A/N: Not particularly happy with this chapter. But it is what it is.

Shayera let out a low, pained grunt as she felt something hit her left shin. She grimaced as she felt the pain from the burns she had acquired. A dull ache pounded a steady beat in her skull and her mouth felt as dry as dust. Each breath she took made her acutely aware of how sore her body was and how much her chest ached. Then something hit her left shin once again. Counting to three, she slowly opened her eyes.

In that instant Shayera regretted opening her eyes to the bright sunlight. She was left blinking blearily as her vision slowly adjusted to the brightness and she soon realized that she was looking straight into the barrel of a shotgun. She could also see what looked like the barrel of a rifle pointed at her temple in her peripheral vision and so she cautiously glanced around, careful not to move her head. Before her were two hunters. It had been her luck that they had stumbled upon her after she had passed out the night before from her exertion.

"Get up Thanagarian," the one man ordered as he kicked her shin once more with his steel-toe boot.

Shayera slowly rose, clutching onto the tree behind her for support, and could feel her heartbeat begin to quicken. The only clear exit route she could see was directly behind the two hunters. She knew that her chances of getting past them without hurting them or getting herself shot was extremely low, practically nonexistent. That and she was already beyond exhausted from her lack of sleep, food, and her injuries.

Shayera swallowed before speaking, "Look I-"

"Shut your mouth you filthy hawk!" The other man snapped at her.

There was that phrase once again. Shayera was beginning to wonder if this was how most humans referred to Thanagarians now.

"I say we kill her. No one knows we found her out here. Only good hawk is a dead hawk after all. Besides I don't think anyone would miss her," Shayera's felt a chill run down her body at the emotionless words that left the one man's mouth.

"Those hawks put us through hell. I say we repay the favor," the other man lowered his rifle and took out a hunting knife.

"I didn't hurt anyone. I didn't have anything to do with that," Shayera desperately said. "I was in the Justice League. I was Haw-"

"We know who you are Hawkgirl. Your face was all over TV when you left that ship. Everyone on Earth knows who you are," the man scowled at her as he cocked the shotgun. "Makes it easier to know who we're supposed to shoot and kill in case any other filthy hawks got left behind."

Shayera's eyes widened as she involuntarily shuddered. Never before did she fear an average human like this. Physically they were inferior to her and could hardly prove to be a challenge. Yet even she knew that she wouldn't survive a close range shot from that type of a gun. She was ironically at their mercy.

"Come on Hawkgirl what you scared of huh?" The other man mocked her as he held the hunting knife up to her neck. "I thought you were a hero Hawkgirl. Heroes don't get scared."

"Never thought a filthy hawk like you could be scared of us regular folk. You used to fight those bad guys with superpowers. Not so brave now are you Hawkgirl?"

Panic, that was all Shayera could feel at this point as she felt the metal blade pressed against her skin. That and a sense of overwhelming helplessness. She could hear and feel her heart pounding within her chest. Everything in her was telling her to run and run fast.

"I told you Hawkgirl ain't a hero. Just a common, double-crossing filthy hawk."

That was when Shayera realized she couldn't understand what either of them were saying anymore. Everything seemed to blur together except the words Hawkgirl and filthy hawk. Shayera forced herself to take a deep breath. Panicking like this wasn't going to save her life. If anything she knew it would only cloud her judgement.

"How about this?" The one man began. "We give you a twenty second head start. After that we hunt you down and kill you."

"I'd take his offer," the other man stated. "He's being rather generous. I'd just blow your brains out here and now."

"Please don't," she quietly begged despite the humiliation she could feel for needing to beg for her life to begin with. She never should have allowed herself to be put in this type of situation. She was too careless.

"Twenty...nineteen...eighteen..." He began to countdown.

Shayera stumbled through the forest as she heard a shotgun blast behind her. She didn't have the energy needed to fly. That and the burns on her right wing made it too painful to try to even take off at this point.

Frantically the Thanagarian looked around as she tried to find somewhere she could hide.

"We're gonna get you Hawkgirl!" She faintly heard one of the men call out.

Shayera began to panic again and ran with a limp once more. She only made it a few yards before tripping over a rock and landing hard on the ground.

"Come on you filthy hawk where are you?"

Hearing that was enough motivation to make Shayera push herself off of the ground and ignore the pain, as if knowing she had two hunters intent on killing her wasn't enough motivation to begin with.

In the distance she heard another round being fired from the shotgun. Was this all she was now? Was she no better than some hunted animal?

Shayera shook her head at the notion. No they weren't after Shayera Hol. They were after Hawkgirl. She had been the one to betray the Earth and the Justice League. Lieutenant Hol had been the one to betray Thanagar. Shayera Hol had been the one to betray herself and John.

Shayera could feel her blood begin to boil at the very thought of Hawkgirl. That was who the two hunters were after. They wanted Hawkgirl's corpse as a trophy. They wanted to kill the filthy hawk as an act of revenge.

Shayera let out a pained cry as she forced her wings to move and lift herself off of the ground. She immediately felt lightheaded and her vision blurred as she barely managed to stay airborne. She knew it was either fight or flight. She couldn't realistically fight them. She could only choose flight at this point. Whether her body wanted to or not. She had to push herself.

After only three minutes of flight, Shayera's vision blacked out as her body finally gave out and refused to go any further. As Shayera felt herself plummeting towards the ground the same two terms kept repeating themselves in her head: Hawkgirl and filthy hawk. Before she passed out completely, she could also feel the burning anger within her every time those words flashed in her mind.