Disclaimer: I don't own Justice League Unlimited.

Complicated Simplicity

Chapter Four: Out with the Old…

Orion flinched and once again pulled his hands away from the nurse that had been sent down from the Watchtower, who was becoming increasingly impatient.

"Would you hold still?"

"Perhaps if I was given a competent nurse, I would."

"Perhaps if you stopped whining like a four year old every time somebody touched your hands, you'd have a competent nurse. Now stop being a baby and hold still."

The New God and the nurse launched into yet another staring contest, with neither backing down.

Green Arrow and Hunter Zolomon watched the battle from a distance, the former thoroughly amused while the latter perplexed. He leaned towards Arrow.

"Is he always like this?"

"I don't work with him."

A brown eyebrow shot up. "At all?"

"Well, whenever I have a choice I don't." He gave Zolomon a wink.

Orion relented to the nurse, holding up his hands for inspection. He whipped his head around to look at Green Arrow, hoping to transfer his irritation with the nurse onto someone else.

"Where's the Flash?"

The archer shrugged. "After he took down Volcana he helped Supes and the others with the riot. He just ran off after that."

Zolomon look over at him. "Is he all right?"

Arrow looked troubled. "Don't know. It got pretty tense with Volcana."

"I heard. He almost tried to kill her, didn't he? What happened?"

The archer opened his mouth to explain, but then realised who he was talking to. "It's personal. Sorry."

Zolomon nodded understandingly. "But still… it doesn't seem like him."

Arrow frowned. "I know." His gaze moved across the half destroyed courtyard of the prison before landing on Linda Park, who was leant against the side of a Channel 9 news van. Her eyes stared into the distance unwaveringly, her mind obviously elsewhere as she absentmindedly toyed with a piece of rubble in her hand. Arrow gave a sidelong glance to Hunter. "Excuse me."

The archer made his way over to the up and coming ace reporter. He looked around, but he couldn't see her camerawoman. He guessed she was probably in the van.

"Hey. You okay?"

She blinked once, but still kept her gaze forward. "Hm?"

Arrow smiled. "Are you okay?"

A small noise, almost like a laugh, escaped her lips. "Oh, sure. Being kidnapped? No problem. Being held captive in a prison by perhaps the most incompetent super criminal of all time? Easy. But I draw the line at seeing my-" she stopped herself. "-at seeing the Flash in a murderous rage over me."

The archer shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I don't think it was that serious."

"No?" She looked over at him. "Have you ever had to talk him down before? Has anyone?"

He didn't reply. His only response was a frown that steadily deepened.

"Thought so."

"It's… it's not that simple. There's lots of reasons he could've-"

His earpiece bleeped for attention. With an irritated groan, he brought his fingers to his ear.

"Yeah?"

It was the commanding voice of Mr Terrific that replied, rather than the soothing tones of J'onn J'onnz. Not that Arrow was surprised – the Martian rarely took monitor duty to the extent he had before his sabbatical.

"Status report, Arrow."

"All the super powered Rogues are safely in custody, but at least a dozen or so inmates are still unaccounted for."

"You'll have to leave them to the police. I need you six up here; there are some assignments that need tending to."

"That's fine, except you've only got three right now."

"Three? What happened?"

"Orion's injured, as you know, Flash is AWOL, and Superman's out looking for him."

"Flash is gone? Why?"

"There was an… incident."

A brief hint of a smile crossed Linda's face as she tossed the small piece of rubble up into the air and caught it again. She repeated the process, and Arrow's eyes followed the rock as Mr Terrific continued talking.

"Well, I want you up here. Get ready for transport."

"Gotcha." He brought his hand back down as he looked at Linda. "You going to be okay?"

She snatched the rock out of the air as it came back down again. "Just find him, would you?"

The archer smiled. "I'll do my best, ma'am."

And with that, the four superheroes and the nurse vanished in a blur of white-blue light. The back of the Channel 9 news van opened, and Marla poked her head out.

"Hey. D'you wanna see the footage I got?"

Linda looked around the courtyard, and she saw Hunter Zolomon near the building, discussing something or other with some police officers. Her idle gazing continued, crossing the mammoth prison in all its haunting glory.

"Linda?"

"Yeah, I'm coming." The reporter made her way into the van, trying to ignore Warden Wolfe staring at her from his office window.

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The doors hissed open in a manner still both alien and familiar to Shayera. While such technology on Thanagar was commonplace, the doors still made a slightly different noise when they opened and closed. It was a small thing, but it was still something that bothered her from time to time.

At the present moment, however, she wasn't too concerned about the noise of the doors in the Watchtower. Her attention was focused solely on the teleporter pad in front of her. As she walked through the command center and towards the pad, she exchanged nods with various members of staff and an awkward smile with Hawkman, who was busy at work on one of the many workstations littered around the place. She still wasn't sure how to behave around him, and from the look of things, he was having a similar problem.

The teleporter hummed to life, and five beams of light came into existence, giving way to the figures of Green Arrow, Vigilante, Ice and Orion, who was accompanied by a rather impatient looking nurse. Although, since she was being forced to work on Orion, Shayera was hardly surprised at the nurse's demeanour.

The other Leaguers went their separate ways as Mr Terrific called them up to the observation platform above them. Shayera pulled Arrow aside as he descended down the stairs.

"How is he?"

Arrow shrugged. "I'd have to know where he is to know that."

"He left?"

"After helping contain the breakout, he took off. Superman's out looking for him."

"Did he say anything?"

A shake of the head was his only response.

"Do you think he's in trouble?" a low baritone of a voice enquired, and Shayera turned to see Hawkman stood beside her. In response to their questioning looks, Hawkman smiled and shrugged. "We… had a lunch date."

Arrow was silent for a moment. "… I don't think he's in trouble. He… just needs some time to think. At least, that's what I'd guess he's doing after what happened with Volcana."

Shayera was already on her way to a workstation. Her hands moving like a blur over the controls, she patched into Superman's communicator frequency.

"Superman, this is Shayera."

"Go ahead."

"Have you found him yet?"

A pause. "No."

"Do you even know where he went?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be looking, would I?"

Shayera brought her head back in surprise at the sharpness of the remark. She quickly recovered and dove right back in, her face twisted into the 'Hawkgirl scowl' that all those close to her had learnt to fear.

"There's no need to bite my head off. This may come as a surprise to you, but we-"

"I know. Sorry."

Not used to being interrupted in mid-rant by an apology, Shayera found herself stopping short, looking slightly disappointed and more than a little confused. "That's… okay."

"Look, I'll… tell you if I find anything."

She sighed. "Maybe you should just call it a day. If he wanted to be found, he'd let us know."

"But you didn't-" He grunted in annoyance. "Hang on a second…"

An even longer pause than before ensued. A decidedly un-Superman-ly voice yelled in the distance.

"You ain't gonna get me, I-"

A noise akin to someone being slapped came over the com link, quickly followed by a grunt. Superman's voice resumed as though nothing had happened.

"-you didn't see the look on his face. It was like he was… horrified." His voice quietened, losing its usual commanding presence. "I've never seen him like that."

Shayera thought for a moment. "All right. You leave it alone. My shift at the Metro Tower doesn't start for another two hours, and Mr Terrific wants you back up here."

"But-"

"No buts. I know some places where he might've gone, which will be a lot quicker than you x-raying the entire city from above. Capishe?"

Hawkman and Green Arrow exchanged a look. The archer mouthed 'capishe?' to Hawkman, who merely shrugged cluelessly.

The Man of Steel was apparently equally bemused. "Um… capishe. And tell Mr Terrific I've found one of the escaped inmates."

Shayera nodded, satisfied. "Right." And with that, she switched off the communicator. She turned to face the two behind her. "Now-" she paused when she saw their expressions. "What?"

The men exchanged another look. Green Arrow decided to bite the bullet and ask.

"…Capishe?"

"What? I heard Wildcat saying it. It's not important. It doesn't matter. I'm going now."

Arrow put up his hands in defeat. "Wish I could help, but I've got an appointment with another pretty bird. Tell me if you find him, okay?"

Shayera nodded. "Right."

The archer turned on his heel and set off towards the door at a leisurely pace, whistling as he went.

Hawkman smiled helpfully at Shayera. "I'm sure he's all right."

She nodded, the concern still etched in her features.

"I get off my shift in ten minutes, if you'd like some help."

"That-" Shayera paused, holding back her instinctive response of refusing. "That'd be nice." She offered a smile. "Thanks."

"Not a problem."

The teleporter suddenly sprang to life, and two beams of light appeared. In mid-materialisation, Shayera could make out a youthful voice talking excitedly about something, and she flew up next to the pad.

"Flash?" She said, a smile on her lips.

The confused form of Gear appeared in front of her, accompanied by Static.

"Um… no. Nice to have you happy to see me, though."

Static groaned and shook his head. He poked his partner in crime fighting in the arm irritably, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "Dude, just come on. We're late enough as it is."

Gear gave a cheery smile and a wave to Shayera as he followed Static on the way to the Atom's lab.

"Yeah, but it's not like it's our fault this time. I mean, how do you predict a giant egg attacking the city?"

"Couldn't you make something for that?"

"What, like an egg detector?"

"No… a giant egg detector. A normal egg detector would just be stupid."

The conversation continued until they were out of the command center. Shayera rubbed her forehead.

"It's no wonder they're still in training…" She looked over at Hawkman. "Why are they here, anyway?"

"Ray's working on some sort of time travel device they confiscated from a criminal. Timecode, I think. They want to get it down to the Metro Tower, but the only way they can do that is with the teleporter. And apparently those two know more about the device than anyone else."

Shayera nodded. "And how do you know this?"

"Ray told me."

"Oh."

"Anyway, you get started, and I'll join the search as soon as I can."

Shayera nodded again. "Right."

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Jack pulled in his coat around him as he waited at the door, looking nervously up and down the alleyway.

"C'mon man, open up."

He had only just arrived in Bludhaven after a few hours of a train journey. It was strange how life worked out. Jack had woken up in the morning in prison, thinking it would just be another day in the slammer. Then alarms started going off. Then the cell doors opened. Then the prison gates opened.

And now, here he was in Bludhaven, the last place that anyone would suspect him to be. He didn't have to worry about the police, but of course, that wasn't why he was nervous. There were rumours of some nut in a costume being around these parts, but no-one had seen or heard anything concrete about him. At least, no-one that Jack knew of. Some people said it was the Batman. Others said it was Superman getting tired of being the Boy Scout.

All Jack knew was that he didn't want to be out in the open too long, whether or not his grey trench coat was covering his orange prison garb or not.

He impatiently knocked on the door again.

"C'mon!"

After a few seconds, the door slowly opened, revealing the gaunt features of Dr Michael Amar, the best black market plastic surgeon that illegal money could buy. And, thanks to some money handily embezzled and tucked away at his ex-girlfriend's apartment (that even she didn't know about), cash was something Jack had plenty of.

Amar's mouth was hidden by a surgical mask which had become a nigh on legendary look for him. If someone said surgical mask, you instantly thought Michael Amar.

"Cm in," he said, his words sounding short and cut off under the muffling surgical mask.

Jack did as he was told and entered. Instantly, he was impressed. The operating table before him looked almost like a professional hospital. None of the disturbing flickering lights and dank conditions he had been expecting in the back of his mind.

"Okay, doc, I'm kind of in a hurry here, so let's make this quick. I've got the money, you've got the skills. Make me look different already."

Amar simply stood there, staring at him. In the full light, Jack could now make out just how deathly pale and thin the Doctor was. Jack wondered how he could hold a scalpel steady with such weak looking hands.

"Tk off yr shrt, pls."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah…"

"Nw lay dn."

Jack did as he was told and lay down on the operating table. Amar walked over and wrapped two leather straps around his around his wrists and locked them shut with the latches, akin to what were used for a mental patient's bed.

"Hey… what're you doin'?"

"Pls rlx. All undr contrl."

"But, uh…"

Amar tied up his legs as well.

"Are you sure that-?"

His words caught in his throat as he saw Amar approaching his face with a scalpel.

"Uh… don't you need to use like an anaesthetic or something?"

Amar removed his surgical mask. Jack's eyes widened. He was too horrified to even scream. Amar's lips were stitched together, clamped shut. He put his finger to his mutilated lips as he brought the scalpel down with his other hand.

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Flash leant back on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling, his cowl pulled back and a heavy sigh on his lips.

"I don't know… am I going crazy here, or what?"

"You're not going crazy, Wally," Raven replied, her voice taking on a soothing tone not heard by many from the dark empath.

Cyborg nodded as he sat down next to Flash and handed him a mug of coffee. "Yeah, man. It's just something you have to go through in our line of work."

"Really? You mean… you guys have had this kind of thing before?"

He nodded. "Oh, yeah. I mean, it's nice to think we can keep up this nice and bright superhero thing, but… y'know, the world's not like that. There're some nasty things out there."

Raven took a sip of her tea. "We had to contend with the decision when it came to Slade."

Flash looked at her sardonically. "You mean Dick had to contend with it, and you had to watch."

Cyborg shrugged. "At least he talked to us about it. That's somethin'."

"It's a hard choice," Raven said, setting her tea down on the table. "Do you let a criminal live, showing that you're not like them while still running the risk that they could kill innocent people… or do you kill them and end it then and there, at the risk of losing control yourself? It's a slippery slope. You convince yourself it's all right to kill one criminal, soon you're giving yourself reasons to kill jaywalkers."

The speedster sighed and stared into his coffee. "Yeah, but it's not just all that. I mean… I was ready to kill Volcana."

"But you didn't," Cyborg replied.

"Yeah, but, I was ready to."

"But you didn't. Look, Wally, I know you're feelin' guilty about this. I probably would too, if it was me. But the fact is, you wanted to, and you didn't. It's a normal reaction to seeing someone you care about in danger."

"But I've never had that before. Not like this, anyway. I mean, how is this different?"

"Because Linda doesn't have any superpowers," Raven interjected. Flash looked over at her, curious.

"Huh?"

"Linda's your first serious relationship with someone who doesn't have any powers. You've never had to live with the fear of what could happen to your loved ones, at least not to that extent. When it was anyone else, you would worry, yes, but a part of you would know that they had superpowers and could take care of themselves."

Cyborg 'hmm'ed his agreement. "There's no doubt about it, man. It's a tough choice. I just wish we could you help you more than just sayin' 'it's something you've gotta do for yourself'… but it kind of is."

Flash shrugged. "Well, I-"

The control panel beeped in front of them, indicating an incoming call. Mr Terrific's voice came through the speakers.

"Watchtower to Titans Tower. Come in. I repeat, Watchtower to Titans Tower, come in."

The speedster sighed and smiled wearily, pulling on his cowl. "Time to face the music, I guess." He slowly walked over to the control panel and accepted the call. "Hey. This is Flash."

Mr Terrific's voice gave way to Green Lantern's irritated tones. "Flash! Where've you been? Shayera and Superman have been looking all over Central City for you!"

"And Hawkman," Mr Terrific added, although Lantern just seemed to ignore that. "Switch your com link back on, and we'll teleport you up."

"Okay, okay, I'm coming." He turned to his two friends as he switched on the earpiece. "See you guys later." He was interrupted mid-wave as he was teleported up to the Watchtower.

He rematerialised on the teleporter pad only for it to appear as though he was waving to B'wana Beast, who was waiting to use the teleporter. After returning the wave with a somewhat confused expression, B'wana made his way onto the teleporter pad while Flash stepped off.

"Flash!"

Wearily, the speedster looked up as John Stewart, the Green Lantern for Sector 2814, came in for a landing.

"Where were you? You don't just disappear after a mission! And you certainly don't turn off your communicator so we can't find you!"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. I just… needed some time to think."

"You can do that up here. Why were you at Titans Tower, anyway?"

"I…" Flash paused, knowing how it would sound. "I needed someone to talk to."

John didn't say anything. He just nodded as he digested that little bit of information.

"You can do that up here, too."

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? It was a gut reaction. I knew if I came up here everyone'd be talking at me and asking me questions and telling me to go on my next mission…" He sighed. "It was stupid. Sorry."

The Lantern looked at his friend for a few moments longer before putting his hand on his shoulder and smiling reassuringly. "No. It wasn't." He nodded his head towards Mr Terrific, who was seated rather impatiently above them. "I've got another mission to get to, but when I get back we can talk about it." He turned to go. "Just think before you do something like this next time, okay? You had a lot of people worried."

A green glow surrounded him, and John shot up to Mr Terrific for his briefing.

Flash grimaced as he headed for a workstation, hoping to contact Shayera and Carter and tell them to stop the search.

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Nightwing looked down at the body, fighting back the wave of nausea that threatened to overcome him. The man's eyes had been removed and his lips stitched together, although his mouth still managed to take on the shape of a horrified scream. He was curiously bereft of blood, as though it had been… cleaned off him.

The unofficial protector of Bludhaven shuddered inwardly. He didn't want to think of what kind of criminal would do such a thing and still have a clear conscience. Perhaps he didn't. But, Nightwing had been trailing Amar for more a little over a month now, and if there was anything he was sure of, it was that Amar didn't care one iota about killing another human being.

He looked around the hastily abandoned operating room. There was little left in the bare room except for the operating table, the body, and…

Crystal blue eyes were drawn to an orange prison shirt laid haphazardly on the floor. Nightwing knelt and picked up the shirt and examined it. There was a tag stitched into the lining of the shirt. In the dim light, he struggled to make it out.

Iron Heights.

He reached into his belt and pulled out a small com link that Batman had given to him in case he needed to call the League. Of course, this time he was hoping to find a particular League member.

"Watchtower, this is Nightwing. Do you read?"

Static followed.

"Watchtower?"

Silence still.

Then, "Watchtower here. What's the problem?"

From what Nightwing could remember of his time at the Metro Tower, it was Mr Terrific speaking.

"I've found an escapee from what looks like Iron Heights. Was there a prison break I don't know about?"

"As a matter of fact, there was. Is he all right?"

Nightwing didn't bother looking again. "No, not really. He's been killed and mutilated by a criminal I've been trailing."

"Do you need any help?"

He was silent for a moment. Did he?

"Actually, I was looking for-"

A noise behind him drew his attention to the doorway. There was nothing there. He stood up cautiously and walked to the door that led to the alleyway. He waited for a few seconds before quickly jumping out into it, baton drawn. There was no sign of anything in the poorly lit alleyway.

"Nightwing? Are you all right?"

"… yeah… yeah, I'm fine. I just-" he turned back to the doorway in time feel a sudden burning sensation slice through the back of his calf, and he fell to one knee. He looked over to see Amar, his skinny frame exaggerated by an elaborate black leather costume, his face covered by a ghoulish white mask.

He brought down the knife again, this time aiming for his head. Nightwing rolled out of the way and ended up with his back to a wall. Amar slashed out at his throat. Nightwing held up an arm to block out, but only succeeded in letting Amar slash his wrist open.

Blue light suddenly filled the room, and Amar fled. The last thing Nightwing saw before falling unconscious from blood loss was the Flash's worried visage.

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(A/N: A bit of a shift of characters here, but that's the feeling I was going for, really. I always liked the whole 'Unlimited' aspect of JLU.

Those of you who know your Flash comics will know who Amar is. But for those of you who don't, I'll be going into detail next chapter, so don't worry about it too much.

Not much else to say, except… Justice League Unlimited coming to DVD soon!

And… review. ;))