Chapter 4

Jimmy sat at the dinner table with Terry on the opposite end-quietly eating dinner after a long arduous day at school. Everything smelled okay, but Terry didn't like too many spices in the food. He was older; and since he was a clone of Bruce Wayne, he thought he might be predisposed to heart disease. It worried him all the time, and he ordered a chest x-ray every time he went to the doctor's office just to be sure he wasn't suffering from a clogged artery.

Jimmy didn't want to say too much to his adoptive father about his feelings because Terry always tried to take the positive side-even if he didn't have a full understanding of the problem. Sometimes the kid wanted to vent, but Terry always came at him with some kind of antiquated solution. The long table didn't have anything on top of it like a fruit bowl or other types of decorations. It was bare. Terry didn't have a taste for the arts, and he didn't mind that. He once hired a decorator who straightened out Mister Wayne's picture that set above Jimmy's head as he ate his meal, but that was the only thing in the dining room with a fancy touch to it.

Terry sat with his meal, a bottle of Vodka, and a stack of notes from his latest court case. After a long day of work, Terry liked to finish off the night with a few shots of Vodka. Jimmy sat in his padded suit that didn't allow for any of his skin to see the light of day, and tried to eat his meal without saying a word, but Terry kept clearing his throat like he wanted to say something. As soon as Jimmy dug his fork into his food, Terry cleared his throat. The head portion of Jimmy's suit protruded outwardly, and it was actually hard to see his brown face at all. The only sound in the room for a short time were the eating utensils slamming against the plates, and then Terry cleared his throat. It messed up Jimmy's concentration. Jimmy looked up at him, and then back down at his food, and Terry cleared his throat a few more times.

Jimmy sometimes mentioned to Terry how much he hated his life, and how he longed to feel the touch of another human being. It killed him on the inside not to have intimate contact with the opposite sex like the other boys at school. He hated watching the couples walk through the hallways-holding hands and kissing without any cares in the world. It was painful to watch something that he could never have, so he kept his face in the books. Terry knew about his pain, but didn't have the means to solve it. He'd tell Jimmy that sex wasn't all that great, but he knew it was a lie. Terry's face told a different story than his mouth. Jimmy somewhat felt like the man with the midas touch; however, his touch didn't turn flesh to gold; it killed it. He often imagined what it was like to have another human being touch his face like they did in the movies, and then he started to cry a little. The last thing he wanted to do was cry in front of Terry because he'd want to know if somebody was picking on him at school. Terry cleared his throat one more time, and Jimmy slammed his fists on the table.

"What?" Jimmy asked.

"Itchy throat," Terry replied, "Why are you so uptight?"

"Nothing. Just trying to eat in peace."

Jimmy didn't let the jokes about his suit get to him because he knew the reason behind the protective uniform. It wasn't for his safety, but their safety. He often had vivid dreams of not wearing the suit, having a girlfriend, and falling in love. When he awoke from his lucid dreams, he would cry.

Jimmy thought having an array of different suits in multiple colors would cement him some friends, but it never happened. The other students made an effort to stay clear of Jimmy because of an incident that happened in elementary school. He nearly killed his entire second grade class when he tore his glove on the playground. He didn't think the little tear would cause a significant problem, but it did. Everybody in his second grade class started getting sick, and four students went into a coma. He had a hard time meeting people, and in some ways, he was just too shy. Jimmy sat alone during lunch at school, and never talked to anybody-even when people asked why he wore the insulated suits.

Terry looked up at Jimmy, and asked, "How was school?" The large scar on his face grew more prominent through the years, and it told a story of its own. At first, he thought about getting the scar fixed, but it gave him a certain edge in the courtroom. The defense attorneys took him more serious with a war wound on his face.

"Fine," he said without looking up at Terry. He picked through his food with the fork, and ate it slowly. Terry liked stir fried vegetables, and the majority of the meals consisted of some kind of stir fry. Jimmy had pretty much grown up on Terry's cooking, and thought everybody ate vegetables all the time with very little seasoning, but that wasn't the truth. He didn't like the dinner conversation with Terry because he always had a positive attitude about life, but Jimmy needed something real. "The usual."

"You don't seem fine," Terry said in a bitter voice. "How can I help you when you act like this, Jimmy?"

"Like what, Terry?" He asked angrily. "At least you have friends."

"That's it," Terry shouted, "Have you even tried, Jimmy? You sit..."

The metal shield slid over Jimmy's face, and he stopped talking to Terry, walked out of the room, and out the front door. He could see through the shield without any problems, and he often used it when he was in a small, closed room with other people. The majority of his dangerous energies flowed through his actual body and hands; but in times of high stress, his face would throw out burst of deadly energies that would kill everybody in the room. The shield was another level of protection, a backup plan, but Jimmy used it to ignore Terry most of the time. When Jimmy closed his face shield, Terry threw his napkin to the ground, and shook his head.

"Grow up, Jimmy." He shook his head in disapproval of his son, and then took a gulp from the bottle of Vodka.

Terry owned a vast amount of property that stretched over twenty-five acres on the outskirts of Metro City. The property had rolling hills with plenty of exotic looking trees, and a long path that circled the entire property. On the far end of the compound, the path led into a wooded area flowing with vegetation. Jimmy was fourteen-years-old, and jumped far ahead of his peers. He was about to graduate from high school in a few months, and planned on attending College at the prestigious Metro City University for a degree in Genetics. He had to stay living with Terry because the facilities on the Metro City campus couldn't accommodate his special needs. Needless to say, his radioactive field that encompassed his body would kill everybody in the dormitory if he removed his suit without being in a protective room. He lamented to Terry about how much he hated living his life in the protective suit; he compared it to being a slave to medicines.

Every noise in Metro City entered into Jimmy's ear canal, and he hated listening to everybody's inane chatter. The majority of people talked about trivial things that didn't amount to much, and he had to learn how to filter through the nonsense. He stood in the middle of his special room, and listened to nothingness in order to try to block out the noises. Even though he did a good job at blocking out most of the nonsense, sometimes things got through. Sometimes he heard other people talking about him in a negative tone, but he learned not to take it personally.

He had a picture of Ginger Li Li on his wall, and a heart drawn next to her. He had a crush on the teenage rockstar, and wanted to meet her more than anything. She had a large fanbase, but Terry wouldn't allow him to attend one of her concerts because of the risk factors involved. All of her concerts sold out within the first ten minutes of the tickets going online; and with that kind of numbers, Jimmy would be sitting too close to other people, and it would create a precarious situation. It would not have ended well for whomever he touched-even with his insulated suit as the barrier.

Tuning out rogue noises was a technique that Terry taught him through the years, and it worked most of the time. Jimmy spent a lot of time meditating in his room before he went to sleep almost every night. He didn't pray. He didn't believe in God or anything like that, but he loved to meditate. Suddenly, he heard Terry staggering into the house, and quickly put on his suit, and ran to see what was happening. It was the BAT! It shocked Jimmy because he hadn't worn the uniform in a long time. Since Terry started practicing the law, he stopped his vigilante ways, and spent the majority of his time studying the law.

Terry lay on the kitchen floor in his bat uniform without his mask, and blood dribbled from his mouth. He reeked of Vodka. The scar over his right eye looked like something reopened part of it, and blood trickled down his face. He smelled like the Vodka oozed out of his skin naturally, and it caused Jimmy to scowl. It was the first time that Jimmy saw him battered so badly, and it scared him. Even though Terry and Jimmy argued about trivial things, he loved Terry. He was all Jimmy knew. Breathing hard, he could barely say a word, but he tried his best. He looked up at Jimmy, and said, "Call Jessica."

Jimmy tapped his right sleeve. On the cuff of his right sleeve, he had a panel of buttons that was nothing more than a special type of cell phone. It was a top-of-the-line technology that Terry had built into all of Jimmy's suits because regular cellphones were hard to store. After he pressed one of the buttons on the right sleeve of his uniform an image appeared in the middle of the room: "Jessica, Terry's in trouble." The light from his arm projected an image of Jessica in the middle of the kitchen, and she was a tall, dark skinned woman.

That was all Jimmy had to say in order for Jessica to come running. Jessica stood approximately six foot four inches, and was one of the prominent superheroes who wasn't part of the Justice Corp. Her superhero persona was Radiant Wasp, and she fought along side a superhero called Green Glow. The Bat, Radiant Wasp, and Green Glow rejected all offers by the Justice Corp to join their ranks. The corp only helped the nations who paid an exorbitant fee for services, and it caused a few heroes to go rogue. Peru failed to pay the corp for the second year, and now they're fighting torrential rains. The mudslides will happen soon, but the corp will not help them.

Jessica was a medical doctor that worked mainly in the emergency room at Metro Regional. The majority of supervillains was afraid of the Radiant Wasp because she had something called the Glove of Darkness (GOD glove) that she used in order to bring any person's fears to the surface. The glove had other powers that enabled her to jump into different dimensions. Her father used the glove in the past, and he was critically wounded in a battle with an evil Superman from an alternate universe. Jessica once told Terry that her father and the Lantern Corp accidentally destroyed an Earth in an alternate universe, and that Kryptonians could break through to our side with the right technology because not all Kryptons exploded in alternate universes. She said that her father and the Lanterns inadvertently destroyed the Earth in an attempt to kill a rogue Superman.

Terry lay on the ground, and it seemed that he wasn't breathing for a moment. Jimmy could hear his shallow breath, but it scared him. "Terry!" Jimmy exclaimed. Terry moaned a little bit, but Jimmy felt better knowing that he was still alert. He had sweat running off his pallid face, and Jimmy didn't think he would survive. He couldn't do anything to help his guardian because his energy field would kill Terry. Jimmy sat against the refrigerator watching Terry lay on the ground in pain, and he hated the fact that he couldn't lift a hand to help him. He had to keep the Bat a secret-even if it meant Terry dying. Terry's orders! He looked into Terry's chest, and felt a sigh of relief that the knife didn't hit anything major.

Radiant Wasp burst into the back door with her medical kit, and started treating him on the spot. She wore her red leather uniform, and had large wasp wings protruding out of her back. Her mask covered only her eyes, and she looked like she worked out. She was a tall, tenebrous woman almost thirty-seven-years old, but she didn't look older than twenty. Ripping Terry's uniform off his frail body, she injected him with some kind of pain killing medicine. In the middle of the kitchen, she sewed up his stab wound, and put stitches in him immediately. She picked him up, took him to his bedroom, and laid him on his bed.

"Will he be alright?" Jimmy asked with a concerned look on his face.

She looked at him, and said with a smile, "As long as you don't touch him." She smiled. "He'll be fine." She pushed Jimmy out of the room, and then said, "There are dark times ahead of us."

"What do you mean?" Jimmy asked.

Jessica smiled. "It's not important now. Just make sure Terry drinks plenty of water." She looked Jimmy in the eyes, and then said, "Don't let him near the Vodka … Okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Terry remained in bed for nearly two weeks, and Jessica checked on him two times a day until he was back up and running. She was adamant about him not drinking, and made sure all the alcohol was out of the house. She checked every time she came over to visit Terry to ensure he wasn't drinking. He didn't say anything to Jimmy about what happened on that fateful night, but some criminal got the best of him. Terry never explained his scars and scratches if Jimmy didn't ask; but when it came to a wound as severe as the one he received two weeks earlier, Jimmy had to know.

"What happened to you?" Jimmy asked as he walked with Terry on the trails near the mansion. Terry looked old, frail, and his skin color was whiter than usual. His unshaven face had quite a few long hairs on it, and his mustache made him look much older. Terry already had a few gray hairs, but for some reason, he seemed to have more than usual.

The path was narrow, well kept, and it ran through the thick, wooded area of his property. Terry walked slightly in front of Jimmy, and he noticed the hair in the back of his head was completely gray, but he didn't say anything about it. "You don't injure easily."

Terry laughed. "All those years I told you Smear was dead," he said in a brittle voice. He looked at Jimmy with a stoned face. "He's alive, back to his old ways too."

"From the dead?" Jimmy asked facetiously. He had a feeling his brother was still alive because he couldn't find Smear's obituary when he searched online. Even when he realized that Terry lied about his brother's death, Jimmy never confronted him about it. It wasn't important to him in the scheme of things. But Jimmy knew that Terry didn't want anything to do with Smear because he never mention his name, his given name. He never said his name out loud, but Jimmy knew the name of Terry's brother. It was Matt, Matt McGinnis.

"He's dead to me," Terry said angrily. He walked off the trail, and looked into the thick brush. "Tried to talk some sense into him." Shaking his head back and forth, he screamed in a loud voice. "Why?"

"What's wrong?" Jimmy asked. Terry's scream caught him off guard, and he panicked for a second.

"He stabbed me," Terry said, "You know the rest." He acted like all the steam left out of his body, and walked in a lethargic manner back to the mansion. "It's getting late, Jimmy. You have school tomorrow."

"Okay," he said with a stern look on his face. The entire incident with Smear didn't surprise Jimmy because he felt for years that he didn't truly kill his brother. It was nothing more than the case of Cain and Abel with Terry and his brother, and Terry's little brother played the role of Cain.

Smear was nothing more than a toxic dump. The government didn't enforce the laws against dumping toxic chemicals when it came to the wealthy businessmen. Everybody knew the deadly toxins led to thousands of cancer deaths, diabetes, and other diseases, including metamorphism. Smear's powers came from harmful toxins, and he knew how to inflict the maximum amount of damage on Metro City. He robbed banks for a living, and Terry got in the way of a robbery in progress. Instead of Terry discussing the issues he had about his little brother, he continued brooding, and attending to his wound.

Metro City High was a massive school that stretched across three city blocks, and Jimmy hated the place. Before school started each day, he sat on the far picnic table. The majority of time he read on his tablet computer, but a young woman caught his attention one day. He knew her from his advance math classes, but he never spoke to her. Her name was Dana Vincent. She seemed like a quiet girl, the kind of girl that wore spring dresses with little flowers all the time. She had shoulder length black hair that she wore without curling it. She gave Jimmy a kind of wave, but he turned around to see who was behind him.

"I'm waving at you, silly," she said with a grin.

"Oh..."

Jimmy didn't stick out too badly in the school because all of the students wore wild clothing, including students involved in splicing. To the majority of the kids, Jimmy was nothing more than a weird super nerd who never talked. He had on a sleek black uniform that kept a barrier between him and the other students; and it took approximately fifteen seconds before his dangerous energy field escaped the confines of the protective suit, and killed whatever outside source was touching him. He made a point every day never to ride in an elevator with another student. The risk was too great. When he came to the elevator with a group of other students, Veronica Lee held the elevator for him.

"You coming?" She asked with an impatient look on her face. Her thick curly hair was in her face, and she had to remove it out of the way repeatedly.

"I'll catch the next ride," Jimmy said with a half smile.

"Whatever!"

Jimmy could hear her talking negatively about him to the other riders on the elevator, but it didn't bother him too much. It probably would have upset him more if she didn't say anything at all about him. The majority of people talked behind his back, but they didn't know that he knew about it. He grew tough skin over the issue when he was still in grade school. The kids made fun of him because he didn't have a momma, and that broke his heart. He had to learn how to live with the fact the Jokers stole the woman that he called Momma.

Later on in the day, he ate lunch outside on the concrete table in front of the school. The school had several concrete picnic tables where all the students sat, but he stayed by himself on the farthest one from the building. As he read an article about the Justice Corp on his tablet computer, he heard a voice in his head. At first, he thought he simply imagined Smear talking to him, but then he realized it was Smear.

"I know you can hear me, Jimmy," the voice said softly. "I'm going to kill you and Terry, and take ownership of his wealth, and he doesn't have the power to stop me."

Jimmy hopped up from the picnic table, looked around at all the other students, and then ran to the back of the school. The silver face shield slid over his face, and then he took flight. It was nothing more than a streak of blackness that cut through the blue sky, and in less than a second, he stood in front of Terry outside of the Metro City courtroom.

"What the hell are you doing, Jimmy?" Terry said as he looked unsettled by Jimmy's sudden appearance. "If people see you using your abilities..."

"I know, but …"

"But nothing. You know better," Terry snapped.

A loud pop-somebody fired a rifle-caused Jimmy to hop in front of Terry, and the bullet bounced off of Jimmy's back. The large caliber round fell to the ground, and made a clunk sound. Jimmy picked it up, examined it, and then held it in the palm of his right hand.

"Let me see that?" Terry asked. Jimmy handed the round to Terry, and he shook his head in disbelief.

"It's Smear," Jimmy said. He searched the top of the buildings until he spotted Smear nearly five miles away with a high powered fifty caliber rifle. "He's got a rifle."

"Stop him," Terry said in a strong, commanding voice. "Don't kill him."

Jimmy hit Smear's rifle with his heat vision, and melted it into a pile of metal. The red beams shot across the sky, and melted the rifle without any effort. Smear dropped the wooden portion of the rifle on the ground, and screamed at the top of his lunges. Angered, Jimmy hit Smear's right index finger with his heat vision, and removed it from his body completely.

"What was that?" Terry asked.

"I destroyed his weapon," Jimmy snapped.

"What else?"

"Removed his right index finger," he said with a serious look on his face.

"But you didn't kill him?"

"No."

"Good. He'll rejuvenate by morning," Terry said in a soft voice.

"He wants us dead," Jimmy snapped, "You're protecting him."

"You're so narrow minded, JImmy." Terry folded his arms, and then walked behind one of the large columns on the courthouse, and then said, "Somebody in the corp tipped off Smear about your powers. That's why I don't want him dead."

"Who would do that?" Jimmy asked.

"Don't know, but…" Terry looked around to make sure they were alone. "They're exploiting your weaknesses."

Jimmy sat down on the ground for a moment with a frown on his face. "Why do they hate me?"

"'Cause you're designed for one purpose, son." Terry looked up in the sky, and then back down at Jimmy.

"But it's my choice," Jimmy said, "Killing Superman is the last thing from my mind."

"They don't know that," Terry said, "They think it's like a switch..."

Jimmy shrugged his shoulders, and lamented, "I just want to be human, Terry. Nothing more."

The majority of people in Metro City was highly out of shape, and portly bellies were everywhere. It was the way of the world. Almost every teacher had an enormous waistline, and nobody seemed to mind one bit. Jimmy walked into his first period class on the next day, and he notice he had a substitute teacher for his advance math class. He wasn't the average looking teacher, but a man with plenty of muscles underneath his black suit. When Jimmy took his seat in the back of the classroom, he noticed the teacher glowering at him, but simply thought his sleek suit caught the new instructor off guard. He didn't know all of the members of the Justice Corp, but he expected the instructor might be a member. Jimmy looked him up and down, and then noticed the radio receiver in the instructor's left ear. The instructor had a nameplate that read Mister Lawson.

After about fifteen minutes into the class, Jimmy walked out of the classroom, and into the boy's bathroom down the hall. The instructor came in after him, and stood by the door.

"So, you know I'm not a real teacher?' Mister Lawson asked with an insidious grin.

"Why are you here?" Jimmy asked. He wasn't facing Mister Lawson, but could telegraph the man's every move.

Mister Lawson pulled out a green rock, and Jimmy turned around to see it. "This'll kill you."

Jimmy walked swiftly over to Mister Lawson, grabbed the rock, and crushed it in his hands. "Unlike Superman, I've grown immune to kryptonite." He crumbled up the rock, and allowed the pieces to fall onto the floor. "So, you're from the Justice Corp?"

Mister Lawson laughed. "We can't have an abomination like you mucking up things, Jimmy. Superman sends his regards."

Staring at the ground, Jimmy pulled off his right glove, and allowed his hand to soak in the fresh, bathroom air. It was the first time he took his hand out of the glove when he wasn't in his protective room. He tried to abstain from getting angry because he needed to control his energy field, and not let his dangerous aura escape the confines of the bathroom. Mister Lawson's eyes turned blood red, and he fell to his knees-crying. Holding his chest, he squinted his eyes as if pain was shooting through his body. It was possible that he didn't realize he was dying, but he sounded like a little baby. He fought with the air, and tried his best to breathe, but he couldn't. He grabbed his hair, and all the hairs on his head fell out onto the floor. He tried to scream, but blood shot out of his mouth onto the ground in a big puddle. Jimmy quickly put his glove back on his hand, and tucked it into his suit. He realized he had made a mistake in exposing the man to his dangerous aura, but it was too late. Mister Lawson fell to the ground in a puddle of blood-dead. He stood over the body, and didn't say a word, but knew immediately that he needed to hide it. The thought of Terry raced through his mind, and if Terry found out about him killing a man, he'd have words.

Jimmy opened up the panels on the ceiling, and stuck Mister Lawson in the ceiling and quickly cleaned up the mess. It didn't take him long to clean up the blood because he was able to move faster than any human on the planet. He spent the rest of the day thinking about what to do with the body, but he didn't have any ideas. When school let out for the day, he spent an hour after everybody left walking around the campus. He saw a small conveyance sitting in the parking-lot with a Justice Corp license plate, and he knew at some point the corp would come for him. He moved swiftly through the hallways, retrieved the body from the bathroom, and stuck it into the car. He did everything within a few seconds, and then he sat in the driver's seat of Mister Lawson's car. He probably sat in the driver's seat of the car for twenty minutes before he started it with the keys he retrieved from Mister Lawson's left pocket. He took off down the street, and then flipped a lever on the center console, and the car flew into the sky. The only reason he knew about flying was because Terry let him fly in private all the time. He took the ship all the way up into space, and traveled over to the Watch Tower. A voice came over the speaker.

"Welcome, Ace," the voice said, "The tower will guide you into the bay."

As soon as the car entered into the large docking bay, Jimmy hopped out of the vehicle, and hid underneath the stairs that led up to the main portion of the space station. Nearly thirty cars set in the bay, and they were all fancy too. None of the Justice Corp members had ordinary conveyances. They probably were some of the richest people on the planet. The car sat quietly in the docking bay for about ten minutes; and then a woman with dark hair walked over to the vehicle. She had on a black uniform that had JC written in the upper left hand corner. When she tapped the button to open the door, she screamed.

"Ace is dead!" She yelled throughout the entire bay. She ran over to the wall, and pressed an alarm that brought everybody on the ship into the bay-even Superman. He looked over the body, and ordered several of the members to remove it from the car. Jimmy watched everything from a small compartment underneath the stairs, and couldn't believe he was around the greatest heroes in history.

"The boy did this," Superman said in a cold, harsh voice, "He's dangerous, a threat."

Two of the Justice Corp members walked with Ace's body across the floor, and the rest of them went into the main portion of the space station. Jimmy left out of his hiding spot, and tried to figure out how he would leave the space station undetected. It was an air tight room, but he needed to find a way out of the ship undetected, and he knew it wasn't going to be easy. When he bumped into one of the cars, an alarm sounded, and warned the entire station that an intruder was on board the space station. He tried to escape back to his compartment underneath the stairs, but it was too late. Superman walked into the room with a powerful shoulder fire laser rifle.

"I knew you were on board," Superman said with a grimace. "We detected you in the ship, idiot."

"Just let me go," Jimmy said with a quiver in his voice.

Suddenly, Superman shot Jimmy with the sonic ray, and he fell to the ground in pain. The beam felt like a thousand tiny needles stabbing at his skin, and then his body adapted to the pain. The scientist who created him designed him to adapt to any amount of pain. He stood to his feet, and his protective suit incinerated around his body. The sonic ray turned his suit into tatters, and the head portion fell to the ground. He looked at his gloveless hands, and knew everybody in the station would die a horrible death. He tried to hold back his anger, but it was too late. The harmful radiation from his body started permeating throughout the entire ship, and Superman dropped the laser to the ground. He wiped his nose, and it had blood on it. The ship's computer told everybody to exit the space station immediately, and several escape pods ejected from the ship. Superman burst through the escape hatch, and fell haphazardly to the planet.

Jimmy walked up to the main portion of the space station, and over one hundred junior members of the corp lay dead in the main room. The ship didn't have any protective rooms that would protect the members from Jimmy's radioactive aura. Blood draped the floor, and boils covered the majority of bodies in the room. They looked like victims of some kind of plague, and Jimmy cried a little. He could hear several members in the control room calling for help, but he knew they were already dead. Everybody in the control room struggled to breath, but he knew they would die.

"Doctor Hawkins, we need your help?" a weak, female voice said.

"You're at the end of your days, child," Doctor Hawkins said on the monitor. "You died valiantly."

Jimmy looked down at the dead bodies in the main bay, and didn't have the heart to see the damage in the control room. He grabbed a phone off one of the dead bodies, and called Terry.

"Terry."

"What's going on?" Terry asked.

"Superman," Jimmy said, "He tried to kill me."

"What happen?" Terry asked in a frantic manner.

"They're dead," Jimmy said, "The junior members are all dead."

"What? Are you wearing your suit?"

"Superman tore it," he said, "But he escaped to the planet."

"Where are you?"

"Watchtower," Jimmy said. He paused for a moment, and said, "I need a protective suit."

"Sheesh, Jimmy," Terry said, "The Justice Corp is on the highest alert right now."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I'll leave the uniform on the balcony," Terry said, "Put it on, and then hide."

Jimmy sat underneath a large willow tree on the edge of Terry's property in his white uniform that he usually wore for special occasions. It was one of the extra padded uniforms in case Jimmy's radioactivity went awry while he sat in a group of people. He didn't have any clue what the Justice Corp planned on doing to him, but Terry went to talk with the Justice Corp in order to make peace. Terry had good communication skills, and often used them when talking with the Justice Corp. Unfortunately, he had left over three hours earlier, and hadn't answered his cell phone, so Jimmy felt nervous about the whole situation. Terry told him not to leave the property, but he became concerned after three hours of not hearing from him.

The corp had several agencies throughout the world, and two Justice Corp agencies were in Metro City. Regardless, Terry told him not to leave the property until he returned, but not knowing his whereabouts worried him. With his super ears, he listened to every conversation in the city in hopes that he'd hear Terry's voice, but nothing came of it. He flew upwards in a tardigrade motion over the compound in the hopes he could pick up a clue. By the time he flew the length of the compound, he heard Terry's name mentioned, and he flew at near light speeds to its location. He landed in front of the Justice Corp building on the east side of town. Several of the Justice Corp members stood in front of the agency in their costumes when Jimmy walked up to them. The majority of the members were much taller than the fourteen-year-old kid, but they had a look of fear on their faces when they saw him.

"I'm looking for the Bat," Jimmy said in a soft, somewhat childish voice. He approached the main entrance of the building, and none of the members tried to stop him. When he walked inside, he could hear Terry's voice coming from one of the back rooms, and then he heard Superman ask Terry to turn Jimmy over to the corp.

"You can kill me, Clark," Terry said in a harsh manner. "You attacked him. I'll never hand him over to you."

"I was just testing his mettle," Superman said in a gruff manner. "He went too far."

"No. You went too far," Terry replied, "You tore his suit. You attacked him. You're responsible for the deaths."

"Get out, traitor," Superman snapped, "Be warned. Open season on you and the boy."

Jimmy backed quietly out of the building, and flew home without Terry detecting his presences, and he had a lot on his mind. How far would Superman go in order to revenge his comrades? But then he stopped thinking about the revenge portion of his argument because the Justice Corp planned on killing him regardless of his earlier actions on the Watchtower. In fact, Superman more likely than not planned on building a case against Jimmy so he could throw the weight of the Justice Corp down on him and Terry. The Batman flew over Jimmy's head, and landed in the middle of the estate, and pulled off his mask when he entered into the house. Jimmy followed behind him, and Terry went straight for the bottle of Vodka. He poured himself a small drink, and then pointed at Jimmy.

"Thought I told you to stay on the grounds?" He said in a bitter voice. "Don't think I didn't see you at the JC building."

"You saw me …," Jimmy sat in a nice, cushioned chair that stood in the middle of the room. "Superman started this."

"I know. I know." Terry took another swig of the Vodka, and then set it back on the shelf. "Listen, they don't know your secret."

"That's true," Jimmy said with a smirk. "There isn't any black Kryptonite left."

Terry raised his glass to Jimmy, but when he turned to set the glass on the shelf, he noticed a small chip located on the outside of Terry's suit. It was directly under his right arm. "What's that?" Jimmy asked.

"What's what?" Terry asked.

Jimmy walked over to Terry, and had him raise his right arm. He pointed to the miniature device, and Terry pulled it off.

"Dammit!" Terry said as he squashed the receiver between his right thumb and right index finger. "They know all they need to know now."

Walking back over to the chair, Jimmy sat down in the chair, and said, "It's not all bad."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Terry asked.

"I've always prayed for a quick death."

Terry snarled. "I promised your mother that I'll take care of you." Terry grabbed the bottle of Vodka, and drank it all down. "I won't fail."

Two weeks moved past rather fast with absolutely no word from the Justice Corp, and Jimmy didn't mind the quietness. It was warm, spring warm, and he enjoyed the nice day in the month of March. The smell of the spring made Jimmy happy, and he appreciated the beauty of the old Wayne Manner. Vegetation grew in a wild and unfettered way up the side of the house, and Terry didn't hire anybody to trim the weeds. The water fountain gave the manner a scenic view that Jimmy loved, and he walked around the trail enjoying all the little creatures. Jimmy loved living on the fringes of the city because he didn't have a vast amount of hover cars roaming through the area. He sat on the park bench on the far side of the estate, and fed the ducks as they walked by. At any given time, at least thirty ducks wobbled around the trail eating whatever they could find.

A strong wind blew past Jimmy's head, and then he noticed the trees swaying in the wind. He looked up in the sky, but didn't notice anything ominous with the clouds. He stood up for a moment when the ground rumbled beneath his feet, and then several gigantic robots landed in front of him. The machines landed hard on the ground, and kicked up nearly a ton of dirt, and it caused Jimmy to fly into the air. He landed back on the ground in a defensive manner, and was ready to fight the two, threatening robots. One of the mechanical oddities took a swing at him but missed, and he hit the silver monstrosity in its slick chin. The robot stumbled backwards, and then he hit it two more times. Unfortunately, he miscalculated the whereabouts of the second robot, and it smashed the young kid into the ground. The strike to the top of Jimmy's head caused the young warrior to lose consciousness for a moment; and then when he awoke, one of the machines had him clinched in its metal fist. He used his heat vision in order to cut the machine into two pieces, and then struck the other robot in the legs with his heat vision-cutting it off at the knees. After about fifteen minutes of rustling with the machines, the metal titans lay in the yard in a pile of agitated metal still trying to carry out an already lost battle.

Terry-after spending a full day at work-came home to a yard full of torn metal, and checked on Jimmy's condition. The lawn looked like a war took place because the battle uprooted large chunks of grass and broke several of the yard ornaments.

"Are you okay?" Terry asked.

"Fine," Jimmy said, "Didn't even tear my suit."

Terry smiled. "Glad to see you're in a good mood about this."

Jimmy walked out into the front yard, looked up into the sky, and then said, "I'm going back to the Watchtower."

"And do what?" Terry asked.

"Finish what Superman started," he said in a bitter tone.

"You're not invincible, son," Terry said, "They have weapons."

"But I'm the ultimate weapon," Jimmy said, "Designed for one reason."

"You're letting your anger get the better of you," Terry said.

Jimmy walked over to the pile of robotic junk in the front yard, and shrugged his shoulders. Kicking some of the metal, he looked back at Terry with a scowl. "Is this my life?" He picked up the head of one of the robots, and screamed at it. He had high hopes that the Watchtower could hear his threats. "I'm coming for you, Superman."

"Jimmy!" Terry screamed.

The boy took off into the air so fast that all Terry could see was a streak of light. He flew in the direction of the Watchtower as it floated above the planet; and when he flew into the outer regions of space, he stood in front of the Watchtower ready for battle. The flashing lights of the Watchtower caused the young warrior to tense up a bit, but he was ready for a massive fight. The scientist of Cadmus created him to battle Superman, and now that day had come. Superman needed to pay for his indiscretions against the boy, and Jimmy wanted to make him bleed. He ripped off the top portion of his protective suit, and prepared for battle. The radiation emanating from his body caused an electrical field of death for a twenty-five mile radius. The space station went on alert, and warned the residents to leave immediately because of the abundance of radiation creeping towards it. He could see movement on the inside of the space station, and Superman at the controls of the fortified machine. Several ships exited the dock, and flew towards the planet while a team of robots flew towards Jimmy's position. One ship flew towards Jimmy, and he could see the dead occupants in the window-victims of the radiation coming from him. When he took off to meet with the robots, a black Kryptonite ray hit his radioactive field, and caused a massive explosion that tore a hole in the dimension. The reaction of the two forces meeting threw Jimmy across the dark void, and he ended up unconscious on the other side of the moon.

Meanwhile, the Watchtower disintegrated around Superman, and many of the occupants on the ship died when it crumbled around him. The blast-felt all over the planet-was much more powerful than any nuclear bomb, and it opened a hole in the dimension. Superman floated in the middle of the debris unconscious for about fifteen minutes. When he awoke to the destroyed space station, he shook his head in disbelief. A piece of flesh floated by his face, and he grimaced at it. He felt another vibration, and then noticed a massive ship prying its way into his dimension.