Chapter 27
"Who's missing?" Lex said impatiently from the head of the oval table inside the cloaked Legion of Doom headquarters as he looked down at the assembled cadre of evildoers at ten p.m. on Sunday night.
"Goldface? Star Sapphire?" Lex said with disgust. "Anybody heard from them?"
Heads shook around the table full of super-villains; some villains more super than others, it was true, but Lex had organized their meager and magnificent abilities alike into a coalition of do-badders who lent each other their support and enhanced capabilities for whatever nefarious deeds an individual member could dream up.
Wanted to rob Metropolis Savings and Trust? Worried about the Justice League foiling well-laid plans? Have no fear, Lex's Legion of Doom was here - for a cool twenty-five percent of the caper's gross profits, which went directly into Lex's pockets, of course.
But the villains had to admit, ever since the Justice League had formed several years ago, it was getting harder and harder to pull off successful heists due to the increased coordination and teaming up of the superheroes, and it was mostly agreed that the Legion of Doom was an irritating but necessary evil.
There were a few dissenters, of course, who chose not to join Lex's ranks - most notably Grodd and Ultra-Humanite, who refused to lower themselves to working with Lex; Grodd because he viewed Lex as an inferior homo sapien, and Ultra-Humanite who viewed Lex as simply inferior. But upon their capture and subsequent imprisonment in Blackgate by the Justice League, the few remaining hesitants swiftly signed up to side with Lex.
Except for the Joker, of course, but it was rumored that he and Lex had a private understanding based largely on mutual avoidance.
"Let'ssss ssstart without them," Copperhead hissed, flicking his snake-like tongue out at Lex. "They ssssshould buy a watch."
"Star Sapphire shouldn't have dumped old Clockmaster, here," Livewire called out to an appreciative round of hoots and hollers from the villains as she elbowed the precisely regulated and time oriented man sitting to her right.
"Her loss," Tempus frowned, removing his glasses to polish them on his waistcoat. "Luthor, I must insist that we begin," he said. "The time is now 10:03 p.m. exactly and we are behind schedule."
"All right, all right," Lex said with an easy smile. "Well, I'm sure you've all been reading the tabloids this week," he smirked to some wolf whistles and catcalls.
"What can I say?" Lex said with a pretentious preen. "I'm simply irresistible," he sighed sarcastically.
"I'll say," Tala muttered sadly under her breath. Her long unrequited crush on Lex had been the motivating factor for the Transylvanian being one of the first villains to join the Legion of Doom and she'd been sorely disappointed to be brushed aside by the evil genius time and again as little more than an annoying gnat who he barely tolerated.
She'd held out hope, however, clinging to the belief that one day Lex would let go of his silly prejudices against magic and recognize her for the powerful sorceress she was, not to mention the sexy woman who he always seemed to look right through. Until Lex had suddenly taken up with Wonder Woman last week, to Tala's great dismay.
"You should let me cheer you up, baby," Shade said smoothly from beside her. "Some of us appreciate the dark and shadows."
"Oh, really?" Tala said with surprise, turning to look at him. The albino villain gave her a suave smile as he tipped his top hat to her. Tala hesitated. Truly, she hadn't been paying any attention to anyone besides Lex since joining the Legion, which was two years ago, now. The longest dry spell she'd ever had, and for what?
"I believe I will take you up on that," Tala said slowly, giving him a little purple-lipped smile in return. Shade beamed at her and gallantly lifted her hand to his lips.
"After the meeting, then," he murmured and she nodded, keeping her hand in his as he lowered them back down.
"Naturally," Lex was continuing to speak, "my primary objective is the destruction of the Watchtower and the death of as many Justice League members as possible."
Outside, Diana bit her lip as she listened in through the communicators that Batman had outfitted each League member with. She knew Lex was just putting on a good show… but she worried about the nervous glances that she saw her team members Obsidian and The Shining Knight trading back and forth.
She couldn't read Vibe's expression due to his sunglasses, but he turned his head to face her.
"It's gotta feel weird to hear him say that," he said to her around his chewing gum.
Obsidian and Sir Justin glanced back at them.
"Well, I know he's lying," Diana said, frowning. "He knows we're all listening in," she said.
"Sure," Vibe said, cracking his gum.
"But doesn't it give you chills down your spine to hear him talk about killing us all? Like it's something he's talked about doing a dozen times before? Nobody in there is surprised at what he's saying," he said and unfortunately, Diana couldn't disagree with that, because the Legion's meeting was flowing right along as Lex started to outline his seductive plans to worm vital security details out of her.
"Well," Diana said slowly, "thank Hera that he's reformed, then," she said firmly.
Sir Justin regarded her solemnly for a moment.
"If Lord Luthor has indeed repented of his misdeeds, then thou hast truly wrought a noble work, Your Highness," he said to her.
"If," Obsidian muttered, turning away to scan the forest for possible rogues, or the still absent Goldface and Star Sapphire.
"We need to cut the chatter and pay attention," Diana redirected briskly. "It's almost time for the assault to begin."
Inside, Sinestro was aggressively questioning Lex about the details of his plan.
"What makes you think the Amazon will give up the information you need?" he asked Lex.
"I don't need much," Lex said, "and she's already living with me," he smirked. "One day, her security badge for the javelin launch site will get misplaced," he sighed.
"Like she won't see through that," Sinestro scoffed.
Lex chuckled darkly.
"When clothes are flying everywhere because the sex is so hot, she won't think twice about a few items going missing in the fray," Lex bragged to a chorus of lewd sound effects and comments.
Diana blushed. She knew that Lex was probably mentally upgrading his attack plans from stun and arrest to kill after hearing the Legion disrespect her like that, even though it was in response to his deliberate baiting.
She had cradled Lex in her arms for over an hour last night because, despite his brave facade as he prepared her for what he'd have to say about her, his eyes had been so troubled and guilt-ridden at the thought of mocking her to the Legion of Doom that Diana couldn't help but hold him close as she kissed his bald head again and again and reassured him that she'd still love him afterwards.
"Diana will have to fly out to the beaming site to get to work that day," Lex was continuing, "which will give me the time I need to hack into the shuttle bay's security through the chip in her badge. With control of the javelins, we'll be able to coordinate our attack on three levels."
"One crew will swap places with Watchtower personnel at the beaming site and disable the station's sensors, allowing the team of javelins to arrive undetected. Additionally, Sinestro and Star Sapphire will approach through space and disable the outer defense weaponry to ensure that the shuttles arrive safely," Lex said.
"And since Diana trusts me," he said with belittling amusement, "and tells me about her friends, it will be easy to plan the attack for when our most powerful enemies are present so that we can take them all out in a single, well-coordinated strike."
As Lex spoke the final three words, Diana's team tensed. At the word 'strike,' they heard all hell break loose inside the base.
Lex ducked as Batman, Captain Marvel, and Black Canary crashed through the ceiling ductwork into the center of the conference table, joined by a rapidly re-sizing Atom who had been sitting undetected in tiny form on the table in front of Luthor the entire time.
As Batman's batarangs sliced through the air, knocking out Cheetah and Copperhead, Captain Marvel charged across the tabletop and took a flying leap towards Rampage. The super strong woman had leapt to her feet in anger and managed to grab the underside of the table and flip it over before Marvel tackled her to the floor.
At the same time that Batman's team had dropped from the sky, Superman and Steel had punched through a wall, with Zatanna and The Ray right behind them. Zatanna quickly targeted Atomic Skull, who had immediately started firing radioactive blasts at Superman. With a muttered enchantment, Skull's shots turned to flowers instead. He howled in frustration and charged towards the magician.
Meanwhile, Shayera and Red Tornado were taking out a second wall, which Gypsy had phased through ahead of them. Sand slipped through as soon as Shayera's mace had opened up a crack, aided by Tornado's wind power.
Shade had pulled Tala up with him as soon as the attack began and cast an inky black darkness with his Shadow Staff around them, and the two began running through the dark corridor towards the exit, but Sand had separated himself out into individual granules and scattered himself through the shadows until he hit their solid forms, where he re-coalesced and began to attack Shade, aiming for his staff.
Tala began to chant an incantation, but Shayera burst through the darkness, gently trailing her mace under her as she flew so as not to accidentally hurt Sand. Tala screamed in agony as the Nth metal brushed against her and disrupted her magical abilities and Shayera, with her target marked, punched her out.
Clayface was running for the exit, too, rapidly changing from one Justice League member to another as he tried to dodge attacks and sneak his way outside. But J'onn had expected his diversion and kept a telepathic lock on him as he flew after him. When the Martian Manhunger grabbed "Red Tornado," Clayface changed to a liquidized form and slipped out of his grasp.
Batman had planned for that tactic, though, which is why Booster Gold had been following right behind J'onn. As soon as Clayface became amorphous, Booster used his future tech vacuum to suck him into the specialized containment canister that he had strapped to his back.
It was an effective plan, but that hadn't stopped Booster from bitching to Batman about it over the weekend briefings. ("You are a janitor," Bats had growled at him in disgust. "Don't blame me for making you do your actual job for a change.")
Killer Frost had tried to escape via the high route by sliding along an icy path that she created for herself, but Vixen tapped her necklace and went charging after her as a polar bear, easily catching up to her and slapping her into unconsciousness with a massive paw.
Wildcat, meanwhile, was taking on Bloodsport in hand-to-hand combat.
"Just like bein' back at the Meta-Brawl, huh, big guy," Ted grinned as he wiped the floor with his former cage fighting opponent. "And ain't no surprise," Ted said as he body-slammed a grunting Bloodsport to the ground. "I'm still undefeated," Wildcat smirked.
Underneath the table, Lex had quickly strapped on his shielded helmet and arm gauntlets and grabbed his laser guns that he had hidden in preparation for the assault. He re-emerged to see Superman blocking Atomic Skull's attack on Zatanna and taking a hefty punch from the villain who had been stripped of his radioactive powers, but still had his super strength and combat skills.
Bizarro had noticed Superman and, once he recovered from his initial confusion at the attack, hurled himself across the room at his counterpart. Superman had just gotten a blow off on Atomic Skull when Bizarro punched him through the remains of the wall he had entered through.
Skull turned his attention back to Zatanna, who was scanning the room for Silver Banshee.
"Look out!" Black Canary yelled, knocking Atomic Skull to the ground with a flying kick to his back.
"Thanks," Zatanna said, eyes wide. She wasn't super-powered or a great fighter, although her magical abilities were widely renowned. Batman and Shayera had wanted her on the inside assault, though, to quickly take down Atomic Skull's radioactive blasts, which could do the most serious damage to League members out of almost all of the villains present.
She had been paired with Superman and the almost equally-strong Steel for the sole purpose of being protected from Atomic Skull once she had delivered her neutralizing attack. Steel, however, was busy fighting Giganta at the moment.
Zatanna refocused on finding her second target, Silver Banshee, who possessed disabling vocal abilities much like Black Canary's.
"Gotcha," she murmured, seeing the Banshee opening her mouth preparing to scream. "Silencio semporium!" Zatanna yelled first, and Silver Banshee hacked and coughed as nothing came out of her throat.
"Lexy, Lexy, you're a naughty boy," the Toymaker sing-songed as he strode towards Lex, exploding yo-yo in hand. Lex shot him in the knee and the Toymaker yelped and collapsed.
"Shame on you!" he cried, launching his yo-yo towards him. "Around the world!" he yelled.
A batarang knocked it off course and it clattered to the ground, exploding as it went. Lex raised an eyebrow and gave Batman a little nod.
"Atom!" Lex yelled suddenly.
Metallo had passed behind a crowd of fighting villains and was running towards the still grappling Superman and Bizarro but the Atom, who was supposed to shrink down to get inside his android body in order to disable it, had just gotten shot by Devil Ray with a poisoned dart.
Steel threw off Giganta and came rushing forward to attack Devil Ray, who tried to fend him off with his lasers, but the lasers were no match for Steel's metal suit and Devil Ray went down while Batman injected the Atom with an antidote from his Batbelt.
Lex groaned to himself and ran after Metallo, who was making a beeline for the battling Kryptonian and his clone.
"Aagh!" Bizarro yelled as Metallo shoved past him, the cyborg's kryptonite heart affecting Superman's clone as much as it would affect Superman.
Bizarro stumbled and fell to the floor just as Superman realized who had burst into the room and doubled over in weakness as the kryptonite affected him, too.
Metallo laughed as he raised his arm to fire his kryptonite cannon into Superman's heart. Clark forced himself to cross his arms in front of his chest to try to protect himself, even though he felt so weak that he could hardly lift them.
He ought to be able to survive a few blasts, if he kept his heart shielded, he thought to himself. Unless Metallo had upgraded his lasers since their last meeting, Clark thought with dismay.
There was a laser blast and Metallo stumbled and fell forward, his shot going low and hitting Superman in the leg. Clark cried out in pain as the kryptonite flooded his system, but getting hit in the leg was better than in the heart or the head, he told himself.
Metallo turned to face Lex Luthor, coolly standing behind him with a grimly determined look on his face. As Metallo's lasers rotated away from Clark and towards the former leader of the Legion of Doom, Lex blasted him in the chest again and again.
Metallo fell backwards, landing on Superman, who grunted and feebly tried to shove him off, because the cyborg's Kryptonite heart was still draining the Man of Steel's strength. Lex continued to fire, not sure if the cyborg was disabled or merely fallen, but after a few more shots, Lex hesitantly approached.
Metallo appeared to be immobile so Lex reached down to tug him off of Superman, but grunted in surprise.
"He's too heavy," Lex muttered, suddenly realizing how much the metal alloyed robotic suit weighed that kept Metallo's human consciousness alive.
Superman's skin had taken on a grey pallor and his breathing was getting ragged. Lex glanced out at the chaos going on in the main room and cursed.
"Hold on," he told Clark, setting down his guns.
Lex reached into his suit jacket's interior pocket and pulled out a long knife. He slipped it into Metallo's chest panel and began working to pry it open. When he had the Kryptonite heart revealed, Lex reached in to cut the wires connecting it.
A soft hand on his wrist stopped him.
"You'll kill him," Clark wheezed out.
"Better him than you," Lex said shortly, quickly slicing through the connections and lifting the heart out. He strode across the room and deposited it as far from Superman and Bizarro as possible.
"The arm cannons drew their kryptonite from the heart," Lex said, coming back to stand by Superman and lifting his laser guns up again at the ready in case he needed to defend them both.
"I don't know if putting it in the corner of the room is far enough away for you to get your strength back, but it won't kill you now, at least," he said.
"Thank you," Clark rasped out softly.
Lex winked at him.
"Tell Lois to cross one of my assassination attempts off of her shit list," he said.
Outside the Legion of Doom's headquarters, the few villains that had made it outside were being quickly disposed of by the Flash, Wonder Woman, and the Green Lantern's teams.
On John's team, Supergirl was pounding KGBeast to a pulp while GL trapped Evil Star in an energy bubble, until Sinestro emerged and, rather than fleeing, came straight for the Green Lantern to attack him.
"Take Evil Star," John yelled to Vigilante and Fire as he and Sinestro began firing energy bursts at each other.
Their fight took them past the Flash and the Green Arrow battling with Livewire and Diana, who had lassoed Parasite and was swinging him into a tree. The two lanterns fought themselves deeper into the swamp as they traded shots and hurled energy constructs at each other.
Inside, the battle was starting to simmer down as villain after villain was subdued and restrained.
"Superman!" Batman said, rushing to his side as the frenzied fighting subsided and he saw his friend stretched out on the ground in the back room, with Lex standing guard over him.
"He's all right," Lex said. "But we need to deal with that kryptonite heart," he said, indicating with his head where it was lying in a corner of the room. "I have a lead safe we can transport it in," he said.
"Steel can carry it," Clark murmured, trying to sit up.
"We'll take care of it," Batman said, looking at Clark with concern. "Just rest. We'll get you back to the Watchtower soon," he said.
The Bat met Lex's amused eyes as he stood.
"Something you wanted to say to me, Batman?" Lex drawled with a smirk.
Batman grunted and stalked out of the room.
"I think that was a 'thank you,'" Superman mumbled. Lex laughed.
"Where's GL?" The Flash said as Wonder Woman led her team back over to the main base with Parasite and Lady Lunar in captivity.
"He went off fighting Sinestro," Supergirl panted as she flew up to them. "We were busy taking down KGBeast and Evil Star."
"He never came back?" Diana frowned. "GL, do you copy?" she said into her communicator. "Green Lantern?" she said again when she didn't get a response.
Ollie looked grim.
"You let him go off by himself?" the Green Arrow said chidingly to Kara.
"I was fighting KGBeast," she said angrily, "and he told Vig and Fire to take Evil Star when Sinestro attacked him. We were following orders," she said.
"I'll go look for him," Wally said, immediately running off through the swamp to scout the area.
"John, please come in," Diana continued to repeat over the communicators.
Ice gave Oliver a look.
"You shouldn't scold her for doing what her leader asked her to," she said quietly to the Green Arrow.
"Yeah, that's not cool, man," Ralph Dibney, the Elongated Man chimed in. "You know how bad you would've gotten chewed out if you didn't listen to the Flash during the battle?"
Oliver Queen grunted and crossed his arms over his chest.
"We were in teams to have each other's backs," he said. "John shouldn't have gone off without backup."
"Well, that's on him," Ralph said. "You can't question your leader in the heat of the battle."
"I'm sure they will correct the Green Lantern for not utilizing backup in the debriefing," Ice pointed out. "But his team was not to blame."
Ollie didn't say it out loud, but he hoped that John would be alive to be at the debriefing. Diana still wasn't getting a response.
"GL!" the Flash cried out when he saw the Green Lantern slumped against a tree. "GL, you ok, buddy?" he said, patting his cheeks and feeling his wrist for a pulse.
Wally heaved a huge sigh of relief when he realized that John was alive and breathing.
"He's here, he's alive," Wally said over the comms to Diana. "Be right back with him. He's knocked out."
"Oh, thank Hera," Diana breathed out.
A few seconds later, the Flash ran up with GL thrown over his shoulder, still unconscious. He gently set him down on the ground.
"We need to get him up to the Watchtower," Diana said with concern. "I don't see any obvious injuries," she said, gently looking over his head and body.
"Their lantern blasts might not leave a mark, depending what they did to each other," Wally said.
"John!" Vixen said, coming outside and seeing her boyfriend passed out on the ground.
"He's alive," Wally said quickly.
Diana snapped her head back towards the base.
"Is everything wrapped up in there?" she asked Mari anxiously.
"Yes, yeah, it's done, girl," Vixen said distractedly, running her hands lightly over John's head.
Diana took off jogging for the base, pausing just inside the door to take in the destruction as she scanned the room looking for Lex.
"He's in the back," Batman said to her, noticing her approach.
"He's fine," Shayera added for him with a smile to Diana as Bruce went back to talking on his communicator to coordinate the prisoner transports to Blackgate Prison.
Diana let out the breath she'd been holding since the battle had begun and made her way around the bound super-villains to the back room.
"Lex!" she cried with relief as she entered the room filled with rubble and saw him sitting on the floor next to Superman, now that the danger was over.
"Diana," Lex said with equal amounts of relief in his voice as he stood up.
He grabbed her face and kissed her hard as she ran up to him.
She let out a shaky breath when they broke apart and hugged him tight, kissing his neck and squeezing his ribs so hard that he let out a strangled, "Diana!"
"Sorry," she mumbled, quickly easing off on her pressure as she realized that she was using a little more Amazon strength than she usually allowed herself.
"Lex Luthor survives the assault on the Legion of Doom only to be crushed to death by his girlfriend afterwards," he said to her jokingly.
She groaned and buried her face in his shoulder.
"I was so worried about you," she murmured to him.
"I was worried about you, too," he said in her ear. "But I'm fine," he said. "Not even a scratch."
"Me, too," Diana said. "Well. Maybe a few scratches," she amended with a half-laugh. "But nothing I'm not used to."
"Mm," Lex growled. "I'm not used to you getting battered and bruised at all," he said with dissatisfaction. "I can't say that I like it," he frowned.
"Something else you and Lois have in common," Clark teased from behind them.
"Clark!" Diana said, suddenly putting the pieces together. "Why are you on the floor? What happened?"
"Lex saved my life," Clark grinned.
Diana turned and stared at Lex, who shrugged somewhat bashfully.
"Well, Lois said such nice things about me to the Justice League," is what he said, though, with a growing twinkle in his eye. "I think that we're becoming friends," he mused as Clark began to laugh.
Diana snorted.
"You wouldn't be the first person who did something because he was scared of Lois," Diana said knowingly as Lex chuckled.
Several hours later, Sinestro made his way to a safehouse and flopped down exhausted on the bed. Only to hear a banging on his door immediately afterwards.
"What the hell?" he murmured.
He raised an eyebrow as he peered through the peephole.
"You seriously showed up late, hid like a coward, and then tailed me all the way here?" he said to Star Sapphire when he opened the door.
"Not exactly," she said airily as she breezed passed him into the apartment. "The boss wants to talk to you," she said, handing him a phone.
"The boss can go fuck himself after he betrayed us all today," Sinestro growled.
"Just answer the phone," Star Sapphire said as it began to ring from a blocked number.
"Look, you sonofabitch," Sinestro began as soon as he answered.
"Sinestro, Sinestro," the deep voice soothed. "Such hasty words. I chose you, Sinestro," the villainous mastermind continued. "We don't need the rest of those fools."
Sinestro frowned and looked up at Star Sapphire who smiled at him.
"You chose me?" he said into the phone. "Bullshit. I could have gotten my ass kicked in there and you know it."
"Well, you had to prove your worth," the smooth voice continued. "Nothing in life comes for free."
"So I've heard," Sinestro grumbled.
"Come now, don't be bitter," the shadowy voice replied. "You saw how neatly I incapacitated the Green Lantern for you."
"Yeah," Sinestro grunted. "I could have handled that myself."
"Of course you could have," his connection purred. "But then how would I have proved myself to you?"
"All right," Sinestro sighed. "I'm listening."