Chapter 10: Grudge(s) Match

AN (2008): Metropolis Kid and Chris St. Thomas are still working on merged chapters.

A/N (2015): I hope the third time is a charm.

Adding some previously unpublished material here about villains.

And I/we did it to you again. As I was going through Chap 11 to prepare it for reposting, I found scenes out of sequence that really belonged with material that I had already posted in Chap 10. So, I've taken both sets of events and reordered them. There's some material in this version of Chap 10 that was in the last version and some added. Likewise in Chap 11, there will be some material that was previously in Chap 10, but most of it will be new.

Day Three:

Evening in Metropolis. Luthor's Grudge

Lex Luthor stands next to an expansive, luxurious, modern desk hewn from a single old-growth mahogany tree and stained a deep tone. On one corner sits a state of the art video conferencing system and telephone. On the other corner a few signed memos sit in the outbox, next to a bust of Einstein. A hologram schematic of a new green and purple battle suit hangs in the air to one side of the desk, washed out by the sunlight streaming in thru the windows. Luthor looks out the window, at an expansive view of downtown Metropolis and the waterfront. The best view. Period. The view from the CEO suite at Luthor Corp tower. My view.

He rubs the fingers of his left hand over his bald head. That battle suit would have been built for his next engagements with the Alien. In Lex's mind there was only one Alien who ever got a capital letter: Superman. Many had followed him to earth: the Martian, the Thanegarian, the Terminian, and many others, but none of these had vexed Luthor to the extent that Kal-El of Krypton had. None of these had challenged Luthor for his position as Metropolis's favored son. How could he do this to me – go and die at the hands of another? I wanted to kill him myself. Or destroy his reputation. Or find some leverage over him, making him always my servant. Kneel before Zod, Hell with that. Kneel and swear undying loyalty to Luthor! But now I've been robbed of all those possible futures; robbed by another alien.

A pleasant tone interrupted his reverie. Luthor knew he would have ample opportunity to return to it the coming weeks, just as he had returned to it often in the past few weeks since the Alien's death. "Yes, Mercy." Luthor called to his assistant. "What is it?"

"I've got Dr. T. O. Morrow on the phone for you." Mercy's voice came through a speaker in the ceiling.

Luthor glanced at the doors to his office, outside which sat Mercy's desk. "Take a message, Mercy." he turned back toward the window. "I have important brooding to be getting on with."

Luthor was about to pour himself a scotch, when Mercy's voice came through again, "Ah, boss? Dr. Morrow thinks this might be of interest to you. He says it could be the key to the future."

"All right, Mercy," Luthor put down the bottle, but dropped three ice cubes in a tumbler anyway. "Put him through." Luthor carried the tumbler with the ice over to his desk and took a seat in the luxurious executive chair.

Luthor held up the glass with its ice cubes into the sunlight streaming through his windows. He studied the sunlight's refractions through the ice crystals as he touched a button on the arm of his chair. "Tommy. How are you?"

Dr. Morrow's vice came through Luthor's Lu-tooth earpiece with perfect clarity. "I'm knee deep in another Red project." The mad scientist hated being called by the diminutive,'Tommy,' but the vexation Luthor knew he had caused the other hardly came through in his tone of voice.

Luthor leaned back a his chair, savoring the exquisite lumbar support. "And you think this one will work out better than your prior Red projects" he smiled, "Torpedo, Inferno and Tornado?"

"Yes. Of course it will." Morrow hissed through the phone. " This one will succeed where the others... Never mind the others, Lex, did you hear the news from LA, about the chess-playing computers?"

"I couldn't hear you, Tommy," Luthor turned the tumbler in his hand and noticed tiny rainbows in the film of water at the bottom. "what was that?"

"Never mind the other Reds, Mr Luthor." Morrow's voice carried an amends-making tone.

"That's more like it, Thomas." Luthor declared confidently. "You were saying?"

"Yes, I was saying," Morrow continued, "the creator and programmer of a chess-playing computer program was murdered backstage at the competition. Rumors abound regarding tachyons and anomalous blood evidence at the crime scene. It piqued my interest. I would go after the chess-playing robot myself, but as I said, I'm working on something else."

"Sounds interesting, Thomas." Something to take my mind off the Alien. But I do wonder if I could get away with stealing his body now? I mean in the eyes of the public. I do want to run for President in the next election cycle. Would they have forgiven me by then? I suppose it would depend on the results of Project Kr.

Morrow was talking again. "...contacts say that an Armenian gangster in Los Angeles named Sarkissian got a hold of the device, known as The Turk."

"Thanks for the tip. Goodbye, Thomas." Luthor keyed the button his chair's hand rest again.

Lex swivelled toward his desk and waved the windows into polarization. He set the tumbler down on a coaster and leaned forward placing his hands on the edges of the electronic touch screen workspace. "Einstein."

"Yes, Mr Luthor." a voice with a hint of German accent came from the bust.

"Get me everything there is on the chess-playing machine known as 'The Turk.'"

Day Three:

After school in Los Angeles

Jason's POV: Grudge Match

I hear the front door open. Sarah's voice says, "John, honey, are you home? Where are you?"

It's Sarah's voice alright, but I know that Sarah's not the one speaking. The speaker has Sarah's voice, but no heartbeat. Instead I hear whirring mechanical noises. Cromartie has come for John. I grip my Coltan club tightly. A part of me wants to just rush out and bat the machine over its head, but I hold it in check. Let the target come to you. I hear it's footsteps as the terminator walks through the house and draws near the kitchen.

As it enters the kitchen, I swing hard at its head. The force and speed of the blow knocks the terminator off balance, and it drops it's rifle. I press my advantage.

I swing at its head two more times, once from the left and again from the right. It reels back, and I attempt to drive the bar into its skull. I fail to pierce the machine's armor, but I do dent its forehead.

It reaches out and grabs one end of the bar. I spin around behind it, twisting its arm and jabbing my elbow into the back of its neck. It loses its grip on the bar and goes down.

I know that, eventually, I'm going to have to move the fight outside, move it out into the waning daylight. I'll try to take it out back, where the fence will shield us from prying eyes. I doubt that the Connors intend to return to this house, but there's no reason to attract undo attention.

At the moment, though, I'm just enjoying beating on the blasted thing. One good thing about fighting terminators is that they're not really alive. So I don't have to worry about killing them. It's nice to just be able to cut lose and vent my anger.

The thing sweeps its leg around and manages to trip me. I go down and it gets up. "You are not John Connor. You're the boy from before. How did you survive the blast? Where is John?"

"Somewhere safe."

"Stupid organic, no where is safe!" It brings its fists crashing down. I jerk my lower body over my head and flip up, dodging its blow. "What, not going for the kryptonite this time?"

"You have information on John's location. If I kill you, I lose that information. So, I'll have to beat it out of you first."

I'm holding the Coltan bar in my right arm. I extend my left, palm up, and motion for the terminator to come at me. "Come and get it."

"Oh believe me, Superboy, I intend to." It lets out a roar and charges me. Who knew terminators could be so emotional? I guess it really doesn't like me. Feeling's mutual. I jump towards its lower body and tuck my body into a ball. I collide with the charging terminator's legs, tripping it. The terminator's body goes flying. Its head crashes through the kitchen wall.

The terminator pulls its head back, ripping out a chunk of plaster in the process, and stands back up. "Excuse me Cromartie, but would you care to step outside?" I rush terminator and drive it through the wall.

The good news is that we're outside now. Bad news is that when I impacted the terminator, it wrapped its arms around me. It's squeezing me in a monster of a bear hug. I try to twist out of it's grasp, but I can't. The thing's still stronger than I am. As I feel and hear my own rips crack, it repeats its question. "Where is John?"

I can't move my arms. They're pinned to my side. "Get scrapped!" I bring my head down and bite out a chunk of its neck. The terminator has no veins, carrying life-giving blood, that I can tear open. However, it does have wires that perform much the same function with electricity. I cut through them. I can feel the electric shock pass through my tongue and mouth. The terminator will reroute around the small short-circuit in less than a second. However, it loses power to it's limbs for that short time, and I'm able to break out of its grasp.

I spit the artificial flesh, synthetic blood and small flakes of metal out of my mouth. The terminator is fully functional again. "You… You bit me? You disgusting piece of organic waste!"

"Just doing my part, to help take a bite out of crime." The terminator comes at me again. We're outside now; it's time to end this. I charge, full speed, at the terminator, coupling my momentum and my strength together, as I ram the Coltan bar into its chest. I twist the bar back, ripping off the terminator's repaired chest plate, and I feel kryptonite sickness wash over me.

The terminator backhands me, and I go flying fifty yards. "You damaged another powercell, how unfortunate." It's voice sounds almost mocking. It's moving towards me but slowly. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that it was getting a sadistic pleasure from slowly poisoning me. "I guess I won't be getting the information from you after all. I'll just have to kill you and continue my search without your assistance."

Through the stabbing pain in my body and the churning of my stomach, I manage to emit a dark chuckle. "I don't think so." And as I hear the tell tale sound of a Harkonnen discharging its payload, my lip curls ever so slightly.

The special Thermite incendiary round explodes inside of the terminator's chest cavity. The 2500 degree flames spread throughout the terminator's chest, producing a blinding flash and consuming its internal systems. The heat also melts away the kryptonite.

I feel the sickness fade. I stand up and bathe in the remaining rays of twilight for a few moments. I spread my arms and absorb the last of the day's light. I feel the energy permeating my cells, recharging me. Then I look back at the terminator.

There was enough Thermite packed into the round to incinerate its powercells, chest servos and sever the connections between its chip and extremities. But there was not enough to consume its hollowed out shell. Its lying there, twitching. If it was alive, I think I'd feel sorry for it.

The only undamaged power unit, left to it, is the small back up battery in its head. It has just enough power to keep its processor working, but not much more. I wonder if its aware of what its going through. Does it feel pain, or a simulated counterpart? I decide to put the monstrous creation out of its misery. It will have to be completely destroyed before I leave, anyway. But in case it is suffering, there's no reason to prolong the things pain while I prepare its Viking Funeral.

I pick the bar of Coltan back up and walk over to the terminator. I squat down and use my muscles and what few gravitons my body is capable of generating to propel me into the air. I can't fly. My body doesn't produce enough gravitons to allow me to create a full blown antigravity field. However, I can manage enough to seriously decrease the Earth's gravitational pull on me, thereby lowering my weight and allowing me to leap a lot higher than I could with only my muscles.

I reach my top height at around five hundred feet, the height of a fifty story building. Then I come crashing back down. As I impact the ground, soil and grass goes flying, and I drive the bar through the dent in the terminator's skull. I stare into the terminator's eyes and watch as the red glow fades away.

Jason's POV: An Old Friend.

I wrench the bar back out of the terminator's skull and pick up its nonfunctioning body. I walk over to the concrete blocks used to contain the heat and flames produced by burning Thermite. I drop Cromartie's body into the center of them. I walk over to the wall, grab a jug of Thermite and spread the powder around the terminator's body. I light a flare and drop it onto the powder.

As I watch the flames consume the terminator, I shudder slightly. Just a few moments ago that thing had been walking and talking. They can seem so human. Now that the fury of battle has passed and I've had a chance to vent my anger, I feel a pang of guilt over the its destruction. I try to remind myself that it was only a terminator, that it had no life; and therefore, I'm not guilty of killing it. As I try to reassure myself, I feel a comforting grip on my shoulder.

I turn around and look at the woman whose face I haven't seen in five years. Except for keeping her hair longer, she looks exactly the same as I remember. I'm not surprised. Vampires don't age after the point of infection. She'll be stuck at nineteen for the rest of her life, afterlife, existence...whatever.

"You still regret it, huh?" She looks into my face. "In the aftermath of the battle, you still regret what you have to do to win." She takes off her dark sunglasses. The sun's already low in the sky. She doesn't need them anymore. Her eyes are an unnatural shade of red. Most people would be startled by them, but I'm not. I look past the frightening color and see sympathy within.

"Yeah," I agree with her. "Does it get easier?"

"Not really. After awhile, you do learn how to not dwell on it. But if you ever stop to think, no it doesn't get easier." She wraps her arms around me.

A platonic hug, it's nice, comforting. I remember holding onto her five years ago, after the first time I'd seen a ghoul attack. I remember clinging to her when I was too traumatized to even speak. She helped me through it. I remember going insane with anger when she was nearly killed. I remember ripping through an entire ghoul company to get to her. I remember tearing through their decaying bodies with nothing but my bare hands. I remember saving her; and I remember her saving me, convincing me that I wasn't a monster and not caring that I'd failed at being a hero.

I break out of my reminiscing and step back to arms' length, my hand still holding her shoulders. "Thanks."

"For what?" Seras asks.

"For everything," I say, "for the encouraging emails, for coming out here, for the hug, for always being there to help."

She smiles. "No problem. You'd do the same for me." She musses my hair. "After all, we freaks have to stick together."

That's what we are. We're the freaks, the different ones. The people who don't fit in with those around us. She maybe a creature of night, and I a creature of sunlight. But we're both just different sides of the same coin, more alike then unalike.

We were both fathered by legends who we can't completely live up to. We both have fairly pleasant personalities, until we get too mad and lose control. We're both victims of circumstance, pulled into the middle of wars that the average person wouldn't even believe exist. And we are both there for the other when we need it most, like when our fathers passed away. Even if we were separated by an ocean, a few kind words at the right moments can make all the difference in the world. But I'm getting lost in the past again.

I need to focus on the present."Does Integra know?"

"No," Seras responds. "I told her I was taking my vacation."

I chuckle. "I didn't know you got a vacation."

She laughs slightly. "I'm still on the books as a transfer from the D11 special forces unit; so she's got to give me two weeks a year, if I put up enough of a stink about it."

"Thanks for keeping this off the record." I take half a step away, still holding one of her hands, "I really don't need the Knights of the Round Table peppering me with a lot of questions that I can't answer. I hope you don't take too much grief when you get back though."

"Oh I'm sure that Integra will have a couple of nasty assignments waiting for me, but they won't last long. She can't afford to keep me scrubbing bathrooms and peeling potatoes forever." My friend looks down as she finishes. "I'm the only vamp Hellsing's got left." I can tell that she's remembering Alucard. He's been gone for nearly three years now, but she still misses him. I'm not really surprised. I don't think I'll ever stop missing my father. Although it's not quite the same. We had different relationships with our fathers. I lost a father, but she lost, ...something else.

I try to divert her mind to a more pleasant topic. "So, what are you going to do with the rest of your vacation, head to the beach?"

She laughs heartily. "Yeah right, a vampire lying on the beach for two weeks, just soaking up the sun? I don't think so. I was figuring on going to Hollywood, see if I can get Matt Damon's autograph, then maybe Las Vegas for awhile."

"A vampire in Sin City?" A roguish smile spreads across my lips. "Yeah, I can see that."

"You can come with me," she closes the gap between us and takes my other hand in hers. "If you want."

I look around the back yard that was just host to a fight between a time traveling assassination cyborg and a half alien. How do I keep getting myself into these things? "No, I'm afraid I can't. I'm kind of in the middle of some…"

She finishes my statement. "seriously messed up shite?"

"Yeah, exactly." I say.

"I know the feeling." Seras agrees. "Maybe I'll see you when it's all over. Integra's given you an open invitation to stay at the mansion, just as long as you don't mind donating a little blood."

It's not for her. My blood's toxic to vampires, too much stored solar energy. However, when injected into ghouls it purifies their blood and regenerates their flesh. Basically, It turns them back to humans. "Your people still haven't made any progress with the synthetic stuff?"

"They have... just not much." she smiles again. A real smile. "Your cells are incredibly complex. The best thing that they can synthesize takes multiple injections and only works if they start the process within the first twenty-four hours. Of course that's better than nothing, but the doctors would just love to get you back in an exam room and run a few more tests on the real stuff."

"How nice of Integra to extend such a warm invitation." I frown a slight sarcastic frown. "I can stay at the mansion just as long as I'm willing to let her doctors poke and prod me."

"Hey, there's no free lunch, right?" She claps me on the shoulder.

"Guess not." We both smile.

"Seriously, though," she takes half a step away. "You should come visit some time."

"I will." I mean it. "I've got some stuff to take care of and then there's school. But I'll try to make it over sometime this Summer."

"Good, it'll be good to have another freak around." She takes another half-step away.

"I can relate to that."

Seras reachers over and musses my hair one more time. "Yeah, I'll bet." Then she turns around and starts to walk away.

I call after her. "Seras." I see her face turn back to me. "It was good to see you again."

"Good to see you too, kid." She looks in front of her and keeps walking away.

A part of me really wants to take her up on her offer. I miss her, and I could use a vacation. But I can't leave now, helping the Connors is too important. And I'm not going to ask her to come with me. She's got enough problems in her life already. She certainly doesn't need to ruin the rest of her vacation dealing with terminator's and hunting down a chess computer that's going to declare war on humanity.

I watch her walk away. Then I pick up the bar of Coltan. It's dented and a little bent, but I don't think that Cameron will mind. She'll have to melt it down before she can use it anyway. I stuff it inside my jacket and zip up. Cameron asked me to make sure that the others didn't see it. I take one last look around and make sure that no one's peaking over the fence. Then I start running to Derek's safe house. I have a stop to make along the way. There are a few things that I want to pick up.