Disclaimer: I don't own the Justice League, Batman, Diana, or any of the rest of them, including some of the dialogue and action. Just trying to enhance the experience...

Well, I got 6 out of the 7 reviews (so far) I'd hoped for and I really appreciate them! Thanks for the ideas and again, if you have any more for this "Friendship Day" and are willing to share, let me know! Or if you think it sounds stupid. Whichever.

Chapter 5, Real Bad Mood, by Marie Sisters/Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac

"Yeah, I wanna chew on something, honey, anybody's ass will do, and I'm in a real bad mood"

"You can go your own way…You can call it another lonely day"

Bruce's perspective…

While winging through the sky in the Bat-jet, patrolling the streets of Gotham, I had heard news that I had been dreading for some time – the release of Clayface. The list of criminals out on the loose was growing steadily larger, much to my dismay. I had imagined the criminal to be safe in lockdown, contained on a small island by a multi-millionaire mogul, but as usual, the criminal mind finds a way around every type of prison. But this news was indeed unexpected and potentially explosive…

Taking a detour down to the Caribbean island where Morgan Edge, the multi-millionaire mogul, was being held, I made a surprise visit to the hospital room of the multi-millionaire in order to discover how Clayface had made his daring escape. He would have needed help and I needed to know who had supplied it. I entered the room via a window and immediately set out to calm Edge, keeping my voice very soothing and handing him a cup of water to quench his thirst and clear his throat.

"Who did this to you?" I asked him.

"All I saw was a shadow that was…alive!" he told me, and I narrowed my eyes as I realized the culprit behind the release of Clayface – Shade.

I returned to the jet and made my way back to the States, running though the ramifications of this potential partnership of Shade and Clayface, trying to understand what had brought the pair together, determining potential targets and heists.

I arrived at the site where I had concluded that Clayface would make an appearance without having a clear determination in my head of what the partnership of these two men could bring about and what had brought them together – frustration from yet another sphere of my life.

I knew that I had avoided the earlier conversation with Diana, but I simply wasn't ready to deal with either her or my own emotions. I didn't have the time or, truthfully, the willingness to make the effort at this point in time. I was tired, I was aggravated, and I was on the trail of a criminal that I had hoped was locked up for good. Locking down on my emotions was the best thing that I could do for myself right now – Diana would simply have to wait until I was in a more tenable position to talk to her.

Entering through the roof of the site, I waited patiently for Clayface's appearance at the factory, and in less than an hour, my tolerance was rewarded when the muddy figure made his way to the release valve positioned just below me. Slinging an electrified batarang, I hit him square in the back, causing him to scream with the suffering caused by the arc lancing through his body. He collapsed, releasing the valve as he slid to the floor and I made my way down to the area where he laid, a muddied pile on the floor.

"Always trying to find a cure, aren't you?" I asked him as I stood over his prone figure.

"Can you blame me?" he whispered, the batarang still sending out jolts of electricity into his system and he slithered and writhed, trying to rid himself of the intrusion in his back.

"No," I told him baldly, "But it's made you predictable." I stood there, watching him struggle to escape the batarang and the line of questioning.

"This is the only company in the world that makes what you need," I stated although I was certain Clayface was also in possession of this knowledge. But I was here on a greater purpose and I had more information to seek out. "Now, where's Shade?"

He raised himself on his arms and looked back at me for a moment before pointing towards the darkness on the other side of the release valve, where smoke curled in the direction of the ceiling in heavy wisps. "Over there."

From amidst the smoke and shadows emerged a slim, pale figure clothed in black, head covered with a black top hat and holding a long black staff. I smiled in anticipation, knowing that my prey was in my sights, only to be alerted to the fact that Shade and Clayface were not the only ones in this building other than myself tonight. Other individuals began to materialize – Killer Frost, blue hair and icy hands leading her out of the darkness; Parasite, looking angry and intent on staring me down; a lovely red-headed woman towering over Parasite in a pink haltered toga – Giganta; and finally, Sinestro, the Green Lantern's arch enemy, lighting the darkness with his yellow power ring.

Clayface slid to his feet in an arc of mud, joining his comrades while looming over me, massive fists ready to take me apart at the first opportunity.

"You didn't think I'd come here without reinforcements, did you?" he asked me in a harsh voice, a grin lighting his miry face.

"Wish I'd thought of that," I said, answering his taunt while simultaneously sending a thought to the brain of J'onn J'onzz. The garage door directly behind me lit with green light before crumpling to the floor, revealing my fellow Justice League teammates in silhouette.

"Oh, wait," I told Clayface, "I did." My face lit in an unholy grin as I realized that this time, our team had the element of surprise with us, that this Secret Society had been unprepared for the arrival of the rest of the Justice League. I had alerted them earlier when I had received the news about Clayface and once I had discovered the location I knew that Clayface would turn up.

Power rings blazing, Green Lantern and Sinestro immediately began to clash, slicing through the air with bands of yellow and green.

I heard Diana roaring that she'd take the big one, Giganta, quickly followed by Hawkgirl making the same claim. Mace clenched in her fist, she flew up to the side of Diana and, in tandem, they headed towards Giganta. As if they were flies, the sizeable lady smacked them to the side with her perfectly manicured hand. The two women landed heavily, crashing to the cement floor with a thud.

Superman faced off with one of his usual foes, Parasite, who immediately leapt towards Superman, trying in his usual fashion to use his powers to temporarily absorb the energy of the Kryptonite, to leave him weak and open to attack. But, quick as a wink, Superman wrapped his hands around one of the building pillars, using the column to knock Parasite to the side.

Shade, picking up his "nightstick," used it to manipulate the darkness, aiming it straight at Flash. The speedster immediately ran to the side, flipping himself on top of the stream of night and using it as a slide, sending his feet smoothly along the shade emanating from the staff of Shade and using his fist to stop him by plowing it smoothly into the creepy villain.

Killer Frost created a column of ice, sending her spiraling towards the ceiling before she leapt off the top, sending spikes of frozen water towards J'onn J'onzz. The Martian quickly dematerialized, allowing the ice to crash harmlessly into the floor as he took off into the air in pursuit of his blue-haired foe.

I, on the other hand, was thoroughly occupied eluding the massive muddy paws of Clayface, dodging and rolling in evasive maneuvers. As he changed his hands into weaponry, I pulled loose a batarang and flung it at him, again electrifying him into stopping his angry charge.

We all continued to fight for minutes, clashing and slashing, eluding and evading as we battled the members of this Secret Society, a group that consisted of some of our greatest foes.

Suddenly, John fell from the sky, untouched by Sinestro, but apparently suffering from something, or, as my mind told me, someone. None of these villains had the capability of being the ringleader, the master of these criminal minds and I knew that someone else was controlling the strings, and perhaps, our minds. Someone like Gorilla Grodd.

But this was no time for revelations.

Noticing that John had fallen, Hawkgirl immediately flew towards him, abandoning Diana in their fight against Giganta in her need to care for John. Giganta instantly took advantage of the situation, sending Diana into a collision with the floor underneath Giganta's fist. As Hawkgirl tried to resuscitate John, Sinestro fashioned his yellow light into an axe. He was preparing to send the form through John and Hawkgirl when Superman, having captured Parasite in a metal band, looked up and observing the situation, sent a ray of his heat vision into Sinestro. The villain rocketed across the room, bursting through a pipe on the opposite side of the room, sending water and steam flowing through the factory.

Freeing himself, Parasite leapt onto Superman, sapping his strength like a leech. I still had my hands full with Clayface until finally, I hit a pipe behind him with a batarang and liquid oxygen pumped through the air, freezing the mud man in his tracks. I quickly sent a grapple towards Parasite, looping the line around his neck and yanking with all my might. But the villain had other plans, shooting me in the shoulder with a laser, an ability that he had acquired from Superman. The ice around Clayface melted, freeing him and he used my momentary distraction with Parasite against me, sending me flying into a tube with a mallet he had fashioned from his fists, and rendering me unconscious.

When I came to, the villains had disappeared, apparently through a gaping hole in the wall from Giganta's fists, and the first sounds I heard were voices raised in anger, each one of us accusing the others of poor teamwork, poor judgment, and poor performances.

Rising to my feet, I turned to my right, facing Green Lantern. "So much for practice makes perfect."

Flash's voice rose in agitation and he strode over, rubbing the back of his head. "I thought we were practicing teamwork! Not one guy tells everybody else what to do!"

Green Lantern turned to look at him, eyes flashing in anger. "Somebody has to be in charge and it couldn't very well be you!"

Flash pointed a finger at John, obviously close to jabbing him in the chest and giving reign to his fury. "You know, I'm getting really sick of…"

Superman rose from the floor, cutting Flash off in mid-sentence. "Will you both shut up? I've had better luck handling whole armies. And you know why? Because I didn't have to worry about anyone but myself."

"Then why don't you go back to that?" Hawkgirl screamed back at him.

"You think I haven't considered it?" he snapped back, crossing his arms over his chest and looking as annoyed as I had ever seen him, especially surrounded by those who were fighting the good fight, fighting on the same side as himself. Several of the other members gasped in surprise, but I was less than shocked – the man came off as a wholesome team player, but I knew how easy it was to work alone, to rely on no one but myself and I relied only on my mind and my finely honed body. Superman was a hero with serious powers and strengths, often limited by his teammates, and I could understand his frustration. Today had been a day of frustration and it seemed that it wasn't close to ending just yet.

Flash spoke up. "This whole stinking group was your idea and now you don't want to do it anymore?"

"You men," Diana spat out, obviously allowing her anger at me to seep into this situation as well. I knew that I had handled our discussion poorly, but it wasn't until now that I realized just how badly I had mismanaged it, leaving as I had and not simply saying the words that Diana needed to hear and explaining myself. "Unless you do it on your own, it doesn't count."

"It's not just the men, you stuck-up…" Hawkgirl stated and I bristled at the implied insult to Diana, but I felt unable to protect her in this sphere, only the physical apparently.

"Stop it!" J'onn yelled, "Stop it right now!" He faced us, standing formally, his voice fading to a solemn undertone as he continued. "I came to this planet not knowing a soul and you took me in. You became my new family. But what's the use of a family that diminishes us as individuals?"

"What…?" Flash sputtered, "What are you…?"

"I'm saying I survived the loss of one family. And I'll survive this one too." He turned, striding out of the building without looking back. We all turned to look at each other, trying desperately to patch the situation but finding nothing in the other's faces that led us to believe that we could again fight as a team. I avoided looking at Diana's face, concerned over what I would see there, but none of the other faces seemed to have any hope. And so, knowing that I had always been on my own before, I left.

Next Chapter: Who Will You Run To - The team has disbanded...what now?

Anyone have any ideas for the "Friendship Day?"