Infinity Crisis: Overgrowth
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their owners. This is purely for fun.
Continuity Note: This is set between Infinity Crisis: The Inhumans and Infinity Crisis Aftermath: The Brave and the Bold.
Chapter 1: A Botanical Threat!
Arkham Asylum, Earth-51.
Two guards were looking over a bank of monitors, allowing them to keep an eye on the various prisoners of the notorious madhouse. The guards look over at one particular monitor. Unlike other monitors, this one was showing infrared, with one particular heat signature in center.
"What's with that one?" One of the guards asked, pointing at that particular monitor.
"That one's like that for a special reason. We can't let her have any light." The other explained.
"Why not?"
"Ah, you're new." The older guard nodded. "That cell contains Pamela Isley, aka Poison Ivy."
"The plant woman." The younger guard understood. "They say she one of...the more dangerous ones here."
"No kidding." The older guard agreed. "Woman's got a lot of blood on her hands. She rivals the Joker in body count."
"...Sweet baby Jebus..." The younger guard paled.
"Yup." The older guard nodded. "Loony likes to rant and rave about saving the trees. Only her idea of Arbor Day is lots of homicide..." Inside the cell sat a redheaded woman with very pale green skin. She wore the standard orange jumpsuit. Her red hair fell over her face.
They lock me away. I want to save the Earth, and they lock me away. The former Pamela Isley thought. These humans. The Earth birthed and nurtured them, and they repay her by trying to kill her. They never loved her.
"Penny for your thoughts, Dr. Isley?" A voice asked. The plant-like villainess looked up and saw a strange-looking man staring at her, clad in an unusual silver, blue and gold outfit with wide gold shoulder plates.
"What..."
"Your crusade interests me." The man said. "Your world is one of many. Have you ever heard of...the Multiverse?"
"Multiversal theory..." Isley muttered. "I had...heard of it. Back in my university days. Before I heard the call of Gaia..."
"Yes, well..." The man held out his hand, and a holographic image of Earth. "The theory is very much true." He waved his hand, and the Earth hologram expanded into a line of matching holograms of Earth. "The Multiverse is real. There are many Earths, each with champions and heroes of their own. Recently, the Multiverse was hit with a crisis known as the Dusting."
Isley thought about this. She wasn't among those Dusted, but did see the chaos firsthand.
"I did see it, yes." Isley said. "Half of humanity vanished. I tried to help finish the job." But that stupid alien Starman stopped me. He's no better than the rest of those costumed idiots. You'd think he of all people would get that he's protecting monsters...
"Indeed. Do you know how it was undone?"
"No."
"You are aware of the Justice League?"
"Of course I am!" She snapped. "They pretend to be heroes, but they refuse to let me save the Earth! They call me a monster! A murderer!"
"They went to another universe." The man showed Ivy some footage. It depicted the Justice League fighting alongside the Avengers of Earth-199999 and the heroes of Earth-1 fighting a large bald purple being clad in blue and gold, the being's right hand covered in an ornate golden gauntlet with glowing colorful stones in it. "And battled the being responsible for it, a madman called Thanos."
"Typical of those so-called 'heroes'." Isley sneered. "Gaia had a fighting chance for the first time in millennia, but they ruined it. They hate her. They hate her so. I never understood why they torture and harm her so much." She shook her head. "I never understood the humans' vendetta against her. Nor do I care to. All I know is they have to be destroyed before they kill her." She then blinked. "You said the Justice League traveled to another Earth?"
"Indeed." The man confirmed. "And like on this Earth, that Earth has heroes and champions of its own protecting them."
Isley stared at the image of the heroes of three worlds battling Thanos. Her face paled as her mind began to extrapolate from this image. If these worlds had heroes, then...they had people on them.
"No..." She gasped in horror, her body shaking. "It's...worse than I thought. I thought of humanity as a parasite, taking and taking from Gaia while giving nothing in return, but...they're also attacking and killing other versions of her..."
"Indeed." The man said. "But I know of something that can help."
"What?"
"On the Earth where the Justice League battled Thanos, there is a plant." The man showed her an image of a pink tulip-esque plant. "This plant's pollen can be processed into a biological weapon. A powerful one. One that can be used to kill billions."
Isley blinked at the plant. "This plant...it can allow me to achieve my goal of freeing Gaia from humanity's grip!"
The guards watched her talk.
"Who is she yapping to?" The younger guard asked.
"I dunno." The older guard frowned. "I don't like it. Call in backup, son. We're gonna need it." As the two guards went to her cell, the man created a silver portal.
"Go in, Dr. Isley." The man commanded. "The plant can be found on that Earth's Hawaii. This portal will take you there." The redheaded villainess rose to her feet. A smirk crossed her face.
"Never went to Hawaii before. This will be fun." She walked through the portal...and vanished.
Honolulu, Hawaii. Earth-199999
The firefighters raced to put out the flaming building. Watching this in hiding was a tall man, wearing a pink fire-retardant costume. The costume had purple armored pieces and matching gloves and boots. The costume had a golden tank on the back, connected to golden cannons on the arms. The outfit was completed by a purple helmet with a serrated fin on it. The shoulders were covered by purple armored pieces with spikes on them.
"It'll likely take them months to rebuild. Good." The man muttered to himself. "That will teach them to sue me." He looked at the silver briefcase in his hand. "And I got a nice bit of change out of it. I can use this capital to further research and modify my suit some more..."
"Jonathan Darque, I presume?" A female voice piped up. The man turned around and saw a smirking Polynesian woman wearing a slick green-and-black uniform with a green domino mask and boots, and white gloves. Her body was coated in emerald energy. The costume bore an emblem of a green ring with two green bars on top and bottom of it in a white circle. "Aka...Magma, right?"
"Green Lantern..." Behind his visor, Darque's eyes narrowed.
"That's me." Tana Moon, Green Lantern, said. Her ring flared with jade power. "I take it that burning building is your handiwork?"
"I had my reasons to torch that place!" Magma snapped. "Now get out of my way."
Tana's smirk grew. "Make me."
"Very well." Darque fired a stream of lava from one of his arm cannons. Tana quickly put up a green energy bubble around herself. The lava coated the bubble, then hardened into rock. "Huh. That was easy." The rock sphere rumbled. "Oh boy..." A green fist erupted from the rock sphere and hit Darque right in the mouth. "Gah!" He yelped as he tumbled over. The rock sphere blew open, revealing an unharmed Tana.
"Cute trick, you wannabe Pele." Tana snickered. "Check out mine!" Darque quickly aimed his cannons at her, but the talk show host was quicker on the draw. She fired a couple of green energy blasts that destroyed the cannons. "And for my next trick..." She created a construct of a crowbar. "I'm gonna peel that armor off of you." She used the construct to rip open the Magma suit. She then pulled Darque himself out of it with a construct of a pair of tweezers. She noted the designs on his boxer shorts in amusement. "Little volcanoes. Cute."
"Very funny! Put me down!" Darque yelled, trying to throw punches at her. But she was too far away. Tana smiled.
"You're cute when you're mad, you know that?" Green Lantern chuckled. "Okay, I'm gonna drop you off at the station, then go find some more criminals to laugh at." After she dropped off Darque at the police station (where everyone had a laugh about Darque's choice of boxer shorts), she headed back to the television studio where she got ready for her day job.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Moon Over Honolulu! And here's your hostess, Tana Moon!" The woman walked out onto the stage, waving and smiling at her clapping crowd as she took a seat at her desk.
"Hello, everyone! I'm Tana Moon, and we have one heckuva show for you today! For my first guest, I'd like to welcome local botanist Thomas Bond." A man walked onto the stage, dressed like a gardener. He shook Tana's hand as the audience clapped. In the crook of his arm was a plant in a small dome. "Mr. Bond, welcome to my show." She greeted as the man took a seat.
"Thank you, Miss Moon. It's great to be here!"
"I take it that this little plant there is why you're here."
"Yes, it is." Bond smiled as he put the plant on the desk. "We found just one example of this in the Amazon."
"Interesting." Tana gazed at the pink flower. It seemed to resemble a tulip. Looks like it should be from Holland, not South America. She fought down the urge to glance at her power ring in her pocket and have it scan it.
"It certainly is, isn't it?" Bond nodded. "It's a rather unusual plant." The interview continued without any incident. Later, she was in her dressing room, enjoying a cup of decaf coffee. Too much caffeine got her really wired. She found herself thinking about that plant the botanist had found.
Something seems...off about that plant. The Polynesian woman thought to herself.
"I have scanned the plant, Lantern 2814. Would you like to hear the results?" Her ring announced from her pocket.
"Wait, I didn't ask you to do that." Tana blinked as she pulled her ring out of her pocket.
"You did think it. I can sense that." The ring explained. "The plant's genetic structure is indeed unusual."
"Unusual, how?"
"The plant's genetic structure is indeed unique...as it is not from Earth." The ring explained.
"...what?"
"It's origin is unknown, but it is not from this planet. It is not even from this universe. Its vibrational frequency does not match that of this universe, either." The ring explained.
"Huh. I had a feeling something was off about that plant." Tana rubbed her chin in thought. "How did an alien plant end up here?" She frowned. "I have a bad feeling that this plant is going to cause a lot of trouble..."
The Starman that Ivy is referencing is the Mikaal Tomas Starman, who first appeared in 1st Issue Special #12 (March 1976). Tomas is notable as one of DC's first openly gay superheroes.
I had originally intended to use Morton Thurnton, who first appeared in Darkhold #1 (October 1992). He was an arsonist. But I changed my mind and used Jonathan "Magma" Darque instead. He first appeared in Marvel Team-Up #110 (October 1981).
