Just like Robin had betrayed his trust. There was no excuse for what the Drake boy had done, none whatsoever. Playing God for his own warped ends. Clark knew he should tell the rest of the League, but when it came right down to it, who would Batman side with? He'd gambled with Supergirl, true, but Superboy's memory was...
Was sacrosanct.
No, this couldn't be allowed to continue. He couldn't risk being shouted down by the others. He picked up the phone and called the number of the one person he knew would both see it his way... and could help.
Kon looked out the window as acres of farmland stretched out as far as the eye could see. "She really moved here?"
Tim turned down the radio and looked at him. Kon had to remind himself that Tim was old enough to own a car now. "I guess she wanted to feel closer to you after you... left. We all did."
"So, after her, who's next?"
Turning off the radio completely, Tim focused his eyes back on the road as he continued. "What, isn't Cassie enough? We don't even know how that's going to work out." Off Kon's look, he quickly said: "But I'm sure it'll turn out fine."
"We need to plan out every move six steps in advance. Know what we're going to do before we do it."
"Why? Because of Superman? That was just an isolated incident. Some heated words were said, but he'll come around. I mean, he's been dead, who is he to criticize you?"
Kon rested his head against the window. "No. He's only the beginning. They won't understand this, Tim. And people always fear what they don't understand. No, they won't accept it. Won't accept your vision."
"My 'vision'?"
"Poor choice of words?"
"Strange choice of words."
Kon's slight smile was reflected in the car window's reflection. "Suits my mood."
"Your mood?"
"Twenty questions much? I just died and came back to life, so you'll have to forgive the melancholy."
"You're forgiven."
"She lives there?" Kon asked, looking at the small house through the dust-stained windshield. "Never pictured Cassie as a farmgirl. Well, except in this one fantasy I had... Milkmaids, ya know? Get me every time."
"Small sheep farm. Sells hand-shorn wool. Does good business in what's left of Bludhaven. More protection against the radiation. At least that's what the hucksters say."
"Wait, radiation?" Kon massaged his temples. "What happened to Bludhaven? Is Nightwing okay?"
"Nightwing's fine. You really don't remember? You were alive for..."
Whatever migraine Kon seemed to be having intensified as he bent himself almost into a fetal position, head around his knees. "It's all hazy. I can feel the memories coming back, like rain running backwards up a window... bits... fragments... tell me, did I ever know anyone named Lionel?"
"No..."
"Never mind then. Probably some side character in Wendy the Werewolf Slayer I wrote a fanfic about. Whatever happened to that show anyway? She ever find out who killed her mother?"
Tim smiled and got out of the car. "They canceled it."
"Figures." Kon unbuckled his seatbelt and started to open his door. Tim pushed it shut.
"Look, maybe it's best if you stay in here for now. Let me talk to her first. Don't want this to be a shock."
"Oh, yeah, ease her into it. 'Hey, Cassie, how 'bout the we rent that movie about the girl whose boyfriend comes back from the dead? Oh, wait, we don't have to, you're living it!'"
"I'll try to break it to her a tad more gently than that."Tim didn't know what he was expecting when he entered. Probably not the Roman Senate, but something along those lines. He wasn't expecting a rustic, downhome setting. There were a few bits of modern technology scattered incongruously about, mostly kitchen appliances and a large home entertainment system, but other than that the furniture was mostly handcrafted.
"Tea?" Cassie asked, setting a tray down on the coffee table. Tim picked up a cup and smiled.
"Cassie, you remember when Superman died?"
"Barely. Seems so long ago now. Like a whole 'nother life... which I guess it is."
Tim sighed. "Did you ever think about how so many of us seem to die and come back?"
Cassie set down her tea cup and glared at Tim. "Every damn day. But I've moved on. You have to let go of the past, Tim, or it..."
"Wait... there isn't someone else, is there?"
Kon looked at his reflection in the rear-view mirror, bleached alabaster by the afternoon sun. It seemed to be speaking to him, seemed to be...
Son.
Kon started. Just a dream. He opened the door and stepped out of the car.
"He can't be back," Cassie said, smiling despite herself. Her smile grew wider as she said "I mean, can he?"
There was a knock at the front door.
Cassie was up like a racing horse coming out of the stalls. Tim stood up, saying "Cassie, wait," for no real reason as she elbowed past him and swung the door open and...
Kon smiled. "Hey. Long time no see."
Cassie didn't waste time with words. She just jumped onto him in a deep embrace, wrapping her legs around his waist as she buried her face into the space between his neck and shoulder. "Goddamnit, Conner, I thought I'd lost you."
Brushing her hair back, Kon whispered something Tim couldn't make out into her ear and kissed her on the cheek.
Tim slipped out the backdoor.
Sitting down at the bar, Tim quickly ordered a bourbon. He knew the weight and tone of the footsteps approaching and didn't care if the other saw what he was drinking.
"When the boss gave you that fake ID," Dick said, sitting down next to him. "I'm sure he didn't mean for you to use it to get drunk."
"A lot of things happen that nobody means to happen."
Dick sighed, but didn't protest as Tim's drink arrived and he wolfed down the shot.
"How many people know?" Tim asked in a sullen, tiny voice.
"Superman's keeping it tight with the core JLAers so far. He wants this handled quietly. I only know because Wally told me. God, Tim, cloning's a serious offense. What were you thinking?"
"I guess I wasn't. Be honest. If this was a week after he'd died, do you really think anyone would say anything?"
"But it hasn't been a week. It's been a year. A year and you never thought about the consequences?
Tim looked at him sadly. "Would it have taken a year for you to give up on me?"
"It would take more than an eternity for me to give up on you."
"And I think that's just about everything you missed," Cassie finished, taking in a deep breath of air and reaching up to take in hand the arm Kon had draped around her shoulders. From the clock on the wall, it was five A.M.
"So, this 'Batwoman' is a lesbian and Green Arrow's the mayor of Star City. Got it. There going to be a quiz later?"
"Just an essay question," Cassie rested her head on his shoulder and continued in a suddenly solemn tone. "What was it like? Being... you know."
"I saw Elvis. He looked great." Oblivious to her trepidation, Kon kissed her on the crown of her head. "Why so tense? I'm back. It's not like the Grim Reaper is going to show up and demand to see my green card."
"You were dead, Conner. How can you be so... up?"
"I'm alive."
Cassie sat up. "I know what you want to ask, and the answer is no. There hasn't been anyone else. Not terribly feminist of me, I'll admit. But every time I let another man touch me, I think of you and that night and I know it can't compare. I can't bear to lower my standards and I know it's just nostalgia...
"To me, it's a fresh as yesterday," Kon interrupted, taking her hand in both of his. "And it meant the same to me. I know I'm alive, my heart pumps blood, my lungs breathe air, my eyes blink and tear and see... but I didn't feel that way until I came here. I love you."
The kiss was wild and spontaneous and enough to convince Cassie that he couldn't be an imposter or a dream or a hoax or an imaginary tale.
And when his hands began pulling at her musky clothes, reeking of sweat from a hard day's work, she only took a moment to protest "But this isn't... what are you doing?"
"If you're wondering that, it really has been a long time."
"No, I mean... so soon? And me like this, smelling disgusting and..."
Conner tilted his head forward in a way that made Cassie think of someone else, but she couldn't put her finger on who. "I don't care. Right now, I just want to be with the woman I love. I don't care how she smells or looks (okay, that's a lie), I just care about what's on the inside." Then he paused and the resulting smile was all Kon. "That was a poor choice of words wasn't it?"
"Oh yeah."
Although the news of Conner's "resurrection" was contained on Earth, space was another matter. Hal Jordan's report to the Guardians of Oa mentioned it as news possibly regarding further development and from there the news spread quickly. And somewhere deep within the bowels of the planet, a thousand willpower strong forcefield erected by ring construct kept out all but the faintest of whispers, to cancel out any possible sonic attacks by the prisoner.
The faintest whisper was more than enough. Ears not of that reality listened as the word came that a new Superboy had come. And slowly, subtly, the prisoner began to draw his plans against the pretender.
The house was in disarray. Picture frames scattered about, walls burst open, floors ripped up, furniture destroyed. Then, like a video on rewind, time seemed to flow in reverse. Glasses sprung back into place and reassembled, burst water pipes knitted back together, plaster cracks were burnished back into blankness.
Finally, Kon took his hand from the floor and lay back down on the bed.
"That is going to save us a fortune in home repair bills," Cassie said.
"Us?"
"You got a better place to stay?"
Kon seemed to be a million miles away. "We should do something."
"Well, I don't know about you, but I think we just did."
"No, I mean... something formal. Something... important. Let ourselves be seen. Show them we're not afraid."
"Afraid?" Cassie laughed. "What do we have to be afraid of?"
"Death. Everyone. That's why we have to show them..." Kon braced himself as another migraine rocked him.
"Conner? Are you alright?" Cassie asked with obvious concern, rolling over to examine his head.
"Just a headache. Comes and goes."
"Do you need some Advil or something?"
Suddenly, Kon pulled her close to him. "Just you." Then she could feel his hand on her and he was once more doing things to her. Using his tactile telekinesis to stimulate her, somehow. It felt like... nothing she had ever experienced and everything all at once.
"Where did you learn to do that?" Cassie gasped.
Kon pulled back, worn out from too much concentrating in the past hour. "Guess it just comes naturally to me. Hey, it's not like I was racking up a lot of notches on my bedpost before you came along... unfortunately."
Cassie punched him in the arm with the force of a landmine going off. But she quickly cuddled up against him. Beneath her, his body was warm and real.
"I never saw that side of you before. So rapturous, so avaricious."
Kon looked at her, suddenly worried. "Did I hurt...?"
"No, of course not. Gods, I'm probably stronger than you by now, remember? No, you probably wouldn't. Remind me to explain that later. For now, suffice to say that if we ever get married, you're going to have a handful with the in-laws."
"Well, I don't know how they do things on Paradise Island, but here I think we're still in the screwing like rabbits phase of the relationship. Speaking of which..."
Kon began to sit up. Cassie pushed him back for a moment.
"Mind if we go slow this time? Like... we did the first time?"
"Whatever my lady wishes..."
"Did I mention how sexy this new chivalrous side of you is?"
"Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt thy love," Kon quoted in an eloquent voice.
"That's Shakespeare," Cassie realized. "Hamlet."
"Act 2, Scene 2. To be precise."
"Since when do you read Shakespeare?"
"I don't know. It just came to me."
It took a dream for Kon to realize why he resented Superman.
He was at the beach, but he wasn't himself, he was small. No, not small, everything else was just huge. And he had been building a sandcastle as Superman (who was as large as everything else) asked him why he was making a sandcastle that looked like a skyscraper.
And Kon answered, quite truthfully, that it was a model for the revamps he would perform on Titan Tower when he was in charge. It would be taller, much taller. So everyone would look up at him.
And Superman just stood over the sandcastle and said "No matter how big you get, I'll always be taller than you."
Upon waking, Kon stared at himself in the mirror, remembering his earlier words. It just came to me. That seemed to be a problem of late. He had a mind for those kind of things. Ask him who the 34th President of the United States was (were they up to 34- yes) and he was clueless, but ask him what happened at the Battle of Hoth and he could quote chapter and verse. But he was sure he had never read Hamlet. But he knew that Rosencrantz and Guildenstein bit it offscreen and Ophelia went mad and committed suicide and the proper quote was "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio..."
"Stop it!" Kon said through clenched teeth, even though there was no one but his reflection to answer. Behind him, Cassie stirred in her sleep and Kon chastened himself. It wasn't enough that he couldn't sleep, now he had to recruit others into insomnia?
Which was weird for him, because he always slept well, just like Kal-El, he never had a bad dream or a nightmare or a premonition or whatever those weird...
The reflection winked at him.
No. No. It was just a trick of light. Just his imagination, playing tricks on him.
Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Maybe...
Maybe Superman was right about him.
No. Hell no. Heatvision burst from his eyes and reflected off the mirror, cutting through the stubble on his face like a knife through butter. (Hadn't he used to be able to use a razor?)
Tim vouched for him. So did Cassie. His best friends all backed him up. Besides, if he wasn't Kon-El...
Seemingly of their own volition, the laser beams traced over his wild mop of hair, reducing it to the bare essentials until he was left with barely more than stubble.
Who was he?
It would come to him in time, surely. He was remembering everything else, things that could only be Kon's memories... be his memories. But there were other things too, confusing things... things that sprang to mind like...
"O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!" Kon said suddenly. "Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit, that from her working all his visage wan'd; tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit? And all for nothing! For Hecuba? What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?"
In the mirror, his reflection was crying and it wasn't until he tasted his own tears that Kon realized he was too.
Upon waking, Cassie thought it was a dream. She'd had them before, of course. Not the grandiose reunion and earth-shattering sex, just mundane moments. Them eating breakfast together, getting briefed by Robin for a new mission, watching Saturday morning cartoons. But none of the dreams had been as vivid, as real, as being with Conner. Indeed, even real life, the last year of life, hadn't been as real as Conner.
Still, it was with some amount of regret that she woke up, only to find a single red rose on the pillow beside her with a note around it. As love notes went, it was rather unexceptional ("I love you. P.S. It's not a rose, it's a carnation.") but she read it three times before hustling off to find a vase for the flower.
Kon walked down the street. The glasses Tim gave him seemed to do a good job, as no one recognized him. Not that he thought there were many people who'd say "Hey, you look just like that superhero that died a year ago!" But even so, the game had certain rules to be observed and you had to master the rules before you could bend them and...
And why was he thinking like that?
Screw it. Find something to eat. Hell, bring something back for Cassie to eat. Yeah. Yeah, that'd do it. Plus some wine. And maybe eleven roses to go with the one he'd left her...
And he needed money. He pulled out the insides of his pocket and half-expected a housefly to emerge like in a cartoon. Then an idea came to him. Kneeling down, Kon placed his hand on the ground, palm flat, and began extending his telekinesis. In the past, he had used it like a blunt instrument or a closed fist, blindly exercising force. Now, he used it to extend the sense of touch. He felt through miles of ground, through empty spaces that could only be caves, through oil wells, through rotting corpses...
There.
Buried treasure. Kon smiled to himself and traced an X in the dirt with his index finger.
"X marks the spot," he said as he stood up and dusted his jeans off.
It was only a short flight to the spot he was looking for. As he flew, he thought. The dig was only a few miles' drive from a bank. Obviously, sometime in the past someone had robbed said bank and buried the money, probably meaning to escape and come back for it later. Equally obviously, their plan had failed. Such was life. Oh well. Their loss was his gain.
His fingers dug into the yielding earth with the force of a backhoe. Behind him, the dirt flew up in such amounts it looked as if it were being kicked up by an explosion. Finally, he reached them. The bags were as dirty as expected from being in the ground so long, but the money inside was still good. Smiling in smug self-satisfaction, Kon slung the bags over his shoulder and went on his way. Being in a charitable mood, he even left one bag for whoever owned the property to find.
After flying through a raincloud to get clean, Kon set about securing his new "investment." Setting up the bank account was easy once Kon figured out how to reach into the teller's computer hard drive with his tactile telekinesis and alter all the little ones and zeroes to show Conner Moon as a model citizen. After that, the hardest part was finding a dignified wallet to carry his ATM card in.
Kon ran into Tim at the general store (and here he thought that Oregon Trail had just made that up).
"Jesus Christ, Kon, where have you been?" Tim asked, exasperated.
"Chill, 'dad,' I was out."
Tim grabbed Kon's arm. "Out? Out where? Out of your mind!? Because that's the only explanation I can think of for you going AWOL while half the superhero community is out looking for you!"
"What, they want my autograph?" Kon pulled his arm away and looked through the store's pathetic wine selection. "If a storm is coming, the options are to seek shelter or to stand and rage, defiant, against the elements. Me, I think shelter's overrated."
"Listen to yourself. This isn't like you, Kon."
Kon pulled out the closest thing to a quality vintage and strode for the cashier. "Maybe it is. Maybe all this time I've been so worried about living up to the Big S's standard that I never realized I was in his shadow. You ever think of that, Boy Wonder?"
"I'll tell you what I did think of. You're way too young to be purchasing that alcoholic beverage."
Kon pulled out a hundred dollar bill. "I think my friend Mr. Franklin will vouch for how mature I am emotionally."
He slipped the money to a grateful cashier, who quickly began ringing the items up.
"Where'd you get that money?" Tim persisted as they left the store.
"Found it."
"Found it."
"Is there an echo in here or is it just me? I found it. Just lying around."
"Kon, you've got to turn it into the authorities."
Kon smirked. "Tell me, geek-boy, which one of the Doctor Whos said that famous wisdom 'Finders keepers, losers weepers'?"
Tim shook his head. "You're not yourself."
Clapping him on the shoulder, Kon continued to drive the dagger in. "I get it. You're pissed that I'm spending more time with my girl than I am with my best friend. Look, thanks for bringing me back, 'dad,' but now I don't need you. I realize we're a team and all, I do the walkin', you do the talkin'... but in the year that I've been gone, I would've hoped you discovered how to walk on your own two feet." Kon leaned in close. "So get walking."
"I know things have been tough between us. Lately, I've had my... interests, you've had yours. And they've rarely coincided. I think we share the fault on that. But right now, it is extremely important that we be as truthful with each other as possible."
Cassie nodded.
"Now," Princess Diana said, sitting down, "have you been contacted in any way by a man claiming to be Kon-El?"
Hopping a freight train shaved a few hours off the trip across the state and Tim found himself back in Gotham in no time flat. It wasn't just that Gotham was the last place they'd look... whichever "they" Superman had recruited. He had... business.
The graveyard was empty. Everything was this time of night. For a moment, Tim wondered if he would find the space where Jason's tombstone lay if he looked. Probably not. That's just the kind of detail Bruce would attend to. Still, he wondered what had happened to it. Had they thrown it in the trash? Broken it down somewhere? Or maybe it was here, in front of him, recycled into a new tombstone.
Stephanie Brown. Beloved Daughter. Couldn't even get it right on her inscription. Thinking back on all her attributes (which was a great way to get himself good and depressed, not that he ever needed to go to much trouble), "beloved" wasn't one he could settle on in much honesty. And, like everything, part of that was his fault.
Tim didn't fall to his knees. He didn't wail or pound at the tombstone like he could intimidate it into giving his girlfriend back. He just stood there at a vaguely military attention, staring the headstone down.
"I think I've made a terrible mistake," Tim said without much preamble. His voice sounded hollow. "I thought if I could fix just one little part of my world, just one little part, then the rest could fall into place. Then I could make sense of it. But nothing makes sense anymore. It's like he's a different person. I miss you so much. What do I do? Please, tell me what to do!?"
"You adapt. You survive," the voice said from behind him. Its owner walked up to the grave, stopping next to him.
"Hi Cass," Tim said. "So, where ya been?"
"College."
"That's just crazy enough to be true."
"Knock knock," Kon said, bursting into Cassie's house with his customary flair. "The dark knight returns! Oh, wait, no, that's not it..."
Cassie looked up at him. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes red, used tissues crumpled up all around her.
"What's the matter? Did they cancel Invader ZIM again?"
"Are you... you?"
Kon cocked his head. "Don't you think it's a bit early in the morning for existentialism?"
"It was Wonder Woman... she came here..."
Instantly Kon was on the ground next to her, gripping her shoulders firmly. "What'd you tell her?"
"Kon, that hurts..."
Kon shook her. "What does she know!?"
"Conner, please..."
Kon let go hurriedly. "I'm... I'm sorry. I have to go now."
Cassie stood up, reaching out to him as he flew out the open door. "Wait! Don't leave me... again..."
Kon hovered in the air, scouting the horizon in all directions. Think. She has an invisible plane, right? What does that mean? Invisible, means it has to bend the light around it. But the inside has to be visible, otherwise how would she fly it? So only the exterior is invisible.
Kon smiled at his own brilliance as he used his X-ray vision. Quickly, the jet came into sight. To his eyes, it looked half-open, like a geode. Wonder Woman sat inside. Kon sped towards her at about four times the speed of sound. On his first pass, he ripped off the wings.
"Woman drivers," he scoffed to himself as the jet made a nasty-looking crash landing. A single red boot kicked the invisible hatch off. It flickered visible a few times before crashing back to earth and becoming permanently visible. Slowly, Wonder Woman staggered out of the wreck and fell to the ground.
"'A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.' Irina Dunn, 1970," Kon quoted as he floated to the ground. "But right now you're looking more like a fish out of water." He picked her up by the hair, pulling her face close to his. "Amnesia is caused by damage to the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain. Now, do you know what ECT is?"
"Electro... shock treatment," Wonder Woman mumbled.
"Very good. Gold star for you. Basically, I'm going to disrupt your memory, inducing lacunar amnesia. You won't remember anything after... well, I don't know, I haven't exactly field-tested this. Thanks for volunteering. And since you're not going to remember this anyway..."
He kissed her. She bit down on his lower lip as he did, but that just egged him on. Suddenly, she stiffened, her eyes growing wide. Then her eyelids grew heavy and she slumped to the ground. Kon stood over her.
"Sorry. But it's you or me."
Tim sat on the bed and watched Cass as she ordered room service. It made sense. He had no energy for a return trip to... to Kon, and it wasn't like he could just go back to Bruce. Hey, Bats, in a little bit of hot water over the whole cloning thing, mind if I crash at your place?
Her English had improved notably. She was no longer as hesitant in her word choices, her sentences were more complex than he remembered. Cass was still taciturn, but it was out of choice rather than necessity. Tim waited until she got off the phone to say the words he had wanted to say to her for over a year.
"You weren't the only one who loved her."
"I know," Cass said with a sadness that bordered on the infinite. She looked over at him and he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "We never talked about it, but it was always between us, wasn't it? The fact that she loved both of us. I suppose it didn't really matter, she had enough love for both of us... and she loved us too much to choose."
Tim shook his head. "No. We loved her too much to make her choose."
He got up and went to the window, looking out at the Gotham cityscape they had used to share. Behind him, the food arrived and Cass set it down on a table. Tim gently leaned forward until his forehead was braced against the glass of the window. Now he was looking straight down to the ground far, far below. Once, he would've defied that kind of gravity with ease. Now, it terrified him more than he could say.
"I never thought we could die. All of us, the family. Not until Steph."
Cass approached him, leaving the food uneaten. Gently helping him shrug off his jacket, she kissed his shoulder. "Did she used to touch you like this?"
Whirling around, Tim's sudden motion sent the blinds swinging back and forth. "What the hell are you doing?"
Cass rocked back on her heels with that subtle quirk of a smile that was distinctly Cassandra. "I'll take that as a yes."
"Since when have you had a thing for me?" Tim demanded.
"I've always wanted to know what Steph saw in you. No offense."
"None taken."
"And I've always considered you intriguing," continued Cass. "If I ever needed heirs, you would make an optimal mate."
"Gee, thanks."
He started for the food. She grabbed his hand. "The food's getting cold."
"You need this," Cass insisted. "How long has it been?"
"Everyone has dry spells..."
"Not that. Since you felt love, of any kind?"
"I don't think... since my father died."
"Far too long."
The kiss was short and sweet and just like how Steph used to do it, right down to the tongue that didn't know quite where to go.
"It's alright if you call me Steph. I'll touch you like she used to. After all this time, I still remember. How could I forget?"
"That's what I worried about," Tim admitted. "If I loved her, how could I forget?"
"Then let me remind you."
Then her hands were on him, running up his chest and down between his legs and it took all his willpower to take her by the wrists and hold her there while she looked up at him without comprehension, the way she had so many times so long ago.
"She's dead," he said, because it was the truth and she deserved it. "You're not her. And neither am I. I don't want to know how she made love. I want to know how you do."
This time the kiss wasn't short and it wasn't sweet, but it was her instead of her and it was real and he could feel her teeth grinding against his as she reached into his fly and this time he didn't stop her...
Cassie felt pain. Pain and, as a distant second, her own blood running down her body. It was quite an interesting sensation. She reflected on there being no shame in being beaten by Superboy-Prime. After all, he had taken down all of the Teen Titans, what chance did she have on her own? She had put up a good fight. Cassie felt sure that the valkyries would accept her into Valhalla where...
Wait. No. That was Norse mythology. Damnit.
"You were his main gal, weren't you?" Prime said as she looked at him with one swollen eye. "Slut. I bet you've had sex outside of marriage. I cansmell it on you..."
Suddenly, hands were on his shoulders, lifting him up and throwing him across the room.
"Hey, motherfucker," came a familiar voice. "Guess who's back."
Prime looked up, suddenly fearful. "It can't be you! You're dead! I killed you!"
Kon stepped into the light, smiling. "That's right, 'Superboy'. You did kill me. But the thing of it is... you didn't do a very good job."
The next punch sent him through the wall.
"Did that mean anything?"
"It always means something."
"To you, I mean."
"I'm not in love with you. I'll let you know if that changes."
Superboy-Prime got up, a bit shakily, as Kon steadily advanced on him. Prime sent out two beams of heatvision that burned with the force of a supernova, but the air seemed to solidify in front of Kon and the lasers just stopped.
"See, I'm two halves..." Kon said, still smiling. "Split right down the middle. Half Luthor, half Superman. Half ascended to heaven, half condemned to hell. I've been to hell and back, boy. And I brought back a little taste of home for ya."
With that, he reached out and touched Prime. The villain felt his skin splitting open, felt his insides rending, felt his eyes bloat and run down the sides of his face like poached eggs. He fell to his knees and agony. Kon dabbed his forefinger with Superboy's blood and drew the yin of a Taijitu on his white T-shirt.
"I don't need the symbol anymore. But I think I'll keep the name. A good brand name is so important."
"Imposter!" Superboy-Prime croaked out. "Pretender! Pathetic little..."
Kon grabbed Prime by the throat and lifted him up. "Oh, that's brilliant. I can see the neural pathways of your brain, lit up like a circuit board."
For the first time in his life, Superboy-Prime felt agony.
"That must be the pain center. Useful bit, that. You know how in the movies, it's always 'tell me what I want to know and I'll let you live'? Slight variation on that. Tell me what I want to know and I'll let you die. Now, who's the real Superboy?"
Superboy-Prime spat on Kon. Kon wiped it off with his sleeve and sent every erg of telekinetic force he could muster into his enemy's brain. Superboy-Prime kicked and screamed until his throat was hoarse, but the pain just grew and grew and grew until every atom of his being was screaming in protest and then...
"You!"
The pain stopped.
"What was that?"
Superboy-Prime gasped for breath.
"You're... the real Superboy..."
Kon's smile grew wider. "I'll put that on your tombstone."
And with that, Superboy-Prime exploded from the inside-out. His incinerated particles rained down like snowflakes as Kon walked away.