lashing out without any reason, body strengthened by what seemed like a version of Blockbuster. Catwoman and Kite-Man desperately dodging her wild attacks.

At the same time, the Shapeshifter flew at Red Bee and Detective Chimp, moving slowly to her eyes, but still much faster than any normal human could.

“Cover me, I’ll go deal with the Shapeshifter,” releasing the trigger, Kara stopped the flames and didn’t bother tearing up the vine, she simply flew up to intercept the Super, taking off with such speed and strength the ground exploded around her.

Wrapped around her leg, the vine was dragged seven meters into the air before snapping taunt, completely arresting her momentum. It strained under her power, but showed no signs of breaking.

“What!?” With wide eyes, Kara looked at the thin vine, the thorns hadn’t completely destroyed her armor, but they had cut halfway through her plate and one had even damaged the ankle joint, actually managing to hit her prosthetic leg.

Thankfully, the casing there was even more resistant than her armor, but Kara hated that it had been breached in the first place.

Rao, with Black Adam dealt with and Wotan being handled by The Shade, she had let her guard down.

It also seems like her use of fire had not been as effective as she first thought, only serving to attract the main plant’s attention, the vast majority of vines now focusing on her, blocking her direct path.

Kara didn’t have time for this! While she trusted the rescue team to handle any single strong enemy, they weren’t ready to fight both Ivy and someone that fast!

Behind her, Kori attacked, blade flashing as it cut through the vine gripping Kara’s leg, green sap spraying wildly.

Kara looked back up and restarted her flight, but she already knew she wouldn’t make it in time anymore. “NO!”

A bullet tore through the building moving much faster than even she could, Minion 3 having used her cameras to aim his railgun from his hidden position on the rooftop.

On the screen of her helmet. Kara watched the projectile hit the Flying Super on the right side of his chest with a small entry wound and explode out of his back, blood painting the room red.

It didn’t kill the still grinning man, didn’t even delay him too much, the wound immediately starting to close, but the surprise allowed Bobo to attack, Sword of Night descending on the Villain’s skull. Flying to the side, the shapeshifter couldn't dodge completely, losing an arm to the blow.

From his hiding position, Minion 3 started shooting as fast as he could without sacrificing precision, reinforced bullets hitting the building one after another and giving the rescue team a fighting chance.

Then Kara couldn’t spare the focus anymore, several dozen thin vines growing from the thicker ones and attacking her like super-strong whips, covering the sky with attacks that almost matched her speed.

She dodged and weaved between them while ordering her shoulder gun to open fire at the vines, but her bullets only served to divert them, not damaging even the thinnest ones.

“Unable to determine plant species, Blockbuster variant detected,” her computer warned as it finalized its analysis of the towering mutant fighting her. “Technological signal detected, analysis match Justice League database for Ultra-Humanite. Magical residue detected, sample superficially matches ones obtained from demonic entity ‘Vortigar’”

Fuck, Kara didn’t remember the Injustice League using demonic magic. She hated magic.

Dodging another whip-like vine, she grabbed it and used the Nth metal in her gauntlet to snap it, the vine breaking with only some resistance. Still more than any other plant on Earth, but nowhere near their previous invulnerability.

So it was infernal magic that made them nearly invulnerable.

Only a moment later, she saw the same vine splitting into two before continuing to attack her.

Around her, Kori intercepted another five strikes, using the Sword of Beowulf to overcome the vines’ magical properties, buying Kara a precious second to think but creating more of the damn things.

With some breathing room, she took back control on her teleport guns and test-fired twice.

Despite the damage it had suffered, her weapons still refused to work inside the damn hospital, but the plant was a different story, its magic seeming to come from a different source.

The Kryptonian gave a command, the targeting solution on her weapons shooting the vine as fast as they could, tearing several meter-wide holes out of the plant every second, aiming for the larger vines to delay its splitting.

After only a couple of seconds, it started regenerating almost as fast as it was damaged —because of course, it could regenerate too— Then the three largest vines twisted around each other in a trunk-like shape, creating a much bigger target, but one her weapons couldn’t destroy in a single shoot. Large bumps forming all along its length.

It was adapting to attacks, wasn’t it?

Taking the chance to glance at her computer’s analysis of Ultra-Humanite’s signal, the Kryptonian realized it was a control system for the plant, one that was actively being used, probably by the Joker.

It meant she couldn’t exfiltrate the rescue team without winning the fight. Yes, the plant couldn’t get through her armor in a single strike, but the others were far less protected, and the thing was fast enough she didn’t think she could save them all. Perhaps if there was only one or two she’d try, but not so many.

No, it was better not to give the Joker a reason to start targeting them.

Could she interfere with the signal or, better yet, take control? Probably, but Ultra-Humanite was good enough it would take her at least a minute… if she was lucky.

If not, she could spend weeks on the freaking thing.

Damn, Kara trusted Detective Chimp, Green Arrow and, to a certain extent, Catwoman, but only one of them was a fighter, she doubted they could subdue Ivy and the Super even with Kite-Man and Red Bee helping.

Dodging another small vine, Kara saw one of the lumps on the main trunk blossoming into a giant, purple flower, the center spewing out jets of green spores straight at her.

Narrowing her eyes, she watched as a few spores hit her armor, immediately sprouting and starting to spread, searching for any joints or gaps. One found her damaged ankle joint.

Kara’s screen flashed red, the alarm warning her of the spore eating through the synthetic skin there and, not finding flesh, starting to climb up the casing of her prosthetic towards her thigh.

As fast as she could, she activated one of her safeguards, a wave of fire almost strong enough to hurt, sterilizing the inside of her armor and damaging the delicate electronics in the leg. Thankfully, the spore wasn’t as resistant to the element as the vine, being reduced to ash together with part of her pants.

Damn, Kara didn’t think these plants had airborne, flesh-eating spores in the show!

Yes, her skin should shrug off the spore but, by Rao, she didn’t want to test it, not with how magically empowered the original plant was.

Just how far could those spores spread? They had made sure there were no civilians around for several blocks, but the wind was strong. A command later and a new cloud of drones was released from her back, immediately starting to burn the spores.

Thank Rao the area around the hospital had already been empty, and Kara had seen the closest civilians fleeing even further away when the fighting started, but it was only a matter of time. She had to finish things fast.

A scream of pain drew her attention back to the situation inside the building. Detective Chimp and Red Bee were still managing to fend off the Grinning Man, but Kite-Man wasn’t exactly as skilled.

Breaking through a wall, one of Ivy’s roots had wrapped around the villain’s arm and squeezed, crushing the limb and dragging him up into the air. Another root sneaked through the ground and shot up, aiming for his chest.

Catwoman interfered, using her claws to cut through it, but Ivy just sent more and more until she too was overwhelmed, three roots spearing through her body and pinning her to the wall.

Damn it! There were too many things to focus on even for her!

The shadows arrived from behind Kara like a wave, washing through her position, flowing through the vines and seeping into the building through every window. They cut through Ivy’s roots and then condensed into The Shade, cane, and top hat intact. He stood in front of Catwoman and gave her a critical look.

“Pardon me,” The man said, his shadow stretching through the room in every direction. “I would have arrived earlier, but I was overly cautious with Wotan, only later realizing the magical ritual was not his to enact.”

Catwoman only grunted, in too much pain to talk.

Ivy attacked again, stake-like roots growing from her very skin and flying at them both in a wave of spikes.

In one fluid motion, The Shade gathered Catwoman carefully into his arms and stepped aside, the wave of roots hit the shadow behind him and disappeared inside, a second later, they reappeared under the Grinning Man, rising from his own shadow and spearing through the Super before smashing him into the ceiling.

With a thundering noise, the ground in a perimeter around the main building cracked, seven giant stalks rising from the ground a block away from the hospital and immediately starting to sprout their own flowers that spewed spores towards the rest of the city.

Kara swore she could hear the Joker laughing under the building. Taking a breath, she flew back and briefly closed her eyes, focusing hard.

She had to get rid of the plant before the effects spread! The problem was it was just too strong for her to just… throw it into the sun. She couldn’t keep spreading her forces like this.

Eyes snapping open, she spoke. “We’re regrouping. Shade, get them out of there. Fatale, give me an opening.”

Kori exploded into action, flying straight at the plant while her sword flashed with skill and precision Kara couldn’t match even at full power. In a second, she had overcome the plant’s regeneration, opening a path for her.

Kara moved, using her armor’s thrusters to enhance her own flight’s speed. The plant’s main trunk tried to intercept her, but it was too slow.

She entered the building through a wall, ignoring metal and brick to move in a straight line without losing any momentum.

Impossibly, Ivy herself started to react to the incoming missile. Whatever power had infected the Villainess and driven her insane also gave her enough of a boost to almost stand a chance, almost..

Kara exploded through the floor, her hand extended as she grabbed Ivy by the shoulder, instead of flesh, her gauntlet grasped protective bark, but it didn’t matter.

Keeping her momentum, she pulled the villain to her chest and wrapped an arm protectively around her waist, non-magically reinforced vines grew from Ivy’s legs and attempted to root her to the floor, but the concrete wasn’t strong enough to resist the pull.

As she continued through the building, Kara watched the shadows move in the room, converging on the rest of the team and wrapping around them, making them sink into the darkness before The Shade teleported away.

They broke through the other side of the hospital only a moment before the main plant attacked, destroying the floor where the team had been in a wild flurry of vines. Kara could hear the Grinning Man screaming as the attack hit him, but she doubted he was dead.

Ivy continued to struggle, vines grew from her enhanced body and surrounded Kara’s armor, attempting to squeeze her to death, but they lacked the sheer magical might of the main root and, feral as she was, Ivy wasn’t even trying to come up with an alternative.

Below them, the main plant completely demolished the hospital, revealing thousands of branches and vines that quickly started growing towards more populated areas. Even worse, Kara had already started to hear police sirens and helicopters coming towards their location.

Now outside the building, Kara called one of her teleport platforms and, before Ivy could resist, she shoved the villain on top of it, sending her straight into a stasis pod, a second later she remote-activated a dimensional lock around the pod for good measure.

The Shade and all four of the rescue team appeared beside Minion 3. Kite-Man had passed out, but Catwoman was still hanging in despite three roots still piercing her body.

Kara landed on the building and, a second later, Kori landed beside her, armor filled with scratches but otherwise unhurt. “Shade, can you get rid of the plant?”

“Ordinarily, I would simply consign it to the Shadowlands,” he said, putting both hands on top of his cane and looking at the botanical horror. “Unfortunately, I sense a connection not unlike my own feeding it power… enough to resist any such attempt.”

“There’s… a portal…” Catwoman managed to say through the pain. “It’s… ugh, on the underground floor and spreading some kind of green smoke.”

Looking at the woman, Kara noticed her veins starting to bulge where the roots had pierced her costume. Whatever had affected Ivy started to change her too.

Moving towards her in a flash, Kara changed the energy container on her glove, put the used one on her hip, and laid a hand over the wounds, activating the magic-draining device again. It worked, immediately consuming whatever had infected her without much trouble.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she got up and looked at the still-growing flower. Her rescue mission had been a success, but she wasn’t cruel enough to just leave… and the Joker was still there anyway.

“Did anyone recognize any of Joker’s new allies?” She asked.

“I did,” Detective Chimp said. “Although we’re not exactly on speaking terms, I have dealt with Circe before.”

“Fuck, I think one of them was Major Force.” Minion 3 said. Kara couldn’t agree more.

Alright, there was probably a portal to Hell under the thrice-damned flower, the Joker was controlling it and at least one ancient demigoddess was backing him, probably some kind of demon too —Circe wasn’t known as an expert in infernal magic after all— this was starting to give her a headache.

Looking at the plant’s progress, she finally saw what the damn spores did; they hadn’t reached any humans, but one had managed to infect a hiding rat.

The spore had burrowed under the creature’s skin in a second, the rodent squawking with pain before stalks broke through its eyes from the inside and its muscles bulged, immediately starting to follow the vines towards the city.

Then it disappeared, hit by one of her teleport guns and condensed into a capsule together with some asplant. Blockbuster-enhanced zombies, figures.

“Contact the League,” She said to Minion 3. With all the fighting, they were probably already on the way, but she wanted to be sure. “We’ll take care of things ourselves, but I don’t want to risk some of the spores spreading.”

Moving faster than the human eye could see, Kara detached the magic-draining device from her gauntlet and attached it under her chest place, activating safeguards that meant even her cousin couldn’t rip it off too fast and set it to activate in 3 minutes, that should be enough.

She wasn’t entirely sure it would work and, if it didn’t, she’d have to reconsider her plan of raining hellfire upon the location, but she hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. Time for plan D.

Detaching the full energy container from her hip, she pressed it against the Amulet of Teth-Adam and discharged the magic back while screaming. “SHAZAM!”