The rest of the week consisted mainly of failed attempts at decoding the alien language. Bruce had only managed to translate two more letters by the time Hal returned to Earth. They weren't of any use in learning new words, and honestly Bruce was becoming highly irritated with the entire project. As a distraction, he had started redesigning a few of his gadgets and vehicles... Even this didn't help him forget the fact that he was failing.

"You saw the alien?" Hal asked eagerly when he arrived in the Batcave. "What did you learn?"

Bruce walked right passed the Green Lantern as if he wasn't there at all. He stopped in front of the Batmobile and popped the hood, starting to tinker with the engine. "Not enough."

Hal inhaled sharply, twisting the ring on his finger with a frown. "You mean to tell me that you met an entirely new alien species and you learnt nothing?! Dude, I've gotta put them into the database, I can't do that with no information."

Bruce didn't reply this time. Instead, he grabbed a wrench from the nearby table and continued altering the inside of his car. He didn't feel like he needed to explain himself, especially not to someone like Hal who was the most reckless person in the League.

Hal, on the other hand, seemed persistent. He marched closer to the man and shut the hood of the Batmobile, almost crushing Bruce's hands in the process. Thankfully, he managed to move them just in time but this did grant Hal a particularly angry glare.

"You scared them off, didn't you?" Hal asked, this time hoping that he had Bruce's full attention. "I told you not to approach them without me or Clark! The last thing anyone wants to see on a new planet is some grumpy old man growling at them like a rabid dog."

The man's expression darkened but Hal didn't seem to notice. He had grown so use to Bruce's brooding that it was now a regular part of visiting him.

"Look, is there anything you can tell me... Anything at all?" He tried again, this time a little calmer than before.

"I can tell you that it's dangerous." Bruce answered lowly. "It learnt our language, almost fluently, in two weeks."

"Biologically advanced..." Hal stated, amused by Bruce's scepticism. "That's not unheard of. I know a race just a few galaxies over called the 'Sarkor', and they could memorise a language within hours... They do have shorter life spans though. Think they die within a month of their birth."

"Don't suppose we'll be fortunate enough for this visitor to die before it appears again..." Bruce said darkly.

"What is wrong with you?" Hal sighed in disbelief. Just when he thought Bruce couldn't get anymore cynical, he proved him wrong. "This alien hasn't done anything to warrant your hatred."

"It almost killed someone." Bruce growled, but Hal didn't even look surprised by this. "I had to inform it that it's not acceptable here."

"But they didn't, right? Alien species have different laws and governments, they probably didn't know how ours worked. The important thing is that they stopped when you told them to. Give them a little credit..."

Bruce's face contorted in displeasure. He didn't think that he needed to praise someone for not being a murderer. It didn't matter where it was from, he wasn't willing to accept any fowl behaviour on his planet.

"Oh, right, forgot who I was talking to." Hal rolled his eyes and leaned against the Batmobile. "Anything else you noticed about them?"

"It was wearing a suit. Looked like a similar organic material to the ship."

At this Hal seemed to perk up a little, his brow raising in curiosity. "Really?... Did this suit move at all? I mean, did it look alive?"

"That mean something to you?"

"There are exceptions, but I've found through my travels that if it looks alive, it usually is." Hal informed him.

Bruce's eyes squinted into slits and his hands clenched into fists. "Slavery..."

"We don't know that for certain yet." Hal quickly responded. "I'm gonna go find them. Can you tell me what they looked like?"

"I can tell you that it didn't look like an alien." Bruce placed the wrench back on the tall metal table and crossed his arms over his chest. "It had the appearance of a human female."

"That doesn't mean they're the female of their species... Trust me, I found that out the hard way." Hal laughed nervously, hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck. It only took one look from Bruce for him to drop the subject entirely and clear his throat. "Ah... Right, anyway, could you give me specifics? There's a lot of human looking women on this planet."

Bruce, as per usual, didn't reply with words. Instead he sauntered over to his giant monitor and pressed his finger onto the screen, right over an image of a video camera. He recorded all of his encounters, he didn't understand how none of the others felt it necessary.

On the computer appeared a video of the alien. Once the helmet left their face Hal could see what Bruce meant by them being a humanoid. Much like Clark, and Kryptonian's in general, there was nothing to seperate them from the general public... except their eyes.

They were, quite literally, like looking into the deepest and emptiest vacuums of space. Now, Hal knew a few humans with eyes so dark that they appeared black in certain lights... but it was nothing like this. This was like a void, or a black hole, and the longer you stared the further they sucked you in. She was fairly tall too, about the exact same height as Bruce... which would make her at least 6'1.

"You could've started with that footage... I might not have had to ask you so many questions."

Bruce ignored Hal and simply stated "I'm meeting with Clark and Diana. They need to know that we have a potential situation on our hands."

"Good idea." Hal nodded. "Just try not to exaggerate things. This alien's a visitor, not an enemy."

"Not yet..."

Hal sighed and shook his head in defeat. It was obviously impossibly to change Bruce's unwarranted judgment, but that was what made him a valuable member of the league. "Whatever, Bruce. Just let Clark know that I might need him standing by."

--------

Bruce would've preferred to meet at the Watchtower, but Clark insisted that they make use of the Hall of Justice. Using that old building now that they had an orbital satellite base seemed pointless to him.

Bruce was early as usual, so he spent some time on the monitor station, keeping watch. Diana was the second to arrive, and she simply greeted Bruce with "Nice to see you out and about again, Bruce."

He replied with a "Hmpf."

She stood by his shoulder, dwarfing him both in height and size. Diana was an Amazon, and thus she was built like an athlete. "Looking for anyone in particular?"

"It's why I called this meeting. We'll start when Clark gets here."

As if he heard this, which is completely reasonable, Clark's voice jested "Then let's get to it. Diana, Bruce."

"Clark." Diana nodded.

Bruce turned from the terminal and huffed "You're late. Again."

Clark smirked. "Sorry, train was going off the rails in Japan. A slight detour. What's going on?"

As Clark approached Bruce and Diana at the terminal, Bruce spoke "I've encountered an unidentified alien life form. No matches on the Oan database."

He played back the footage recorded on his cowl the night of the encounter, as Clark and Diana watched intently. "It almost killed someone in Gotham. I'd rather that if it tries again, someone can stop it."

Clark raised a dark eyebrow at his friend. "It doesn't look like you had to force her hand, Bruce... Considering what she did to that truck, it would have been all too easy for her to kill that man if she wanted to. She chose not to though."

"You may be fabricating this so called 'threat', Bruce." Diana said calmly.

"At the very least you're exaggerating the situation." Clark added. "It wouldn't be the first time..."

Bruce sneered at their lack of caution. They made him seem insane whenever they wrote off his wariness like that. He was aware that it was possible that the the alien was friendly, but he wasn't willing to take the risk of it wasn't.

"I can look into it if it'll put your mind at ease." Clark suggested. "Where is this visitor?"

Right on cue there was a loud bang that sounded from the opposite end of the room. As if by instinct, Bruce pulled his cowl on and took gratitude in the fact that he was still in costume - as were Clark and Diana.

The wall to the Hall of Justice crumbled, creating a rather large hole in its structure. From this appeared the very being that they had been discussing. In a millisecond they had gone from one end of the room to the other and sat in one of the empty chairs.

She gazed at the strangers around her, putting her feet up on the round table.

"I'm assuming that's her?" Clark asked genuinely.

Bruce grunted his response and shot a glare in her direction. That would cost thousands of dollars to fix... and that was if she kept the security system in check.

"I heard you were looking for me." She said bluntly. "You can inform the Green Lantern Corpsman that you've found me... or that I've found you. Whichever works."

Batman tapped the earpiece built into his cowl and growled "It's here."

Superman shot him a disapproving glare, obviously not agreeing with how he addressed their visitor. "No need to be rude, Bruce."

Batman narrowed his eyes at the man with equal displeasure. He knew full well that Clark had used his real name on purpose to agitate him and perhaps make it clear that he wasn't happy with how Bruce was treating their new guest.

"Enough." Diana commanded with urgency. "We are making a poor first impression."

The two men stopped their arguing almost instantly, mainly because Clark recognised this as a problem.

"I'm...sorry." He apologised politely to the alien. "I'm afraid that we haven't been very hospitable."

"What is it that you want?" Diana asked, cutting to the chase much to Bruce's approval.

The alien pushed to her feet just as Hal Jordan came barrelling through the door, power ring alight. Upon spotting the gaping hole in the wall, he quipped "You know, we like to use doors around here."

"They were locked."

"...Fair point..."

Bruce interjected "What do you want?"

The alien pushed upwards, and gazed towards the four beings staring over her. "I told you before. I am an Emissary of the Orhysian Principality. I am here to assist."

"See, Bruce?" Superman said with a grin. "She's here to help."

"Just because it says so, doesn't mean it's true." Batman hissed back. "You have no reason to trust it."

"And you have no reason to condemn her."

The alien stood, more than a little amused by their bickering. "These are the things you Earthlings fight about? So primitive..."

"Well, technically, I'm an alien too." Superman joked lightheartedly.

"And yet you squabble like the humans. Whatever you were born as doesn't matter, you're more human than alien now. That's quite sad... I'll hope to not follow in your footsteps." Everyone in the room stared at her wide eyed, unsure how to react to her words. Even Hal always had a problem with aliens deeming humans as inferior... "If it settles your debate, I'll leave."

"Wait, I have to ask you a few questions." Hal quickly informed her before she had the chance to leave.

She froze in place, contemplating her next move.

Hal continued "All we want is to know what it is you're trying to do here. This planet is under our protection. Surely you understand our caution. What is this Principality you serve?"

"The Principality of Ohrys is a coalition of races, banded together to fight against oppression. My people were farmed like cattle on our homeworld, bred to die in order to feed the race of predators that hunted us. It was only a matter of time until we revolted, and thus the Principality was born. We seek to relieve the universe from tyranny, in whatever form."

Hal made sure his ring was recording this testimony, before he asked another question "You were the only one sent?"

"I am to work with you. To learn your customs in order to better your world's society. In this case, terminate rampant crime."

Clark crossed his arms. "As long as you follow our laws, that won't be a problem."

"I have done in depth research on every law in each corner of this world. That should not be difficult." She replied, giving Batman one final glance before sauntering away again.

"One more thing." Hal called out after her. "You are... female, right?"

The woman made a noise in her throat, one that sounded like a mixture of a scoff and a chuckle. "Is it not obvious enough for you?"

"I'll take that as a yes." Hal swiftly replied, and this time he didn't interrupt her as she left the building... through the giant hole she had made.

Clark shrugged "I'll fix that up..."

"Yeah...and I'd better log this for the Guardians. They'd want to know about a previously undiscovered race showing up for the first time outta nowhere."

By the time Hal had vanished Clark was already done fixing the wall. Diana had left soon after, likely on a previous engagement, and that just left Bruce with Clark... which wasn't preferable considering the tension still laying thick upon them.

Silence fell over the Hall of Justice, and though it didn't last long, it was enough to make the atmosphere even more awkward.

"I'd... better get going, Bruce." Clark said, trying to muster the last shreds of trust they had in one another.

"Back to the murderer?" Bruce grunted harshly.

Clark's face twisted into an expression that rarely made itself seen on him...a fierce grimace. "That's quite enough." He boomed.

"I thought you were better than this."

Clark's eyes almost burned with anger as he slowly approached Bruce, whose muscles twitched as the Man of Steel neared him.

"That makes two of us." Clark muttered. For a moment he looked so intimidating that Bruce thought he might be chucked against a wall, before that could happen though, Clark bursted into the air and back out the door.

Bruce stared at the exit with a dark expression. It seemed like everything was going wrong of late, but his depleting friendship with Clark was undoubtedly the most worrying... and it was all because he was still dating that disgusting excuse for a human being - Silvia Stone. The Reaper. A murdering, thieving wrench that only recently turned over a new leaf, or so he said. Bruce didn't believe it for a minute. He wasn't going to be fooled by anyone, not her, and especially not the alien still lurking around.

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