John squinted with a heavy eye at the computer screen, his fingers tapping involuntarily against the desk to an unknown tune. For the past few sleepless nights he had refused to relieve his exhaustion when Shayera had fled towards his open arms, tears streaming down her face and her dispassionate mask dropped to reveal the sensitive young woman who he had fallen in love with. Only to reveal to him that his best friend had gone missing and they were going to have a meeting to decide whether it was worth going to look for him. As expected he had remained comparatively composed. He had, for instance, not attacked Superman when he had decided that their vote was unanimous, even if three people disagreed with him; himself, Shayera and surprisingly Batman. He had stormed out of the meeting in a gracious manner and had not cursed in rage whilst he trashed his room, despite his strong desire to do so; he had however, trashed his own room.

After much fuming, he had allowed himself to cool off and had decided to take up the mantle of the official observer of the independent detective work, much to the annoyance of Batman. After half an hour of what appeared to be fruitless searching for any clues as to where their lost speedster could be, John had discovered that Batman had eight monitors and four machines that were not computers but "informative sources that you will never understand" and that he was useless at detective work.

He had been observing for two days and three nights which had left him jaded and fatigued. His head swam with the after effects that came with fuelling himself on coffee and the love for his own best friend, he felt it safe to say that coffee worked much better as a stimulus in the long run.

Depression hung in the air as their search uncovered nothing but distractions and dead-ends. The two had shared their rage at their current situation in the form of conversation and they realised that they had many more things in common than they would have thought previously which made their situation all the more depressing.

Consequently, John had received a wad of kryptonite from Batman who had handed it to John out of pure, heart-felt sympathy.

John had then asked him if he kept kryptonite to keep himself safe or whether he carried it to keep Superman's reputation safe, to which Batman had replied;

"No, I carry it because it makes me feel better."

He certainly wasn't wrong.


Wally stared ahead of him at his unchanging surroundings with little more than minimal interest. He was buried deep in thought and too absorbed to contemplate the contorted land around him. What he did contemplate, however, was even more twisted than his location of abduction. He had awoken to the same emptiness for the past two days, shackled to the same tree and left to his own private thoughts. In ways he was grateful for the isolation; it meant he did not have to face off that monster as he had before and the last encounter had left him with a headache and he was sure that he had a deep, ugly scratch across his left cheek that would not fare well with the ladies.

Fortunately, there were no ladies to see it.

Despite his attempts to see the positives in his current situation, for someone as talkative, energetic and ravenous as Wally it was hard to see the well-polished side of the coin when the grubby side was the one facing him.

Nonetheless, Wally was a naturally positive person and if fate was unkind to him then he'd be just as cruel to fate. Though he had to escape his bindings first.

He had tried vibrating through the metal but had given up when the only confirmation he received assuring him that something had progressed due to his efforts was the sharp growl of his stomach, he had given up on the idea altogether.

He had then attempted to contact J'onn, only to find that his communicator had been removed. He had then wondered why J'onn had not tried to contact him telepathically, but he had quickly shaken the thought from his head. The League would be doing everything in their power to find him and if J'onn wasn't contacting him telepathically then he would certainly have reason not to do so.

It was the reason that Flash was concerned with.


"I have it!" A voice cried triumphantly and seemingly unaware of the fact that the closeness of the trees shouldn't have allowed it, managed to echo through the forest and despite the distance, it reached Flash in a few seconds who straightened suddenly from his slumped position. He drew slow, calming breaths from the cool, albeit foul air and tried to steady his thundering heart as it pounded in his ears. There was silence for a short while and Flash wondered whether the voice was a hallucination that came with the lack of nutrition (which wasn't as uncommon as you may think when you're severely under paid for a full time job that requires more fuelling junk food than you can afford) until it came again, this time a muffled whisper. The words were so low-pitched they sounded of a foreign tongue and were impossible for Wally to hear over his uneasy heart-beat and the dizziness that was setting in.

Go back to sleep, he kept thinking as his head slumped again and the voice became a soft background chant that lulled him into a cushioned state of unconsciousness.


Darn it, this was lousier to write than the first chapter. At least that had some action in it, and suspense in your own story isn't all that great for the author to write when you already know what's going to happen. Oh well, soz if you've hated the lack of action, I promise there will be some in the next chapter. Anyway, please give me some feedback; I want to know how you think I can improve this because it's really not working for me. Thanks to those who have reviewed, much appreciated, especially Kyer who has been very supportive.