Hal's eyes opened as Barry lowered himself beside him.
"About time," Hal rasped.
Barry let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "You're welcome. Next time you decide to bring down a town, try doing it somewhere with better parking."
Hal squinted at him through the dust covering his face. His gaze moved over the red suit, lingering on the lightning emblem before recognition finally settled in.
"Wait a minute. You're that speedster from Central City." He winced as he tried to shift his shoulder, then immediately regretted it. "The Flash. Great. Just what I needed. Another superhero showing up after everything's already gone to hell."
"Technically, I showed up while you're still alive, so I'd say my timing is pretty good."
"Yeah, well, remind me to send you a thank-you card when I'm not buried under half a damn motel."
Barry's smile faded as he examined the concrete pinning Hal down. A jagged piece of metal had caught the side of his uniform, and blood darkened the fabric around his ribs. Hal was conscious, but his breathing was shallow, and the strain in his face suggested he was holding back more pain than he wanted to admit.
"Don't move. I'm going to lift this section, but I need you to stay still until I've got the weight off you."
Hal looked at the slab above him, then back at Barry.
"Buddy, I've been trying to move for the last twenty minutes. Unless you have a spare Green Lantern ring hidden in that suit, I'm pretty sure we're past the point where my opinion matters."
"Good. Then for once, we're in complete agreement."
Barry positioned himself beneath the most stable part of the slab and tested the weight with both hands. He could feel the concrete shifting against the twisted supports. One wrong movement would bring the remaining structure down around them.
He adjusted his stance, drew a careful breath, and began to lift.
The slab rose inch by inch. Dust poured from the cracks, and a metal support groaned overhead. Barry held it steady while he pulled the trapped pieces away, working quickly without allowing his speed to turn a delicate rescue into a demolition job.
"All right, Hal. On three, I'm getting you out. Don't try playing the tough guy. You're allowed to be injured when half a building lands on you."
Hal managed a crooked grin. "You always this bossy, or am I getting special treatment?"
"Special treatment. Most people don't need an entire construction crew to get them out of bed."
Barry moved him clear just as another section of the ceiling collapsed behind them. He carried Hal beyond the unstable perimeter and lowered him onto a relatively clear patch of pavement.
Hal groaned as his back touched the ground.
"Remind me never to let you give me a piggyback ride."
"Noted. I'll put it right after 'don't collapse motels on yourself.'"
A distant rumble rolled through the ruined building. Barry turned, listening for any other survivors, but his attention caught on something lying several yards away.
A woman.
She was motionless beside a broken section of wall, partially covered in dust and fragments of plaster. The damage around her was severe enough that Barry couldn't immediately determine what had killed her, but he didn't need his enhanced senses to recognize that she was beyond help.
His humour disappeared.
He looked back at Hal, whose expression had changed when he noticed where Barry was staring.
Before either man could speak, footsteps approached from the street. Batman arrived first, followed by Superman and Green Arrow. Clark's gaze immediately moved to Hal, and he crossed the remaining distance in a few long strides.
Oliver stopped beside Barry, taking in the blood, the wreckage, and the woman lying near the wall.
Bruce crouched beside Hal, his eyes moving over the injuries before settling on his face.
"Start from the beginning. Tell me what happened here, and leave nothing out."
Hal let his head rest against the pavement.
"That would be a pretty long story, Batman. You might want to get comfortable."
Bruce didn't move. "I've got time."
Hal turned his head toward the ruined motel, then immediately regretted it when pain shot through his neck. He hissed through his teeth and settled back against the pavement.
"Yeah, well, I don't have the energy to give you the director's cut. There was a lot of running, some bad decisions, and a whole lot of things that weren't supposed to happen. Then the building fell on me. That's pretty much where my day went from bad to worse."
"You're leaving out the part where an entire town was nearly destroyed," Bruce replied.
"Trust me, I'm aware." Hal gave him a tired look. "I've had a little time to think about it while I was playing human furniture under six tons of concrete."
Clark knelt beside him, examining the injuries. "You need medical attention. We can argue about the details once you're stable."
"Finally, someone with a sensible suggestion." Hal glanced at Clark's face and managed a faint smile. "No offence, Batman, but you have a real gift for making a man feel welcome."
Bruce ignored the remark. His attention had shifted to the woman lying near the wall.
He rose and approached the body, keeping his hands clear of the surrounding debris. The woman's skin was pale beneath the dust, and strange discolorations marked the exposed portions of her neck. There was something unsettling about her appearance, though the damage made it difficult to understand what he was seeing.
"Who is she?"
Hal's expression changed.
"Zoe."
The name came out quietly. For the first time since Barry had found him, the humour disappeared completely.
Oliver moved closer to the body. "Someone you knew?"
"Yeah." Hal swallowed, his eyes fixed on the broken wall beyond her. "Someone I knew."
Bruce looked back at him. "Did you kill her?"
The question landed harder than any of Hal's previous injuries.
"No." Hal's voice sharpened. "I didn't kill Zoe."
"Then explain what happened."
Hal stared at Bruce for a moment, anger flickering through his exhaustion.
"She wasn't human. None of this was what it looked like. That thing was a Manhunter, and it had been hiding in plain sight. It could look like us, talk like us, live among us without anyone realizing what it really was."
Barry glanced toward the body again. The strange markings made a little more sense in the context of Hal's explanation, but the word itself meant nothing to him.
"A Manhunter," he repeated, looking at Hal. "You're telling us that thing wasn't a person at all."
"I'm telling you it wasn't human." Hal shifted his attention toward the others. "And before anybody starts making assumptions, I didn't know what it was until everything started falling apart. By then, people were already getting hurt."
Clark looked troubled. "I've encountered beings capable of disguising themselves as humans, but this is different. We need to understand what it was and whether there are others."
"Good luck with that," Hal muttered. "I'm still trying to understand what happened myself."
Oliver crouched beside Hal, then glanced at his uniform. Something was missing.
"Hang on. Where's your ring?"
Hal looked down at his bare hand.
For a moment, he said nothing. Then he closed his eyes and released a long, frustrated breath.
"Junior took it."
Barry's head turned sharply toward Hal.
"John Stewart?"
Hal looked at him. "Yeah, John Stewart. That's who I meant by Junior."
Barry frowned, trying to fit that information into what he knew about the Green Lanterns. "Right. John Stewart, and Guy Gardner."
Hal's expression shifted into genuine confusion.
"Who's Guy?"
Barry stared at him for a moment, then glanced at Bruce, who looked just as interested in the answer as Barry was.
"Guy Gardner is some douche I know."
Hal let out a short laugh before the pain in his ribs forced him to stop.
"Great. Sounds like I'd get along with him."
"Trust me you wouldn't."