"Lovely" a smooth silky voice said as the owners hands slowly caressed the giant plant in front of them. She had always had such a fascination with the greenery and the specimen in front of the woman was no exception. He was a strong and flexible plant, whose purpose was to bring destruction to those who insist on killing Mother Earth.

"Our test is a complete success." Said a man with a familiar Lativanian accent. "We may proceed as planned."

"Agreed. But we've operated in the shadow for too long." Said the dark count who was just itching to show these meager mortals just what he would do, it would definitely bring more fear than a giant plant.

"It is time for the injustice league to step into the light!" Vertigo turned and faced his fellow co-conspirators and smirked as they waiting for the justice league to answer their calls for blood.

Joker sat off the the side and giggled madly to himself, shivering in delight as one of the many screens in front of him showed his archenemy, the Batman, witness the death of a civilian. Oh how he loved to see that scowl twist into guilt. The others couldn't see the changes on the stoic man's face but Joker relished in it. He was just about to kill another in front of the big Dingbat when a bright light shown in the corner of his eye and on one of the screens emerged Ms. Phantom. The Joker smirked again when he remembered her screams of pain, and he had to admit she looked lovely covered in her own blood, plus he had a bone to pick with the girl for taking away His most loyal toy. Ohhh, he was definitely going to enjoy bringing her down and destroying her.

Mount Justice:

The team had whipped themselves up into a frenzy, their first mission without Danny had nearly turned into a bust. They were disorganized and fought with themselves and only after they were nearly eaten a couple dozen times did they finally get their act together and learn to work as a team again. They had to fall back on what they already knew and what they learned on their missions, Danny's sage wisdom was gone and the comedy she brought to the others was gone as well. She would have been severely disappointed in how they behaved. Not that she was here with them of course, she had been kidnapped by the Red's and not even Batman could find her. They came so close too, the black market had announced a sale of a young Meta girl, but before any of the league could mobilize the auction was canceled. No one even got the name of the person selling the Meta girl or what she looked like. The entire league worked themselves ragged that week trying to find out more but their efforts were for naught.

However, not everything was hopeless. The team trained harder and harder everyday working to overcome any advantage or disadvantage that they had and trying to better themselves before they could actually go out and search for Danny. At that moment Robin and Aqualad were fighting without weapons or powers, purely focusing on technique and balance while Zatara and Captian Marvel sat back and watched. The training ended when Ms. Martian and Superboy walked into the training room followed closely by Wolf, their newest teammate and "souvenir" from the last mission. Robin smirked as he leaned closer to Aqualad.

"You know their a couple right?" he whispered

"I believe I knew before they did." Aqualad whispered back just as quietly. The two watched as Kid Flash and Artemis walked down an opposing hallway together.

"do we tell them?"

"It is not our place."

Wally was about to ask something when the Zeta portal whirred to life and everyone tense just a little bit.Recognized: Batman 02 the computer droned and everyone relaxed until Batman pulled up the national news showcasing the plant-base destruction set all over the world.

"Should we get out there?" Robin asked, he was just itching to do something productive aside from training and not searching for Danny on the Batcave's computer. (cough, cough)

"No. I have a different mission for the team, the Justice League will soon have the plants under control. We believe that the plants are infused with Cobra Venom. I had Green Lantern run a spot analysis. The vines do contain trace amounts of the cobra variant. It has become clear that our enemies are working together as some sort of secret society of super villains."

"Not so secret anymore."

Robin had pulled out his Holo-computer at some point in the conversation and was pulling up the locations of other plant attacks. "the plants have also sprouted in Gothem city, Star city, Paris, Tei-pei and..." he was cut off by the satellite fuzzing out.

"Dude!"

"It's not me!"

Suddenly Jokers face took up the screen and the villain smiled widely at the camera.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we interrupt your regularly scheduled mayhem to bring you this important announcement- From the IN-Justice League." he stepped aside and turned the camera so it faced 5 other shadowed silhouettes. One by one they stepped forward until the middle most one began to speak.

"We, are responsible for the attacks on your cities. If you wish to save them, a ransom of 10 billion American Dollars is required. Delivery instructions have been sent to the United Nations, there is no time-limit, but the more your governments wait-"

"The more we get to have our... jollys!" Joker finished. The video feed once more cut to black and Batman turned off the screen before he turned back to the Team. While he sent confirmations to the League to prepare the ransoms Robin was pulling up the video to I.D. each of the villains.

"Count Vertigo, the Joker, Poison Ivy, Ultra Humanite, Atomic Skull, Black Atom, Wotan? 7 heavy hitters banding together, probably behind everything and everyone that we've faced."

"Doesn't matter!" Wally said "we can handle this, I say we go out and kick some monster plant butt."

"The Justice League will handle the plants, I have a different job for this team. Since the Injustice League will be watching our every move and accounting for each of our members, you all must go and put a stop to their plans. With so many places being hit at once, there must be a central control. Your mission is to destroy it."

Zatara walked closer to Batman both to fall in line under his orders and to ask "Are you sure what you are asking them to do?"

"they're ready." was his only answer.

"They will leave as soon as you can locate the enemy Zatara, when you do meet me in Gothem. It is the city being hit the hardest, after we secure the citizens we will then move to Metropolis, Star City, and if needed, Tai-pei. I have sent as many of the others to separate locations as I can but the people are first and foremost. Good luck team." and then Batman was gone.

Zatara wasted no time in locating the largest magical signal and showing the team on the large Holo-Globe that appeared in the middle of the cave. "It is here in the Louisiana Bayou. Now Captain Marvel and I really must go. Good luck children."

Batman was flying through Gothem, shooting every vine that he came into contact with, and gassing the larger ones with acid which quickly ate through the plant, only for it to grow back just as quick. It was a good thing that their job was only to be seen and buy time. Each person in the Justice League was doing their very best to provide time for the team. The vines seemed to have a mind of their own and no matter what they did, the vines would grow back quicker and stronger and with even more branches than before. Burning, cutting, pulling, ripping, using magic, using any kind of help did not work. Burning them was the worst because then they would release a gas from their spores which quickly killed or incapacitated civilians who were first responders. The effects were much the same as Joker gas but much faster acting as citizen upon citizen fell smiling and laughing themselves to death. It was quickly concluded that it was Joker Venom. New strain on the original, why not? The Joker was certainly flexible enough to be able to incorporate his signature gas in a monster plant. Batman knew that this was not the only surprise that the Injustice League had up their sleeve either. Their motivation had to be more than money, hell each villain had a reputation for not playing well with others and no amount of money would change that. But what would? He was making one last pass when he noticed someone familiar flying toward the cloud of poisonous gas, someone who had been missing for almost 3 months, someone who now was at the top of Batman's list of both suspects and allies. Danny was back.

This wasn't the first time that Danny has battled a plant that was intent on destroying civilization, and sadly, he predicted that it wouldn't be his last. To be honest though, Danny felt that Undergrowth was a lot scarier than this thing. Sure it had poison spores, rapid regeneration, and super strength, but it was fairly obvious that it was also being controlled by someone else and that someone else didn't really have an agenda other than to cause mayhem. Also the mind vines, Undergrowth had mind vines which made Danny fight those he loved, this plant, no matter how bad it could get, would never be as scary as that. Though that didn't mean that it was exactly easy to fight the thing, Danny felt a bit super charged at the moment but his control suffered greatly because of that. He didnt want to accidentally freeze one of the other heroes because he was having a power surge. He was also feeling very disoriented by the amount of pure emotion that was going around. Most of it was obviously panic, which did not help Danny when he was trying to dive into dangerous places to save people, but there were others like joy, sadness, guilt, anger, suspicion (guess who), surprise, and most disturbingly worship. Each emotion fought over Danny's own and he was fairly certain that if he wasn't currently over charged he would be overwhelmed at any moment. It was only the hum of his powers and the almost screaming of his obsession that he still had his own mind. Danny dove into one more cloud and emerged with 2 kids coughing and giggling before the t.v. stations buzzed to life once again.

"Well, well, well, lookie here. It seems that the doll has returned to her doll house!"

Danny had handed the 2 kids to the nearest police officer and looked up. In front of her were the faces of the bosses or the men and women who had all at one point had either hit on her or tried to get her to switch sides to be their side kick. He might not have met a few of them in person but it really wasn't a secret that Dr. Morrow kept when he was setting up his black market slave auction.

"Wow! who knew that you all would be desperate enough to need to team up." He said crouching low in his attack position, whatever he said would be used against him by putting people in danger but Danny had learned the hard way that an angry enemy was easier to distract and beat.

"Cute." Count Vertigo drawled "Now if we could get back to business, in light of new... information, we have decided to change the ransom demands. From the U.S. we also want the girl known as Phantom delivered to us if you want the attacks on your beloved cities to stop."

Ivy sauntered in front of the camera then and glared, "She is to be the one to drop the money off at the drop location, she is to be wearing power dampeners, and she is also going to be handcuffed to one Harley Quinn by the end of day or the attacks will no stop no matter how much money you throw at us. I suggest the League gets right on that, for now bye bye boys." the last image was of her blowing a kiss to the screen when everything went black again.

Danny was only just relaxing out of her fight stance when Batman appeared behind her. "You have a lot of explaining to do." he growled before shooting another vine that was slowly trying to wrap its way around Danny's leg.

"Eh, hi?" Danny shuddered as the full force of the Batglare was directed at him, this time the guilt of being kidnapped and probably worrying everyone was almost just as crushing.

"For now, you need to be seen. You will be fighting the plant monsters until evening, if this isnt solved by then we need you to be seen getting prepared to make the drop. You will not go out on your own. Is. That. Understood?" Danny gulped.

"Yes sir."

Luckily or not the team managed to beat the injustice league right around the time that Danny was being fitted with faulty power dampeners, designed to break after a couple hours, and being handed large suitcases full of money. Harley was right beside Danny and since the moment they saw each other they had been attached at the wrist, both literally and figuratively. Harley was starting to look better, there was a less crazed look in her eyes and after she had hugged the stuffing out of Danny she started talking about getting back into the dating pool, she even went as far as to ask Batman to screen her dates just to be certain that the Joker would stay out of her life permanently. She also took the chance to tell Danny that she was maybe looking into the female side of the equation when it came to prospective partners. When she and Danny were called by the injustice league, Harley only agreed to go because she knew that Danny would be there as well as her other friend, Poison Ivy. The league got word of the defeat just as the last dampener snapped into place on Danny's neck and forcefully changed her back into her (one again) human female form.

The minute that they were given the all clear Danny was flooded with a tidal wave of people who wanted to know everything that happened. Chief among them was Batman who stalked up behind her and pulled her out of the group to set up an interrogation and full medical check up.

It wasn't the worst she ever had. Batman asked questions about the villain who kidnapped her, where they were, why her powers were not working, how she escaped, why she was gone for so long, how her powers came back to her, how she managed to appear in the middle of the fight, any affiliation with other villains, all about the last thing the ghosts told him (cause he was male at that time) and finally how much longer she thought she might be staying in this dimension. Really, for Batman, it wasn't the worst interrogation of her life. He must have been really worried about her. The bat was going soft.

Though to be fair this will be the second time she had been kidnapped while "in his care". She should start a punch card at the rate she's going. After 10 kidnappings maybe she will even get free ice cream! Or counciling, probably counciling.

The reunion with the team didn't go any better. Robin nearly asked as many questions as Batman did, and superboy was constantly watching her now. It didn't help that half the time she didn't make noise so he could tra- (cough) watch over her without being in the same room. Megan and Artemis we're constantly trying to get her to join them in various activities and Aqualad went disturbingly quiet whenever she entered or tried to leave a room.

She was getting really tired of this. After about a week of the team being in this state of funk Danny had finally had enough and gathered them all into the living room area of the cave. They made an entertaining sight all squished onto the green two seater couch. Wally and Robin were practically in each other's laps while Superboy and Megan were in the same situation. Artemis and Kaldur were perched on the side and back of the couch. There was also a giant white wolf in the crowd, sitting at Superboy's feet and strangely giving Danny it's full attention.

"We need to talk."

Shuffling and gluity flinches where shared all around, along with slight glares at some of the others and murmuring about faults and blame.

"First off, I will not be in this world for much longer. As soon as I pass a test I am leaving to prepare for my next right of passage as heir to the Ghost Zone's throne."

More yelling and objections came before Kaldur voiced what the group was saying in general.

"While we do not wish to hold you back, it has become exceedingly apparent that without you our teamwork is, shall we say, unproductive. How are we supposed to continue to function as a team without our co-leader?"

"This leads me to my second point, I am no longer going to be part of the team. I will be giving small lessons on meditation and mind manipulation to everyone but my main goal is to focus on my new powers of empathy so I'm not overwhelmed by it in the midst of battle. Canary volunteered to be my mentor as well as Manhunter and Zatara. You will need to work without me."

It nearly killed Danny to see all the looks her, now former, team were giving her. Loss, anger, sadness, and even disappointment were radiating off them and it was all Danny could do to stand upright. Their emotions now weighed more heavily than ever now that her adrenaline had worn off, Danny needed to start her training sooner rather than later it seems.

"That was all I wanted to say, your next move should be deciding on how the team operates and who is the leader. Maybe even getting a few training sessions in before your next mission. I have to go." She croaked out and as quickly as she could, left the cave.