This is an experiment. If you love it, thanks. If you hate it, it's all Dragonrider7's fault.

I don't own a single character in the DC Universe. Heck, I don't even own any characters in this universe!

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Chapter 9

The guard at the Lexcorp reception station looked up and blinked. Hawkgirl stood there, smiling. "I wish to see Mr. Luthor. Now." She patted her left palm with the mace she held in her right.

His hand was almost to the alarm button when she flared her wings and took off down the hall. "Mr. Luthor? Could I have a minute of your time?"

The alarm sounded and Shayera grinned evilly as a security door opened and several guards began pouring out. They were wearing standard Lexcorp jumpsuits and brandishing stun pistols. It would take a lot more than that to stop her. Arcing down, she slammed into the lead guard, shoving the entire group back through the door. Her fists rattled the teeth of the closest two guards before they could get up, then hurled two more against the far wall of the guard room with a flick of her right wing. The ceiling in the room was high enough to allow her some room to maneuver, so she took to the air, flying low enough to give another guard a swift kick in the chest.

By now the rest of the guards were back on their feet and trying to draw a bead on her. She whipped down in their midst, slamming her mace on the floor as she landed in a crouch. The shockwave knocked them all off their feet, and stray stun beams struck three more guards. Shayera spun in a quick roundhouse kick, her foot catching another guard in the jaw.

She heard heavy footsteps in the hall, and her grin widened. "Time to play with the big boys." A final backhand knocked the last guard out, and she shot back out into the main passageway.

A trio of guards in Lexcorp battle armor were tromping down the hallway. When they spotted her, they filled the corridor with a barrage of energy weapons.

Shayera laughed as she easily dodged the beams and slammed into the lead trooper, knocking him back into his comrades. "You have to do better than that, fellows. Thanagarians aren't pheasants. We fight back!" Her mace came down, crumpling the hip servos of one of the guards. She deflected two beams fired by the prone guard as the other two tried to regain their footing. She was on them in an instant, her mace making quick work of their power packs. The suits powered down, leaving the men trapped inside.

She heard a whine and rolled left just before a blaze of energy roared through the space she'd just occupied. Spotting the laser cannon protruding from a ceiling panel, she whipped her mace at it. The laser tried to track the mace, but failed to intercept the weapon before it tore through the gun housing, reducing it to a hideous chandelier.

More guards were coming, and Shayera swooped down the hall to retrieve her mace, then continued further into the building. Bruce had given her a map showing the fastest route to Lex's office. She continued to battle her way toward the fifth floor northwestern corner of the building.

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Lex sat at his desk, watching Shayera's progress on the security cameras slaved to his laptop. It never ceased to amaze him how powerful these heroes were. He'd underestimated them more times than he cared to remember, and even now there was a lingering doubt. But he felt certain that today he would triumph. After all, he already had four of them under lock and key. Soon he would add Hawkgirl to the collection, which left only the Bat and the Martian.

Mentally he chided himself. Using the word 'only' when dealing with either of those heroes was asking for trouble. He knew the hardest part of his plan still lay ahead.

The sounds of battle grew louder outside his door. Pressing a button on the side of his desk, he signaled for Melanie his receptionist to open his door, then seek cover. He grinned – Lex Luthor's personal receptionist had a list of skills that actually qualified her for most military special operations teams, but he saw no need to place her in harm's way today.

Shayera arrived so quickly that Lex barely had time to blink before he was hauled out of his chair by his lapels. Shayera stood on his desk, holding him several feet in the air. "Where are they, Lex?"

Shayera's face was so close to his he could have licked her nose if he'd been so inclined. Instead he smiled. "Who?"

Hawkgirl shook him. "You know exactly who. Superman, the Flash, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern." She hopped down from his desk and walked over to a window. Smashing it with her mace, she turned him to see out to the well-trimmed grass five stories below.

He inspected the grounds with the air of a man who might call the groundskeeper to complain. "Oh, them. Don't you know where they are? Why are you asking me? I don't believe you have a contract with Lexcorp to track your personnel."

Shayera shoved him out the broken window and dangled him. "No more games, Lex. We know you brought them here. Where are they?"

Lex simply hung there, arching an eyebrow at her. "I can only assume that you have a very skilled attorney ready to defend your actions." His expression hardened. "Now put me down in my office while I'm still in a reasonable mood."

Shayera glared at Lex for a long moment, the thought of dropping him sparring with her responsibilities as an Earth superhero. Finally Justice League won out over Thanagarian training, and she pulled him back in the shattered window and hurled him against the far wall with a growl.

Lex grunted as he slowly got up. "The Justice League will be getting my chiropractor's bill." He strode to the phone on his desk and pressed a button. "Melanie, please issue a visitor's pass to Hawkgirl and clear the halls from my office to Lab 15-C."

"Yes, Mr. Luthor."

Lex dusted his sleeve, then gestured to the open door. "If you would join me, perhaps I can help you find your missing friends." Without waiting, he left the office.

Shayera hesitated. Lex was never flustered, but he seemed far too comfortable for a man who was just dangled out of a fifth story window. She hadn't surprised him at all. It was obviously a trap. Under her voice, she said to no one in particular, "Are you still with me, J'onn? I doubt Lex is taking me to the cafeteria for tea and cookies."

"I'm right behind you." J'onn's voice was a whisper behind her.

Shayera hurried to catch up with Lex.

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They entered the lab, stepping through a heavily-reinforced steel door. Shayera eyed the six-inch thick lab door as it swung shut with a hiss of hydraulics. She could knock it off its hinges with a couple well-placed blows of her mace, but she wasn't interested in testing the theory. "What sort of experiments do you conduct here, Lex?"

Lex grinned. "We do a number of experiments down here. Some of them with highly volatile subjects. Containment is a priority."

Shayera looked around the lab. There was almost no lab equipment. A lone computer station was mounted to one wall. A ten-foot square chamber was sectioned off from the main room with six-inch glass. In the room was a plain oak cabinet. Shayera grabbed Lex by the collar and half-marched, half-carried him into the chamber. "Open it!"

Lex shrugged. "As you wish." He reached up and swung the cabinet doors open, then quickly stepped back. The cabinet's interior was covered in radiation shielding. The only thing inside the cabinet was a rack holding seven of the glowing crystals they had seen in the previous abductions. Before she could react, two of them let out a blinding flash.

Lex blinked the stars away. He'd seen video clips of the crystals in action, but hadn't expected the glow to be so intense. He touched the signal scrambler he wore under his shirt, pleased that it had protected him from the effects of the crystal's field. Walking over to the cabinet, he lifted one of the crystals from the rack and examined it. A darkened area in the heart of the crystal indicated that it now contained the person whom it had been designed to capture. He literally held Hawkgirl in the palm of his hand.

As he returned it to the rack, he noticed something he hadn't expected. Looking at the crystal designed to contain the Martian Manhunter, he saw a similar darkening in the center. Could it be he caught them both at once?

Lex hurried to the computer station and called up a playback of the security recording of Hawkgirl's capture. He suppressed the urge to laugh. Not one, but two crystals lit up when he opened the doors to the cabinet, and for just an instant the outline of the Martian Manhunter appeared next to Hawkgirl before the crystals claimed them both. Even the Martian's vaunted invisibility hadn't saved him.

Lex tempered his satisfaction by reexamining the cabinet's contents. One crystal was still shining with no internal shadow. Until the Batman was captured, he knew that his plans were still very much at risk.

He closed the cabinet and headed back to his office, eager to see if he could anticipate Batman's next move.

To be continued . . .

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