#okay so the thought was what was the JL doing when Undergrowth took over the entire planet? and the answer is being incompetent mostly

[phanboyo]

Captain Marvel had been left on monitor duty on Saturday night. Again. He couldn't really complain, since he'd started to try going back to school his availability for JL duties had been limited a little bit on weekdays. Not that he wouldn't cut school to help out if he were called, but the JL generally tried to be pretty accommodating when it came to civilian identity stuff, even if they didn't know his. And it's not like he usually had any weekend plans as Billy, anyway. Besides, the Watchtower had better food than the stuff he could usually scrounge up himself on the weekends.

Admittedly he hadn't been paying much attention to the monitors. Most of the JL were on Earth in their respective cities doing whatever it was they usually did on Saturday nights, and though it may be irresponsible, Marvel figured they could handle things as usual.

This is how Marvel justified taking a short break to grab a snack from the cafeteria, empty save for Hal, who had microwaved a burrito and left. This is also how Marvel let his short break turn into a long break while he read through a couple of the comic books Freddy had leant him. This long break is why Marvel had completely missed the entire earth being engulfed in supernatural plants.

Staring out the large window in the monitor room at the big green ball that had been his planet, Captain Marvel dropped the blueberry muffin he had brought from the cafeteria.

"Oops."

Marvel flew to the monitors and flitted from screen to screen, trying to figure out what had happened. There were a few short calls that had come through from Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Superman, and a few others inquiring what was happening. Marvel hadn't answered because he had been in the cafeteria. "Crap, crap, crap," he muttered, "I am so going to get in trouble for this."

The timestamps showed that the calls began to peter out until stopping entirely, the last one from the Flash, a little over 40 minutes ago.

"-ny input from the Tower would be helpful, no one's answering my calls. I don't know how long I can outrun these vines, they're everywhere and they're taking pe—whoa!" There was a crackle of wind, Captain Marvel thought he heard an echoing voice saying something about "feeding the children," straight out of a horror movie. "Man, she's creepy," said Flash under his breath, "the vines are—ah!—Taking people's minds or some—" there was another crackle and the recording lapsed into silence before cutting off entirely.

Captain Marvel hit the call button to the Flash. With each ring his heart climbed higher in his throat, no answer. He called the Batman, no answer, Wonder Woman, Superman, Cyborg, Aquaman, no answer. The planet had stopped emitting signals of any kind, and it seemed that no one was receiving them either.

"Holy heck," Captain Marvel muttered, staring at the hologram of Earth, a big green ball that had gone completely dark.

"Lantern!" Marvel shouted, flying out of the monitor room. "Lantern, there's an emergency!"

The Green Lantern popped his head out of his quarters, his expression turning serious as he saw the panic on Marvel's face as he shot down the hallway. "Cap, what's happened?"

"Mind controlling plants or something?" He said quickly. "No one's answering their comms, I didn't mean to—I didn't think anything would—I just wanted a muffin!"

"What?" Lantern asked, "a muffin?"

"Okay maybe I read some comics too, but it's not even a full moon—weird stuff usually happens on fulls moons and solstices—and with the Tower so empty I didn't think anything bad would—"

"Cap!" Lantern interrupted, "slow down, what happened?"

Marvel took a deep breath. "The Earth has been overtaken by mind-controlling plants?"

Lantern blinked and the two of them sped to the monitor room, a green planet sitting innocently below the Watchtower with the darkness of space as its backdrop. "Well... that's new," he said, his hand coming to scratch at the back of his head. He turned to look at Cap. "Do you know what it is? Or who?"

Marvel shook his head. "It happened too fast, no one knew what was going on. His face suddenly brightened. "Maybe there's something at the Rock of Eternity," he said. With a muttered word an a wide gesture, a portal opened, showing a stone room with glowing arches.

Marvel stepped towards it, but the Green Lantern grabbed his arm. "Wait," he said, "are those vines usually there?"

Marvel looked into the portal and saw fat green vines crawling out of one of the archways. "No," he said, eyebrows furrowing. The vines began to creep towards the portal, spines on the tips glowing green as if in anticipation. "How did they...?" The vines picked up speed and shot towards the portal.

"Close it! Close it!" Lantern shouted, leaping back, hand out, ring glowing green.

With a snap, the portal shut, cutting off the tips of the vines. In a second, they were enveloped in a translucent green sphere, containing them as they grew to fill the small space.

"I don't understand," Captain Marvel said, "the Rock exists in its own realm, it's supposed to be separate from Earth."

"Can't really help you with the magic stuff," Lantern said, examining the ball of vines in its green cage. "Who else is on the Tower tonight?"

"Uh," Captain Marvel shook himself and went to the screens to check. "Plastic Man and the Atom?"

"That's it?" Lantern asked.

Cap shrugged. "It's a Saturday night."

He hummed in acknowledgement. "Well, I guess we'd better let them kn—"

There was a light crackling noise and the vines in the green sphere shriveled. Lantern and Marvel both stared at it.

"Did you do that?" Cap asked.

"Don't think so," he answered. They stared at the black shriveled vines a little longer. Cautiously, Green Lantern opened the top sphere. When the vines didn't move, he dissolved it entirely, and the vines fell to the floor with a wet smack. The two stared at them a little longer.

"So... are they dead?" Captain Marvel asked.

"I think so?" Green Lantern replied.

Captain Marvel looked up out the window at the planet again to find it more or less back to normal. "Oh, I—huh." Another glance at the monitors showed that the planet was transmitting radio again, and signals received were back to normal range. "Crisis averted?"

The Green Lantern looked from the planet to Captain Marvel. "Guess so. Good job." His ring glowed and the blueberry muffin floated up from the floor. "You gonna eat that?"