Chapter 1: Barbara's "Natural" Transformation

Okay, things were not looking good. After finding out her friend Pamela Isley was the one sicking the villain Temblor on Chlorogene, the Commissioner of Gotham PD's daughter, Barbara Gordon decided to confront her about it before things spiraled out of control. Said confrontation did not go well when Temblor showed up. Naturally, he wasn't happy to find out his boss was a teenybopper.

Barbara stumbled through the doors of the Chlorogene research lab Pamela had fled inside with an angry Temblor hot on her heels. Shaking her head to clear it, Barbara quickly assessed the situation; Temblor was indeed inside, but the one he was facing off against was not Pamela.

"The Batman," she whispers watching in awe as the Dark Knight faces off the destructive villain.

"And he's…he's awesome."

"Red help! I can't move!" A call for help causes Barbara to shift her focus to the side of the building. Pamela is trapped beneath some debris. At the same time, the shocks created by the battle between Batman and Temblor causes cracks to appear in a big canister hanging directly above Pamela.

"No. Hang on, Red." As Barbara rushes towards her friend's aid, a blast caused by Temblor rips the floor apart. By sheer luck, Barbara manages to dodge the debris and reach her friend.

"That stuff MUTATES plants; I don't want to see what it does to humans," Pamela says in a panic as the shock waves cause the container to crack even further. As fast as she can, Barbara moves the pieces of rubble restraining Pamela. As soon as she's free, the teenage eco-terrorist bolts for the exit, accidentally knocking over Barbara in the process. "You're welcome." Barbara thinks to herself, seeing her friend already halfway to the door. Before she can follow suit, however, another tremor shakes the building, and, the damaged container finally breaks. Pamela Isley stops in her tracks as a horrifying scream reaches her ears. She turns just in time to see her best friend buried alive beneath Chlorogene's mutagen.

"Noooooooo!" A well-aimed Bat-a-rang suddenly hits a nearby control panel causing a hydraulic lift to raise Barbara's unmoving body out of the toxic mulch.

"No. No, it wasn't supposed to go this way. Please be alright, Red." For a moment, there is silence. Then, the prone redhead starts to cough, causing Pamela to let out a sigh of relief. After the police reached to the labs, Commissioner Gordon arrested Temblor who was headed straight to Arkham while another officer began reading Pamela Isley's rights. The area in front of the building is swarming with police and medical personnel, but neither the flashing lights nor the cuffs on her wrists matter to her. Her sole attention is focused on the girl being loaded into the ambulance.

"Is she going to be alright?" Pamela asks.

"We'll know more after the detox procedure," a distraught Commissioner Gordon responds.

"This shouldn't have happened. She shouldn't have been there. I just wanted to save the plants, but this…" At hearing those words, the Commissioner turned to the cuffed girl beside him.

"Protecting the environment is a noble goal, but if you let your goal justify the means, you risk losing everything and become the monster you fight against."

"It should be me on that stretcher. This is all my fault," the downcast girl said.

"I won't deny this is your fault, but we can't change the past. Barbara came here tonight to prevent you from making a great mistake and saved you at her own cost. You should use this time to think about what her sacrifice means to you and what you're going to do with the chance she gave you." Gordon responded as he led Pamela to one of the police cars.

"I guess that's why you're the Commissioner, huh?" The redhead says at his raised eyebrows, she continues. "It must take an enormous strength of will to give that speech and not punch me in the face." As the car drives off, Pamela Isley doesn't hear the commissioner's mumbled response. "More than you know, more than you know." The ambulance is speeding to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Then, without being noticed, a small plant starts to grow out of the street. But when the ambulance passes, it begins to accelerate its growth, lifting it off of the ground. Already shocked by the sudden stop, the male nurse can only look in horror as the backdoors were ripped from its hinges and something big fills the gap.

The plants lift the unconscious girl into the leaves and encase her in a pink pod for transport. As soon as they got what they came for, they retreated into the ground, not leaving a trace that a tree was there.

Meanwhile…

The tree begins to double in size as when it reaches Gotham Greenhouse. The pink pod carrying Barbara Gordon starts to glow and bubble inside, changing and transforming the girl into something…inhuman. A few minutes later, the glowing stops and the pod opens, releasing all the liquid inside as well as the girl. Since Barbara Gordon is still covered in that liquid that caused her transformation and unconscious, she begins to slip and fall off the tree. Realizing that their "mistress" is in danger, a branch wraps around her waist and lowers her down to another branch safely, waiting for her to awaken. A few minutes later, she moans and begins opening her eyes from her unconscious state to where she was placed, looking at her surroundings in confusion over what happened.

"The last thing I remember is that super mulch falling on me, knocking me unconscious from breathing it in," she thinks to herself. Now, she is standing on some big tree in what appears to be an enormous greenhouse. Taking a step forward, Barbara suddenly loses her balance and falls off the tree. Before she can fall straight into another tree, several branches grow suddenly and catching her for the second time today.

"Huh? What's happening?" Barbara asked aloud while they gently lowered her to the ground. As she gets the branches off, Barbara tries to get her bearings.

"What's going on? Not only I wake up in this greenhouse with no idea how I got here, but my body feels so strange." She thinks to herself as she sinks to her hands and knees. It is then Barbara sees her reflection in the water. Her skin possesses an olive greenish tint. Her hair grows to the bottom of her back, still in a ponytail, but the bottom edges were jutting outwards more, resembling like thorns in a vibrant, rose-red color. And to top it off, instead of her regular clothes, she was now wearing a dress of what appears to be dark green ivy leaves.

What appears most astonishing were her eyes. No longer were they warm, chocolate brown eyes but were replaced with a bright seafoam green color. While staring at the lake, not entirely believing that the girl looking back at her was indeed Barbara Gordon, her eyes begin to glow neon green, lasting for a few minutes before fading away completely.

Curiosity gets the better of her, Barbara plucks one of the leaves on her dress only to watch amazed as it immediately grows back. Trying to figure out what's happening, Barbara experimentally waves her arm, which causes a bunch of flowers to shoot up in response. Getting up, she tries again and just like the first time flowers shoot up on where she was pointing. As she stared at her hands, there's only one word Barbara can use to describe her current situation: "Whoa."