Clark flew between the white crystalline pillars of the Fortress, quickly slowing to a halt as he reached the central console. He gently touched down on the floor, just short of the steps leading up to the console. After pausing for a second, he walked up the steps to the central console, placing his hands on it as he reached it.

"Kal-El, speak."The disembodied voice of Jor-El said "What is troubling you, my son?"

"Jor-El, I've come back here because I need to know something." Clark said "Earlier, I encountered a man with much of his body replaced by technology. However, there was some kind of green glow that seemed to react to me, causing my powers to diminish and impairing my health. What could cause that?"

"Kal-El, though the yellow sun gives you great strength, you are far from invulnerable." Jor-El replied "You are still vulnerable to materials and energies from our home world, and beings of equal or greater power than yourself."

"So, what, it's some sort of material from Krypton?" Clark said "But why would it have detrimental effects on me like that?"

"It is possible that it is somehow irradiated with energies which were detrimental to our people on Krypton. Or perhaps even irradiated by the explosion which destroyed Krypton." Jor-El said "Possibly some fragments of Krypton which were caught in the hyper space field of your ship and broke away slowly as you reached Earth."

Clark paused. Fragments of Krypton, irradiated by the planet's destruction. It seemed like a crazy idea. Then again, he was an alien for another Galaxy. That did put the concept of 'crazy' in the position of not applying too much.

"I'll find out the fact of the matter." Clark said, slowly rising into the air "Thank you Jor-El."

"You are welcome, my son." Jor-El said as Clark flew up out of the top of the Fortress.

...

Lex Luthor sat in his penthouse office in the Luthorcorp plaza, reading the financial projections for the quarter. As always, growth was more than healthy. Still not enough to match Wayne Enterprises, something Bruce would no doubt remind him of at the next school reunion, if the younger of the two men even bothered to show. He had a tendency to have one thing or another to attend to at home in Gotham.

Still, Bruce Wayne wasn't exactly high on Lex's list of priorities. Actually, he hadn't made the top ten, for once. No, this time it was something he found very interesting from the covert video feed he'd had installed in Metallo, as well as the power readouts from Metallo.

The closer Superman had been getting to Metallo, the more energy the power source had put out in the form of the radiation it emitted. It was as if the rock were reacting to Superman. The more it had apparently reacted with Superman, the weaker the so called 'Man of Steel', as the Daily Planet had labelled him, had become.

It was definitely something that Lex would have to have his scientists look into. Fortunately, there were trace blood samples from Superman left at the bank, it wouldn't take much for him to pay off someone on the security team to collect a few samples for him to run tests on.

As Lex pondered that, there was the sound of knocking coming from his window. He turned to see Superman, hovering outside the full height window. Lex walked over, opening the window.

"Won't you come in?" He asked, smirking slightly.

"Thank you, Mr. Luthor." Superman said, entering the office and touching down on the carpet "I came here to talk about your Metallo project."

"Oh, yes, I heard about what happened with our test subject." Lex said "I'm just glad to hear that you showed up to make sure no one was hurt."

"That's interesting, Mr. Luthor, because Corben, your test subject, told me you sent him there." Superman replied "I don't suppose you have anything to say about those allegations."

"Other than the fact that they're entirely inaccurate, nothing." Lex replied "Unfortunately, delusions are a possible side effect of the procedure. We told Mr. Corben this when he volunteered."

Superman stood there, crossing his arms. He didn't believe Lex, something the billionaire couldn't fault him on; he was lying through his teeth. After a moment, Superman moved towards him and held out a hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Luthor." He said as Lex shook his hand "I'll be in touch."

He turned and began to walk out. As he reached the window, he turned back to face Lex.

"Oh, and Mr. Luthor?" Superman said, Lex cocking an eyebrow in response "If you ever need me, all you need to do is look up."

Lex moved towards the door as Superman opened the window before taking off out the window and up into the sky. The billionaire stood there for a moment, looking out over the city.

Superman knew how much it bothered him when he had to look up to others. Lex would have to look more into him. As he considered this, his phone beeped, signalling a text message. He pulled it out, unlocking the interface and opening the text, finding it to be from one of the guys he'd sent to get the DNA sample from Superman's fight with Metallo.

Got the sample. Will dispatch it by courier in an unmarked container to your lab in the morning.

He moved over to his desk and pressed the intercom button to contact his PA.

"Mercy, send a message down to genetics." He said "Tell them there's a sample coming down to them I want them to work on replicating and improving. It's part of a new project."

"Of course, Mr. Luthor." His assistant, Mercy Graves' voice came through the intercom "What would you like the project to be filed under?"

Lex paused for a moment. Then, he spoke the name of the project, a single word.

"Doomsday."

...

Okay, so here's the final, or rather, penultimate, chapter of volume one. The epilogue will be up as soon as it's written, and it leads into the epilogue of volume one of my Batman fic, which in turn leads into my Justice League fic. R&R, please, no flames. B.