Caterpillar

Aftermath

Over one hundred members of the Justice League were gathered at the Watchtower. The atmosphere, however, was vastly different from usual. There was no order and everyone was in the midst of arguing with others.

"You snapped someone's neck like a cold-blooded murderer!" someone shouted. It was a man wearing the attire of an English medieval knight.

The centre of everyone's attention was a tall and athletic woman with long black hair and blue eyes. Her white and gold armour was stained with still fresh blood and her otherwise dignified and beautiful face bore the marks of a violent fight against a formidable opponent seeing as there were bruises on her cheekbones and dried blood at the corner of her mouth.

"I did what I had to. If I was presented with that situation again, my choice would be the same. It was the life of a criminal for the life of countless innocent people." the woman replied.

"Who allowed you to be the judge, jury and executioner? We are the Justice League. We don't kill! Are you out of your goddamned mind?" Superman screamed at her in anger. His blue and red suit was in tatters and his face was no less bloodied and hurt than that of Wonder Woman. Furthermore, although the sword wound in his stomach had closed up, his suit was still soaked with his own blood.

"You of all people should not talk about others being out of their mind, Superman!" Green Arrow shouted back at him, unexpectedly speaking up to defend Wonder Woman.

What nobody knew was that when he had first started his vigilante work, Green Arrow had murdered quite the number of criminals in Star City. It was only after he had 'cleaned up his yard' and after gaining some notoriety that he had become low-key with his actions and started acting like the rest of the superheroes, sparing the criminals' lives. Fortunately, he had erased his traces very thoroughly after that and the rest of the Justice League was not aware of his radical past deeds.

"It was out of my control! But she willingly murdered someone!" Superman shouted back and stepped aggressively into Green Arrow's personal space.

Though he had no superpowers, Green Arrow was not intimidated in the least.

"What? You're going to punch me to shut up? Or maybe kill me to keep quiet? Like you murdered hundreds of people in Metropolis a few years ago?"

Superman stepped back startled.

"No! I wasn't going to-..."

Captain Atom intervened and said:

"That doesn't change what Wonder Woman had done! She had murdered someone in cold blood, perfectly aware of herself. What's even worse, the entire world had watched her do it!" Pointing an accusatory finger at her, he declared: "You will have to take responsibility for your deeds in front of the International Court of Justice!"

Captain Atom was an Airforce Captain. Although he was a superhero, he was a part of the United States' military too. He understood better than most how far-reaching were the consequences of Wonder Woman's actions. The US government was just looking for an excuse to take drastic actions against the Justice League. The United Nations wanted to suppress them too because the Justice League had grown too powerful for their liking. Until then, the Justice League had never killed anyone so the United Nations and NATO had their hands tied up. All the members used non-lethal means of apprehending the criminals and operated somewhat within the law's constraints. But the Amazon princess' actions changed that. Now, the United Nations had a legal ground to oppress and maybe even force the Justice League to disband.

Because of Captain Atom's words, the subject was diverted from Superman back to Wonder Woman. While some of the heroes tacitly agreed with what she had done, only Green Arrow had been brave enough to voice out his support to her. The rest, kept their mouths shut. There were also a few like Supergirl and Starfire who adopted a neutral stance, choosing to stay on the sidelines and not get involved. But the vast majority of the members of the Justice League were very vocal in their jeers directed at Wonder Woman.