Blue Hawk stopped a group of young black men down the street and asked for their IDs. They haven't done anything, however, they know precisely what Blue Hawk would do if they reacted poorly, so they did as asked. One of the youngsters questioned him.
"What did we do, man?"
"Careful there." Blue Hawk said, threatening to take out his batom. All of the youngsters put their hands up.
"There's a white guy over there breaking into a car and you didn't even notice."
Blue Hawk took a look, a man wearing a brown trench coat was indeed trying to break into a car. Blue Hawk gave the IDs back to the youngster and told them to take care when he approached the man. Getting closer, he saw the man had brown hair and was trying to open the car's door with a radio antena.
"Hey, there." Blue Hawk calmly said. "You have a problem?"
"Yes," the man said. "This is my car. It seems I locked the door with the keys inside." He quickly put a card from his pocket and showed it to Blue Hawk. "I'm a P.I, I was on my way to meet a client to discuss a case."
"You won't open this door with a tiny antenna. Trust me, I caught many sewer rats trying to pull that off and it doesn't work. Do you have insurance? If you're in a hurry you may want to break the window."
Blue Hawk asked him to step back a little and promptly broke the window with his palm. He took the car keys from inside the car and turned off the alarm. He gave the keys back to the man, glad to help.
"Thank you." The driver said.
"Here to save and protect."
Green Lantern flew over the docks and found a battered Stormfront lying on the ground. He didn't need to be Batman, to know that she got destroyed in the fight.
"I found Stormfront. Looks like she lost the fight." Green Lantern told the League through his com.
"Is she alive?" Wonder Woman asked.
"I'll check her pulse." GL said as he lowered himself to the ground.
He got closer to Stormfront and put his fingers on her neck. She screamed and tried to bite him, but was too weak.
"She's alive." John said completely deadpan.
"We're going to need a way to isolate, Ryan from her." Diana said.
"Looks like we found a reason. How did her boyfriend react during the fight?" Green Lantern said as he created a stretcher construct underneath Stormfront.
"He did nothing, from what Superman told me he seemed to be envious of his freeze breath." Diana said.
John let out a small chuckle as he got up into the air.
"What about Maeve?" GL asked with Stormfront in tow.
"She was almost killed by the demon. A person in the crowd insulted her, but I think that person was being influenced by someone." Wonder Woman said.
"What makes you say that?" Green Lantern said as he arrived at the tower.
"The man had no recollection of what he had just said. We tried to tell Maeve, but she blew us off." Diana told him.
"Don't be too hard on yourself, Diana. She's kind of a downer, I saw her get over thirty cases of hard liquor just the other day." GL said as medical personnel arrived, a stressed-out Ashley was in tow.
"What happened?!" She asked.
"Apparently, Stormfront went off on her own. I don't know who did this, but they went to town on her." Green Lantern said.
Ashley began to pull on her hair, taking a lock off to John's surprise.
"You might want to consider getting a stress ball." He told her.
"I'm good, really." She told him.
"Where's Homelalnder?" Green Lantern said.
"He's in his room." Ashley told him.
Blue Hawk walked the same neighborhood he patrolled earlier. A black man tried to break into a car with a radio antenna. He was about the same age as the driver Blue Hawk met earlier, and wore a similar brown trench coat. Blue Hawk approached him.
"Step away from the car." Blue Hawk commanded.
"This is a misunderstanding." The black man calmly said. "I locked my car with the keys inside. I have documents."
He quickly reached into his pocket to take his documents. Before he could even take his hand out, Blue Hawk hit the man's face with his baton. The man dropped on the floor the exact second, Blue Hawk stomped him while he was already down. He held the man's arm and broke it when he tried to take his hand out of his pocket.
"That's enough." Someone said. Blue Hawk looked back and saw an Earth-One hero, Mr. Terrific. Metallic orbs with red T's flew next to him, Mr. Terrific wore a leather jacket with "Fair Play" written on it.
"That's a carjacker." Blue Hawk explained. "I was protecting myself!"
"I wasn't talking to you. Manhunter, that's enough, we got him." Terrific replied.
The black man got up, and his wounds immediately healed as his eyes lit up red. The man transformed into the Martian Manhunter before Blue Hawk's eyes, still holding the documents proving the man he was talking to did own the car.
"You set me up." Blue Hawk said, staring at the camera inside Mr. Terrific's orb. "What the fuck is that supposed to prove, that I do my job!?"
"When we met earlier," J'onn said. "You helped me break the window to get the keys. The only difference was the human form I chose."
Blue Hawk stared into the camera. Speechless.
A-Train lay down on his bed, he had just finished treatment for his frostbite. Despite this, his mood was quite sour. An hour ago he had just learned that someone filmed the fight with the Supervillains and posted it on YouTube. Upon seeing that he recklessly destroyed his phone. He heard a knock on the door and saw it was his brother, Nathan. He smiled at his brother. It had been a year since their disagreement.
"So, now you're doing the Church of the Collective's private security?" Nate asked.
"Never needed a direction, I just ran." A-Train said. Surprised to see his brother. "How did you know I'd be here?"
"I'm your brother." Nate hesitantly sat closer to A-Train as he thought what to say. "And I still know a few people. Those guys fucked you up bad?"
"No, the doctors said I'll heal fast."
"Good. So you're okay enough to skip to the part where I accept your apology and can come back to the crib with me. Sure the boys would love to see you, man."
They hugged.
"Sure you're fine?" His brother said, his tone seeming to be less jovial and more concerned.
"Yeah, I'm fine." A-Train lied.
"I saw the video." Nathan said.
"Look, it's all good. You can't win every fight, you taught me that." A-Train said.
Nathan seemed confused by what A-Train had just said.
"No, I'm not talking about that. It's about the Flash." He said.
"What?" A-Train questioned.
"You really want to see that?" Nathan asked hesitantly.
"Show me the video!" A-Train demanded.
Nathan sighed as he took out his phone and showed it to his younger brother. It was a video of the Flash managing to fix and build over fifty houses that were destroyed across different countries in under one hour.
A-Train looked gobsmacked.
"This motherfucker is like a living cartoon." A-Train said.
"Yeah, I've been talking to Coach Brink. He said some of the guys who are speedsters are giving up on the supe career and word has it the most famous speedsters are on to announce their long-term sabbaticals…" Nathan told him.
A-Train of course knew by "long-term sabbaticals" he meant "retirement".
"So what you came here wanting to know if I am going to?" A-Train questioned his brother defensively.
"No!" Nathan defended himself.
"Well guess what The A-Train doesn't end for anybody!" He said.
"Reggie your heart is still not good. Be realistic, man, even if you pump the fuck out of yourself with that blue shit you won't beat that guy. No one can." Nathan told him.
"This is the part where you leave." A-Train told his brother.
Slightly disheartened, Nathan walked out the door.
"I'm sorry!" A-Train pleaded as he saw his brother leaving.
Ashley showed Blue Hawk the video of him approaching Martian Manhunter. The video presented a side-by-side difference between how he approached him as a white and a black man. Already counting 2.5 million views on Youtube. Catherine Colbert, Justice League representative, sat next to Blue Hawk but with her chair as far from him as possible.
"This looks really bad." Ashley said.
"They set me up." Blue Hawk angrily said while moving his finger. "They set this whole thing up to make me look bad! I fucking work for you and now the Justice League comes after me? I thought we were on the same side."
"This is not how the League works." Catherine explained. "If one of our members was acting as disgusting as you, he'd be removed immediately."
"Fuck you!"
"Blue Hawk," Ashley said, with her pre-programmed corporative tone. "In light of the newest occurrences, we think it's better if you move on from Vought."
"Are you firing me?"
"No! It's not a termination, it's a disconnection with the company."
"What's the fucking difference?"
"Please, don't be so distressed. You'll be missed." Ashley pleaded.
"Not by people from Trenton." Catherine said.
Blue Hawk furiously got up and pointed his finger at Catherine.
"You bunch of pacifist shitheads think you know so much better! Wanna know why I treated the Martian like that? See the reports of domestic abuse from the past year and what the people committing that looked like! Black people commit more crimes than white people, it might not be politically correct to say but that's a fact! And you make me the bad guy because I protect them from themselves when I know they need it? See the crime stats in black neighborhoods if you don't believe me, it's a statistical fact that the people carrying guns and joining gangs are black. You want me to ignore that when I'm putting my life at risk? No. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you…!"
Blue Hawk almost raced violently toward Catherine. Before he did anything, his face was hit by a baton made of green light. Blue Hawk fell against and broke Ashley's desk. His jaw was broken and blood leaked from his mouth. Green Lantern John Stewart stood in the doorway with his ring pointed at Blue Hawk.
"Are you okay, Catherine?" Green Lantern asked.
"I'm fine." Catherine said, standing up and shaken by the event.
Green Lantern created a construct stretcher and took Blue Hawk out of the office.
"Second one I have to drop at the nursery today. Sorry about your desk."
He left with Blue Hawk, leaving Catherine and Ashley alone in the office with an awkward silence between them. Ashley's desk was wrecked but she didn't even notice, just stood there scratching her head with a dead expression on her face.
"You're alright?" Catherine asked.
Ashley breathing got harder and faster, her lips shaking until she let go of a desperate scream and ripped a curl of her hair.
"Do you people know what I have to deal with in this job?" Ashley asked. "Because right now, everything you did was fuck me in the ass! Literally in Green Lantern's case!" Catherine looked back at the door where John Stewart just left in a surprising way. "Not him, Guy. I don't have the luxury of living in magic land with angels and unicorns, things here are hard, you know, you have to know it's not safe for me."
"I do." Catherine admitted. "And I'm sorry. Still, we couldn't let a guy like that walk around your world. Listen, it seems like you're taking this all harshly, and knowing you're probably my version from Earth-Seven, I think I should give you the heads up."
"Heads up on what?"
"Batman has been quietly investigating some of your C-listers. Nobody huge, but he found some pretty bad stuff, I think it's on TV right now." Ashley quickly turned on the TV on a Vought-owned channel. "Our TV."
She changed the channel to WGBS-TV where she found a redhead anchorwoman presenting news with an image of Vought Tower next to her face and the headline 'CRISIS ON EARTH-SEVEN: MURDER AND DEPRAVATION'
"Hello, I'm Lana Lang with WGBS News." The anchorwoman said. "Official documents have been released by Justice League Unlimited regarding crimes committed by the heroes from Earth-Seven. To those of you who are watching, you may want to take the children out of the room for this segment. It seems like Earth-Seven has a yearly event known as "Herogasm", an orgy frequented by their 'heroes'. A list of sex workers who disappeared during the event and medical reports of those seriously injured has been released alongside a list of superheroes responsible for injuries, cripplings, and even deaths during sexual intercourse. No supe has been brought to justice yet with the exception of Ice Princess as the victim Seth Reed agreed to come forward."
"Fucking traitor!" Ashley shouted to the TV. Catherine gave her a card. "What's that?"
"My therapist's card, I really recommend her."
Butcher tried to free himself from his bonds to no avail.
"What do you think they're going to do with us?" Hughie asked.
"Nothing." Butcher said trying to free himself.
"Kimiko is still out there." Mother's Milk said.
"For all, we know so are the Ninja and Zombie." Hughie brought up.
"Deathstroke and Solomon Grundy, I know Kimi will be fine." Frenchie said.
"Hughie we're going to get out of here, I promise you." Annie reassured him struggling to break free from her shackles.
"Look I don't know about you, but none of those guys didn't exactly scream ordinary gangsters. If we're lucky they'll just shoot us." Hughie said.
"Quit you're bitching." Butcher told him.
Some more time passed, as the hallway lights abruptly turned off.
A man screamed in fear and/or pain. They heard the door open and could faintly see a man holding onto his arm. Annies' eyes began to glow and revealed that the man's arm was torn off. Kimiko burst through the door smashing it down to pieces. She tackled the guard and tore his head off. She searched through the man's pockets and found a set of keys. She went over to Annie and put them in. They went up to the others and tore off the ropes holding them captive.
A-Train sat next to The Deep's hospital bed because if there was any way he would feel better it would be by being next to the biggest loser he knew. The Deep was confined to a hospital bed, and his face was covered in bruises and cuts. Although the most obvious sign of injury would be the large cast around his pelvis. A-Train had long tuned out everything the Deep was telling him.
"Thanks for listening, man. I appreciate it." The Deep said.
"No problem." A-Train lied.
They heard a knock on the door.
"You have a visitor." The Nurse said leaning out of the door.
It was Homelander, the last man any of the two men in the room wanted to see. Despite the friendly smile, the lifeless look in his eyes betrayed it.
"Hey! Guys! How are you?!" He asked them.
None of them spoke up.
"Come on! Speak up! I really want to hear from the future two members of the Justice League." Homelander said.
"Really?" The Deep asked sounding genuinely hopeful.
A-Train turned and gave him a look of annoyed anger.
"So I saw the video. About how you two got your asses kicked by a gang consisting of an Eskimo, a figure skater, and three other guys in fucking stupid costumes." He told them smiling proudly.
Both A-Train and Deep remained silent out of fear.
"While this happened Maeve nearly got killed by some kind of monster and Stormfront got…" Homelander struggled to finish the sentence. His smile now turned to a look of genuine grief.
"Hurt." Homelander said.
A-Train tried to hide the small grin on his face, but Homelander seemed to notice.
"What was that?" Homelander asked gazing deeply at A-Train with subdued anger.
"Nothing it's a tragedy, I mean at least Noir is alright." A-Train brought up hoping that would appease Homelander.
Homelander marched up to A-Train.
"Yes, it is a tragedy. You want to know what else is?" Homelander said walking up to A-Train.
Homelander put a hand on A-Train's ribs. His grip was tight, one slight squeeze and A-Train could feel his ribs could snap like twigs.
"That the fastest man in our world is not you. It's the guy from their world. Someone who blows you out of the fucking water even when you were in your prime." Homelander said.
A-Train couldn't muster the will to speak at the moment.
"No, go on say something. I really want to hear what you say." Homelander said.
"You know I can't do that. I mean there are other speedsters." A-Train lied.
"Yeah and I've heard they all quit because of the Flash. So when are you going to quit?" Homelander told him.
"I won't!" A-Train defiantly.
"Really?" Homelander asked.
"Yeah, I'm not stopping because of some red-clad asshole!" A-Train said.
"I mean I think we're forgetting the elephant in the room." Homelander said gently poking A-Train in the heart.
"Trust me this isn't going to stop me! You know it!" A-Train said.
"Alright, I'll tell you where they are holding the celebration they plan on doing for The Flash for building all those houses." Homelander said.
"Tell me, I'll show him up at his party!" A-Train said.
The Godolkin University School of Crime Fighting held an event on the Flash's homage for building several houses around the world. A-Train entered the event, and he knew he didn't need his name on the list. He saw the Flash speaking to a TV crew, and he held a trophy in his hand.
"Flash," said the reporter holding a mic with a camera pointed at the Flash. "We are all very grateful for the things you did but what do you have to say about all the speedsters giving up? Or to all the brands dropping sponsorships because Earth-Seven public lost interest in regular speedsters?"
"I don't know what to answer but I won't stop helping people because of this." The Flash answered. "I'm a superhero, man, I'm not an athlete. Being the fastest man alive was never a championship title to me. I feel sorry for these guys working hard, I value hard work but we're not in the same league here."
A-Train watched from far, those last words pinched him. Eventually, his presence was noticed by the guests and press, and he could hear people calling his name. A-Train smiled and walked past the crowd giving high-fives.
"Here comes the A-Train!" He exclaimed as he approached the Flash. "Hey, congratulations on the award. I actually won five of these." He added, pointing to the trophy.
"Thanks. I just saw how the supervillains in those Middle Eastern countries kind of ruined housing over there and I had time on my hands." A-Train remembered those supervillains, he remembered he was the one who juiced them up with Compound-V by Homelander's orders. "I don't do it for these trophies or anything."
"And you think I do?" A key turned on A-Train, and he started to lose his composure. "Is that so? Justice League is so great and us douchebags are just in it for the money and the fame."
"Dude, come on, you're putting words in my mouth."
"Wanna talk about what words came out of your mouths?" At this moment, some of the cameras noticed the animosity and started filming. A-Train saw that and started talking to the cameras. "You know what this guy said when I asked him about his powers? He said his powers are not being fast, it's breaking the laws of physics through superspeed." A-Train said the last sentence like the biggest bullshit he'd ever heard. "Can you get more cocky than that shit?"
A-Train could hear his own heartbeat, his breathing was getting heavier and heavier.
"Hey, you need help." The Flash asked. "The Rogues did a number on you, you should be in bed."
"I don't need your help! I'm A-Train! I earned my place as the fastest man alive, I'm not some random who got hit by a lightning bolt…!"
A-Train could barely speak any more words. He was sweating, there were lights on him and the cameras still recording. He ran.
A few seconds later, The Flash caught A-Train before he fell on the ground of an alley 15 miles away from Godolkin University.
"I got you, I got you." The Flash said. "I'm taking you back to the hospital."