Chapter 1: Penelopea Sativum

Plantopolis city, Earth.

Saturday, 06:30 A.M.

It was a great morning in Plantopolis city. nice weather, fair temperature, unusually smooth traffic, overall just a wonderful day to wake up and get started for the day ahead.

Plantopolis city is a major economic superpower and center of technology for all of plantkind. Due to all the plants that work hard by the day and have some fun by the evening, the city never sleeps, especially the downtown area. The city also boasted its lower than average violent crime rate, which is surprising since it's also one of the only cities worldwide that willingly let zombies inside their borders without special permits, although said permits are compulsory if a zombie wishes to become an official citizen.

No, you read that right, zombie of all kinds are accepted. The governmental figures of Plantopolis city don't like to discriminate, even though the plant and human citizen certainly are. Ask any zombie who ever went in there, at best they might have been wrongly accused of a crime they didn't commit (usually the whole thing got cleared up in court), at worst they were sent into a hospital for practically breathing the same air as a police officer.

What made this city so special, however, is the event that transpired about 5 years ago. That day, Dr. Edgar Zomboss launched an attack to the western uptown of Plantopolis. That was also the day he took his latest invention, the Zombot Hero-tron 5000, for a spin. The result was a huge accomplishment, as the Zombot successfully turned a normal zombie into the very first superpowered zombie, Super Brainz. However, what the doctor hadn't calculated was the backlash reaction would be enough to overload the main system and caused the zombot to explode, turning plants and zombies worldwide into what we call 'Heroes'.

Which brings us to this day in the downtown area of Plantopolis, more specifically, one apartment near the western downtown part. In one of the rooms on the third floor reside a female peashooter that looked somewhere between teen and young adult. She's still curled up in her bed, sleeping peacefully.

At least she was until her alarm rioted.

"Ugh… Really?" Still half asleep, the peashooter tried to reach for the loud as hell alarm clock to shut it down only for her to fall out of the bed. Fully awakened, she reached for her alarm clock and shut the thing down with a sigh. "I was having a great dream too."

This young peashooter is Penelopea Sativum, which at first glance looks just like a normal peashooter would. However, her life is anything but normal, as she is also known as the hero Green Shadow. Penelopea did some stretches before making her way into the bathroom to take a shower. After that, she walked to the kitchen and made herself some spaghetti for breakfast.

As she ate her breakfast, she checked her phone to see if anything's going on. The city of Plantopolis, being one of the key part of the plant's resistance against the zombies and the location of L.E.A.F main HQ, was a frequent target for zombie attacks, and some zombie heroes had taken a particular fondness of messing with the city. "I hope everything's fine today… Heh, who am I kidding, the next thing I know, Super Brainz is going to take a whole grocery store hostage and demand a new comb or something… "She said to herself.

After a solid 15 minutes, she finished her spaghetti. She then went back to her room to fetch her signature purple robe in case she needed to change fast. But after only a few steps away from the wardrobe, her phone rang. She immediately noticed it was the ringtone she had specifically set up for one of her friend, she quickly whipped up her phone and saw 'Sunny Helianthus' as the caller's name.

"Pen! Quick! We got an emergency!" The sunflower's voice boomed out as soon as Penelopea accepted the call. From the sound of it, the situation is dire.

"Slow down Sunny, now tell me what happened." Penelopea calmly asked the question as if it was just a friendly chat.

"It's Super Brainz! He holds a whole convenience store hostage and demanding hail gel!" Wow, her idle thoughts got way too close to the truth for comfort.

"You couldn't have picked a worse time Sunny, I just ate. Can't you just ask someone else?" Penelopea tried to get herself out of trouble. She knows that she's going to regret it later if she fight after she ate, and she would rather avoid that.

"Sorry Pen, I got no other choice. Pretty much everyone else is out of town and you're the closest one anyways. Please just help me, my hands are really tied on this one. " Sunny pled. She sounded like she's hopeless even though it's pretty obvious she could handle it herself.

"Alright, one minute…" Penelopea answered before ending the call. She draped herself in her cloak and held it together with a brooch bearing the L.E.A.F. symbol. Ready for action, she opened her window, preparing to jump out and do a superhero landing.

But before she managed to execute the admittedly cool maneuver, she remembered something. She then hurriedly went back to her room and swiped the apartment keycard that lied on her bedside desk. She's NOT getting locked out of her own room again, she had to ask for another keycard two times already, and she doesn't want to make up another stupidly obvious lie as regarding what happened to the keycards.

Now, since that is done, she went to the open window again and leapt out before gracefully landed on the pavement with her roots. She winced a little upon impact, but brushed it off. "I really should stop doing that" she said to herself. She quickly fired a precision shot towards her apartment window to close it before she ran of towards the sound of police siren.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, a lone sunflower that looked somewhere in her teenage year was panicking. Her name is Sunny Helianthus, the sunflower also known as the plant hero Solar Flare. She wore a black tank top with a white leaf symbol on the front, she also wore her signature goggles that she used to protect her eyes when she ignites herself.

She called Penelopea for help a few moments ago and while she could and would beat up Super Brainz herself, the situation prevented her to do so. Super Brainz had turned the whole convenience store into a makeshift fort and tied all living being inside with rope, which is a huge problem since her main power involves lighting things on fire. On that note, rather than accidentally creating the biggest barbeque roast of the year, it's best to have someone else do it.

Sunny tapped her roots anxiously, patience was not one of her strong suit, and that fact was made even worse when coupled by the dire situation. Fortunately, she saw the companion she called running down the street. The peashooter ran directly at her and stopped at her side, catching her breath. Sunny checked her phone and looked at the clock. "Oh wow, when you said one minute, you weren't kidding" Sunny said.

"Now, what is so important that you feel the need to call me?" Penelopea asked, prompting the sunflower to point at the fully barricaded convenience store with the police still struggling to even get close. "Oh… let me handle this one."

Penelopea went to the nearest policeman and asked for a megaphone, which the policeman handed to her. "Super Brainz! It's Green Shadow! What do you want this time!?" She said through the megaphone. A few ringing sound resonated from the convenience store before the slightly raspy voice of Super Brainz was heard.

"Is this thing working? I think it is. Yes! This is Super Brainz speaking! You see, I am almost out of my S'Oreal hair gel and payday is still in a few months. That means I have to gain it some other way. " Penelopea shook her head. She can't fathom how someone can be so enamored by their own hair. Although, she had to admit that his hair IS pretty super and it would be such a shame to see such gorgeous hair be ruined.

After weighing her options for a while, Penelopea spoke through the megaphone again. "Alright Super Brainz, let me cut you a deal."

"A deal? Very well, let's hear this deal of yours." Super Brainz responded.

"If you release the hostages and leave this city, I will let you take as much hair gel as you need!" People around the lot was surprised by that statement.

"Hmm, that does sounds like a tempting offer… Very well, I shall accept." Just as Super Brainz finished, a chaotic sound was heard from the store. A few loud seconds later, Super Brainz flies out of the store with a burlap sack full of hair products, saluting before flying off into the sunset. Wait, no, it's the sunrise.

After the hostages had been rescued, Penelopea approached the manager of the store, which is a cactus. "I'll dock the pay for Super Brainz. How much did he take?" She asked.

"Well…" The manager trailed off. "Since he pretty much cleared the store of hair gel, that would be 7725 coins not counting the burlap sack, which is another 50 coins" Penelopea staggered upon hearing the number.

"Oh… Well then, I hope this would suffice." She pulls out a debit card from behind her cloak. 'There goes my daily allowance' she thought to herself, feeling bummed out.

"Hey, Pen." Penelopea looked to her side, her gaze was met by Sunny's face. "You could've let me pay that, you do remember I'm rich right?" The sunflower wore a concerned face.

"Yes, but it just wouldn't feel right" Penelopea said. "And besides… You're not the only one that have some coins in a giant vault."

"Righteous as ever eh?" Sunny teased. "Well, since I basically dragged you to my problem, how about we go out today? I'll treat you." The sunflower offered.

"Sure, I have no plans this day but… not now" Penelopea responded before holding her stem. "My stomach hurts…"

Sunny almost giggled at her friend's misfortune, but kept her composure. "Alrighty then,12 o'clock at Solarya?" She suggested.

"You seemed to really like it there. Then again, the food is great. Why not I guess… now, if you'll excuse me." Penelopea started heading back to her apartment. She was unaware that Super Brainz had been listening to their conversation the whole time with his super hearing before truly heading back to his home.

"7725 coins huh? Looks like I have to ask for a loan from Noyt again." He said to himself as he flies on the direction of Zombopolis, the Zombie's capital city.

A/N: There. We. Flipping. Go! New story from yours truly. Firstly, I would like to thank Timeman63 for his generosity of letting me use his naming convention, it saves a great deal of time for me because that means I don't have to think up as much names as it should. Check the guy out, the story's great (although let's be honest, he probably didn't need any introductions, he's already pretty much the most popular PvZ fanfictioneer of this site).

For those who weren't expecting me to make a PvZ story, especially since I have another story I have to finish, this is kind of a content buffer while i actually write a good one for my other fanfic since i had lot of ideas on this and not much on the other.

Anyways, Thanks for reading and see you on the next one. -Erzahler-