A loud roar caused both sides, the Legion and Poison Ivy to take a good long pause at what they were seeing. It appeared that the fight had angered the creature and had woke him from some kind of slumber. And when a creature like this woke up, there was one thing that people can say, he was hungry.

Nasty, hungry, and cruel, to the point where he would destroy everything in his path to fill his stomach. Right now he ambled around in the distance, having not caught sight of them yet or rather smell of them.

Kara said it for all of them. "Damn."

Damn was a good word for this creature that towered over them. It was large and massive, with scaly grin skin and more teeth than should be allowed by any kind of law. The blonde's eyes followed the progress of the creature.

Poison Ivy watched and she slunk away, to be honest, while she knew that this creature was a carnivore, he could cause some collateral damage for her babies and that wasn't something that she could have.

He was thundering around another part of the city and Harry, being Harry, was the one person who managed to hold his temper in situations like this, turned to his fellow Legion members. One word. "Run."

The sharpness and the tone that Harry gave this word, especially given that it was a word that he didn't use that often, kind of drove open the situation.

They slipped from Gotham City, with Harry performing any spell that he could to delay the approaching monster. It continued to stampede behind them, now that it had a scent of them, it was not going to let up.

"And here I thought giant grotesque plant monsters were going to be the worst of our problems today," Chloe said with a long sigh.

"Just keep moving, Kara, Karen….are you….." Harry said, he could see the plant monsters at the edge of the city. The two blondes sent their heat vision off which only deterred them for a few seconds, they were stronger than ever before.

That being said, the creature lumbering around the outskirts of Gotham City caused everything to scatter. A few buildings that were left standing were not standing much longer.

"We've got trouble, on your right," Tess said, her transmission was garbled but it was clear enough where she could get through, at least for now.

"Right, on the right, and now it's no longer trouble," Harry said, causing fire to spread throughout Gotham City.

One of the manhole covers rattled and it was almost blown off but Harry slashed his wrists down and the manhole mashed the hands underneath it, trying to push it off. The creature that was underneath the manhole cover gave a groan as it was pushed down to the depths.

Harry closed his eyes and he could feel something extremely powerful in the area.

"Come on, we're nearly to a safe place….at least I hope it's still secure," Barbara said, she bit down on her lip nervously, trying to fiddle with the lock and push it open. The Tower that was overlooking Gotham City had remained standing.

"Well, it's better than being out there," Harry said, joining Zatanna in putting up some protections, even though it might not hold.

That was the problem with magic, even in the best of times, it was not foolproof. And there was a strange energy in Gotham City that made Harry even believe in the reliability of magic even less. It was almost like the madness of the pits spread through the city and corrupted the very air.

Which was a good thing that they had their breathing devices on because who knew what was in the air.

"Okay, we're almost inside," Barbara said as she made her way out. This was her home away from home so to speak.

"So, this is the place, isn't it?" Imra asked. "It was talked about in the historical archives but you know how those can be muddled….."

"Yeah Crisis this, Crisis that, Crisis here, Crisis there, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Crisis of the Crisis, all of those Crisises, they're everywhere," Barbara said and she smiled. "Oh good, the coffee machine still works."

"Really?" Chloe asked eagerly.

"Of course, that doesn't mean much if we don't have any coffee down here," Barbara said with a poignant sigh.

"That could be a problem," Harry agreed, shaking his head. What was with brainy women and coffee?

"Right, we've got a situation, which should hold for now….."

"Yes," Zatanna agreed, briefly locking eyes with Harry, who nodded. "For now."

Harry was calculating the probability of what they had to do and he knew that they had to do a lot. He put a few added wards on the tower but judging by them, he doubted very much that they would hold that much.

"So…"

"Yes, so?" Barbara asked and she figured that she owed to tell them what she knew, as the team formed a battle plan.

"That creature looked a lot like Killer Croc," Barbara said after she managed to catch her bearings. She could still hear the primal roar.

"If that's Croc…"

"Once he gets a scent of meat, he's not going to let up, until either he's put down or has his prey," Harry said and Imra nodded. She could sense the thoughts of the creature and needless to say, they were horrifying. "So, it's killed or be killed."

"Gotham City really re-defines the entire term Survival of the Fittest," Chloe said, and she could see the vines dancing outside of the window. She shivered because that was her worst nightmare come to life.

"Yes, that's one way to put it," Barbara commented with a slight sigh. This was going to get much worse before it gets any better but that was something that went without saying. There was a pull of despair in her stomach as she shook her head, kept her thoughts in check, in order.

"Well, yes it…"

Barbara held up her hand and she managed to get the computer system working.

"Ivy is getting ambitious, she is sending her children in some of the cities outside of Gotham City," Barbara said, biting on her lip. "There are people there still, which makes things far more frustrating and a lot more dangerous than I thought that they would be."

"In what…"

"Her children are going to feast upon the homeless…..although humans are becoming a scarce species if my reports are right," Barbara said.

"And a lot of resentment towards aliens as well," Imra confirmed and Barbara nodded.

"Which means they might not lay out the welcome wagon for us, exactly," Barbara mused. "She's taken her party right outside of the badlands, which means that she's about ready to branch out."

She could see a few smiles and sighed.

"Bad pun not intended."

"Sure it wasn't Barbara, sure it wasn't," Kara said with a smile and Karen decided to return to the point of the matter.

"So we got plant monsters moving in plants, a giant alligator man moving around, and then there's Poison Ivy in Gotham City, and you know she won't let this one go," Karen said.

"Especially since the Lazarus fumes have mutated her further and caused her mind…..well to be reduced to mulch to be put things nicely," Barbara said, that was about all that she could say to this point.

"Okay, we've got a lot of problems," Tinya said and she looked over her shoulder and it was obviously Harry who was going to say the thing that none of them had the nerve to really say.

"We're going to have to split up, obviously," Harry said and Chloe winced loudly and prominently.

"So…..is it as bad of thing to split up on Earth, is it is on other planets?" Ayla asked and there was a lot of nodding going around.

"Yes, it's…well it's what they want," Chloe said but the more that she thought about it, the more she realized that they really had no other options than what they were doing. "So….I guess we're going to have to split up."

"If there was another option, I'm sure that Harry would have taken it by now," Cir-El argued and there was fierce determination in her tone.

"Yes, I'm sure that he would have," Chloe agreed, she had to grudgingly admit that Harry had not too many options and she looked towards them.

"I think the heaviest hitters should be the ones that deal with Croc," Harry told them, and he looked over the team. "Diana, you, Kara, and Karen can do it for the most part."

"What about me?" Cir-El asked suddenly.

"You can come with me, I think that you'd be a lot better standing with me," Harry said and he looked at Barbara. "No one knows Gotham City better than you so….."

"I'll come with you, yes, that'll be no problem," Barbara said, nearly rubbing her hands together in excitement. She realized how much that made her look like an evil mastermind so she stopped and cooled things down a little bit.

"Okay, that leaves the rest of you to take care of the evil plant monsters that are taken over the city."

"Ivy won't like it calling her children evil….."

"Yeah, they're misunderstood," Kara said, with a slight roll of her eyes.

Chloe shook her head. "Believe me when I say that I didn't misunderstand the fact that they wanted to eat me."

There was a smile that crossed Harry's face briefly at this statement but he had to focus. "Everyone has their mission….try and stay in touch with each other, even though it might be hard."

"The further we get in Gotham City, the more garbled our radio transmissions get," Chloe confirmed.

Everyone had their missions planned, it was go time.

Karen nervously hovered above the ground. She knew she was getting into a dangerous situation to begin with. Killer Croc was close by; she could feel the monster as she approached the area where he was.

"So, you hear it too, don't you?" Diana asked. She had her lasso at the side of her. She never used it to bind something that big.

"I don't think we're going to have to worry about finding him," Kara said and Karen could hear him approaching in the distance. He was slow at first but then again, from the records he was the type that savored his "interaction" with any prey.

"Yeah, no shit, he's going to find us before we have to worry about finding him," Karen said, as she hovered into the ground.

"We need to set a trap for him," Kara said but then she had to smack herself when she realized what she was saying. "Yeah, I know, we have to set a trap, a big fucking trap for him."

"You said it, not us," Karen said but she could see the creature and hear his growls.

"I smell you."

'That's really reassuring,' Karen thought, but she hoisted a large light post off of the ground and held it like a baseball bat, ready to swing.

Flying up, she swung for the fences and struck Croc in the face. The creature's jaws were snapping wildly and Karen smashed into it.

Diana got behind him, and slammed her feet down on his.

That got his attention and not in the best way. Kara and Karen flew up into the air and sent tandem heat vision in the back.

Unfortunately this was an error as he was plated in that area. Croc went for Kara but she dodged and aimed one of her fists, punching him right in the eye.

That caused the creature to hurl back his hands and give an angry bellow of discontent. Kara smiled in satisfaction.

'When it doubt, go for the eyes, that's the2 weakest point,' Kara thought to herself, and she lifted her arm back, ready to nail the creature hard with one huge shot to the face.

Her fist bounced off of the face and that enraged the beast but he growled in pain.

"Karen, now!"

"On it!" Karen yelled, coming down with a force of a super nova and the creature roared around.

There were three targets, all of them packing a punch, and he could not get a lock on any of them.

He gave another bestial growl and tried to knock them out of the air. But it seemed like no matter how hard he tried to take a shot at them, they were just out of his reach.

"GOT IT!"

Karen nailed the creature on the top of his head with an elbow attack and he continued to lumber, disgusting slobber spilling to the ground.

"Good thing he isn't too much bigger," Diana said, trying to lasso onto his foot but she was kicked off.

"Yes, a good thing," Kara agreed, she cringed as she could only imagine what a bigger version of something that was already really dangerous was.

"I have you," Croc growled and he snapped his jaws at them but Karen flew through the limbo.

If he was a complete beast, they might be able to handle him. But since he wasn't, they were just flying around in circles, quite literally.

Croc smashed his arms down onto the top of the nearest building but once again, Kara and Karen moved in.

"Looks like we're going to have a close encounter."

Plant like monsters approached then and at first, Kara was about ready to cringe. Didn't they have enough problems already?

Then it struck her suddenly, the blonde could really twist this one to her advantage. She picked up the large plant monster and hurled it into the air.

The plant monster nailed the creature in the face full on and the large vines wrapped around, spiking him in the face.

"Good thing we found something that could take Killer Croc down," Diana said but then she could see Croc's large claws rip through the plants like a hot knife through butter. Diana's mouth hung halfway open. "Or maybe not."

"Yeah, we just made him angry," Karen said, letting out a long sigh but Kara placed her hand on her older self's side.

"That means its working."

Karen opened her mouth and shut it, getting the point. They picked up the plant monsters once again.

The monsters realized their fate quickly and struggled, but Kara, Karen, and Diana all launched them at Killer Croc.

They got weapons to deal with the monster which should deter him. They needed a way to put him down for the night.

Already a plan formed in Karen's head but she had to time this one right.

Barbara Gordon tried not to get depressed, even though it was kind of easy to do after everything that happened. She thought, maybe she foolishly hoped that things would change in Gotham City over time. Perhaps she deluded herself to think that she left things in a pretty good place upon her death.

Her delusions never the less had been shattered in a few moments. She joined Harry and Cir-El on their path through the temple.

"The Old Iceberg Longue," Barbara commented dryly as she walked past it. "Almost forgot about this place, I don't know why, it would be kind of hard to forget about this place. About ninety percent of all crime in Gotham City happened through these doors or so it seemed. Cobblepot controlled most of the city. He even ran for Mayor and almost won."

She smiled.

"Then again, he was a lot less of a criminal than some of the politicians that got into office," Barbara remincised but she could not afford to go down on this trip down memory lane.

Cir-El could see that things were almost too quiet. And she saw Harry who looked focused.

"The Plants are their most violent right across that block, if we cut through here, we should be able to get to Sheldon Park, and shut her down," Harry said and Barbara turned over her shoulder, smiling at him. "That's easier said than done."

"You said it, not me."

"I know I said it," Harry replied, fearing that the worst was yet to come and the worst could end up being pretty bad.

"See that."

There was a large hideous monster that made his way forward, with bulging veins and an extremely prominent smile. His teeth were showing, with blood dripping from it.

"Combination of Smilex, Venom, and maybe Titan," Barbara said, removing a baton from her costume and sticking it at the water on the ground.

Electricity flowed through the puddle and shocked the monster.

"Well, looks like about two more of them are on the way," Harry said and Cir-El frowned, her jaw set as she saw it approach.

"Wonderful," she replied, cracking her knuckles and the thundering footsteps of the creature got closer yet.

"Yes, indeed," Harry agreed but Cir-El was not in the mood to play games. She used heat vision take the head of the monster off.

She didn't fuck around at all.

"That's the best thing you got to do in Gotham City, I think," Barbara commented, biting down on her lip and watching Cir-El take her adversaries out. "You kill or you be killed, there's really no way around that…..it's gotten worse."

A large monster with two heads and about six arms popped up. Well it now had five arms after Cir-El got done with it.

"This used to be one of the more beautiful places in Gotham City, even the criminals respected that," Barbara said, decapitating another monster with the enhanced weapon she was using. She seemed depressed.

The Gotham City she knew, for all of its flaws, was gone and what popped up in its place was marginally worse. The redhead threw herself at her latest enemy, plunging her fist into its stomach.

Then there were more plant monsters on the way, Harry could hear them. Their cruel whispers indicated that they wanted to bring him to Ivy.

"Long term effects of Lazarus exposure, drives anything that it touches mad," Barbara said in a frustrated tone, throwing the ice pellet over its shoulder, freezing the plants in place.

"And Ivy's been hibernating in that pit for years," Harry said, already this was putting him in a better mood, although not really. The green eyed wizard held his hand up and attacked one of the plant monsters before it attacked him.

Green blood splashed and once again, Harry could hear the blood curdling shrieks.

'So how's it going?'

'Oh you know me, just hanging in there,' Chloe said, as she was literally hanging from some vines. Just when she put the other plant incident behind her, this one happened.

At least Ivy's plants were less touchy feely them those plants, if you caught Chloe's drift.

'Just hang in there,' Kara thought as she avoided Killer Croc's attacks.

'Wrong thing to say, I think,' Imra said, as she, Ayla, and Nuru managed to free Chloe from the grasp of the plants. They had to keep them from escaping out into the wild and into Gotham City where they could cause a lot more havoc, period.

'We're almost into the Temple, we should be able to put a stop to this,' Harry said and the trees were moving, swaying in the wind.

They hurled apples at Harry which exploded on impact, burning through the ground.

Only Poison Ivy could weaponize fruit like that.

Poison Ivy, the prime model of Ivy, waited. She could sense him coming closer and when he arrived, she would have him. It excited her to have such a specimen of power; he would serve her quite nicely.

His will was strong, which meant that she would have a better time breaking him. It was no fun when the chase was so lazy. The woman swayed herself back and forth, with a smile on her face getting wider.

She did wince at certain moments, the plant monsters were torn apart. She could feel her heart skip an angry beat. She closed her fist together, wincing, nearly crushing what she held in her hand.

"No, baby, no, Mommy didn't mean to hurt you," Poison Ivy whispered. The heroes, the so called heroes once again attacked those that were innocent. It broke Ivy's heart that did. She could barely keep her head intact but she managed to, she managed to.

She had company coming and she would be a very rude host if she didn't at least try and be an inviting one. Despite the pit of despair that twisted in her stomach, she had to focus on the prize that was coming through the door.

Her tree guardians were giving up quite a fight, but they were fairly protective of her. Ivy smiled, she was proud of her little precious children. It did the heart well to see that they were so loyal to her and it twisted a knife into her heart, with the bitterness increasing to see that there were those who harmed her precious children.

Her precious little children, it was so sad. She felt her heart breaking underneath what was occurring but it was chin up for her.

Something was coming through that door and in fact, the gates of the temple opened.

The fluids in the pit bubbled and Poison Ivy looked at it. It had never had a reaction quite like that before.

As a scientist, she was curious but she would have to put that curiosity aside for a moment. She had much to do and sadly there was not a sufficient amount of time for her to get done what she needed to get done.

The doors of the temple cracked once again and Poison Ivy's smile got wider. She leaned in to address her children. "Do not be rude, allow them inside."

The plants that held the door shut retracted from said door and suddenly, Harry Potter rushed him to face her.

"Well, they all have a leader," Poison Ivy said with a smile and she pursed her lips, before she blew her pheromones at him.

Harry could feel a pull over him slightly but his strong will overrode hers. It was a nice challenge.

"And now, you're under my spell," Poison Ivy said and Harry smiled at her. "How about it…."

"I don't think so," Harry said, shaking his head and clearing it. Her eyes widened.

"How….it's…"

"I do have to give you some credit," Harry said to her, stepping closer to her.

Poison Ivy was confused, she was supposed to be effecting him with her pheromones, not the other way around. She shook her head to clear it.

"You came a lot closer to putting me under your thrall than anyone else ever did," Harry said and he smiled at her. "So, I would have to give you some points for that one."

Poison Ivy blinked, shaking her head. She refused to…..she refused to concede that she might have had it.

"You dare resist me!" she yelled, trying to gain some degree of control.

Which was the ultimate irony considering that she was completely and utterly out of control and the pits were bubbling as her madness continued.

"She's been down here for a very long time," Barbara said, and even the plants stopped. It was almost like they were fearful at what Ivy was capable of and honestly who could really blame them.

"Yes, so I've noticed," Harry said, wondering what would happen next. The ball was in Ivy's court, so to speak and now he…..well there was no question about it, he was a bit on edge.

Poison Ivy's Venus Fly Trap monster moved forward and tried to attack Harry.

"Subtle imagery is….well actually it's not so subtle," Barbara said, throwing an ice pellet at the monster, and causing it to freeze up on the inside.

The plant monster twitched, dropping down to the ground and Poison Ivy gave an angry bellow, as she screamed out loud.

"That was the last mistake that you'll ever make!" she howled at the top of her lungs, and she dipped herself into the pits.

The plants inside the temple began to go insane and Barbara realized what happened, a second too late for them to do anything.

"Someone's been mixing the Lazarus Pitch with a touch of Titan."

To Be Continued on August 25th 2014.