Clark rolled his eyes at the television screen before turning the device off with a nearby remote. The celebrity gossip was tiring, but to consistently hear Lex being talked about as one of the social elite and not as the maniacal tyrant that Clark knew him to be was exasperating. How many times had he fought against Lex in the public eye? How many jail sentences had Luthor served? Of course, any sentence was commuted early into the duration and somehow, someway, Lex associated himself with the latest charity of the month, ingratiating himself into the good graces of the public once more. He had maintaining the sham for much longer this time around, going so far as to demolish some of his defense manufacturing plants and committing them to “cancer research”.

It made him sick.

Then again, Clark was grateful for the break. He was able to spend more time with Lois and Kara and actually make friends as Clark Kent instead of Superman.

Speaking of friends…

“You know I can always hear you come in.” Clark looked to his left to find one Bruce Wayne garbed in the uniform that struck fear and awe into those that saw it.
“And you didn’t have to come in costume…although with the choice of wardrobe, I assume you’re here on business.”
“Talia. What do you know about her relationship with Lex?”
“Nothing.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Lex has kept himself clean, Bruce. I’ve kept an eye on him ever since his latest ‘good guy’ façade and have found nothing.”
“You’re not digging hard enough.”
“Oh?”
“There’s a reason why Lex formed a partnership with Talia.”
“Other than love?” Clark gave Bruce a teasing smirk, to which the latter narrowed his eyes at.
“Love is something a sociopath like Lex can’t know. Talia is too committed to her own interests. Something’s not right.”
“And that’s why you’re here? To confront your former lover slash master assassin?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want my he-“
“No.”
“Figured I’d ask.”
“Your time is better served trying to figure out what Lex has up his sleeve. I’ll deal with Talia.”
“You going to tell me what you have planned?”
“I just did.”
“Right." Before Clark could utter another word, the Dark Knight had left.
"I hate it when he does that." He muttered to no one in particular, rising from the couch right in time for another visitor to pop onto his balcony. This one, however, seemed to be in much more desperation than his previous guest. As she stepped into the apartment, Clark noted the strained look in her eye, the slight limp in her step.
"Diana? I thought you were across the country...or somewhere not Metropolis."

Even Amazonians had their limit; Diana just hadn't expected hers to happen so suddenly. No one had. Almost as soon as she had set down on the all too familiar balcony, she felt like she wanted to collapse, like her legs were made of melting wax. Adrenaline could carry a person far and that distance, it turned out, was to this particular balcony. It was reassuring in a way to make it there; that's probably why he was who he was. Why people looked up to him. There was still pride there, the pride of her people - one of the reasons she had come here - and such pride meant she would stand...just long enough for her to brace herself with a wall. Diana was weak from...everything, but to show such vulnerability...such weakness...it would be unfitting for one in her position.

But Diana could tell from a simple glance that her guise was seen right through. It was obvious even to someone without enhanced vision; she was limping as she stepped inside, gasping as if she were an asthmatic out of breath, one hand was clutching her abdomen and there were various cuts and scrapes along her arms and legs; and that was to say nothing of the tired look in her eyes, that glassy expression. It wasn't the distance that had her looking so haggard.

She was still there, at the scene of the...massacre. She could still hear the clash of blade on blade...the screams first of battle then of pain and mercy. The scent of smoke and something...different still burned at her nostrils. Someone had to break free. Someone had to regroup. Though she wore the scars of battle, the most painful thing Diana did was leave at such a tumultuous time. But who else could?

"Clark..." she managed to stammer as she stepped further into the room proper, her legs shaking, wobbling, but her resolve refusing to let herself collapse. "It's...Themyscira..." she didn't get to say much more than that as her journey caught up with her, and despite her pride, Diana fell sideways.

He caught the falling Amazon, helping her get to the bedroom before laying her gently down onto his mattress.
"Who on earth did this?" Clark asked quietly, surveying the wounds littered over her body with amazement. Normally Diana's skin was practically impervious to wounds, only seeing her in this condition once before, when they had thwarted Darkseid's attempt to take over Earth(again). Even then she didn't look this...exhausted. As if the life had been drained from her bones.
"Don't answer that. Not yet. Just...stay here. I'll see what I can find." Some of the deeper gashes were still bleeding, the Amazonian's blood seeping into his navy blue sheets at an almost torrential manner. Cauterization would probably be necessary along with bandaging. After flitting into his restroom to withdraw gauze, he told his friend:
"This is going to hurt. A lot. Just hold onto my arm if you need to squeeze something into oblivion." Clark worked as quickly as he could, heat vision searing into her cuts in precise blasts to be bandaged up a few moments later. Within the span of a couple of minutes, he had her in better physical condition than she had come in, but mentally...well, that was another story.
"Water would be good here, wouldn't it?" A few seconds was all it took for the Kryptonian to retrieve a jug of water from his pantry and hand it to her, giving her a few moments to drink if desired before asking:
"Alright. Now that I have you slightly patched up, mind telling me what's going on? You mentioned Themyscira when you came in...what happened on the island?" Clark knew all too well that the Amazonians had become targets for terrorists, mercenaries and other groups with ill intentions that sought to subjugate the most powerful women in the known universe. All of the attempts Clark knew about failed miserably, which made Diana's current condition only the tip of the figurative iceberg. Had someone succeeded in bringing down the Amazons? If so, they would be neutralized. Fast.

There was Clark, underselling things again; she would have laughed were the situation not as dire as it was. When the heat vision cauterized her wounds, she was able to withstand it. After what she had been through, a little heat was like a scratch...albeit a scratch that still stung deep. Sometimes it was good to know someone with heat vision and human decency. The water helped, though she did take healthy sips she was not shy about splashing a few sprinkles on her face; her hope was that it could all be some sort of nightmare, but it served a different purpose in helping her calm down. She hated being like this. So...panicked and vulnerable...but she was stronger than that. It took strength to leave...all of that behind.

"It...it was terrible. It happened so...suddenly..." Diana began to recall, her voice frought with concern mixed with guilt and anger in equal measure. She started honestly, how it was a normal enough day among the Amazonians. The training grounds echoing with clashes of steel. Casual strolls around the gardens. Discussions of art. Typical. It was a scout who warned Diana. The scout was exhausted, out of breath, only managing to stammer out 'Help...' before collapsing with a scar down her back. The warning came as fast as it could...but it wasn't fast enough to stop what followed.

"There have been attacks on Themyscira before," Diana sighed out as she paused to swallow another sip of water, "Attempts, rather. But this was different. This was...coordinated." She continued to describe what she witnessed. The attackers seemed to appear from nowhere and they struck with a brutal efficiency. That so many Amazons fell so easily to what appeared to be normal, aleit well trained, attackers raised concern but in the moment Diana couldn't worry exclusively about who or what was responsible. She had to fight back. She had to defend her home.

Diana began to recount details of the battle that followed. How the attackers used bladed weapons and swift movements, gaining the upper hand through deceptive tactics. In a straight fight, even the newest Amazon would put up a fight but the way they fell...it was like a warm knife through butter. "It didn't make sense...it was as if...it felt like how you look around...you know what." was how Diana explained it, how for the first time the blade in her hand as she clashed with an attacker felt heavy. How hew swing felt sluggish. How when an attacker struck her back, it hurt. Badly.

The fight was lost as soon as it began, but defeat was not a pill easily swallowed. Diana knew that staying there, fighting them, wouldn't end well. "So I knew I had...to call for aid...but..." Diana shook her head. Leaving still bothered her. How many of her sisters were suffering more because of her retreat? She wasn't running away...but why did it feel like she was?

"These people were trained. They hit us hard. Fast. There has to be something else at play here...please, Clark...help me save my sisters."

So the Amazons had been taken out and Diana might be the only one left alive of her people. A chilling thought, one that he would make sure never actualized.
"I will. I'll do all I can, Diana, I promise you. Let's go see if they can withstand the power of both the Amazons AND a Kryptonian...a very angry Kryptonian." With a blur, he was garbed in his relatively new cape-less attire(suggested by his parents, who thought the cape was a bit too "tacky" for the twenty first century) and primed to go.
"Will you need some help getting there or can you keep up?" He then offered an apologetic smile, knowing all too well that Diana wasn't going to need to have her hand held.
"Sorry. You just arrived in such bad shape that-" He waved it off.
"Never mind. Let's get going."

She wasn't exaggerating. In fact, he felt like she was understating the carnage. He could see the flames burning, smoke billowing from the once proud structures build by the first Amazonians, the bodies of the fallen lacerated with gashes, punctured with gaping stab wounds...

It was a massacre. Genocide almost.

When they touched down, the duo found themselves on one of the many cobblestone paved square shaped common areas that were used for debates, political meetings and other verbose matters that normally aided in the edification of those in earshot. Now there was nothing but a morbid silence echoing across the space. A moment later, shadowy, inky forms emerged from behind the chaos, their blades dripping with greenish-blue fluid intermingled with the familiar coppery scent of blood. Their uniforms were head to toe black except for a small red insignia on the upper right chest.
"You might want to reconsider this." Without a word, the forms launched an attack, somersaulting and leaping their way to the heroes with reckless precision.
"They never do." He whispered under his breath as he caught one by the leg attempting to deliver a downward slash from mid-air, slamming his body into the ground while shooting a concentrated blast of frost from his mouth, encapsulating two more in ice. Diana seemed to be faring just fine, but to make sure she didn't get reinjured, the man of steel dashed to a would-be attacker and rammed into him with his shoulder, sending the form flying backwards several feet into a piece of rubble before collapsing to the ground.
"Their weaponry..." With the attackers subdued, Clark realized fully that they were carrying swords. Some had bows slung over their backs. Who...

Oh no.

"The League of Shadows. Bruce was right." A scream shot out of a building just north of where they were, several more forms flitting out of the air and into the entrance of the building, completely ignoring the heroes.
"What's in the building that they would want?"

Diana didn't find the little quip humorous, given the severity of the situation at all, but she could at least understand the gesture behind it. She might've arrived in bad shape but she had recovered well enough to be mobile, and the anger at what transpired counted for a hell of a lot. There was something to be said about Amazonian physiology indeed. When they took off, Diana was keeping pace with her fingers clenched into a fist and her face scowling the closer they came to Themyscira. The memories were still fresh; it hadn't been that long since she left...she only hoped she wasn't too late.

It hurt to see her home in such a shape, but she had to remain strong for their sake if not her own. The smoke still billowed, the scent of it almost too much to bear. Bodies on the stones. Buildings broken and ravaged. She didn't want to assume the worst...didn't want to imagine her home as being lost...but it was hard to see it any other way. But she still had hope; and it would be what she clung to.

As they touched down, Diana closed her eyes a moment. A small bit of remembrance for those fallen, a silent, solemn vow to make it right. Clark's voice roused her even after her ears picked up the emergence of the attackers. Clark had his under control, but she was not going to let him do all the work. A blade-wielding attacker lunged forward, thrusting his blade for the Amazon; thinking quickly she brought her arms up, parrying the blade with her bracers. With the attacker off guard, Diana followed up with a fierce right, hooking the attacker hard in the face and sending him toppling to the ground with a harsh, hard thud. "That...felt good." She mused, almost willing to crack a smile but refraining.

Another assailant was met with a heavy kick to the plexus, and another downward punch, the impacts serving as extensions of her fury towards them. A third attacker ran towards her, hoping to gain the element of surprise, but Diana was quicker on the draw, and used his own momentum to send him head over heels in a lifted toss. As she was finishing off the third attacker, she turned her head in time to see the Man of Steel himself charge into a would-be surprise assault.

"I had him, you know." A small bit of banter, though her tone was thankful all the same. The light hearted response was severed by the revelation. "The League of...but why would they attack here? I don't-" she was cut off by a scream and turned in time to see a sight that made her eyes widen. "That's Hippolyta's Chambers...our Queen...Mother." Diana could not have run any faster. "If they take her...we can't let that happen. Her Artifacts...we have to stop them!" Diana called to Clark, knowing he'd be following, if not ahead of her already.

It had gone from bad to worse. Defeating their Queen would be terrible, stealing the magical Artifacts of the gods...that would have further reaching implications than just Themyscira. "Assassins to assassinate a populace...." Diana was muttering, trying to figure out just...who...and why...and how to stop them altogether.

Clark sped to the entrance, noting the bodies strewn across the marbled floor with alarm.
"Your mother's personal guard." He muttered, noting the more ornately crafted armor and badges of honor that were ingrained on their chestpieces and braces. If the Shadows could eviscerate even Hippolyta's personal guard, then-

Another scream of pain assaulted their ears, the duo speeding around a corner to find the heavy wooden double doors that led to Hippolyta's personal chambers flung open, the circular shaped room filled by several Shadows surrounding two Amazonians, blood seeping down from their shoulders as they wielded their blades, forming a protective barrier around Hippolyta, her salt and pepper hair matted with blood oozing from a head wound.
"Get your mother out of here! I can handle the Shadows!" Although referred to by name, the assassins didn't take heed of the Man of Steel, instead choosing to further their assault on the besieged survivors. Clark shot two of the attackers out of the air with heat vision before slamming their heads into the ground, the marble cracking on impact. Behind him, a Shadow attempted to run him through with his blade before watching it split into several pieces. Whirling around with a vicious elbow, Clark knocked his third attacker out of commission with little effort. This show of force prompted one of the survivors to reach into a pouch located within his vestments and throw a circular object on the ground, thick plumes of smoke filling the room that made even Clark disoriented for a moment.
"Diana?! Tell me that your mother is ok!" As the vapors cleared, their attackers were gone...and so were several trinkets and objects that had been mounted on the walls of the chamber.
"Why would they..." The best person to ask about motive, he assumed, would be Talia. Maybe he and Bruce could team up on this one...with Diana. Of course. Hopefully when they confronted Talia, Diana didn't snap the woman's neck on the spot.

Hopefully.

He looked behind him at the hall to confirm no other attackers were coming before heading to Diana's side, where he hoped she could get her mother to recount events as she remembered. Maybe they could get some clue as to how the Shadows overpowered one of, if not THE most, powerful race of people on Earth.