Here's the next instalment, hope you enjoyed it

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

The recent hours seem as though they have been mere seconds, events are distorted, distant. As though someone had taken control of my physical form until my psyche could once again take control of this bodily vessel.

I am in the watchtower's morgue, a room that has barely been used since the League expanded. I sit behind the medical desk, cast in the dim, bleak shade of deep space with no lights but the auxiliary safety lights along the edges of the wall, casting orange shadows across the room.

I know I have been sitting here a long time, I am uncertain of just how long though. It could have been hours as easily as it could have been days. That is one advantage of Martian physiology in comparison to a humans. I do not need as much sleep to preserve the functionality of my mind, nor do I require as much sustenance to maintain my body in its recommended parameters of nutrition.

But that's something you'd have been familiar with is it not? Being at a disadvantage in comparison to both friend and enemy alike

In this world of humans, admittedly primitive primates, people that had no knowledge on how to conceal their thoughts, on how to shield themselves being a telepath was...disorienting, often times physically painful.

I had listened to them, all of them, even as I saved their lives, their thoughts always held some form of fear, some worse than others, though some were genuine gratitude, regardless of my, to them, strange features.

But always they made me feel as what I was. Alien.

Even you did this. But you were different from them, you held no bigotry or hatred for me, no fear. Merely caution, a wariness that you used to approach all situations. As Superman had said when we first met.

'Don't take it personally Jhon, he doesn't trust anyone.'

Indeed. You trusted none of us upon the beginning, and when you offered your assistance, as a temporary member, I knew that it was solely for the purpose of keeping a closer eye on us. Even one such as you could not hide his thoughts completely from me.

During the beginning, you were veiled, guarded, keeping all of us at arm's length, treating us as mere acquaintances, people you fought with, nothing more.

In many battles that we fought together, you stood aside, the others believed it was because of your human limitations, your lack of the so called "Powers"

But I knew different, I could hear small bits of your thoughts even as you tried to shield them, and I tried to block them out. You watched us, observed our limits, calculating how you could exploit them in case you ever needed to do so.

This...dismayed me. On mars this sort of mistrust, this...wariness of our fellow martian was unheard of, And even mistrust of other species did not come easily to us. Something the Parasites had readily exploited of our people.

How could one fight alongside those he would readily regard as enemies? How could he look them in the eye while he was actively contemplating the most effective way to bring them down?

I did not understand for a long time, and often times, even today, I feel as if I may never fully comprehend it.

It took the event with Toyman, and Superman's apparent death to make me realize that I had misjudge you...or at least, misjudged your thoughts.

When Kal-El appeared to have died, there was grief in your mind, you mourned when you thought he had been destroyed by the beam of light.

You cared for him, despite the fact that you held the emerald green stone that could kill him on your person at all times.

You cared for us, but did not trust us. You would protect us, but were more than willing to kill us.

You would fight for us....but would never allow us to fight for you.

Often times when we fought alongside one another, or managed the computers along the observatory deck of the watchtowers I felt as though, you, not I, were perhaps the wisest of us. The one most trustworthy.

Perhaps, in that, my judgment was clouded, knowing that you had seen my memories when I rescued you. Knowing that you knew my secret and that you had kept it to yourself without my needing to ask as I'd hoped you would.

Or perhaps you simply were the most genuinely trustworthy.

As I sit here, staring at the autopsy report with hazed orange eyes I cannot help but admit...that it was a strange, dichotomous life you led.

You shrouded yourself in darkness, in shadow. Encasing yourself in misery and sorrow, shying away from any light, any enjoyment you might find, anything that may weaken that armor of blackness within you.

But, whereas you encased yourself in your misery...all those you touched...all those you came in contact with can only say they are made better individuals because of you.

You helped Shayera through her grief, you...attempted to help John place things into perspective with her.

Though it may not have been intentional, even Flash learned from you, more patient, tactical. He knows now that he cannot defeat everyone on his own.

Kal-El and Diana...you have helped them both...in more ways than even I know.

And as for myself...in my language, there are few ways to say the word friend, we regarded each other as brothers and sisters. Son's and daughters of the Goddess of creation Fiena. But we had one word 'vriendin'. That is our word for friend.

And if I could tell you now, I would.

I am honored to be able to call you a friend...'My' friend!

I may not have understood you. I may not have known you as well as others such as Kal-El, or your Bat-clan. But you were my friend, and should someone ask, I will say so without hesitation.

I look down upon the autopsy report once again. And suddenly, its not enough evidence for me. Neither is the black, hollow armor and cowl that had been placed on a stand in the corner, as though in reverence.

It is merely armor. Titanium tri-weave fibers with kevlar plates and light absorbing spray paint. Efficient, powerful, perhaps even artistic in a way. But without the man it is merely just that...armor. It needs you to make it the fearsome terror of the Gotham night.

I stand from the desk, autopsy report forgotten on its surface and march across the room, to the several storage containers. One of which holds your body.

My hand reaches out, opening the compartment before roughly yanking out the sliding slab where your body rests.

Your skin is pale. A grayish hue lined with blue veins and blue tinged lips, you are thinner, no doubt due to the organs we have removed, the cross shaped scar over your chest and abdomen can attest to that.

There is a tear in your lower left side, where Killer crock had bitten you, the wound that caused your death.

This is you...it is your face...your body.

But...just the same as it is you...it is still not you.

My final memory of you, of the Batman. Will not be of a human, cold and decomposing in this freezer, unmoving and eyes closed in slumber. No...you are stronger than that...better. And looking upon you now, like this, in this state; I now feel as though I do you a disservice. A disgrace to the Batman I remember.

I remember you as Gotham's Knight, its protector. A warrior of the Justice league. A brother in arms.

A vriendin.

I slide the drawer back into the freezer, and turn my eyes to your armor. It, once lacking in my view, appears now to do a better service to your memory than originally anticipated.

I march forward, reaching out, and clasping the black cowl in my hands and I can almost feel the light drain away from this room as I do. But I feel no fear, it is not cold, or foreboding...merely...darker.

This...this is how you would wish us to remember you I think.

As the hero that you were, not the human that has died.

I stare into the empty lenses of your cowl, feeling the inky blackness close in around me, as the light was sapped out of the room, as the tendrils of shadow come in closer.

I will do this Batman, as best I can...I shall seek to honor your memory.

The Memory of The Batman.

The door to the mortuary hissed open, allowing light, blinding in its intensity to blanket the room. All but this corner I stand in, where your armor rests. Even now the shadows still cling to you.

A technician entered, and I placed your cowl back down upon its resting place, listening to the young woman gasp as her eyes caught sight of my own glowing ones within this darkness.

I turned once the armor piece was safely on its stand, unaware of the blackness that obscured me, clung to me just as they did to you. But I was aware of the woman's sudden fear, her terror before I stepped forward, into the light, away from the darkness.

"Yes Sarah?" I questioned, reading her name tag.

"Uh-I-umm." She paused, swallowing thickly before she visibly composed herself. "The medical examiner will be here soon. To prep the body for transport."

I nodded. "Very well." I hesitated in my next second, but it was only for a moment. "Please ensure that...he is treated well."

She nodded, her eyes taking on a sympathetic light. "Of course sir."

With a nod, I swept past her, leaving the room.

But though I left the physical shadows behind me, you my vriendin shall remain with me in my memories. And through my actions in the future, I hope to honor those memories to the best of my ability.

It is all I can do now. It is...the only expectation of yours right now that remains. That I know I can uphold, and meet. Always.

XXXXXXXXX

Well here ya go, hope you all enjoy it. Next update will be some time next week, probably thursday.

Also, to those of you who keep putting, Update soon. There's kinda no point to doing that. I mean. I'm telling exactly when I'm updating, there's no need to tell me to "update soon." infact its kinda anoying given the fact that I'm even telling you when the next update is coming and that I've stuck to those self imposed deadlines so far.

And also Isis, I asked like 3 different grammar Nazi's. how the hell you spell that name, all three gave me different versions. So I went with the one I was more comfortable with. Since I've already spelled the martians name J'hon J'honz in this fic I'll keep it like that but for any next JL fics I do I'll change it, thanks