Balance

A/N

Okay im dropping Deception for the time been, this story is going to be similar to it, but to get rid of the continuity errors im going to be starting post-starcrossed but pre-initiation. The JLU will not be making any appearance, other heroes may appear but not as part of the league. I'd really appreciate some reviews, especially if it's criticism, no really I love criticism. Now on with the show.

P.S

Just an advanced apology for any grammatical mistakes, I use works, which has spell check but not grammar check (and grammar isn't my strong point)

Chapter 1: Drowning

Black Knight Bar

"It's been a month to the day since the Thanagarian invasion took place and-"

Click

"Still no word from the justice league on the whereabouts of Shay-"

Click

"Still no sighting of the apparent betrayer-"

Click

"GOOOAAAAL! A fantastic move by….."

"Yo Lance! Why is this door locked, I gotta go man" shouted one of the regulars.

"Wrong door Ted, try the other side of the bar man"

"What are you hiding in here lance this door was always open"

"Just a very private guest, that pays me a not to inconsiderable amount of money, to make sure the spirits never run dry"

"Sounds like a party, hey open up, ill buy you a shot!" yelled Ted trying to force the door.

"Go to hell, Lance we have a deal get him out away!"

Came a female voice from the other side

"Hey lance, you got yourself a girl in here, come on man, just let me have a look"

"Ted! Get yourself out of here before I call the cops, you've obviously had too much to drink"

"Aww, come on Lance just-"

"Out!"

"Fine, never liked this place anyway, see you around, or not" mumbled Ted as he left the Bar.

Lance sighed as he looked round at his deserted bar, locking the door he made his way to the door Ted was trying to force his way through, unlocking it and entering he noticed the small fire roaring away and the shadowed figure slumped on the tattered leather sofa, staring into the fire. The next thing he noticed was the eleven empty bottles of vodka, whisky and sambuca lining the table.

"Humph going for a new record today, anyway im shutting up for the night, just thought I'd let you know"

"Your shutting at half ten on a Friday night?" came a completely emotionless reply.

"Yeah, well ever since the invasion the GCPD and the Bat have been on one heck of a crackdown, people seem scared of getting even slightly over the limit now"

"Sorry"

"Ha, don't sweat it, I wouldn't be here if you hadn't done what you did"

"Don't go there Lance, we've been over this"

"Well I just think that some people should-"

"Just drop it Lance I don't want to hear it"

"…..Do you even feel the effects of alcohol"

"Ha, you kidding I could clear out most of the bars in Gotham before you could call me drunk"

"Must've made for long parties on Thanagar eh?" joked Lance

"Night, Lance" she half snarled

Noticing the clenched fist and the opening of yet another whisky he sighed and gave up "Night, Shay" he muttered closing the door behind him.

Upon hearing the familiar sound of lance going upstairs Shayera poured another pint of whisky, threw in a few cubes of ice and downed half the Glass before muttering "I was beginning to think you'd lost your touch Batman"

"You really shouldn't underestimate me Hawkgirl" Batman noticed her flinch at the mention of Hawkgirl.

"Underestimate you, ha, I was constantly in fear that you already knew everything about me….the ironic thing is, I now wish you did"

Batman glanced around the room, taking in the makeshift bed, a mattress and a seeping bag, the huge stockpile of empty bottles of spirits, then he caught a glimmer of what he was searching for, her mace was buried in the fire. "That's an unusual place to leave a mace"

"Really? And I suppose there is a standard place to keep a mace, a nice thing about Nth metal, it doesn't conduct heat at all, now why don't you drop the attempt at small talk and tell me what you want, want me to turn myself in, to tell you why I betrayed you all, oh maybe what was in it for me"

"The reason no one has heard from the league, we've been busy attempting to reverse engineer from your ship some technology-"

"And I suppose you want me to hand over the keys and tell you how everything works"

"Well that would be nice but-"

"Well im sorry but no, if there is one thing you should take my word for it's that giving this planet technology as advanced as ours is not a good idea, trust me I've seen what happens"

"Well actually, we may not have been able to get into your ship but luckily we managed to remove the sensors and get them working, what we found when we activated the long range sensors, was this" finished Batman handing over the scans

Batman noticed Shayeras Jaw drop slightly "What is out there" he asked.

"Well, the only planets capable of amassing a fleet that size are New Genesis, Apokolips and Gordan and was Krypton and Thanagar….it looks to me that the Gordanians are moving on to the next part of this Galaxy….Perhaps I didn't make such a good decision after all…. don't you just love irony" groaned Shayera downing the rest of the pint and immediately pouring another.

"Then…it seems we are going to need your help" said a rather reluctant Batman

Shayera laughed rather hysterically at this for a moment before regaining composure "Help, you want my help, well here's what I suggest you do, you take those fifteen thousand nuclear war heads, you spread them strategically across the earth and then detonate them before the Gordanians get here, because I can assure you, you will wish you had if you don't"

"You have fought them before, you can teach us what to do"

"Your right, I have fought them before, all I've done is fight them, all our race has done for the last five hundred years is fight them, no one will ever know that all our race has done, for the last five hundred years is protect this entire galaxy, the last I heard we were finally breaking the deadlock and making advances, I don't know what happened, but I know this, thanks to my decision, potentially every single living thing in this entire galaxy could eventually be killed, thanks to me"

"You made the right decision, they had no right-"

"Really Batman, you're a logical person, heck you actually provide a half decent challenge at chess and what I have done is sacrifice the queen for the sake of a pawn that will never make it to the end of the board, you don't get it do you, no matter what decision I made earth was always going to lose, I made the wrong decision, Thanagar would've destroyed earth instantly, not exactly what I'd call nice, but the Gordanians, they'll break you, they'll destroy continents and they'll enslave what's left until your no longer needed and then they'll suck the planet dry of what is needed to sustain life and whatever is left of the humanity will either resort to cannibalism or die an excruciating death, I suggest you start on that bucket list" finished Shayera finishing yet another pint of whisky.

"I didn't think warrior races like yours were capable of simply giving up" stated Batman bluntly

"Batman you're a smart man, but im smart too, trying to and forgive the pun ruffling my feathers isn't going to work"

Batman just narrowed his eyes to his infamous Bat-glare "You know Shayera, despite everything I'd have thought despite everything, you'd have a least tried, you allowed your race to perish to protect this one, and now your just going to sit back and down pints of whisky until you die" attempted Batman who got the shock of his life when he made eye contact with her and noticed tears streaming down her face.

"Goodbye Batman" muttered Shayera who had failed to notice he had already left, sighing she started to open another bottle of whisky before looking at it in disgust and launching it into the fire.

Johns apartment - Detroit

Thud, Thud

"John! Open up!" ThudThudThudThudThud "John, I know your in there, open up before I open it up!"

"Just give put the ring through the door and leave, I don't need you to rub it in Katma" shouted John

"I told you she was trouble, I told you she was no good!" replied Katma

"You don't understand!…and why would you even care!" said john throwing the door open and snatching the ring out of a startled Katmas hands

"You, you've been drinking again, we have to keep ourselves in perfect condition, look at the state of you"

"oh yeah" muttered John slipping the ring on, eyes turning the familiar shade of green "well now im fine again, now get out of my sector"

Katmas face creased up in anger as she noticed some photos of John and Shayera on the kitchen side "you need to forget her, she is no good john, all Thanagarians are the same!" she shouted aiming her ring and preparing to wipe the photos from existence before been thrown aside by a huge emerald hand construct and out of the door, the large construct then slammed the door behind her. Picking herself up and marching to the door she prepared to blast the door of it's hinges before lowering her ring "You need to move on John, I know how races like that work, if she is even alive she'll have banished herself to some sort of exile, even if you found her somehow she'll never be anything like the person you fell for, take my advice John and move on, you'll thank me for it one day" she finished, hanging by the door she waited a few moments for a response before giving up and flying off.

John just stared the whole time at the photos, one in particular brought a wealth of emotions to his eyes, Mr McGhee one of Johns long time friends in Detroit, someone who was pretty much a father figure to him, happened to be on holiday in Las Vegas' at the exact same time that the Joker had set up one of his ridiculous schemes in the city. McGhee had actually managed to take a Photo whilst Shayera was attempting to resuscitate John after he had almost sacrificed himself to save her. There was no posing for a photo like this, none of her usual attempt at remaining emotionless, the desperation and longing on her face, the fear, he remembers foolishly asking if it was all a lie, all it took was one look at this photo and everything he feared was quickly washed away.

Slipping the ring off and grabbing another bottle of beer he sighed to himself annoyed at the fact he has to get drunk all over again.

Watchtower II

Sat at the table Batman who had decided to take temporary control of the league whilst Superman calmed himself down, Supermans reaction after Shayera had left had actually stunned Batman and for the first time ever he had found that he had his piece of kryptonite in his hand ready to use. He looked to Superman who was sat on his left, he appeared relaxed and composed now, but he knew superman better he still had a deep seated anger built at Shayera. Further too the left was the empty chair of the flash and further to the left still, was J'onn sat there as emotionless as ever. Looking over to his right he caught the eye of Wonder Woman who annoyingly flashed him a brilliant smile, pretending not to notice he looked to the empty chairs of the Green Lantern and Hawkgirls chair of which he had insisted be installed adding "she'll be back" He sighed in his mind before producing a voice recorder from his pocket. "Were is John and Wally" he asked straight to the point.

Everybody looked around expecting someone else to know the answer to the question.

"Sorry we're late" came the voices of both Wally and John.

"Were have you two been, your almost fifteen minutes late" as Wally began to reply Batman cut in "actually I don't need to know your excuse Wally, but I expected better from you John"

"I had…personal matters to attend to….I trust you'll be leaving it at that"

Batman narrowed his eyes, but decided to let it go before continuing "Now three days ago me and J'onn managed to get the long range scanners working on Shayeras spaceship….and they picked up this" said Batman bringing up a holographic image of the galaxy which had the solar system, Earth and Thanagar marked out as yellow dots, from Thanagar a red line was very slowly making its way towards earth.

"What is that" enquired Diana

"Well the scanners on the ship not only detected the fact that something is approaching but the number as well"

Batman appeared to be deciding whether or not to reveal the information "Bruce just tell us" almost pleaded Diana

Batman narrowed his eyes in anger at the use of his real name before continuing "Fine, what ever is heading towards us numbers at over three hundred thousand objects and some of them are several miles long"

"What are they" asked the Flash pretending to reattach his jaw .

"Well there not following any kind of normal space trajectory like asteroids or comets so, it is a fleet of ships"

"Three hundred thousand!…..how many ships were there during the Thanagarian invasion?" blurted Superman

"seven hundred and fifty not including fighters" replied Batman

"Not including fighters, so there could be even more" asked Wally

"each thanagarian ship averaged between ten and fifty two fighters" Batman once again replied.

"So there could be over three million fighters" asked a stunned Diana

"Not necessarily, were not dealing with Thanagarians this time"

"Who are we dealing with then" asked John

"Perhaps this will help" finished Batman pressing the play button on the voice recorder before leaving the room.

Ten minutes later Batman walked back into the founders room, a room of which was currently bathed in absolute silence as the message finished "Goodbye, Batman" the obviously upset voice of Shayera finished a few seconds later the distant sound of shattering glass could be heard before the recorder fell silent. Before anyone could react a message started flashing across the hologram "unauthorized movement detected in hangar bay, unauthorized movement detected-" As quickly as the message started it stopped and the hologram of the galaxy began to zoom in on Thanagar a quick icon that popped up and what appeared to be a password was entered before what appeared to be a live image of Thanagar appeared, the planet was literally shattered with half of the planet completely unrecognisable, the liquid core of the planet was spewing like a brilliant golden fountain into the void of space.

"Some sort of teleport was detected in the hangar bay….apparently directly next to Shayeras ship" said J'onn flicking the image of and replacing it with a security recording of the hangar bay a few second earlier, which showed Shayera appearing in the hangar bay and entering her ship. The image then flicked back to the galaxy which had now zoomed to the red blip with what appeared to be some kind of recording playing.

"Can we get some sound for this recording" queried John

"No, it's internal, obviously from the ship" answered Batman

"Well what are we waiting for lets see what she's found" said superman striding out of the room as everyone followed him.

A/N

Thought it would be better to start a story of from a familiar start point, as you will probably be able to tell, I like writing Shayera, John and batman best, I mean come on they are the best to write. Don't be afraid to review and I wont be afraid to write. We got a deal?

Also once again this is basically a re-write there will be some changes but the plot you may have figured from "deception" is basically the same here. So please don't put in a review "it doest seem very different from "deception"

Random Jack Out