Chapter 29: Round 3

"What have you done!" Lex snapped.

Never in his life had he been so angry. The anger he was unleashing was beyond anything Mercy had ever witnessed or experienced. She fought the urge to leave the room and leave Superman to the scalding that was coming to him, but she knew that Lex would frown on her leaving.

There was a part of her that could not believe he had the gull to rebuke Superman the way he was. If the alien wanted to, he could kill Lex without thinking about it. That was what concerned her the most about this plan; how could Lex actually control someone with god-like abilities?

"The man was trash, Luthor," Superman defended himself firmly. "Anyone who is willing to kill children for fun deserves to die."

"That is beside the point!" Lex retaliated. "You're job is to help the police and fire fighters, and keep them on our side. That is kind of hard to do when you off the criminal by dropping him twenty stories to his death."

"You try helping these people out. They are nothing but whinny, helpless, ignorant children. It's bad enough that I have to put up with this planet's yellow sun as it is."

"Wait a minute!" Lex raised a hand. In his interview, he said that his abilities came from the yellow sun. How could this have changed? "Earth's sun is bothering you?"

There was only one logical answer, and it was even more frightening than the predicament he was now in. Upon a closer inspection of Superman, he was able to confirm his worst fears. His pale face was turning pure white, and his eyes were going from a dark blue to a blood red.

"Of course it does," Superman replied. "My powers are being limited by it's radiation. My strength is at it's best during stormy weather."

This was not good at all. This was a whole different issue that needed tending to immediately. "I'll take care of the mess. Leave me alone to think about this."

Superman was tired of the conversation anyway. He made his way to the open window and took off. Mercy's head was spinning with the sudden turn of events. She was not quite sure what had just happened, but she had noticed the growing white patch of skin on Superman's face. "That white skin on his face is serious isn't it."

"It is very serious; it means our cloning experiment is a failure. It appears that when my scientists tampered with the DNA, an unseen side effect happened. I had hoped that we could turn his weakness to his strength, but it appears that his strengths are becoming his weaknesses."

"So Kryptonite makes the clone stronger, but the sunlight is slowly killing him? How bizarre.!"

"It certainly is," Lex agreed.

Mercy's Iphone went off in her pocket. She pulled it out and unlocked the screen with a swipe of her right forefinger across the screen. "If you will pardon me, boss, I have an urgent matter to check up on."

"Go deal with it, and report back to me if need be."

Mercy raced for the elevator, which told Lex that he was more than likely going to be contacted by her shortly. It probably had to do with the actions of his faulty clone. While she checked up on the situation, he had questions that needed to be answered.

Lex Luthor pressed a button underneath the lip of his desk and the far wall on his left slid open to reveal a dimly lit passage. The passage way was not built so elegantly as the rest of his office; it resembled more like a dungeon, with it's floors and walls made of pure concrete. The passage was only lit by a row of single florescent light bulbs.

Lex followed the pathway all the way to the end, where there was a large steel-armored door. It was the same type of door that banks used for their vaults to protect valuables entrusted to them. This door was modified with a small, bulletproof, see-through shield that would allow him to look inside.

When he looked in, he was shocked to see that Superman was still alive, if barely. With his wrists chained to a wall and the room glowing green from the Kryptonite exposure, Superman's skin was an elderly gray. Actually, his facial features looked like that of an elderly man, except for his hair, which remained black. His face was becoming wrinkly and narrow, and his eyes were nearly bulging out of the eye sockets. He was the poster boy for one of those infomercial trying to raise money for the starving children in third world countries.

He had hoped that the Kryptonite would have worked faster; the longer he remained the live, the more of a liability he became. He appeared weak enough to be killed by more conventional means now, but Lex was not the type to get blood on his hands, especially when he was talking about his former friend. He would let the space rock do the job for him, no matter how long it took.

"Where did my science go wrong?" He muttered to himself as he stared at the pathetic looking man inside his vault.

As he predicted, his Iphone rang from the pocket of his sports coat. He grabbed the phone and answered the call. "what is it, Mercy?"

"Boss, he took it! That blasted clone took it!"

"What did he take?"

"The AWM-101A prototype missile! He took the weather manipulating missile!"

"Crap!" Lex knew exactly what the clone was thinking of doing, and now his problems had just compounded itself.


Sawyer was given the job to search the medical records of John Corben. Clark Kent was on to something before he disappeared. If Sawyer had to guess, she thought that Clark had found a connection between Corben and Luthor. Whether he knew that Corben was Metallo before he disappeared, she had no idea.

She came to John Corben's death certificate. He was pronounced dead on arrival in the early afternoon. The doctor who pronounced the death was Dr. Dale Donnovan. "I don't recognize that name," She said to herself.

She found the sheet with the hospital employee dossier, and reread the list and could not find that name anywhere. "That's strange."

She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the Hospital's office. After several rings, someone on the other side finally picked up. "Yes, this Captain Maggie Sawyer of the MSCU. I have a question about the medical records that was sent to us. I am interested in talking to Doctor Dale Donnovan."

The response from the receptionist did not make sense at first. "He is not on your payroll? So he only comes in for special jobs? Do you know whose payroll he is on or what hospital he considers his home base?"

Sawyer listened intently to the answer to her question. "That facility is outside of Metropolis, correct? Okay, thank you very much."

After she ended the call, she googled the new hospital name on her desktop computer. This hospital was just as big and renowned as Metropolis' main hospital. On the website, she was able to locate the list of doctors who worked at the hospital and found an image of Dr. Donnovan among the large list. The man appeared to be middle-aged, but was prematurely going bald. He had a pair of wire-thin framed glasses that completed his stereotypical appearance of a medical doctor.

His name was hyper linked, so she used the mouse to click on it, and it took her to a biography page. On this page, it listed all of his degrees and medical achievements. What stuck out to her was that he had a very close relationship with Lex Luthor. In fact, Luthor had a huge sum of money invested in his bio-genetic engineering research. He was friends with and worked closely with a robotic engineer by the name of Professor Vale. "Very interesting. Lex Luthor, Doctor Donnovan, and Professor vale; that's a very dangerous combination."

Her cell phone chimed, and she knew that it was Turpin, who was calling just by the ringtone that her phone was playing. She pressed the green accept button on her touch screen smartphone. "Dan, I think I have found something very interesting that you should look at."

"No time for that now," he replied. "Meet me at the rooftop immediately, and join me and Lois Lane in the helicopter."

"What's going on?"

She was not expecting his reply at all. "Metallo is back, and he and Superman are at it big time; they are causing a huge amount of damage to the city."


Metallo had not been expecting this at all. In their first two encounters, he fought in a style as to try to avoid collateral damage, but this was no longer the case. He showed very little care for the people of this city; his fighting technique was far more aggressive than before.

He braced himself for another painful hit as Superman picked up a four-door Sudan by the front of the car, and swung it at him like a baseball bat. He found himself flying backwards until he collided head on with an oncoming car. The collision was catastrophic to the car as the entire front was smashed in. Metallo was built to take such punishment, but the automobile was not. He could feel the engine being pushed in. He could not see through the cracked windshield, but he was pretty sure that anyone inside of the car was dead upon impact.

Metallo staggered away from the collision only to find something above his overshadowing him. He looked up to see Superman coming down on top of him, smashing the bottom of the car on his head. The car came down with a sickening thug.

Watching the brawl from the sky, Turpin, Lois, and Sawyer gasped at the gruesome trail of destruction that was in their wake. Lois was asked to join them on the helicopter more for her own protection. She had ties to both Superman and Metallo, and Turpin was going to, personally, make sure she was kept away from this mess. "I-I don't know what to think," she said, struggling to find the words to describe this situation. "It's like two super powered villains are going at it to determine who will run Metropolis."

"It's a sad day when I have to put my hopes on Superman losing this fight," Turpin said. "Something just does not add up in all of this. Perhaps his rational behavior is tied in with his white skin. It may be just me, but despite this massive display of power, Sups does not look well."

Lois had noticed the same thing. The more his skin turned white, the more irrational, reckless, and aggressive he became. "Perhaps he was exposed to Kryptonite."

"Krypta-what?" Turpin asked.

"Kryptonite is a meteorite that is actually a part of his home world. His powers developed because of being exposed to the radiation of our sun over time. The sun on his planet was red; an entirely different type of radiation. He told me that being exposed to these fragments can be harmful to him."

"It sounds like something Lex would be able to figure out," Turpin replied, trying to put everything they had learned together. "We have Lex Luthor financing two men who may have the knowhow to turn Corben into Metallo. Now how does Superman fit in all this?"

"He's Superman," Sawyer replied. "Why would he not want him in a position where he can control him?"

"Uh, guys, the brawl is picking up steam again!" Lois announced.

Down on the ground, Metallo had gained the momentum over Superman. He had him on his hands and knees, which allowed him to kick him in the ribs. The kick caused Superman to roll onto his back, and this was the best opportunity Metallo had to finish this fight. "This time, I finish what I started." His chest plate opened up, revealing the green rays from the Kryptonite.


At the worst possible moment, the fight was taken to a spot that the helicopter could not get a good view of the fight. "The buildings are blocking the view! Hurry up and get lower if you have to!" Turpin ordered the pilot of the helicopter.


Metallo unveiled his Kryptonite heart, sensing that he had once more won the battle over Superman. That sense of victory came to a surprising halt when Superman grinned. "You are a fool," he said as he climbed onto his feet, causing Metallo to step back two steps. "Kryptonite only makes me stronger!"

Metallo was stunned at what he was seeing; there was no mistaken that it was the meteorite in his chest that gave him the victory of Superman last time. Why was it not working now? This was not logical. "Impossible! I saw what this stuff work on you the last time!"

"Perhaps, I'm not the same man that I was before." Superman delivers a jab to his left side of his face. The punch was given with more force than any blow he had given him earlier. He was telling the truth, his strength was increasing dramatically.

Metallo quickly shut his chest plate, but at a cost of doing so, Superman was given a free shot at him. The man took advantage of the moment and grabbed Metallo by the throat. He picked him up until his feet left the ground, and then chocked slammed him onto the pavement. The pavement cracked upon impact, leaving him in a large dent.

Superman did not give him the chance to recover. He reached down and grabbed his metal ankle. He hoisted him off the ground as he spun around for two complete rotations before tossing him across the street, and through the third story window of a ten story mini-skyscraper.


The fight was brought back into their view. They had gotten almost a little too close to the action and the pilot had to quickly pull back up to a safer distance. "There they are!" Lois pointed out.

"I don't like the look on Superman's face," Turpin muttered, feeling that something bad was about to happen.

His gut feeling proved to be deadly accurate. Superman shot up from the ground like a bullet until he was higher than the building. Squinting his eyes, two intense heat beams shot at the first level of the building.

"He's gone absolutely nuts!" Sawyer exclaimed. "That office building has close to a thousand people inside! We've got to stop him!

Flames quickly engulfed the entire first level and crawled up the side of the building. The heat that he was using was more intense than anything humanly imaginable. There was no time to stop him; it was already too late. Superman ceased his heat beam attack and shot down towards the flaming building with his fists first.

He crashed through the weakening building structure with such force, the ground for the surround block shook. Seconds later, the ten story building began to collapse downward upon itself. The people on the ground ran for their lives as a dust cloud spread out and began to shroud the streets around what was now ground zero. All ten levels collapsed, but no one from the ground or sky could see the damage through the dust cloud.

"Oh my god," Lois gasped, her face already saturated with tears.

There were no words that describe this horrific act. This was nothing short of a terrorist act by the man whom this town had once deemed as their hero. Hovering over ground zero, Superman looked down upon the results of his action, and smiled.

Even Turpin had to choke back the tears at what he had just witnessed. "Kryptonite or not, I no longer have a choice in the matter. I'm calling in General Lane."


Breaking through the giant heap of mangled steel and cement was no easy feat, but after what felt like an eternity of digging, Metallo had finally reached the surface. Damaged by having a ten story building collapsing on top of him, he needed time to make repairs. Thankfully, the dust cloud which continued to blanket the area provided him cover to make his escape.

He needed time for more than just repairs, but to figure out what just happened. This was beyond anything that Superman would have done. The kryptonite should have worked, so what happened? The more he thought about it, the more he came to the same logical conclusion: the man he was fighting was not the real Superman.