>>5231183<span class="mu-s">MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE</span>
Great work Jaime. The League finally starts to give you a bit more responsibility and what do you do?
Sleep through your alarm and show up late for your first major League meeting; your only shot to finally make an impression that you’re not just some rookie.
Alright, you’re mostly just there to observe and keep your mouth shut, but it’s still cool!
Thank God that Captain Atom and Green Arrow are making such a racket that nobody notices you slip in late.
Except for Batman, who shoots you a look that promises future punishment. Looks like he really has a stick up his ass today, but given the stories you’ve heard, that’s that’s practically a given.
“I mean, look at this!” Atom yells, pulling up a series of live feeds from various international news networks.
On the first, there’s footage of a ferocious street-to-street skirmishing between rival militia groups. A stray RPG hits an apartment building, smashing a jagged hole in it.
On the second, there’s footage of a campaign speech decrying violence and political corruption that’s interrupted when the stage is stormed by masked men that gun the speaker down.
On the third, there’s grainy video of a peaceful protest being stomped out by heavily armed soldiers and the protestors being dragged away. One of the protestors wriggles out of their grip and makes a run for it, before being gunned down.
And on the last is footage of rioters and paramilitaries storming a government building and setting it ablaze, punctuated with some thug in fancy armor nearly beating the head-of-state to death.
Atom points to each of them in order.
“Qurac. Sierra Leone. Bulgravia. Venezuela.
Look at what’s happening out there! While we sit here and argue about laws and treaties, tyrants and terrorists run amok! And these are just the ones we know about! I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of sitting on our hands and waiting for someone else to handle the world’s problems. We have a duty to act!”
“Good point. And what happens when we set the precedent that the League can unilaterally knock over regimes it doesn’t like?! The second we do that, every tin-pot dictator and corrupt politician that might be next on the chopping block is going to start recruiting as many meta-humans as they can, by force if need be! Reckless interventionism would only lead to a new arms race, maybe even a new Cold War depending on how the chips land!” Arrow yells in his face.
“And what would you propose, then? That we ask politely for them to stop, maybe send a strongly-worded letter advising them to change their ways?”
“I don’t know! And it’s not my job to know! That’s not a decision any of us should be making!”
Green Arrow points an accusatory finger at Atom.
“Unlike you, I know that we are not equipped for this, and we shouldn’t be! What do you think will happen the moment we leave!? They’d tear whatever regime we’d be propping up apart! We’d be occupiers, not heroes!”
