Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that Anonymous Void is posting his story today. It's called Of Earth and Sky and you can find it on his account.

"I'm telling you, there is nothing out there on this Samatra Inc," Hawkgirl said heatedly, her tone rising to dangerous levels.

"And all I'm saying is that it's impossible for an incorporated company to not have some kind of paper trail," John Stewart replied, his own tone beginning to drip with annoyance.

"The one J'onn and I found was barely one at all. Just look at what we found." At this the winged woman indicated the rather paltry amount of sheets of paper on the table. There was maybe a handful—which was being generous—placed in front of the Green Lantern. "There's the incorporation application, but it literally only has the company name on it. It doesn't have an address, contact information, history, who runs the damn thing, nothing. It's almost as if someone rubber stamped it."

"Did you find anything on the history?" Batman asked then, interrupting the brewing conflict. Even through the computer screen, he could tell the two heroes had been irritated with each other, but that didn't mean their dispute had precedent over the case. They could take their fight outside, preferable just outside the airlock.

Because of the work he was doing on his end of the case, Batman was not physically at the meeting. Rather, he was in the Cave, joining in through a wireless signal between the Cave and the Watchtower. Currently, the screen was divided into six different panels, one each of Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Diana, and J'onn. The other two were currently blank due to the absence of Superman and Flash. Though the present four were currently in the same room, a camera was broadcasting each Leaguer from a device at the center of the meeting room table.

"Again, not much," the winged woman admitted. "We found they purchased some buildings in various cities, but nothing that would indicate they were doing a wholesale redevelopment of those locations."

"We did find something interesting regarding the properties, though," J'onn spoke up then. "Each one was being auctioned for redevelopment and Sumatra was the highest bidder in every single case."

"It wasn't even a contest either," Hawkgirl added quickly. "You have your standard range of bids, and then Sumatra nearly doubled what ended up being the second highest bid."

So this company had a lot of cash on hand, yet no obvious way it obtained that money. There was dirty money at play, the Dark Knight could practically smell it. "Anything else?"

"Unfortunately, that's about it."

"Where are these properties of theirs?"

The Martian held up a remote, which activated the holographic projector in the table. For Batman, it turned one of the black panels on, a map of the United States filling it with red dots appearing all over the place. Batman was quick to note, to his relief, that Gotham was not one of those dots. However, the ones that did had no rhyme or reason to them from what he could discern.

"There are twenty six properties that we verified," J'onn reported. "Our suggestion is to check and/or monitor these places for illegal activity."

"Agreed," Stewart said, "except I don't think we have the resources for constant monitoring. At the very least we need to search those places."

He paused for a moment. "Which brings us up to our side of the investigation." The Lantern glanced to the vigilante and Diana. "We managed to obtain records about the Canidite. Eight shipments were made from Ferris Air Force Base to a remote location in Nevada. Someone picked up the crates there and delivered four of those shipments to Midway."

"Which leaves four of the shipments unaccounted for," Hawkgirl summed up. "How large were the shipments?"

"Four crates a piece. So we have sixteen crates of this stuff still out there."

"Possibly at the Sumatra properties." Hawkgirl glanced at the rest of the table. "I'm guessing our next order of business is to investigate those properties."

A sharp beeping from the supercomputer sounded off then. "That may have to wait," Batman said as he reached a hand towards the keyboard, tapping a couple of the keys. Another map appeared on the last remaining panel for him, though on the holographic projector at the Watchtower, it would replace the image J'onn had been using. Currently, it was of a bird's eye view of a desert landscape, though there was a small square towards the right side of the screen. There were a couple of other, smaller shapes next to the square.

"That's the shack," John announced, shifting towards the front of his seat. "And it looks like someone is visiting."

Batman hit another key and the image zoomed in, revealing the smaller shapes to be the tops of trucks. There were moving dots as well, people to be exact. None of the people moved to the shack though, instead congregating towards the back of the trucks.

"It looks like they're moving something from one truck to the other," Hawkgirl remarked as she rested her forearms on the table. "Though I don't see any of them going into the shack."

"They may have been alerted to our presence at Farris," J'onn remarked. "That would accounted for the change in behavior."

"Or they just happened to arrive at the same time," the Thanagarian countered.

"It could be anything," Diana said, "but right now they can lead us to their next destination."

"Should we call in Superman and Flash?" J'onn asked.

"I don't think a sting requires the both of them," John was quick to say. "Superman has plans and I doubt we're going to need him for something like this. We'll keep Flash in reserve for the time being as well."

The group fell silent as they continued to watch the image. It took several minutes, but eventually the trucks took off in different directions, one to the west and the other to the northeast."

"Does Sumatra own anything in either of those directions?" Diana quickly asked. Immediately, Hawkgirl grabbed at her report, flipping through the few pages until she found the one she was looking for. She dragged one of her fingers down the page until she came to a stop.

"Elko, Nevada," she announced. "There's a warehouse there on the south side of the city."

"Then that's where we're headed," John declared as he stood up out of his chair.

"I'll keep an eye on our truck to make sure it's going where we think it's going," Batman spoke, not bothering to move out of his chair. "I'll contact you with any changes."

"Sounds good," the Lantern said, just before the vigilante cut the feed. The satellite image then took up the entire computer screen, enlarging the area as well.

Batman watched it for a time, even after the truck he was following reached a highway and continued on its northeastern direction. He didn't bother with the westbound truck since it was in the direction of Ferris. He'd keep a satellite on it just in case though. "Computer, highlight fastest route from subject's vehicle to Elko, Nevada," he commanded. Immediately, the road turned a brilliant purple.

With that done, it was best that he prepare his jet. Though using the Watchtower's teleporter was faster, he much preferred not having his atoms ripped apart and reassembled in an allegedly correct order. Once he was sure the jet was ready, he'd take off.

However, once he turned his chair around, he came to an immediate stop. A few steps away stood Cassandra, dressed in her all-black ensemble she had come to like. Despite the fact that he wore black, the vigilante was starting to wonder if he should encourage the girl to wear other colors. Maybe something with red, or the like.

That thought was pushed aside as the young woman shoved a book in front of his face, causing him to instinctively lean back. It took Batman a moment to realize it was her writing lesson book. It was something he had found to help the girl work on her language skills, or lack thereof. Currently he could make out a jagged scrawl from the pencil Cassandra had used, spelling out words like CAT, HELP, and UP.

Ignoring the handwriting, Batman took the book and studied the page. Though there was a League mission in progress, this was more important. It wasn't like his presence was that necessary at this juncture. He then looked to the girl and said, "Give me your pencil," which she did. He then flipped the page and wrote down WORK. Turning the book around, he then said, "Say the word."

Cassandra stared at him, a serious look on her face. "Wooooo," she said. "Woooooo."

Batman continued to gaze at her.

"Weeeeerrr. Wer...cah. Wercah."

"You're close. Keep trying."

"Weeeeercaah."

This had been the latest word they had been studying and so far it had been tripping her up. It was actually starting to frustrate her with how little progress she had made.

Cassandra had once thrown a fit about it, throwing the book across one of Wayne Manor's many rooms, and stormed off. The dark-clad man had allowed it at the time, though he found that may have been the wrong thing to do. For the next couple of days she resisted her lessons until he tried to draw out the source of her frustration.

For someone in which fighting came so naturally, the fact she was struggling so hard and making so little progress in another was too much for her to handle. She was almost at the point where she would be working on short, simple sentences, but she had yet to master simple, single words. The fear that she would fail was suffocating.

Not for the first time did Bruce feel that maybe he was handling this situation wrong.

The issue came that he didn't trust anyone to not ask questions about the girl, anyone that could genuinely help her anyways. There would be questions about how she got that way, where had Bruce Wayne found her, why he had taken her in. That would inevitably lead into questions that hinted that perhaps he had caused the girl's affliction, especially if he refused to answer. It was just a bad scenario that he wanted to avoid at all costs.

"Wooooork."

Batman perked his head up and Cassandra immediately stopped. "Again," he told her.

"Wooooork."

Faintly, the corner of his mouth twitched up into a small smile, which in turned caused the girl to light up. "Wooork," she tried again. "Woork."

"Keep practicing," he told her. "I have some business with the League tonight, so I'm giving you the night off. When I get back, we'll review."

"Wooork."

Batman stood up, placing a hand on Cassandra's head and patting her. Moving past her, he headed for the jet, the girl continuing her practice.

"Woooork. Wooooooork."

"You know, we never go out much," Oliver Queen said.

"That's probably because we don't live in the same city," Dinah replied.

"And yet, here you are, Star City, with the creme de la creme of the social scene. It only took, what, twenty calls to get you here?"

Dinah smiled before she took a sip of her champeagne. "Twenty two and you flying your private jet out to pick me up."

Which explained why Dinah Lance was in Star City to begin with. Ever since they first worked together taking down that crazy scientist with the Man-Bat serum—and subsequently learning the other's secret identity—they had kept in touch far more than either blond had expected. Ollie had figured he'd be giving her a few calls before it slipped his mind.

That hadn't happened and for some reason he wasn't sure if it actually would. For some reason he found he rather enjoyed bugging this Gothamite, more so than the socialites he had hobnobbed in Star City.

"You know, when I make two calls, I expect a special service," the blond man muttered to himself. "Forget the actual plane trip."

"Oh, you're expecting a little something sweet?" Dinah asked coyly, which startled him. He hadn't thought he said that that loud.

"Sweets are bad for you," he quickly covered. "Physical exercise, on the other hand, is much healthier for you."

"I'm pretty sure you know what my workout regiment is. I highly doubt anything you bring to the table is going to top that."

"You never know if you don't try."

"Sorry, buster, but I have a rule when it comes to that exercise you're looking for: never before three dates or when Aunt Flo is visiting."

"Oh, you have an Aunt Flo too," Ollie remarked. "That seemed to be a very popular name for parents back in the day. Never realized Flo was such a popular name."

Dinah leveled him with a dubious gaze. "I know you got the reference, don't play dumb."

Had he said that out loud? Crap. Fix it! Fix it! Be clever! Be...You! "Who said I was playing?"

"Rule two: never date dumb guys."

Ollie raised an eyebrow at that. "How long have you had that rule?"

"As of eight seconds ago."

"Fair enough." This time, the blond billionaire drank from his own glass. There were plates on the table too, but the food had long since been consumed. They were just wasting time getting drunk on passable champagne, mostly because the place didn't serve beer and Dinah had refused all of their wine selections. To be honest, a pint would've been nice on this warm night. Maybe this gal was onto something.

"Tell ya what, since it's just the two of us, why don't I show you the city?" Ollie asked her once he set his glass down. "You showed me your town; I'm thinking it's my turn now."

It was Dinah's turn to raise an eyebrow. "I take it that's an exciting time."

"Well, we don't have guys wearing skull masks or lawyers that go nuts with half their faces burned off, but we manage. I'm pretty sure a bunch of your old mob families headed this way; you might recognize a few faces. Thanks for that, by the way."

"Hey, if they didn't come to your city, you wouldn't have an excuse to dress like Robin Hood."

That caused the blond man to roll his eyes. "Everyone goes to the Robin Hood comparison. Why does everyone do that?"

"Oh, I don't know, it might have something to do with the hat. I doubt it's the bow, though. Then there's all that green; I mean, you'd fit so much better in Sherwood Forest than this place." A smirk appeared on the woman's face. "Tell me though, is there a Maid Marian? I don't want to be stepping on a rich girl's expensive shoe."

Damn it, he did it again. His inner monologue was not staying on the inside. Still, those comparisons were getting a bit old. Though, he had to give it to Dinah, the Maid Marian bit was new.

"No, no, there's no Marian," he finally chucked, the fingers of one hand gently rubbing his drinking glass. "This thief hasn't stolen a damsel's heart just yet."

They fell into a comfortable silence then. Neither of them spoke, only moving to take a sip of their disappearing drinks. Ultimately, it was Dinah that broke their silence. "You said something about showing me the town. I think I'll take you up on that."

Ollie raised a hand up, two of his fingers waving to a nearby waiter. "Check, please."

"You know, one of these days these villains will stop using abandoned warehouses," John said, staring down at said warehouse. "It's pretty much a cliche at this point."

"You do realize that's something Flash would've said," Hawkgirl pointed out.

"Yeah, realized it as soon as I said it," he grumbled. "When is Batman supposed to get here?"

"He's in route," Diana answered him. The four heroes had taken cover on the roof of a nearby building, keeping surveillance on the expected location of their suspects. The Amazon had been keeping in contact with the Dark Knight, whom it seemed had opted for aerial transport rather than the use of their teleporter. It wasn't like he hadn't used it before, but he had a preference for not using it when he had the choice. She found it humorous to say the least.

However, that was delaying his arrival time by hours. While their suspects had yet to arrive, they could do so at any moment. If she was honest, she was becoming anxious at his absence. If the truck arrived here before he did, they would have to go in without him. They were fully capable of storming a meeting of criminals, don't get her wrong, it would just be the following investigation that required his expertise.

In the meantime, she listened to her two comrades converse. "When they do arrive, we're going to need to cut off all of their exits. The dock is our primary one," John said.

"I will ensure their vehicles are inoperable," J'onn volunteered.

"There's also a side entrance as well," Diana pointed out. "I'll ensure there is no escape from that quarter."

John nodded. "Which leaves me and Hawkgirl—"

"Who will take point," the Thanagarian finished for him. She even smirked at the scowl he gave her. Diana couldn't help but smile at their antics. "What? Someone has to."

"Fine, we'll take point," the Green Lantern said. "Knowing Batman, he'll take a less direct approach, so we'll let him do that when he gets here."

"Good planning."

Again, John gave her a look that said he was not amused. Before he could verbally respond, headlights caught his attention, causing him to look away from the winged woman. A truck was pulling up to the warehouse, coming to a stop. Two men in military uniforms jumped out of the back of the truck and hurried around it to the loading dock door, opening it. The truck pulled in with the men following after it, the door shutting itself a few moments later.

"I guess that's our cue," the Green Lantern said. His green aura enveloped his body and he rose off of the ground. "Everyone to their positions."

"Don't you just love it when he tries to take command?" Hawkgirl remarked to Diana. The sarcasm in her winged sister's voice did not escape her.

Diana merely shook her head, a small smile on her face before she took lifted up into the air. Feeling the breeze blow against her face and body, she flew around the warehouse in search of the side entrance she had mentioned earlier, finding it easily. Descending, she landed right in front of the door.

Immediately, she saw a large padlock and chain tightly keep the door locked. The dark-haired woman merely took hold of the lock, staring at it for a moment before she wrapped her fingers around it and squeezed. The metal of the padlock twisted and crumpled beneath her strength. With a jerk, she ripped the deformed lock from the chain, causing the links to slide from the handle and fall to the ground.

Opening the door, the Amazon slipped into the building. She was immediately greeted by large wooden crates, which were optimal for cover. Immediately, she crouched behind them, peeking around them to get a visual of the room. As one would expect, it was a very large room, with long panels of windows that formed a ring along the walls, close towards the ceiling.

There wasn't much in terms of storage, however. While there were a few crates in her area, the rest of the place was wide open. She could clearly see the truck towards the closed dock door, where several men were unloading the familiar green crates. One...two… she mentally counted. Three...four…

All four boxes were there, as expected. The uniformed men—ten by her count—carried the boxes further into the room, stopping approximately in the center. Though she followed their movements, she couldn't help but notice J'onn's transparent form phasing through the large door. He never lost his translucency as he disappeared from sight behind the truck. Diana had no doubt the Martian was ensuring the truck was no longer of use. That just left John and Shayera's initial strike.

"Is this all of them?" one of the men asked as he set his box down, receiving a few nods as answer. "What's the next part?"

"Not sure," another replied. "We're supposed to meet someone here, though."

That was when a green light came from one of the long paneled windows and then shattered, sending pieces of glass flying all over the room. The men cried out as they flinched, raising arms up to cover their heads and faces from the shards.

That was when John and Hawkgirl floated through the window, the former casually holding his ring hand out in front of him, the latter with one hand on her hip, her mace held up with one hand with the weapon's head resting on her shoulder. "Sounds like we're the ones you're supposed to meet," John announced cockily.

"Ice 'em!" one man shouted and multiple guns were pulled out. Diana wistfully wondered why Man always fell into the same tactics. She could have predicted the moment the men saw a threat, they would pull out their firearms and begin shooting.

John immediately formed a large, round shield in front of him and Hawkgirl just as the first bullets were fired. Even from where she lay in wait, she could see the sparks as the bullets collided and ricochet off the green construct.

That was when Hawkgirl dropped from the air, doing so headfirst. Her wings flared out and she swooped under the construct, heading right for the gunmen. Holding her mace out in front of her, she began to twirl it in a circle before her face, spinning it faster and faster. Two of the shooters had turned their sights to her the moment they saw her charging at them and opened fired. Bullets clanged off the Nth metal mace until she rammed right into the two, knocking them both off their feet as she swooped by.

That was when Diana stood up from her hiding place, uncoiling her lasso. With practiced ease, she sent the golden rope whipping through the air, it's end wrapping around one of the gunmen's arms. Grasping the lasso tightly with both hands, she then pulled hard on the rope, forcing the man to come flying through the air towards her, screaming as he did so.

Diana ducked to a side, twisting her body as she did so. The man flew by her right where she had been previously standing before colliding with the wall, immediately stopping his yelling. He then dropped to the floor in a heap.

With a flick of her wrist, the golden lasso released the unconscious man, returning to her as it coiled itself in her hand. An alarm went off in her head then, causing the Amazon to whip around, her forearm raised before her. It was excellent timing on her part as a bullet struck her bracer. Immediately, she began moving her arm up and down, turning it at different angles each time as she blocked bullet after bullet as they were fired at her.

That was when Hawkgirl came flying in again, plowing into another gunman, which she wrapped her arms around. She then lifted him right off the floor and carried him away, the guy crying out in surprise. His scream grew louder a moment later as he was dropped to the floor, landing on it hard.

By then, the remaining gunmen were turning their guns onto the two women. This turned into a boon for the heroes as John fired a beam of light, which spread out at a point about their heads. A dome formed from the beam, encircling the men and trapping them inside.

"I highly recommend you don't fire," the Lantern warned them as he floated down towards them. In spite of this warning, the men opened fired. The gunfire was brief as the bullets ricocheted off of the green construct, striking the men in their legs and arms, immediately causing them to either fall to the floor or drop their weapons.

"Told ya."

A shuffling sound caught Diana's ear then. Turning her head, she saw the man Hawkgirl had dropped to floor back on his feet; however, instead of attacking them, he was limping towards the truck as fast as he could go, his head constantly turning to look at the three heroes, then to the truck, then back. During one of his looks, he missed seeing J'onn emerged from the floor a short distance in front of him and to a side.

The Martian then solidified and held out an arm at shoulder height. The fleeing man never saw it as he ran right into the arm and was clotheslined, his legs swinging up before he dropped to the ground on his back again, only this time he didn't get back up.

"Well, that was easy," Hawkgirl commented as she descended to the floor, landing gracefully on her feet. One could see she looked quite bored with the fight, not that Diana blamed her. There had been a lack of stimulation in this encounter.

"Are any of them still conscious?" J'onn asked as he walked towards the group.

John allowed his construct to disappear, allowing access to the six men huddled on the floor, gripping their arms or legs, and in one instance both. "I think there's one or two that could answer a couple of questions."

"I wouldn't bother with them."

The four Leaguers froze in place. Heads began turning as eyes searched for the source of the voice. "Who was that?" Hawkgirl demanded as she began to grip her mace tightly.

"My name is of little consequence to you, Alien," the voice retorted, which only made the Thanagarian scowl. "Seeing as you all are about to die, it's really a waste of breath."

"If you're talking about your henchmen, I highly doubt they're going to be the ones to do us in," John responded. "You could say they're all incapacitated."

"I was expecting as much. Unfortunately for you, I also knew you'd be coming here at some point, or another, so I made a few arrangements. As you are aware, I have the experimental Canidite in my possession. Thanks to you, I do not have nearly as much as I did three days ago."

"You're very welcome," Hawkgirl replied snarkily.

"There!" J'onn exclaimed as he pointed a finger. Following the Martian's gesture, Diana soon saw a loudspeaker hanging from the wall. So that was the source of the voice.

"Because of your intrusion, I've had to take certain steps: for instance, the very building you are standing in is set to explode in the next sixty seconds. While I have no doubt you will be able to escape the blast, most likely with my men in your care, there is a small complication for you. It has come to my attention that someone has tried to gain access to a few properties that I own. Because of your interference, they too are wired to explode, with the Canidite no less. You have one hour to disarm these bombs, or the Continental U.S. will experience a panic not unlike the 9/11 attacks.

"By my watch, you know have thirty seconds to escape and defuse my bombs. Good luck."

"I've got these men," John roared as his ring came to life. Tendrils of green light fired out in all direction, racing towards the wounded and unconscious men and forming green bubbles around them.

Diana then shot up into the air, both of her fists out in front of her. As fast as she could, she raced up to the ceiling and burst through it, leaving a large hole in her wake. Hawkgirl and J'onn followed her through the hole with John bringing up the rear, his collection of gunmen following behind them.

The moment they were out in open air, the four took off flying as fast as they could. They may have gotten a couple of blocks before the warehouse erupted into a ball of flames, a thunderous roar blasting out. The force of the explosion plowed into the heroes from behind, pushing them further through the air as they fought for control.

Turning around as she slowed to a stop, Diana stared in awe at the large fireball, a thick cloud of smoke rising up into the night's sky. Great Hera!

"That crazy son of a bitch!" John shouted. "He wired that place with Canidite!"

"Which means he wasn't bluffing," Hawkgirl replied. "We need to find those bombs of his—now." She then looked to J'onn. "J'onn, can you return to the Watchtower and search that list of properties? Those are the only places we're going to find bombs."

"I can," the Martian said.

"Also get it touch with Flash and Superman," John told him. "We're going to need their speed for this, so the sooner the better. Contact Batman as well and inform him of what's going on."

"Understood."

"Hawkgirl," the Lantern then turned his attention to the winged woman. "Are there any possible locations you can remember? Any in this region?"

The Thanagarian fell into deep thought. "I think there's one in Carson City. Pretty sure there's one or two in California as well. We can start with those."

"I'll get the one in Carson City," John volunteered, "right after I drop these guys off. You and Diana start making your way to California. When J'onn gets his hands on the list, he can give you additional directions."

Without waiting for additional instruction, Diana began flying west, Hawkgirl catching up with her a second later. This was not the mission the Amazon had expected, but there was no choice but to adapt. If they didn't, there was no telling how this country would react to a series of what would appear to be terrorist attacks.

Of course, these wouldn't be normal bombs either. Aside from the material used to make them, their distance from populated areas was also a concern. If any of these bombs were close to civilian populations, the number of casualties would be devastating. She would do everything within her power to stop it.

The Justice League would ensure it.

To Guest: So far I wouldn't say so. Could be coincidence.