A/N: So my last few stories have been shortish, primarily comedy focused, and feature supervillains are main or secondary characters. I'm trying to do something different now. I picked out a large group of superheroes I like and chose which ones would be the most fun to write about. I'm trying to go for an at least semi-serious multichapter story. There's no set update schedule for this, but hopefully, I do well.

San Diego

The life of Buddy Baker was surrounded by constant chaos. Of course when you're a superhero, activist, and stuntman that's to be expected. But on a nice peaceful Saturday when him and his wife didn't have any work and his kids didn't have any schoolwork to do it seemed like there'd finally be peace in the Baker residence.

It was Buddy's wife Ellen who'd suggested they play board games together. Despite Cliff's protests of board games being "Lame" overwhelming support from Maxine overruled him.

And so that was how the Baker family found themselves wrapped up in a thrilling game of Scrabble.

"Cliff! No spelling out rude words with the scrabble pieces." Ellen crossed her arms, glaring at her son. "Maxine's right here."

"Jeez mom, it was just a joke." Cliff sighed and took back the Scrabble tiles spelling out "Ass" in big capital letters. "I'll go f'real now."

"I thought it was kinda funny." Maxine looked up at her parents.

"Well sweetie, that means Cliff's a bad influence on you." Buddy chuckled, patting his daughter on the head.

"There, I spelled a real word now." Cliff finished placing down tiles to spell the word "Dodo".

"That's not a real word." Maxine scrunched up her face.

"Yeah it is." Cliff argued. "As in 'dodo bird'. Ask dad, he's an animal expert."

"Well, I wouldn't say expert." Buddy smiled. "But Cliff's right, it is a real wo-"

Buddy was cut off mid-sentence when he felt a strange invasive presence he felt in the back of his head. "Ah!" He grabbed the back of his head like he wanted to shake whatever was in there out.

"Oh my god, Buddy! What's the matter." Ellen put a hand on his shoulder.

"Animal Man, you're needed in the Watchtower." the oh-so-familiar voice of Martian Manhunter was projected into his head. No matter what, Buddy could just not get used to these psychic link-ups.

"What do you need me for this time?"

"Something's come up and nobody else is available. We need you to get up here."

"Alright, alright, I'll be there… Just please get out of my head."

Martian Manhunter's presence vanished from his head and Buddy stood up from the couch. "Sorry guys, I need to go."

"Are you okay, daddy?" Maxine stood up and tugged at her father's pant leg.

"I'm okay, Maxine. That was Martian Manhunter, you know, the green guy. He was sending a message into my brain." Buddy pointed at his head. "You three can keep playing without me. Hopefully, I won't be gone too long."

"Be careful out there." Ellen nodded.

"And kick some a- some butt for us!" Cliff added.

"Alright Cliff, I will." Buddy smiled and started making his way to the basement where the teleporter was kept. "Oh, Ellen, did you wash my suit?"

"Yeah, should be in the dryer. Your jacket's on the coathanger by the way."

"Thanks Ellen, have fun without me!" Buddy went to go gather up his items, only moderately peeved about having to end his game early.

The Pacific Ocean

The sun shone brightly over a sparkling blue ocean, there weren't any annoying gulls in sight, and, best of all, Simon Stagg was hundreds of miles away. Rex Mason was enjoying himself right now, spread out on a deck chare and staring at the beautiful blue sky. After all this time as "Metamorpho, the Element Man" he'd managed to (At least somewhat) accept his strange state.

When he saw the gorgeous Sapphire Stagg climb out of the sea and onto the boat he was given another reason to be happy.

"Hey Sapph, see anything down there?" Metamorpho sat up in his chair.

"I found a conch shell. Check it out!" Sapphire took off her scuba mask and placed a soaking wet conch down next to Rex.

"Wow, nice. That'll make a good souvenir." Metamorpho placed a hand on Sapphire's cheek.

"You should really come diving Rexy. It's fun." Sapphire kissed Metamorpho on the cheek.

"Oh no, not doing that." Metamorpho quickly shook his head. "Soon as I go down there we're gonna discover some kinda sunken ship or underwater supervillain base. I'm not in the mood for fighting Black Manta today."

"But Rex, what're the chances of that?"

"With my track record, very high. There's not gonna be any adventures today. No Outsiders, no Terrifics, no Metamorpho. Today I'm just plain old Rex Mason. And there aren't gonna be any superhero adventures for me up on this boat."

"I'm okay with that. Nothing beats relaxing in the sun."

"Metamorpho, you're needed in the Watchtower. We're calling in any JLA reserve members we can find."

"Ah Jesus!" Metamorpho sat bolt upright in his chair, startling Sapphire.

"Rexy, are you okay?"

"It's Martian Manhunter, he's screwing around with my head. Hold on…"

"This is kind of a bad time, J'onn. I'm on a yacht with my girlfriend."

"Does the yacht have a teleporter?"

"Yeah, but-"

"It's an urgent matter, Mason."

"Fine, fine, I'll be there."

Metamorpho got out of the deck chair. "Sorry Sapph, duty calls. Have some fun in the sun without me, I gotta head on up to the Watchtower."

"Alright Rexy, we'll spend some more time together tonight." Sapphire nodded.

"Thanks babe, see you later." Rex planted one last kiss on Sapphire's cheek before heading off to the transporter.

Fawcett City

The rain had come to Fawcett City, a powerful storm went on outside. But there was just as much fun to be had inside. Billy Batson had been playing video games for a couple of hours now, passing the one controller back and forth between him and Freddy. Mary had just come in to check on them and had become enthralled in watching the two of them play.

"Gee Billy, this game sure is violent. What did you say it was called again?" despite Mary's mild disgust at the game she had not been able to take her eyes off the screen.

"It's called GTA, short for Grand Theft Auto." Freddy replied, figuring Billy was too wrapped up in the game to respond himself.

"Yeah, uncle Dudley bought it for us. Isn't he cool?" Billy nodded, still only half focused on Mary and Freddy.

"Don't call him our uncle. He's just an old guy who hangs out with us sometimes." Mary glanced over at Billy.

"Yeah, but not in a creepy way. He's like Doc Brown in Back to the Future." Freddy added.

Mary nodded and looked at the screen as Billy's character in the game attacked what appeared to be gangsters with a shotgun.

"You think I can have a turn?"

"Yeah, sure. Lemme just finish this one-" Billy stopped talking when he suddenly felt like someone else in the room.

"Batson, your presence is requested in the watchtower. There's a situation that needs dealing with."

"Holy moley, you never give a guy a break, do you?"

"As they say, justice never sleeps."

"Alright, I'll be there. Do Mary and Freddy need to be there?"

"No, we'll just need you. See you soon."

Billy was flung back into reality when he heard Freddy again. "Billy, you just died. You okay?" He looked up at the screen and saw that his avatar in the game had indeed been gunned down. "You look kinda distracted."

"Just got a message from the League, apparently they need me up in the Watchtower." Billy handed off the controller to Mary. "See you guys later."

"Good luck Billy, don't have too much fun without us." Mary smiled and looked down at the controller, wanting to get a hang of the buttons.

"I'll try." Billy smirked and looked up at the ceiling, preparing to transform himself. "Shazam!"

With the usual flash of light and loud noise, Billy Batson was transformed into his superpowered muscle-man persona.

"Good luck out there, Captain." Freddy smirked at Billy.

"I'm not going by Captain Marvel anymore, remember? I came up with that name when I was ten." Billy stated in a hushed tone, seeming a little embarrassed. "My name is Shazam now, okay?"

"What am I supposed to call myself now? 'Shazam Junior'?" Freddy asked. "And Mary can't call herself 'Mary Shazam', there's no alliteration."

"We can worry about alliteration later guys, I need to fly up into space." Billy turned around and went to discretely leave the house.

After Billy was gone for long enough, Mary looked back up at the screen and started messing around with the controller.

"So… I can steal any car I want in this game, eh?"

"You can do a whole lot of things. It's pretty neat."

Star City

Last night had been a hectic blur for Dinah Lance. And not in a fun way. She'd had to do a mission with the Birds of Prey to stop someone like Blockbuster or Solomon Grundy. It had all happened so fast she barely remembered now. After that, she had to rush cross-country to Star City and meet up with her husband.

But after that, things had gotten a lot better for Dinah. The last several hours had been spent in bed next to Oliver, simply enjoying each other's company. She didn't even know what time it was, the curtains in their bedroom were drawn. Frankly, she didn't care all that matter was that she got to relax with someone that she loved.

They hadn't even really spoken in hours, all Dinah and Oliver had been doing was lying there snuggle up against each other. But verbal communication wasn't even vital, that's how well connected the two of them felt. There was absolutely nothing that could ruin this moment.

"Dinah, something's come up. We need you up in the Watchtower."

"Ah!" Dinah shrieked and sat up.

"Hmm… What?! Dinah!" Oliver shot up in bed. "Are we under attack? Is it Vertigo? Merlyn? Where are my arrows?!"

"It's- It's okay Ollie. J'onn's doing that psychic link thing he does."

"Oh, thank god…" Oliver collapsed back on to the bed.

"Sorry about that, you called at a bad time. I'm in my underwear right now." Dinah got out of bed while continuing the mental conversation.

"My apologies, I didn't mean to interrupt anything."

"It's fine, I'm up now. I'll be in the Watchtower." Dinah went and opened the curtains, figuring it was about time to let some light into the house. "Just need to get my costume on."

"I'll be waiting for you."

Dinah sighed and walked back over to the bed. "Hey Ollie, it turns out the JLA needs Black Canary right now."

"Hmm… Alright…" Oliver's eyes slowly adjusted to the new level of light. "Good luck out there."

"Thanks, see you tonight." Dinah kissed Oliver on the cheek and made her way to the closet, with the goal of getting dressed in mind.

New York City

The life of a superhero was supposed to be exciting, glamorous, an endless adventure. But right now, Karen Starr was just bored. She'd been flying around the city for nearly an hour and nothing notable had happened. Not even a goddamn cat stuck up in a tree.

Currently, she had taken a seat on top of a rather lonely gargoyle at a church and was just watching the rest of the city go by. She sighed, because at least it gave her body something to do.

"I wonder what Firestorm's up to?"

Karen looked down at the streets below. It was then that she could see someone waving down at her from the courtyard of the church. Listening in, her enhanced senses even let her hear them.

"Yo! Are you that lady I saw on the news?"

Immediately sensing something interesting, Power Girl zipped down until she was right in front of the guy who called out to her.

"That's right, name's Power Girl. Always nice to meet a fan." She extended a hand to the young man.

"Uh, yeah. You're the superhero with the big boobs, right?" The man had a big goofy smile on his face.

Power Girl sighed a little and looked down at her chest. Sure, she liked her breasts as much as the next guy. She'd even go as far to say that she was proud of them. It wasn't like she put a big hole in her costume for no reason. She just wished the general public knew more about her than just that.

"Yes… Yes, I have those." Karen crossed her arms.

"Can I get a picture?"

"Sure, gives me something to do."

"Sweet!" he takes out his phone and tries to get a picture of the two of them.

Power Girl does her best to look enthusiastic about it. Just as the photo is taken she feels something invading her brain.

"This is Martian Manhunter. Your presence is requested on the Watchtower."

"Finally, something interesting to do. I'll be there!"

Karen looked to her apparent fan. "Well, it's been nice chatting. But I've got to go see the Justice League!" She hovered up into the sky and flew off. Even as she left she was sure she heard the man's camera go off again. She sighed and flew faster toward her destination.

New Hampshire

There were many customs of Earth that both Apokolips and New Genesis lacked. But these customs were something that Big Barda and Scott Free enjoyed immensely. One such tradition was reality TV. Something Barda and Scott were always excited to watch every night.

Barda was less familiar to Earth than her husband and was under the impression that everything in these shows was absolutely real. Scott used to be the same way until Blue Beetle explained to him a lot of stuff was faked. Still, he had his doubts about it.

"We should be on this show." Barda ate a piece of popcorn, engrossed in the latest episode of 'The Amazing Race'. "I think we could win."

"Of course we'd win. You can lift up trucks and I'm the world's greatest escape artist. It wouldn't really be fair to the others." Scott smiled up at his wife.

"You're right." Barda nodded. "Maybe they should make something like… The Amazing Race: Superhero Edition. Me and you, Batman and Robin…"

"You know Barda, you might be on to something."

"Of course I'm onto something, it's a great idea."

Barda ate another large handful of popcorn right as the show went into a commercial break. She was considering getting up to get some water during the break right when she felt pressure in her brain.

"Hello J'onn, what do you need?" Barda mentally sighed.

"Hope I'm not interrupting, Barda."

"I'm watching TV with Scott."

"We need you up on the Watchtower."

"Alright, I'll be there."

Barda stood up from the couch. "Scott, I just got a call from the Martian Manhunter. I need to go see him."

"Aww, again?" Scott whined. "Alright, well, I'll catch you up on the Amazing Race when you get back."

"Thank you." Barda began to leave the room. "Where did I leave my Mega-Rod?"

"Same place as it always is, your closet." Scott smiled up at his wife.

"Wonderful! Get us some takeout for dinner tonight." Barda disappeared up a set of stairs in search of her armour and Mega-Rod.

"What kind?"

"I don't remember what it's called but I like the food with the rice and chicken!"

"Got it!"

The Watchtower

The six heroes had come to the Watchtower to report for duty, somewhat begrudgingly in some cases. They arrived by teleporter, by flying in, or in Barda's case by Boom Tube. After exchanging some grievances about showing up with each other, with the exception of Power Girl who seemed actually happy to be there, they all made their way to the monitoring room. It appeared that Martian Manhunter was already there, hunched over a computer console.

"Ah, you're here already. Good." J'onn did not look behind him but knew that they had already arrived. He slowly turned himself around. "We have an unusual assignment for you. Normally, we'd send in the regulars. But they're off dealing with a crisis on Oa."

"So what's the situation?" Buddy asked. "It had better be important, I was kind of in the middle of something."

"I think we all were." Dinah nodded.

"In India, an underground temple was discovered. Apparently it's thousands of years old." J'onn pushed a button behind him and a photo of a large stone temple that appeared to be moments away from crumbling appeared on the screen. "Normally, this wouldn't be something we would call you about. But there have been strange happenings around the site."

"So what's so important about this place that we need to get involved?" Power Girl carefully inspected the photograph.

"I was about to get to that. You see, nobody who has gone into the temple has ever come out. Except for one man, famed explorer Cave Carson." J'onn pushed another button and a photograph of a well built bearded man standing at the mouth of a cave appeared on the screen. "His team went in to explore the temple and he was the only one to make it back outside. Currently, there's an excavation going on outside the temple. Carson is still there, recovering. We need the six of you to explore this temple."

"What should we expect inside this temple?" Barda's gaze was fixed on the images on the screen.

"We don't know." J'onn turned back around to face the six heroes. "You should exercise extreme caution when moving forward. Good luck to all of you."

"Thank you." Barda nodded and turned around, looking at her new teammates. "Alright everybody, let's move out!'

India

Thanks to the teleportation technology available with the JLA, the six were at the temple site in a matter of minutes. When they arrived, the group was in awe of the place. The photograph J'onn showed them did not do the place justice. It was an enormous building, practically carved into the wall of a canyon. Even Big Barda, a woman considered extremely tall on Earth, Apokolips and New Genesis, felt tiny compared to the building.

"Well, this is the place." Power Girl stared up at the temple. The group had caught the attention of the people excavating the site but nobody had gone to talk with them yet. "Let's find a medical area, find this Carson guy. I've heard of him before."

"I know him too." Metamorpho led the charge over to the medical tent. "Met him a few times back when I still looked, y'know, normal."

When they reached the front of the tent a man stepped out, freezing when he saw the six heroes in front of him. "Oh, jeez, you're- You're with the Justice League, right? Is Superman here?"

"That's right." Animal Man nodded to the man. "And no, he's busy."

"We're here to see Cave Carson. We've been sent to investigate the temple." Black Canary pushed herself to the front of the group.

"Oh thank god. Everyone here… We've all been on edge. Right this way please." the man beckoned them into the tent.

The Reserve Leaguers entered the tent. There seemed to be only one occupant lying in a bed near them, Cave Carson. He looked just like the photo John had shown them only a lot paler and his features seemed slightly gaunt. Carson perked up when he saw the heroes and weakly waved over to them.

"Oh hey there Rex, it's been a while…" Carson sat up in bed.

"Cave… You look terrible…" Metamorpho trailed off. "What happened to you?"

"I'm not really sure…" Carson stared up at the six heroes around his bed. "What's going on here?"

"The Justice League sent us here." Billy leaned in over his bed.

"Oh hey, you're Captain Marvel. Didn't see you there. My nephew's a big fan." Carson somewhat distractedly reaches up to shake Billy's hand.

"Uh, thank you. But it's Shazam now." Billy took Carson by the hand on shook him, trying not to hurt the already weak man with his enhanced strength. "Look, we're here to investigate the temple. What do you see inside?"

"I'm trying to think…" Carson lay back down in bed. "Me and my team, we went in and… I don't know, it was dark and wet… Next thing I know, I'm on the steps of the temple and there are these plants all over me… The workers out here found me and… I just don't know."

"Did you say something about plants? What does that mean?" Barda asked.

"I… I don't know, there was something just attached to my chest." Carson's eyes began to close. "If you go in there keep an eye out for plants. I… I need some rest now…"

In a matter of moments, Cave Carson was back in a deep sleep with the six heroes surrounding him.

"So… We don't really know what to expect in there, do we?" Dinah asked.

"Sure doesn't sound like it." Karen nodded. "We should be careful."

"Metamorpho, you should lead." Billy looked ahead at the front of the temple as soon as they exited the medical tent. "You said you used to do stuff like this.

"Yep, I'll lead the way." Rex put a look of grim determination on his face and marched forward toward the temple. "Alright people, let's go! Stay close and keep an eye out for plants."

"Whatever's inside this place… I don't think we're going to like it." Dinah felt herself already on edge, even before entering the old temple.

"We definitely won't be alone in there." Barda nodded, her hand already instinctively reaching for the Mega-Rod.

The temple was dark, it hadn't seen any form of light in centuries. Natural or manmade. But that didn't matter, the temple's only resident had been down there for days and had gotten used to the darkness by now. It hadn't been pleasant, at least not at first. It still wasn't now, but had moderately improved.

The sole inhabitant of this ancient temple was one Roger Hayden, a man in a red and black motley suit and golden mask who went by the name Psycho-Pirate. The mask he wore wasn't mere decoration and the Psycho in his name didn't stand for psychopath, it stood for psychological.

Psycho-Pirate fed on emotions to sustain himself. Fear, hate, despair, joy, all of these he could control and take from other people. He'd fed well over the last several days. The emotions of Cave Carson's crew and the assorted other archaeologists made a fine supplement. But he wanted more. He wanted the emotions of heroes.

He stood up from his stone throne and looked around. A network of roots and vines was on the floor in front of him. He'd specifically put the plants there himself.

Much like the man himself, the vegetation Psycho-Pirate had planted wasn't what it seemed. The thick of weeds was unlike anything on Earth. Because it was in fact alien in origin.

Black Mercy, an interstellar plant that latches on to a host body and feeds their brain vivid dreams, whole other lives that the mind is convinced are real. Psycho-Pirate had purchased these off of a man who knew his botany, Jason Woodrue.

Of course, Psycho-Pirate wasn't just satisfied with the garden variety Black Mercy. He'd bought a special mutation that made the plant more unpredictable. It could give the host their deepest desire or worst nightmare and made the dream experienced by the host more malleable to anyone on the outside.

If all went his way, he'd have a collection of new heroes coming to him any minute now. Heroes full of delicious emotions to absorb. They were coming into his domain and they would not be getting out.

It hadn't been long since the six of them entered the temple. It smelled of mold and dust built up over the years. Just like Cave Carson had said, there was strangely lush vegetation growing on the walls and ceiling. As Metamorpho led the way through the temple, they all made sure not to touch it.

"It feels like an episode of Scooby-Doo in here." Billy muttered.

"Having a real estate developer be behind all this would be a nice change of pace." Power Girl nodded.

"Don't joke around you two, this is serious. People could've died here." Animal Man whispered.

"Right, let's be serious." Power Girl agreed.

"Indeed, we have no idea what might be ahead of us." Big Barda hunched herself over, not wanting her head to touch the ceiling.

They continued through the hall in silence until Metamorpho felt something odd beneath his right foot. Part of the floor pushed downward and the sound of stone grinding against stone resonating through the corridor.

"Dammit! I set off a trap!" Metamorpho exclaimed. "Everyone, get down!"

His advice turned out to be ill-advised, the section of the floor they stood on slid open leaving a seemingly bottomless stone shaft with darkness below. Gravity did its work and sent the six heroes plummeting below.

Each of them quickly went to work trying to avoid a broken neck, or at the very least some annoying bruises and scrapes. Big Barda reached for her Mega-Rod, intending to create a blast of force strong enough to cushion their fall. But her hands moved too fast and the rod slipped from her hands and out of reach.

Animal Man reached into the morphogenetic field and called upon the flight of an eagle. He flew up and tried grabbing onto Big Barda. But in his haste Buddy realized he'd actually forgotten to give himself the strength of an elephant so Barda's heavily armoured body weighed him down, sending both of them tumbling down the stone tunnel.

Captain Marvel and Power Girl were fast to recover, they flew up and tried to save their remaining teammates. Karen caught Dinah by the leg while Billy put his arms around Rex's waist.

"Up you go!" Billy cheered. "Let's get you back up and we'll go back from A-Man and Barda."

"Gee, thanks for the assist." Metamorpho said.

"Can you please not hold me upside down?" Dinah looked to the woman carrying her.

"Sorry, lemme fix that." Power Girl flipped Black Canary so that the blood no longer rushed to her head. "Everything should be-"

She never got to finish the thought. Her back had brushed up against the wall for only a moment but it was long enough for the plant growing there to attach to her. It grabbed Karen and pulled itself off the wall, coiling its roots around and clouding her vision with darkness. Her whole body went limp, ceasing to fly. She dropped Dinah in the process, both women plunging to the darkness below.

"Holy moley! We need to save them!" Billy turned around midair and swooped downward.

"Slow down, we need to-" Metamorpho was cut off when Captain Marvel's arm touched a patch of plants on the wall that quickly hooked into him, making him lose all consciousness in an instant. "Dammit, Captain!"

Rex tried to form his hands in a parachute to slow his fall but he ended up slamming into the wall of the stone shaft which gave another Black Mercy plant the chance to latch itself onto his face and render his body completely motionless.

The heroes were incapacitated, powerless in the clutches of Psycho-Pirate.

A/N: I feel like this story works best if you picture it taking place on a composite continuity. Like every version of the DC universe is simultaneously canon and not canon here. I know that's confusing. Basically, I picked my favourite parts of these characters and their histories and I'm using them to write this story.

Just now, I'm realizing that our six main characters were all members of the Justice League during it's Justice League International/Justice League Europe phase. So that's pretty neat. This is my second time writing Psycho-Pirate as a villain but the first time he was more of a plot device so I hope to flesh him out now. Also, I decided to get the obligatory "Power Girl has large breasts" comment out of the way early in this story. I will be writing her as an actual character here. Anyway, that about does it for this chapter. We should be updated relatively soon.