Aftermath

[3rd Person POV]

Superman woke up, only to find himself surrounded by rubble. He looked around and found that he was on top of a tall building,which was not quite a skyscraper, but still close to the ground. He found the rest of the Justice League sitting on the rubble nearby.

He asked "What did I miss?"

A voice came from behind him "Nothing much. We handled the situation after you were knocked out."

It was Batman, he was currently using a small device to monitor Superman's vitals. He finished his diagnosis before saying "You were actually in a rough spot there. Thankfully, Nostradamus over there healed you."

He then pointed at a man wearing a plague doctor's mask and a brown leather overcoat. He was currently lying down on the ground, rolling about as If he was having a seizure.

"Why?! Oh God, I'm never gonna be able to live this down!!" he cried, in a deeply embarrassed tone.

Seeing this made Superman question his well-being "Is he okay?"

"Physically, yes he is." Batman replied.

'Huh, so that man can act like this too. Until now he had been so composed, I thought he was one of the cool and collected types' Superman thought to himself.

Superman then stood up and proceeded to head towards Nostradamus. He then asked his new acquaintance "What happened? You seem… rather downtrodden."

Nostradamus looked up at Superman before pointing at the streets below while replying "See for yourself"

Superman then walked over to the edge of the building only to see a large crowd of people gathered below. He first thought that it was the protestors that were raising their banners against the Justice League.

'They must blame us for the damage caused during the invasion.' he thought.

But as he looked closer with his x-ray vision he found something baffling. The banners had the message 'Thank you justice league' and 'True heroes' written on them. What's more was that the people holding these banners were some of the very same people who were protesting in front of the Hall of Justice a few days before the invasion.

He said in disbelief "But how? They should have no idea that we stopped the invasion."

Flash quickly spoke up "You should thank Cyborg for that, he apparently broadcast the entire fight we had with Darkseid and how we freed the hostages for the world to see."

Cyborg then spoke up "Hey, it's the least I could've done. Everyone should know who exactly saved their lives. And most importantly, all of you deserve their recognition for your efforts."

Batman chimed in "It was quite bold of you. Worst case scenario, you would've broadcasted all of us dying at Darkseid's hands."

Cyborg replied "C'mon there's no way we'd lose! You guys are superheroes after all."

Superman then had a question. He asked Cyborg, pointing at Nostradamus "So why is he so riled up?"

Cyborg replied "Well let's just say he made a rather… inspiring speech when facing Darkseid. He's really popular now, you know. They're running hashtags about him. If I remember correctly, they're calling him #DoctorDisrespect or something."

Meanwhile Nostradamus cringed on the ground "Why did I have to open my stupid mouth… Ahhrghh!!! It was so cringeworthy too! Awarggh! Just thinking about it is killing me."

Superman just looked on at Nostradamus reconsidering his life choices before remembering something important "Huh, now that I think about it, the Hall of Justice is pretty much gone isn't it?"

Batman answered "Over 90% of the Hall of Justice was decimated during the invasion. I've set up Mt. Justice as a temporary base while getting our new base operational."

"Where is this new base?" asked Green Lantern.

Batman simply replied "With Cyborg's help, it'll be somewhere quieter."

By now, Nostradamus had calmed down a bit and spoke up "Well then, if we're done here, I've gotta head home. I need to take a bath with my toaster real quick."

Superman suddenly stopped him "Wait!"

Nostradamus answered "I'm joking. I'm sure it wouldn't even sting anyways."

Superman replied, baffled at this statement "Not that. Although it's great that you haven't given up on life. What I wanted to ask you is, how are we gonna contact you. You know, in case there's a medal ceremony."

Nostradamus thought for a bit, scratching his chin, before finally replying "Eh, if there's an award ceremony I'll just show up to it. You don't need to worry too much."

Then Wonder Woman also spoke up "And if we need your assistance again? Incase of another threat."

Nostradamus replied "In that case, you'll see me around."

He then clasped his hands together and simply disappeared, as if he were never there to begin with.

"What a strange guy." said the Flash.

'He managed to lose the tracker I had put on him. Looks like I'll have to find him the hard way.' though Batman.

Superman then spoke up "Well then, Justice League. Let's regroup and organise ourselves before we welcome our two newest members, Shazam and Cyborg."

As he said this, the looks on Cyborg and Shazam's faces turned into those are disbelief as they questioned the truth behind Superman's statement.

"Seriously?!" said Cyborg

"But for real? Aw hell yeah," claimed an excited Shazam.

Superman answered their doubts "You guys deserve it. And we could use the extra hands. After all this incident has taught us that the universe is a much bigger place than we initially realised."

And as everyone celebrated, the story of the first contact came to a close.

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A/N: This is the second to last chapter of the first arc. Tomorrow is the day the final chapter of this volume gets released. After that I'll take rest of the week off to prepare for future arcs. Hope to learn from the mistakea I made this time and write a better story.