Superman: The Ark of Krypton
Chapter 89
by
Jason Richard
"Lois," said Superman as Edward Lytener's suit glowed red and menacing. "Get out of here."
"Sure," said Lois, turning the other way.
"I don't think so," said Lytener as a wave of light flew past them and surrounded them. Soon the area was surrounded in a white force field that Lois ran straight into. Even though her hands couldn't feel anything it was like trying to get past a steel wall."
"No one is going anywhere," said Lytener.
"I don't want to hurt you," said Superman.
"You won't," said Lytener, pointing his hand at Superman. A beam of red light shot out and struck Superman in the chest, sending him flying. Apparently it would be harder to dodge things moving at high speed. As Superman slowed his flight and hovered in the air he flew towards Lytener faster than the scientist could react and grabbed him around the torso from behind.
And Superman felt his energy levels begin to drop. Superman quickly noticed a red aura surrounding the scientist.
"I'm using red sun energy," said Lytener. "Don't think this will be easy."
Another pulse of red light and Superman went flying away from the scientist, crashing into the ground and stopping when he hit the white force field. Lytener shot another bolt of red light, but this time Superman was ready for it and he sped out of the way.
Lytener then tweaked the settings on his suit and the entire area was flooded with red light from his holographic suit. Superman could feel his energy dripping away, and knew he had to end this quickly.
So he flew forward and punched, feeling the energy of the holographic suit give way as Lytener stumbled back. Then Superman punched again, and again, and he kept punching as lightly as possible so as not to hurt the human inside.
Lytener, meanwhile, saw the readout in his helmet say: Shields at 95%, 89%, 83%, and so on and so forth as Superman's strength pushed Lytener's technology to the limit.
Lytener's body flashed with a blinding light, but Superman had encountered that trick before and shielded his eyes, using his hearing to find Lytener's footsteps. The blinding light quickly disappeared, and Superman resumed punching like normal.
Superman kept wailing on Lytener's holographic armor for a few minutes until finally he felt the hologram give way. Superman expected the energy suit to just disappear, and it did, but Lytener disappeared with it. Confused for a moment, Superman looked around, only to get hit with a beam of red light from out of nowhere.
Soon Superman found himself pinned to the white force field around them as that beam of red light held him there. At the other end of that beam Lytener appeared, floating a few inches above the ground, and Superman understood what had happened. That blinding light from before hid that Lytener generated a holographic duplicate as the real him bend light around him to turn invisible. While Superman listened to the sound of the hard light holograms footsteps, the real Lytener, unseen, floated away. He probably had sound dampening technology with him in addition to his light tech.
And now Superman was pinned by this beam of red sun light that was draining his powers fast.
"I won't hurt you," said Lytener. "I just need the two of you out of the way. This will be over in a minute. Heh. Look at me. Taking on Superman himself. Guess that makes me a super villain now, huh? I've thought about what I would call myself, and I thought I'd settle on Luminus. "Yeah. That works. ."
Lois couldn't believe what she was seeing. Lytener...she refused to call him Luminus...actually had the advantage over Superman. He was winning!
Or was he?
Lois quickly realized that Superman did have a few options in his situation. His heat vision, his ice breath, and yet Superman just started flying forward, muscling his way into the red beam as if he were fighting a hose of water. He was risking losing his powers, but he wasn't going to use those others.
If they worked, they'd be lethal for Edward.
So Lois had to do something. She couldn't hurt Lytener physically, of course, not when he was actually standing up to Superman. No, she'd have to hurt him the best way she knew how.
"Hey Luminous," said Lois. "I know you're trying to kidnap me and do...who knows what, but at least you've proven me right."
Lytener, trying not to get distracted, said, "About what?"
"About you being a coward," she said, looking at her fingernails nonchalantly.
"Are you kidding?" asked Lytener as he ranched up the beams to hold Superman back. "I'm taking on Superman himself!"
"Yeah," said Lois, rolling her eyes. "Selling weapons to terrorists is not enough to make you fight a bald man in a suit, but one newspaper article and you'll go after someone who wouldn't harm a fly. Real brave Ed."
"You'll see," said Lytener. "I'm dealing with Luthor soon too. I'm not playing by the rules anymore."
"What do you mean?" asked Lois.
"I mean," said Lytener, grinning, "I said I needed you out of the way. Hasn't it occurred to you that you're pretty out of the way right now?"
…
At that exact moment, something that looked like Lois Lane barged right into Lex Luthor's office and pointed a gun at Lex Luthor and Mercy Graves. Mercy was taken by surprise, but Luthor just grinned as if he'd been expecting her.
"Why Lois Lane," he said smugly. "What a pleasant surprise."
…
"You did what?" demanded Lois.
"That's right," said Lytener. "I'm using a hologram duplicate of you to frame you for the murder of Lex Luthor. I'll get revenge against both of you in one fell swoop!"
"Well bully for you," said Lois, crossing her arms. "You know if you had come up with this technology sooner you could have taken on Luthor, maybe even have been a hero like Superman, but you're not the type are you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded Lytener.
"You've no ambition," said Lois. "I've seen your type. You found a job at Lexcorp, but haven't tried that hard to move up the ladder. You found a good position and then just settled there, doing only what was expected of you and nothing more. With intelligence like this you could have been one of Luthor's top aides, but no. You stayed in an energy production job that wasn't going anywhere until Luthor brought up Superman."
"So?"
"So," said Lois. "You're half a loser. Then again that's probably unfair to losers. At least they don't pretend to be big shots. Half loser and a phony. That's what you are."
"I'm fighting Superman!" said Lytener, who hadn't noticed just how close Superman had got as he continued to struggle against the red beams from Lytener's hands.
"Yeah," and what kind of people fight Superman? "You pull a stunt like this and you wonder why people think you're a criminal."
"Shut up!" cried Lytener pointing one of his hands at Lois.
One only one beam on him now, Superman put all his remaining energy into moving forward and punching Lytener in his holographically armored face. The impact sounded like thunder as Lytener went flying, his holographic armor bursting apart in a spectacular light show.
Lytener, dressed only in his lab coat, landed on the ground and fell unconscious. The white shield that surrounded all of them disappeared, and Lois, finally, took a deep breath. Superman did as well, as the red sun energy had drained his power pretty dry. It would take a few minutes to get it all back.
"Lois," said Superman gravely. "Did you...did you mean all that? What you just said to him.
"I was trying to distract him…" said Lois defensively.
"Lois," said Superman softly. "Did you mean it?"
Lois sighed and said, "Maybe not all of it. Like I said. I wanted to distract him."
Superman took a deep breath and said, "Alright. Now, I think we'd better get up to Lexcorp tower as fast as possible.