Warnings of potentially annoying arguments between a grown man in green and a grown man in a trench coat and new sources of paranoia.


A repetitive rhythm, strummed by fingers of a forgotten figure echoed despite the attempted muffling of it by the dry, unforgiving ground.

Wally stared ahead of him at a shadow that moved with all the grace of a lumbering monster and the speed of a falling axe. The strumming grew faster as the shadow grew and anxiousness overwhelmed his senses. The rhythm reminded him of the movie Jaws. With the music played as imaginatively and deliberately as a stick on a grid but as affective and appropriate as the best of tunes.

The strumming stopped when he became too overwrought in his panic to retain his mask of composure and whipped his head from side to side like some possessed creature.

Cackling sounded through the trees like a fog horn but what came with it was no life saving ship or rescue boat. Far from it in fact.

What came with it was an unexpected Lex Luthor, accompanied by his hysteric laughter which Wally could not recognise nor could he relate to its owner whose laugh (though unique) had not been quite so distinct the last time he'd heard it.

The tension eased as Wally relaxed, though he was not sure why. He assumed he'd been expecting something far larger and less...out of place which was what this man was with his expensive suit and leather shoes. There was some air of superiority about the man that Wally had not recognised before. He assumed that it was due to the lack of anything within the forest that could spark any inspiration for emotion with the exceptions of fear and boredom.

"You drifting off there Flash? I'm surprised; I expected a month in this forest to have changed you somewhat. But a guess that thick head of yours barely has enough room for stupidity and terrible one-liners."

Wally snapped to attention and looked Luthor up and down before realising that somehow the man's appearance had managed to change within the time he had taken to look away and then glance back. The change had not improved Lex's demeanour at all. He was now missing at least four teeth and was once an expensive looking suit (probably hiding silk underwear) now sported tears and rips at the seams. His face was crooked on one side, as if, at some point, it had been melted on one side. Silver srands sprouted from his head

Luthor grinned at the shocked expression that proceeded to distort his own face into some wide-eyed image of horror.

"What's wrong Wally? Do I have something on my face?" It said in mock perplexedness as claw like stumps tore through its cheeks.

Wally gaped for a second before shrinking into the shadow of the tree he'd spent the past few weeks trying to escape from.

The monster smiled, revealing two sets of gold, metallic teeth buried in his purple gums.

"I'd heard that Luthor was Superman's sworn enemy and a great threat to the League you call Justice. Yet, now that I can compare your reaction, I wonder whose presence you would rather be in after meeting me; Luthor's or mine."

Flash blinked but didn't respond to the comment, his mouth still hanging loosely as if skin was the only thing that joined his lower jaw to the rest of his face.

The creature threw back its grotesque head and bellowed a roaring laugh that had the trees cowering in the shadow of such a mighty force.

The roar faltered as the discoloured skin on the monter's shoulders began to bubble and twist, contorting and expanding as it rose and fell, tightening as a twisting cord does then collapsing as a wounded man does. The monster twisted in agony as the skin curled into growth of twisted flesh and rose before solidifying to form a claw like bone that protruded from its left shoulder.

The result of the mutant Luthor groaned in relief and shuddered as the pain subsided before forming a demented grin, aimed at the stunned Flash.

"Care to play, Wally?"


Lantern, once again, found himself staring idly at a computer screen with the intention of helping his best friend, only thid time he was doing something useful. He was actually doing everything for Question who wasn't doing much more than what John hoped was moving his lips. Addmittedly, this sudden switch in assignments was partially due to the fact that Question didn't trust computers but mainly motivated by John's pulsing need to help his best friends or so he kept telling Question who kept retorting with "the diary never lies".

"So, why are you afraid of computers?" John bit back when he ran out of defences to back up his own argument.

"It's not that I'm afraid of them, I'm quite at ease with being in the same room with them when someone else is at the keyboard. In a way they're like my girl friend."

John raised an eyebrow in confusion, "you'd rather your girl friend be with someone else?"

"Yes," Question replied, "When she's in action."

"You'd rather some one else slept with her?"

"No."

"Then what do you mean by 'action'? Do you mean when she's in a fight because that's pretty common amongst human beings. But I don't know how that relates to the computer."

"Well, not really when she's fighting, she has these moments, outside the battlefield, it's hard to explain."

"You mean she's clinically insane?"

"No, that's perfactly normal. This goes beyond clinically insane."

"She just has moments?" John stated bluntly.

"Moments you just hope you never have to witness."

"And these moments link to computers, how?"

"They don't they just cause paranoia. Which I had plenty of before I met her."

"Okay. Moving on."

"Where to?"

"I don't know, you're the detective."

"And you're the one at the controls."

"Yes but you're the detective."

"And you're the one at the controls."

"...You don't know where we're going, do you?"

"Not a clue."

"Arrgh," John ran a hand over his bold head, forgetting momentarily that he had no hair to ruffle. "I thought you said you could help."

"I thought I could, usually I can. Believe me when I say that this is as agravatingly terrifying for me as it is for you."

"...Maybe we missed something?"

"We didn't."

"Did you check the teleportation reports?"

"Of course."

"And?"

"Nothing, everything was fine. Wally should have landed safely in Central City."

"So why didn't he?"

"I have no idea."

John paused, "How do the tereportation devices work anyway?"

"They cause momentary displation in your atoms which then seperate into singular particles which are easily transported down to Earth or just about any other planet that the League knows of."

"What about unknown planets?"

Question shook his head, "It's not impossible but it's highly unlikely, the system is programmed or to but it better, only knows to transport atoms back to Earth. The molecules could somehow fail to regroup but then they woul still be on or within Earth's atmosphere, that I'm almost certain of."

"Almost?"

"Well. even if they weren't they'd be scattered all over the universe and then Wally would be lost forever," he stated in his usual uninvolved, matter-of-fact way that

John's jaw dropped.

"I didn't say earlier because I got the feeling that we were trying to look at the positives."

"That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard."

Question nodded, "That's what Ralph said when I tried to explain the Big Bang theory to him, only he said it was a terrible excuse for squirty cheese."


Please review, thanks. Sorry about the cliff-hanger by the way, just a little thing I had to put in ;)