Ultra Humanite was curious. He was curious about a lot of subjects and topics. What had his curiosity was the return of his Legion colleagues not in triumph, but in defeat and with injuries.
Now how had that happened? Without the former members of Maximillian Zeus' pseudo-Pantheon to act as bait, there was nothing here that could have drawn the attention of the Justice League. The operation, by its nature, was supposed to be lowkey and to draw attention after the fact. It was a psychological attack designed to hit morale.
So who had his team encountered?
Killer Frost and Silver Banshee were still conscious, though sporting a collection of injuries. Volcana was still out cold. There was no point in speaking with Solomon Grundy. Hmm, hadn't there been a fifth? Oh yes, King Shark was noticeably absent.
Since Frost was more vocal, it was to her that he spoke with.
"There were four of them. One of them had some kind of gun attached to his wrist. And there was another one, this weird thing over one of his eyes. I don't know what it was, but it glowed...green, and then everything was...off. I can't explain it better than that. I couldn't stand straight and I hadn't even been hit yet. First guy called him something that started with a V. I'm getting a headache just thinking about it." Frost groaned as she rubbed the back of her neck, wincing.
So far, he hadn't recognized any of the descriptions, lacking details notwithstanding. He kept quiet though, allowing Frost to continue rambling. She was definitely suffering with a concussion by the looks of things.
"And there was a big guy, red and yellow. Strong. Took Volcana on head on and didn't flinch. Nailed Shark so hard he never got back up. And...and there was something else. A boomerang. Yeah, a boomerang and an annoying voice."
A boomerang? An odd item to find during a heist, especially if someone was wielding it. You might even say it was a unique item. It had the man-turned-gorilla thinking about it.
In fact, he was thinking about it so much he left Killer Frost's side to access an iPad. It started with the simplest of searches, a Google search, searching for anyone of any notoriety that used boomerangs. Since Frost had described at least three other individuals who did not fit any mundane civilian descriptions—again lack of details notwithstanding—Humanite figured that who this fourth individual was might travel the same channels they did.
His curiosity needed to be sated, if only for the moment. It didn't take too long to find a name and a face, because anyone using a boomerang stood out. George Harkness was the name that came up and the moniker Captain Boomerang soon followed. There was a mugshot; there were articles; hmm, he tended to frequent the Central City and Keystone regions of the Midwest.
None of it explained what he was doing in Atlantic City foiling a casino robbery.
Turning the tablet around, he held up the clearest image of Harkness to Frost. "Any resemblance to the man you saw?"
Frost squinted her eyes, staring down the image. Small spasms in her face gave away the wince, though whether it was through memory recall, phantom pain, or the concussion was yet to be revealed.
"Looks like him, I think. I was too busy feeling sick to my stomach to really give him a good look."
Not the answer he was hoping for. Confirmation of the man's identity would have taken him far. Still, it was a lead, and he might as well follow it through. Some more taps on the iPad's screen had him delving a little deeper.
According to his research, this Harkness had been caught by the Flash, and was sent to Iron Heights soon after. Transferred afterwards, but to where? Transfer orders were found, Belle Reve the destination, and by all accounts there were no reported escapes or anything. The man should still be incarcerated.
Then there were the other three whose descriptions he did not recognize either. They may all travel the same channels, but that did not mean their paths intersected. There were a whole host of their ilk out there, and despite their notorieties, the chances of never encountering some of them were better than you thought.
"Baffling," he muttered, his eyes focused on the tablet's screen. "Whatever could this mean?"
What could it mean? What did it mean? Was there another player in this game of theirs? Somewhat rude to butt in on another's scheme, he mused, but there were no rules set against such plays. They should have expected opportunists at some point.
Suddenly, it clicked into place. Four individuals bungled a lowkey heist, a team of five returns as four, these interlopers establishing themselves as new players…!
"Shark. He wasn't with you when you returned." He practically spun on his heel to face Frost once more. "Was he taken? Do you know where he is?"
"One hit and he was down," the icy killer moaned as she pressed her hands to her head. "I don't...I don't remember anything about him after that."
Which meant Shark was left behind to the mercy of these interlopers. What was their agenda? Did it conflict with theirs? Unless he was killed, King Shark had to be assumed under this new party's custody. If he was dead, then there was no problem. Alive, though, and he could talk. No honor amongst thieves, after all.
Regardless of what was actually happening, Luthor needed to be updated so their next move was planned out.
"He has a broken jaw, you say?" Bordeaux looked up from the report only recently received.
Waller gave a sharp nod. "Major Force did not hold back in the slightest. It will take months to heal and an all-liquid diet in the meantime."
Dark eyes returned to the report. "You managed to get this all out of him while he has a broken jaw?"
Waller stood straighter. "I have my ways. You don't necessarily need someone to speak in order to learn everything they know."
King Shark had learned this only recently himself.
"So from grandstanding in the streets and fights with the Justice League, to breaking and entering and burglary, the Legion of Doom has lowered its ambitions as of late," the director commented. "Still, if they wanted to give the League a raspberry, this wasn't a bad way of doing it."
"Much of the Legion's activities have been to undermine the League's credibility. It's working. The latest developments with the League indicate massive fracturing in the ranks." Waller did not even take her gaze off of her superior. "This is only confirmation that such fracturing is part of the plan."
"But to what end?" Bordeaux wondered.
That was something King Shark didn't know and it was aggravating. To know there were moving pieces, but not what their function was the kind of thing that kept a woman like her up at night. While King Shark's interrogation had illuminate much about the Legion of Doom, there was something bigger in the works that it was trying to accomplish.
The grandstanding have been cover for capturing League members, specifically the founding members. Clever, though it would have been obvious after the first. The big flaw in that claim though, was that all founding members were accounted for. If they were captured, it wasn't for long. Perhaps that fight at that lake house had been the League liberating captured members.
But what was it supposed to accomplish other than to undermine League confidence?
Waller wasn't stupid and did not take things at face value. King Shark, though, was not kept in the know, or not deemed important enough.
"These names," Bordeaux commented as she stared at a number of them in the report, "these are a whose who's list of some seriously dangerous people. I recognize some of them as repeat offenders in Metropolis."
Waller had spotted that too. A number of individuals had been recruited from the Metropolis rogues gallery. The remainder were from all over the place.
"And what do we have on an Ultra Humanite? I don't recognize the name."
Neither had she, and in response to that, "I have agents looking into that. I'll be checking in with them at the end of the hour."
The report was laid down on the Director's desk. "Good work, Waller. There's still too many unknowns here. Can we see about fixing that?"
"I'll have Shark prepped for a second round of interrogations," Waller said, her voice slightly dry.
Bordeaux raised an eyebrow. "You think you can get more out of him?"
"I am never one to accept anything at face value. You're just looking at the results of the preliminary interrogation. There are many more left and I will not stop until I know Shark has been squeezed dry."
King Shark had no idea what was about to happen to him. He was the type of man who valued strength and power, though it was restricted to the physical. Against someone like her, all of his strength meant nothing, and as for power? Relying on metahuman abilities was more of a crutch. To compete with such individuals, you needed to make those abilities worthless.
She was an expert in doing such a thing. Making people do things they didn't want to do was her bread and butter.
"So what about once you're done with him? Turn him over to the proper jurisdiction?" Bordeaux was moving on, ready to tackle whatever came next.
"What would that accomplish?" the dark-skinned woman scoffed. "King Shark has shown an ability to be a team player. I always have room for one more."
Now the Director was looking her dead in the eye. "Another recruit?"
"Versus setting him loose in general population? I think not. If you want to make sure people like these stop being threats, then you give them something to do, something productive. Otherwise you're just contributing to the recidivism rate. Plus you never know what uses you can find for a shark man."
Bordeaux gave a shrug of her shoulders. "It's your call. Your team brought him in; he's all yours."
That was what she liked to hear.
"If I find out anything else, I'll be back to inform you," Waller said as she turned and left the office. She had work that still needed to be done and a good night's sleep earned. If everything went her way, then nothing would keep her up this night.
Something was going on.
Diana could tell that from the moment she returned to the Watchtower. There was a tension in the air as she saw a few of the newer members hard at work on something on the main computer. A quick glance told her some sort of search was being performed, but from the distance she was at, she couldn't tell what the subject was.
That could wait for now. She needed to check in with a Founder and see what she had missed. After her sojourn to Gotham, she had lost quite a bit of time. While the new recruits could have told her an abbreviated version, if she wanted the full story, it was best to find Superman or J'onn.
So she walked through the halls of the space station, finding herself heading for the med bay. If J'onn wasn't running down a lead, he was usually there.
Much to her surprise, the doors to the infirmary slid open and Shayera stormed out, a look of fury on her face. Her hair was sticking in many different directions despite an attempt to brush them down. There were black markings on her exposed skin, dirt or dust, it was hard to tell. And...did she smell something...burning?
The Thanagarian immediately locked her eyes on the Amazon. "Diana," she grunted at her as she marched past her. This wasn't an unusual circumstance when the redhead was in a mood, but her outward appearance indicated something else was going on.
So the dark-haired woman spun around and gave chase after her fellow Sister. "Shayera, what happened?" she asked as she caught up fairly quickly, her longer legs closing the distance between them, though she did have to move quickly. Shayera was striding as fast as she could without breaking out into a run.
"That pointy-head prick of an asshole is what happened," the winged woman seethed as she made a turn, Diana following along. "When I get my hands on him…"
"Pointy-what what?" Diana stumbled as she gave her Sister an odd look.
Shayera actually stopped and spun to face her. Her nostrils flared as she spat out, "Batman. Batman happened."
Diana couldn't help but frown and look bewildered at the same time. She wasn't sure how that looked, but it must have been quite a sight. "Batman? What did he do?"
Shayera gestured to herself. "This. What, did you not hear about it at the briefing?"
The Amazon shook her head. "No, I just returned, so I don't know what's going on."
The rage on the shorter woman's face softened for a moment. It came back with a vengeance the moment she began to speak. "Superman, John, and I went to...talk...with the dickhead. And for all of our efforts, he decided to try and kill us."
Diana couldn't have been hit harder than if Superman had landed a haymaker to her face. Bruce? He had done this? When? How? Surely it hadn't been that long since she had been at the Batcave.
"What? Why?" she questioned. She couldn't wrap her head around that Bruce of all people would try to kill someone. He had always been against it. Their talk in the Batcave had reinforced it. Now this alleged about-face...
"How should I know?!" Shayera exclaimed as she threw her arms up in exasperation. "All I remember is that we went to...uhh...check on his work and he wanted us out. When we didn't, he attacked Superman. When John and I tried to separate them, he zapped me with the strongest damn taser I've ever been hit with. I only just woke up a few minutes ago because of it. J'onn said I'd been out for a couple of hours."
The taser, at least, explained why Shayera looked the way she did. It also explained the foul mood she was in as well.
Yet, Diana wasn't seeing how an inquiry into an ongoing investigation ended with a fight. Bruce was not one to jump into a fight unnecessarily. He was a master of using his body language and voice to get exactly what he wanted. If he had told their friends to leave, his commanding presence would have done more than a fist ever could.
There was also something else strange about this. The timeline was rather quick. She had been in the Batcave and had...her talk with Bruce. Shayera and the others' arrival couldn't have been much longer after her departure. At the time, Bruce had been steadfast in his resolve, not the least bit disturbed by their encounter. To go from that to attacking other Justice League members...that was quite a leap.
Suddenly, John came flying around a corner, pausing only long enough for relief to appear on his face at the sight of Shayera. "There you are!" he exclaimed as he hurried over to the winged woman. "J'onn said you had left. Are you—"
"I'm fine," Shayera snapped. "I don't need a babysitter, you know."
"Doesn't mean I can't care," he gently reminded her.
It was a rather touching moment, so Diana was apologetic to interrupt it. "John, Shayera was telling me some disturbing things about your encounter with Batman?"
Immediately, John's face soured. "What about it?" he said guardedly
"Batman...Bruce attacked you?"
"That's right. All you have to do is look at Shayera for evidence of that."
Diana had seen their friend already, so she looked at John instead. She noticed a bruise that was growing on his forehead, the result of a blow no doubt. "Considering Shayera was knocked unconscious, I was hoping you could fill in more blanks."
"Aside from him being a psycho, there isn't much more to tell," he shrugged. "We went there to talk, he went ballistic, and ended up blowing up the Batcave."
Shayera snapped her head to the Green Lantern while Diana's head jolted up. The Batcave was destroyed? It couldn't be! Why would Bruce do that? Too many things weren't adding up.
"Alright, I am missing something," the dark-haired woman declared. "Bruce is one of the most level-headed people in the League, if not the world, almost to an infuriating degree. How do we get from having a talk, a conversation with him, to him blowing up the Batcave?"
John and Shayera shared a look with each other. "That's a...good question," Shayera admitted.
"And John was alert for all of it," Diana pressed. "So what happened? What did you talk about?"
"Just about, you know, the cases we have," John answered hesitantly. "He got angry and told us to get out. When we refused, we—"
"He got angry?" Diana interrupted. "About an update on a case? That doesn't sound like him."
"Well, he did," John defended. "And then he attacked us with this mech suit thing."
"That's right, I'd forgotten about that," Shayera agreed.
A puzzled look was on the Amazon's face. "You went to talk with him, he told you to leave, you refused, and then he got into a mech suit and fought you. And you let him get into the suit without asking him what he was doing?"
That seemed to stump her two comrades. Their story was not adding up to her. "Where's Superman?" she asked then as she straightened her shoulders. "He was there too, correct?"
"I'm not sure," John said, which caused Diana to spin around on her heels and began walking away. She would locate the Kryptonian and get his version of things. If there were still questions, then she would locate Bruce. Though with the Batcave destroyed, that was a rather daunting prospect.
Suddenly, John darted in front of her, holding a hand up for her stop. "Diana, wait," he said. "What are you trying to do?"
"I'm trying to get to the bottom of this," she answered confidently. "I understand why Shayera's version of events is spotty, but there's too many inconsistencies, so I want to get everyone's perspective to get the full picture."
"Including Batman's?" the Lantern questioned.
"If I must."
Something caught Diana's eye then. On the wall, she spotted a shadow, one that was very much like Shayera's. It also looked as if it were holding something up.
Pain then exploded throughout her head as something hard and metal struck the back of her skull. A rainbow of colors erupted before her eyes, a startled cry coming out of her lips. Then all of the colors grew brighter before becoming dull, eventually replaced with darkness.
It came as suddenly as it was unexpected.
There was a distinct feel to it. A sudden pain followed by nothing. J'onn had felt that pattern many, many times since his arrival on Earth—another Martian would have said too much. Because of this consistent exposure, J'onn knew the thought pattern of someone being knocked unconscious.
To feel that sensation on the Watchtower, this was a first.
He had been in the infirmary, checking up on Girder and seeing no improvement nor decline in his status. Hawkgirl had left not too long ago, the unfortunate victim of a tasing. She claimed it was the work of Batman in his cave, which begged the question as to why she had been there in the first place. Aside from himself, there weren't many people willing to barge into the Batcave without notification. The next question was what prompt the tasing.
He had kept his thoughts to himself, allowing the Thanagarian to vent until she had worked herself up that she wanted to leave. Seeing no reason for her to stay, he allowed her, and she had stormed off.
Perhaps that had been an error on his part.
Focusing on the thought pattern of the abrupt unconsciousness, he detected a gathering of two minds. One was Green Lantern, his thoughts focused and determined. That wasn't too uncommon as the source of his power was derived from such thoughts. However, he did detect they were concentrated on…
Diana.
J'onn focused on the Amazon and found that she was the one knocked out. She was alive, that much he could detect, but she was absent surface level thoughts. Returning his mind to Green Lantern's, he noticed the man had his attention somewhere else, or rather someone.
That was confusing, but the moment he felt the familiar feelings of warmth and affection, J'onn knew exactly who else was with John Stewert. Though he only detected two minds, there was a third, one that he always had difficulty detecting.
Shayera Hol's Thanagarian physiology had granted her with the evolutionary ability to block telepathy. It was a startling fact to discover during the Kalanorian Invasion, but it was one the Martian had taken note of.
The two of them were standing next to an unconscious Diana. One of them had knocked her out, though the purpose was unknown. J'onn didn't like this, not in light of everything that had been occurring as of late.
J'onn eyed Girder for a moment. Steps needed to be taken. The Watchtower had always been a haven, but this recent development was proving that notion incorrect. Reaching a hand up to his comm link, he switched the channel on it before sending out a hail.
"Batman, we have a situation."
To Guest reviewer on Chapter 1: Thank you for your praise. It's always nice to hear when people enjoy our stories. We hope to keep you entertained.
