Events of the past

[An: This chapter covers the details about what happened to the league when Circe's spell is cast and the discussion after Gotham's curse is removed]

When Vigilante is fighting inside the dead zone, the core members of the league made way to the owls.

They fought the owls and captured all of them when they saw a purple light beam enter the sky and caused an explosion.

As soon as it happened, the owls began dying in different ways. Flash and Batman started convulsions when Zatanna appeared and cast magic to save them.

Superman felt something wrong so he flew into the space and heard screams and cries all over the globe.

He sensed males dying abruptly and even the unrborn babies in the wombs of mother's dying due to heart stopping. Many male children withered and scattered into dust.

Superman came back and asked "Why are the males dying?" to Zatanna.

"A forbidden magic spell has been cast which will half the male lives on the planet." said Zatanna.

"Who did this?" growled Hal Jordan.

Zatanna narrowed her eyes on Wonder Woman.

"What?" asked Wonder Woman as she felt something is wrong.

"It's her mother who ordered the kidnapping of Circe and Circe is forced to cast the spell." replied Zatanna.

"Whaaaat?" Flash shouted.

"That's rubbish. My mother wouldn't do anything like that." WW stubbornly said.

"The spell originated from Thermyscira and Fate has informed me that Hippolyta has ordered the spell to be cast." replied Zatanna.

"No..No.. It can't be." WW kept uttering as she is unable to accept the truth.

"I will make my way to Thermyscira and find out the truth." said WW and flew to the women's island.

"What are we supposed to do?" asked Flash.

"We need to help as much as we could. Although I want Vigilante captured but this is not the time. The world needs the Justice League right now." said Superman.

They decided on a plan of action and went to places where criminals went rampant even during these tough times and captured them one by one.

After the day the spell is cast, WW contacted them "Everyone, my mother seems to have gone mad due to the civil war with Antiope and she is violent. I am on the run from fellow amazons. I'll'... be...*SLASH"

They heard fighting sounds for sometime when the communication went off.

"She is in trouble. We must go there." said Jonn.

"Yes." said Superman as him, Flash, Batman, Hal and Jonn quickly made way to the island when a 5 layered barrier blocked the island.

Batman tried to use his gadgets to get the barrier down while others used their powers to take out the barrier.

"This must be the work of Circe. Zatanna, do you copy?" asked Batman.

"Yes Batman. Looks like barriers made up of both sorcery and godly energies. it's above my level to break them. You can ask Fate but I doubt he can help you." said Zatanna.

They contacted Fate and Dr.Fate replied that he can't interefere because Lords of the Order have prohibited him from acting upon due to special circumstances.

"Damn it." shouted Superman in frustration.

He went into space with anger and game with high speed towards the barrier and was able to break one barrier.

"Well done, Superman." said Hal.

As they wanted to do the same with others but the broken barrier got resurrected again.

"Damn Sorcery." said Batman.

Suddenly they saw a projection appear before them and saw WW chained with glowing chains with wounds and cuts all over her body and blood dripped from her mouth and wounds.

"You should stay away from the island and my daughter, kryptonian." came a voice and they saw Hippolyta appear on the projection.

"Release her." said Superman.

"No, my daughter will not aid the men's world anymore. She will take on the queen's mantle and perform her duties properly so that there won't be anymore rebellions against my rule." said Hippolyta.

"She drunk on power." said Jonn.

"If you ever try to take her away, you will find her corpse even though she is partly a god." warned Hippolyta.

"What kind of mother are you?" shouted Superman.

"I am performing my duties of a good mother. I am disciplining her." said Hippolyta.

"No, you're sadistically punishing her without reason." said Batman.

"You're opinions don't matter to me mortal." said Hippolyta and projection disappeared.

"Ares." said Batman.

"What?" asked others.

"She is under the control of Ares as I saw a black helmet with red eyes appear in the last minute." said Batman.

That is the reason why Batman is the best detective as he captured that minuet detail in the last second.

"We should go back now. After the chaos settles down, let's make preparations to free her" said Martian Manhunter.

"He's right. We don't have much choice." said GL.

They reluctantly made their way back to their cities.

When Amarnath group started recruiting volunteers to help people, they also helped not as the superheroes but as Clark Kent, Hal Jordan, Jonn, Victor etc.

When Vigilante hit again and killed Penguin and tried to kill Sinestro and his corp the league was able to capture him with help of fate but he outsmarted them and escaped.

"He killed Hatter." said Batman.

"What?" asked others.

"I hacked into the computers and found the records that Hatter is alive but I couldn't find the footage because he erased most of the footage.

But the Arkham staff reported that Hatter is missing and when I tried to track him down I couldn't find a trace of him." replied Batman.

Others agreed as Vigilante might have abducted Hatter when he came out of the dead zone.

"The suspicious thing is he did not kill Joker even when he had the chance." said Batman.

"That's really weird. He keeps hacking the villains left and right but Joker is a threat much dangerous than these guys." said Cyborg.

When they thought about it, they could not find anything else about his odd behavior.

The USA government is informed by the Justice League that a spell was cast but they don't know who did it because it is sure fire way to give the government chance to use nuclear weapons which League did not accept at all. Justice League decided to do this by themselves. Even if US government would nuke the barriers, there is no guarantee that the barriers can be broken.

...........................................................................

After Vigilante removed the curse of Gotham, Batman decided to have a talk with the league members.

Batman slammed his fist as there is inner turmoil inside his heart.

"All this time I thought that my parents were killed by a murderer but Vigilante shattered everything by revealing that curse is responsible for my parent's death and all the craziness in Gotham." said Batman unable to accept the truth.

"What have I been working for all this time?" Batman felt self depreciating.

"Bruce. Calm down. Even we were unaware of the curse's existence until now. Zatanna and Constantine could only feel the curse after Vigilante cast the counter curse.

Mr.Terrrific is searching the history of Gotham about what curse Vigilante is talking baout." said Clark calming Batman.

"I always felt that Gotham is cursed for crime to always spike up but didn't know the curse really existed." said Flash casually.

Cyborg stomped on Flash's leg and Flash shouted "OUCH, What was that for?"

"You should read the room Flash." replied Cyborg.

Flash saw everyone glaring at him and understood he let his tongue move faster than his brain.

The league heard a call come and Constantine's face appeared with Etrigan in two.

"So, what did you guys find out?" asked Martian.

"It's an ancient curse developed by Warlocks 40,000 years ago. The curse is developed from the blood of many Eldritch beings. The effects of the curse can expand to entire city or a country." replied Constantine.

"What are the effects of the curse?" asked GL.

Etrigan replied "The spell has some of features of demonic compulsion. It's not easy to find its effects because the spell affects the minds in quite a subtle way causing them to become murderers or lunatics or commit other crimes."

Batman felt like his world collapsed and he collapsed on the chair.

Vigilante talking about removing the curse is one thing but getting confirmatio from the magicians of the league is even more hurting to him.

Another call appeared besides those two and Mr.Terrfic appeared.

"So, did you find out who cast the curse?" asked Cyborg.

"Yes. There was a dangerous warlock who lived 40,000 years ago who cast the curse and he built a tomb underground. It is upon his grave Gotham city was built." said Terrific showing the historical records.

Batman left the chair and went away from there and took the Zeta Tubes. He took his Bat Mobile and went back to the cave. He wanted some time alone to process the information and asked no one to disturb him.

Clark informed Alfred everything about the truth of Gotham and asked him to take care of Bruce.

Alfred who heard that Gotham is cursed was a bit surprised but he had a feeling something like this is the cause of Gotham's misery.

Alfred entered the cave and did not say anything.

"Alfred..." weak voice came from Batman.

"Take few days off from crime fighting Master Bruce. You should talk it out with me. I don't want you to become the same young Bruce who is lost in sadness." said Alfred.

Though Batman is reluctant, he decided to take a break and have a talk.

Alfred let Bruce vent his throughts out all the week and as the father who took care of him, he told Batman that presence of the curse doesn't change anything because he fought against crime when people were afraid to fight against it. He told him how proud he is of Bruce.

Slowly Bruce recovered from the temporary depression and got back to take up the Bat mantle again. But city has transformed and he has more time to spend time with his sons and also do his duties as CEO. He got back to the league and started doing his work as core member again to the delight of others.

Many plans to rescue Diana are already being made and after 5 months they were able to down the barriers with help from Hephaestus and rescued Diana who did not submit to her mother and was still chained.

They rescued her and ran away from the island but after recovering the 5 barriers 3 more barriers were added which made it pretty penetrable. They decided to wait for the right time to imprison Hippolyta after what she has done.

They did not know that there is a guy "V" who is bubbling with anger inside and getting ready for "Vengeance".