"You did what?!" John roared, the man standing up as his chair skidded across the floor behind him.

Flash seemed to shrink in on himself. "What was I supposed to do?" he defended meekly. "You didn't see the way she was looking at me."

"For Pete's sake," the Green Lantern swore, rubbing a hand down his face. "Tell me, what's so hard about telling someone their loved one is dead?"

"I think you indirectly answered yourself," Superman pointed out gently, an attempt to calm down the hostility. "Flash isn't used to delivering that sort of news."

"Then he shouldn't have volunteered for it," John spat out bitterly. "I've had to make those visits, so I know exactly what to expect."

"Then why don't you go do it?" Flash asked.

The man glared at the speedster. "It's still your job. You better tell that poor girl soon before she starts to suspect. The longer this goes on, the worst it will be for everyone involved."

"For now, that narrative can stay," J'onn said. "We have important matters to discuss."

That seemed to placate John for the time being. Superman was going to keep an eye on him though, just in case he decided to veer back to Flash's topic. While John had a point about Flash's volunteering, the Kryptonian didn't see a way it wouldn't be difficult. It had been tough enough talking to the others about what had happened to their friend and comrade; there was no telling what it would be like telling someone that had whatever relationship existed between Batman and Batgirl. It wasn't a romantic one; perhaps a teacher-student one?

"J'onn and I have investigated the two bombing sites in Elko and Erie," John began, reporting on the investigation at hand. "Aside from the extreme amount of damage, we did managed to recover something out of Elko." At this, he hit a button on the remote and the holographic projector turned on.

An image of a ruined piece of technology appeared before the men. At best, Superman guessed it was some sort of transmitter, but he wasn't completely sure.

John began his explanation. "This is a two-way radio receiver, or at least what's left of it. It's custom-made, which eliminates the usual suspects that could carry out an attack like this. It's advanced for being an Earth-based model, but—"

Flash raised a hand as he interrupted, "Earth-based?"

"Yeah, something made on Earth, Flash," the dark-skinned man deadpanned.

"You know, you sound like you're presenting in front of one of your alien bosses and not us."

The Green Lantern paused before he looked sheepish. "Sorry about that, it's an old habit." He then cleared his throat. "Anyways, this receiver is pretty similar to a design used by the government. J'onn and I are still sorting through which federal agencies either uses it or used it at some point, so that part of the investigation is ongoing."

"The range of the receiver, however, is quite wide," J'onn spoke up, continuing the report. "It's user could have been as far as the next state in order to use it, which leads me to believe some modifications have been done to it. Green Lantern tells me most agents of the government need to be in close proximity for their receivers to work, usually the building next to the target."

"At least that's how the movies tell it," Flash remarked.

"Do we have an ID on our suspect?" Superman inquired then, leaning forward in his seat.

"Unfortunately, no," the Martian answered.

"Which brings us to the bombs themselves," John said, switching the image to one of the bombs. "We collected all the ones we were able to disarm, minus the ones Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl chunked into the ocean. They're also a custom job, but a lot of the materials come from a handful of companies. You'll never guess who they're all connected to."

As if proof of that statement, none of the heroes responded, leaving John to look to each of them, waiting expectantly for an answer, but receiving none. "They're connected to Sumatra, each one a shell company, or just a front for the business. They did all the dirty work in ordering the bomb parts, which were then shipped to multiple locations."

"They had to come to one location sooner or later," Flash replied. "They were put together somehow and I don't think they did a different phase of assembly at different locations."

"Got that right, Hot Shot." The commendation made the red-clad man preen in his seat, much to Superman's amusement. "All of the parts and components found their way to a place in Montana."

"Don't tell me, the Una-bomber helped build them."

John's face dropped into one of disapproval. "Quit trying to be funny, Flash."

"Hey, I can't stop what comes naturally, GL."

"What can you tell us about this Montana location?" Superman asked, attempting to get the conversation back on topic.

"Abandoned, though that isn't too surprising." Again, John hit a button on the remote and the hologram changed into a map of the U.S. "However, due to our study of the bombs, we discovered there was a tracking device embedded in the framework."

"Why would someone want a tracking device in a bomb?" Flash questioned. "Seems like a waste of a resource to me."

"Most likely, the mastermind wanted to keep track of where the bombs were placed," J'onn suggested. "In addition, after some extensive research, we discovered that a signal was transmitted once the bomb was defused. We were being watched the entire time."

"Is it something we can track?" Superman immediately asked, nearly rising up out of his seat. If he wasn't mistaken, they could use that same frequency to track where it was sent to.

The smirk on the Lantern's face answered his question before he even said anything. "It is. We have the Watchtower's computer cycling through every satellite that was over the U.S last night. It'll take some time, but we should be able to get a location."

At last, some good news. If this played out the way they wanted, they could find where the Canidite was weaponized before it was scattered throughout the country. Though the number of satellites they'd have to go through may be problematic, they could have this thing settled up within a week.

Suddenly, the doors to the meeting room slid open. As the men turned their heads, they were greeted with the sight of Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl entering the room.

It was good to see Diana striding so confidently. The last time Superman had seen her, she had been an emotional wreck, to put it nicely. He had barely gotten a look at the Amazon Princess before Hawkgirl had ceremoniously thrown him out of the room. It was a weak moment for a person so used to being strong. More importantly, the Kryptonian understood that such moments were not to be shared, especially by those sorts of people. It's why he had made it clear to the others to leave them be.

"You guys have been busy," Hawkgirl commented as she reached her seat at the table, eyes glued to the holographic image being projected. "Mind filling me and Diana on what you've been up to?"

"We've been doing a follow-up investigation to the Canidite bomb threat," J'onn answered her. "So far we have a possible lead with the Canidite itself. We believe we can track it to the person who has been collecting it the last few months."

The Thanagarian gave her colleague a bland look. "Is that it?"

"That is the status of our current progress, yes."

"I gotta admit, I thought you guys would've had more than that."

Now that Hawkgirl mentioned it, Superman had the same feeling. What had seemed like a solid amount of progress wasn't as much as he initially believed. It could have been the way it was presented, but he rather doubted that.

It didn't really take much to figure out why that was. Despite the combined power of the Justice League, they were not investigators by nature. J'onn was a detective in one of his secret identities, but that was assisted by this telepathy. Hawkgirl also held the distinction of a detective as well, but the Thanagarian version had subtle differences as well. Superman was an investigative reporter in his day job, but that didn't delve much further into, say, a murder investigation as much as it did a political scandal. Flash had experience as a forensic expert in law enforcement, but had yet to be put into the field on this case.

In all honesty, Batman had handled this part of the job and was thorough to a fault. It was almost as if he combined the best and most useful aspects of each hero's investigative background and taken it an extra step. He sniffed out the clues they would have missed, found the connection in a plot of intrigue, and discovered their mystery foe's next move before it was even made. Superman had no doubt that if he were still with them, he would have found out much more than they already had.

"Do we have an identity for our suspect?" Diana inquired there, bringing the Kryptonian out of his thoughts.

"Nothing yet," John responded.

The look on the Amazon's face was not pleased. "How have we not obtained this information?" she demanded, her eyes growing more intense.

"Do you have anything you can add to the investigation?" the Green Lantern asked her, receiving only a glare in response. "That's what I thought. I know you're impatient, but our perp has done a damn good job at keeping himself off the grid. The only time he's reared his head was when he told us about his bomb threat. Someone like that isn't going to be easy to track."

"We need to find out who he is before he strikes again," she pressed.

"That's the idea, Diana, but until our leads pan out, we can only do so much."

A cold snap had blown into town overnight. The weathermen had been caught off-guard, not that that was surprising. They were calling for low temperatures for the next day or so and then things should get warmer by the weekend.

In the meantime, there was a chill in the air and Huntress was thankful for her insulated suit. It was nights like these that she was glad she hadn't left this battle-hardened costume in a box in her apartment. The last couple of weeks or so, she had felt a change in wardrobe was warranted, something to reward herself for so many years of crime-fighting. She was thinking of something that showed off her stomach and thigh-high boots.

That was now a summer outfit as far as she was concerned. For now, she was just happy in her full-body suit.

Though the current chill was unexpected, it wasn't the only thing different in Gotham. Crime, for instance, was taking a power nap, so there weren't as many muggings, or bank robberies as normal. It had made the last few nights rather boring, not that that was a bad thing. To be sure, things would start to pick up eventually; this was merely the calm before the storm in her eyes.

Another thing that was different, and perhaps was the more concerning one, was the absence of Batman. For the last week she had been on her own, with the Bat and his Bat-sidekick nowhere to be seen. It wasn't uncommon for Huntress to strike off on her own, or even miss a night due to her day job—those essays weren't going to grade themselves.

However, she had never gone this long without seeing them. It was very worrisome.

And it wasn't as if the Bat had just gotten sick of her hanging out; it was actually surprising he let her hang around him for as long as he had. There hadn't been any reported Bat-sightings anywhere, not by the media, the GCPD, the Birds of Prey, no one at all. Part of the purple-clad vigilante wanted to start asking questions, but even she could see how problematic that would be. If the criminal underworld ever figured out Batman wasn't around, all hell would break loose.

There was a standing precedent for that.

Glancing down the street and back, Huntress felt she had stayed in one location for too long. It was time to move on. Standing up, she reached to her belt and pulled out her grapple, preparing to fire it at the building across the street.

That's when she felt it. It was a presence more than anything. She hadn't heard a sound and since the roof was covered with gravel that was saying something. The corner of her mouth twitched up. It seemed all of her worrying was for nothing.

Turning around, Huntress' smile dropped from her face. If there was anyone that could walk on small rocks and not make a sound, it was Batman; yet, there was no Dark Knight in sight. Instead, there was only Batgirl, her cape wrapped around her lithe body as its ends fluttered in the wind.

Something was seriously wrong here. Ever since she had come onto the scene, Batgirl was rarely, if ever, not around Batman. It was more a choice by the dark-clad man than the girl due to her rather dark past. Her roaming the city alone was damn near unheard of.

"What are you doing here?" she called out to the girl, placing her grapple back into her belt. "Where's your chaperone?"

Batgirl merely shrugged her shoulders as she walked over to Huntress—she didn't even make a sound, damn it. Frowning, the purple-clad woman asked, "Why isn't Batman here?"

The dark-clad girl paused, as if she were searching for the right word to say, not that she would. Huntress had only heard her say a handful of words at best; it was rather galling to her as a teacher to be honest.

However, tonight was full of surprises as she said, "Work."

Huntress raised an eyebrow. "Work? As in his day job?"

She shook her head. Then she pointed up into the sky. "Work."

The dark-haired woman tilted her head back to look at the starry night sky. She honestly wasn't sure what she meant. What did Batman and work have to do with up there? Looking back questioningly at Batgirl, she then saw her take on a pose. It was a familiar one too, with Batgirl holding both of her arms out in front of her, leaning forward as if she were flying. She had seen her students do that at school. They had called it the Superman pose.

That thought caused her to perk her head up. "He's working with Superman and them?" she questioned. "The Justice League?"

She got a sharp nod as a response. Well, that explained a lot. No wonder Batman hadn't been seen; he wasn't even in town. The news had mentioned a bombing, or something recently that the Justice League was somehow involved with. He must have been involved in the investigation.

Which meant he had left Gotham's care in her hands. Well, her and the other vigilantes, but why split hairs? Strange though, he usually made a point of letting someone know he would be unavailable.

Pushing that thought aside, Huntress was starting to get why Batgirl was out on her own. With Batman out of town, that would have left the girl sitting around the house bored. She remembered what it was like being a teenage girl and being told not to go out. It seemed someone was starting to rebel.

Far be it from her to deny a fellow woman her right to fight the man.

Her smirk reappeared on her face. "Alright, Batgirl, I guess it's you and me for the time being. I'm not sure how you got here, and I think it's best for you to keep that a secret lest Big Bat Daddy finds out. So I'll let you crash at my place for the time being."

Again, she got a nod of agreement from Batgirl. This was gonna be interesting. It had been awhile since she had someone stay at her place. She was sure the couch was comfy enough. However, this wasn't going to be a free ride.

Looking serious at Batgirl, Huntress then said, "Now, if you're going to be staying with me, we're gonna be working on your piss-poor vocabulary. Batman may be okay with you saying only ten words, but that's one area he's failing you. I won't be so lenient. Got it?"

She wasn't sure if Batgirl got the gist of what she said, but considering the girl just nodded her acceptance, she took it as her new pupil wanting to give it a try.

"Alright, it's been pretty quiet tonight. I say we call it a night and I'll show you your new digs. Then we're hitting the books hard."

Heh, at least they would be hitting something tonight. Huntress wasn't sure which she found more satisfying: beating up a gangbanger or force feeding learning. Seeing as she had a brand new challenge, she was leaning towards the teaching tonight.

Diana could feel it. It lay just beneath the skin, constantly nervous, twitching. There was a buzzing in her ears that just wouldn't stop. She had been sitting for far too long.

Grief had long since burned itself out, primarily thanks to her winged Sister. Now there was anger simmering, just waiting to be unleashed. Her discipline held her at bay for there was no foe to smite, no obstacle to crush. It left her feeling frustrated and edgy, a caged animal thirsting for freedom.

The problem was that the League had yet to find out who was behind the impending threat. The coward had covered his tracks too well and hidden himself too deep in the shadows. She knew he was out there because she had heard him, heard that confident, sly, egotistical voice of his. He hadn't even attempted to mask himself with a voice distorter. It galled her to think this man thought he was superior to the League.

Worst yet, there was a sense of failure that infested her with each and every passing day. It had been a week since she had demanded results from the rest of her comrades and had been given very little in return. Admittedly, she hadn't taken it well. Her anger had gotten the better of her that day.

Still, time had done very little to salve the festering wound she felt. She had too might time to think...of him. She was willing to admit she was feeling something much different about the late Bruce Wayne, something that was much different than how she felt about the rest of the male members of the League. He could be rude, arrogant, and sometimes downright hostile, but that was the man she had first met. The one she knew now was self-deprecating and humble, still arrogant, but for good reason. He could make her laugh at the oddest of times.

The jazz club flashed into her mind. Her last memory of him, a good one. He had held such promise.

And now it was gone.

"I bet you can't even see the Earth right now."

Diana turned her head, finding Hawkgirl standing in the doorway of the room she was in. The room just happened to be the observatory, which held a window that gave its occupants a view of Earth.

Her Sister was right though, she hadn't seen it. She had been so consumed by her thoughts, she hadn't noticed its beauty. For some reason that didn't alarm her. "How are you doing, Sister?" she decided to ask.

"Tired, bored, about like that," the Thanagarian answered as she walked further into the room. She came to a stop next to the Amazon. "Have you been getting any sleep? You don't look so good."

No, she hadn't been. Glancing to the window, she could just make out her reflection. There were bags underneath her eyes and her face looked slacken. She hadn't been getting any rest, mainly due to the nervous energy that just wouldn't go away.

"I'll be fine," she reassured her friend.

"You sure? Because we've got a mission."

The dark-haired woman's head perked up. "What is it?"

"Lantern thinks he may have traced that bomb signal. Since we're the only three on the Watchtower as of now, he's calling us in to go investigate."

Diana was marching to the door before Shayera had finished. At long last, they were going into battle. She was more than ready for this.

Her enemy better be too.

The doorknob rattled, a hissing sound being made. Slowly, the inner locking mechanism was melted as a hot, green construct burned through it.

The doorknob fell off the door, clattering on the stone patio. John Stewart stopped funneling his will into his ring, the green light disappearing. Pushing against the door, it swung inward, revealing an empty kitchen.

The building was actually a house, one that had a FOR SALE sign on the front yard. The house was supposed to be empty, but John was betting otherwise.

His reasoning: this was the location the bomb signals went while the Justice League defused each and every one. Though it might be for sale, chances were the current owner had made sure no one visited in the last couple of weeks, that owner being their perp.

Striding in, Diana and Shayera behind him, John activated his ring again, a green light illuminating the dark house. Without a word, the three heroes spread out, the two women heading deeper into the house. John, in the meantime, began opening the kitchen cabinets, finding them empty, save for a mousetrap in one. He even checked the dishwasher, it too being empty. The place where the refrigerator went lacked one, the connections sticking out of the wall.

Though he hadn't found anything here, he knew someone had been here. He would have missed it if he hadn't swept his green light across the floor as he made his way to head further into the house. On the linoleum were crumbs. Someone had either made food, or brought it here. While they had dealt with their trash, they didn't bother sweeping the floor.

Exiting the kitchen, John soon found himself in a living room, this one empty save for random wires sticking out of the wall. The floor changed from the linoleum of the kitchen to carpet, which softened his footsteps.

Spotting a hallway, he made his way towards it, stopping when Shayera came out of a doorway. She glanced to him, but didn't say anything, meaning she hadn't found anything. Turning, she headed to the end of the hall and turned to her right. She then opened a door and walked into the next room.

Almost as if this were a poorly-made whack-a-mole, Diana appeared in the hall, emerging from the end of the hall, but on the left side. "Have you found something?" she asked.

"Crumbs, but that's about it," John grunted. "All that confirms is someone was here."

Shayera reemerged then. "All of the rooms are clear," she stated. "There's no one here."

That wasn't too surprising. Onto the next step. Moving to stand in the mouth of the hall, John turned to face the living room and began shining his light all over the room. Though the light didn't visibly change, how he was channeling it did. Instead of lighting up the room, the ring was doing a search on every spectrum imaginable. For instance, footprints appeared on the carpet, a result of a thermal scan. Seeing there were only three sets, it was safe to say those belonged to the Leaguers.

Towards the back of the room, he picked something up. From what the ring was telling him, it was chemical in nature. Frowning, John slowly approached it, seeing an area glowing a brilliant white.

"Find something?" Shayera inquired, the winged woman standing behind him.

"Possibly," he replied before he willed his ring to give him a report on what it had found. The area was stained by some sort of liquid spill, he was told in response, though the chemicals were a compound. Ordering it to find its closest match, it took a moment before he received an answer.

"Lead with coloring," he said out loud. "Paint."

"That's the big discovery? Someone spilled some paint?" Shayera demanded.

"Yet, why don't we see it?" Diana asked. "I know I didn't when I passed through."

"It's must have been the same color as the carpet," John said. "However, lead-based paints aren't produced anymore, much less sold. It's possible someone either managed to get their hands on some very old paint, or they were mixing lead into the paint themselves. Either way, the stain's old, so whoever was mixing it was here a long time ago."

"Why go through that effort, though?" the Thanagarian pointed out. "What use could they have for lead-laced paint?"

John scowled. "Well, considering one of us has X-ray vision, I'd think the lead would go a long way to stop a certain someone's prying eyes."

"So they used this place for more that just a temporary base," Diana said. "They were preparing for their next step."

"It's a shame we don't we don't know what they're ultimate plan is," Shayera grumbled. "All we have are bits and pieces, but nothing definitive."

"Not necessarily," the Amazon responded. "Superman cannot look through lead, correct?"

"Last I checked, yeah."

"Then if one were to hide lead in a place without it, one could always find that lead."

There was a pause before something clicked in the winged woman's head. "So you're saying if we get Superman to look for places he can't see through, we can find these perps." The readhead paused. "I guess that's worth a shot."

"It's not like we have that much else going for us here," John said. Looking to the women, he could see their frustration beginning to show on their faces. He felt the same way honestly. They were damn near following the trail of a ghost who rerouted shipments of an experimental explosive and then produced lead-based paint. None of that was making sense.

It seemed the further they went down this rabbit hole, the less it made sense. Something better had and real soon; this lack of progress was going to start irritating the League's members and that would spell disaster for them. Someone could go off on their own and they'd have another Metropolis on their hands. John didn't think their ghost was above doing that to them, not after it was so successful the last time it was done.

"C'mon, guys, let's get out of here. We've done all we can here."

To (1st) Guest reviewer: Only the future can tell.

To (2nd) Guest reviewer: How does that remind you of Under the Red Hood?