Chapter Nine
The scene that the globe displayed for them shifted. Now, they saw Kal-El in some kind of throne room, which must have been elsewhere within the fortress. He stood with his hands folded behind his back staring out at Metropolis below him through a giant plate-glass window.
Diana quietly appeared in the doorway of the throne room. She watched him silently for a few moments, feeling a wave of sorrow wash over herself.
"Kal," she said, finally.
"Diana," he replied, his voice devoid of emotion, never taking his eyes away from the city.
She approached him slowly, cautiously. "We need to talk," she said. "What you've done… what you did in Pokolistan. You crossed a line, today, Kal."
"I did what needed to be done."
"You exiled everyone in Pokolistan to the Phantom Zone. Surely you can't believe that they were all terrorists. There were women, children…"
"No. They were not all terrorists," Kal replied. "What were we going to do, Diana? How were we going to weed them out? Send Bruce over there to interrogate everyone, one by one? Those that weren't terrorists were helping to harbor them. The end result is that Pokolistan is no longer a threat to the world."
"The rest of The League does not condone your actions, Kal. Neither does the President. You've caused quite a problem for the United States. All kinds of international treaties have been broken. This is being considered an act of war."
"The United States? The President? We don't answer to them."
"When we formed The League, we agreed to work with the governments of the world."
"Because that was what was most convenient at the time. The old governments are now antiquated and unnecessary. We are the government now. The world answers to us, and to us alone."
Diana stood in stunned silence. "I can't believe I'm hearing this," she said at last. "Where is this coming from, Kal?"
"We have been way too soft, Diana," Kal-El replied. "It's partly my fault. I thought that once we established our power, the world would just fall in line. But we let our guard down. We have to show the world that defiance of our rule will not be tolerated."
"Kal, you are speaking like a dictator!" Diana put her hand on his shoulder. "I thought we stood for the same things! Liberty, peace, and justice!"
"The world will have all those things, Diana. If they follow my rule, and obey me, then I will give them liberty. I will give them peace. I will give them justice."
"Kal, will you turn around and look at me!" Diana cried out, exasperated.
He finally pulled his attention away from the window, and slowly turned to face Diana.
"What has happened to you?" she asked, her voice a hushed whisper. "I don't understand how the man I fell in love with could come to think like this, to act like this."
He was silent for a moment. "What I don't understand, Diana," he said finally, his eyes slowly looking her up and down, stopping to linger on her golden chest plate and star spangled tights, "is why a woman who came to 'Man's World' to end the oppression of women, dresses like such a whore."
She gasped, and slapped him. Her hand stung.
In one smooth motion, he backhanded Diana across the face, sending her flying across the room. She landed flat on her back, hard.
"How could you!" she cried, her hand cradling her stomach. "I'm-!" She stopped herself.
"Go ahead," Kal said. "Say it. You're pregnant."
Her jaw dropped. "How… how did you know?"
He pointed to his ear. "I can hear the child moving inside your womb."
"You knew I was pregnant, and you still hit me!"
"I wouldn't worry about the child, Diana," Kal said. "I have a feeling he comes from very strong genes."
"You son of a bitch," Diana hissed at him, narrowing her eyes. "What the hell happened to you!"
"I lost my focus," Kal said, slowly walking over to her. "It took a crisis like what happened today to bring everything back to me. My father's will for me was to rule this planet. So far, I haven't done a good enough job. That's going to change, starting now. Anyone who opposes me will be killed or exiled. And that includes you and the rest of the damn League."
He stood above her, towering over her.
"So which is it, Diana? Are you with me, or are you against me?"
She delivered a sharp kick to his abdomen, which staggered him for a moment. She leapt to her feet. Clenching her fists, she assumed a battle stance.
"We had hoped it wouldn't come to this," came a voice from the shadows. A man dressed in black, wearing a long, flowing cape stepped forward. A cowl with two devil-like horns covered his head. The symbol of a bat adorned his chest.
"Bruce," Kal said. He cursed himself for not noticing his presence. Bruce was the only one who was ever able to get the drop on Kal's super senses. "What the hell are you…?"
On his arms, Bruce wore two giant, glowing green gloves.
"They're kryptonite gloves," Bruce replied, answering Kal's unfinished question. "You'd be surprised how hard this stuff is to synthesize. Unfortunately I didn't have enough to make nails or a cross."
"So this is how it is," Kal said. He sighed. "So be it."
With a burst of super speed, he drove his shoulder into Bruce's chest, knocking him back against the wall. Bruce gasped as the air was completely knocked out of him. The impact would have broken every bone in his body if not for the armor that he wore beneath his costume.
Kal wrapped his hands around Bruce's throat, choking him. Bruce pried at Kal's grip, trying to get him to release the chokehold. The veins in Kal's hands turned green and began to throb as the kryptonite gloves made contact with his flesh. The burning sensation seared his skin and he winced with pain.
Suddenly, Kal was yanked back, and found his arms pinned to his sides. He looked down to see that he'd been snared by a golden lasso. He jerked his head around and glared at Diana, who held the other end of the lariat tight between her hands.
Wham! Bruce let loose with a strong right to Kal's chin, then followed through with the left to the side of his head. The kryptonite dug into him, drawing blood. Bruce sank another punch into Kal's stomach, nearly knocking him off his feet. An uppercut to the chin. A jab to the stomach. The beating was merciless and unrelenting.
Kal fell to his knees. Bruce placed his left hand on top of Kal's head and drew back his right. Then he followed through, hard, driving his fist into Kal's face. Kal crumpled to the ground.
Bruce placed a foot on Kal-El's chest. "Step down, Kal. You have no place as the head of The League any more."
"You idiot," Kal sputtered, his face a mess of cuts and bruises. "I AM the damn League. I don't need any of you!" With a roar, he summoned all his strength, snapping the golden lasso and throwing Bruce off his him with a sweep of his hand. He got to his feet, wiping the blood away from his face as he rose. He began to walk towards Bruce, who was just picking himself up off the floor.
Diana grabbed Kal's arm. "Kal, stop this!" she cried. "This is insane!"
"Don't touch me." He grabbed the back of her head, his fingers gripping her dark brown hair, and shoved her violently to the ground.
Diana, enraged, let loose the warrior instincts inside of her, ingrained within her since her childhood on Themyscira. She lunged at Kal-El, her fists flying. She spun around and drove her heel into his chest, then followed through with a karate chop to his face. Even if Kal had been at full strength, Diana had always been a close match for him physically. Now, weakened by the kryptonite, he could barely stand up to her onslaught.
As she swung her leg around to deliver another kick, he grabbed her leg in mid-air. He gave a primal yell as he threw her across the room, sending her crashing into the wall.
Bruce leapt from the shadows and began pummeling Kal in the face with the kryptonite gloves. "I never trusted you," Bruce said through clenched teeth. "Not for a minute. I started synthesizing kryptonite the day I met you."
"Looks like neither of us could be trusted, then," Kal grunted, grabbing Bruce's arm between his two hands and holding it back. The pain of the kryptonite touching his flesh was almost unbearable.
Bruce reached for his belt and pulled out a small rectangular device. He held it beside Kal's head, and pushed a button. An explosion of sound blared out of the device, playing havoc with Kal-El's super hearing. The windows shattered and Kal screamed in pain, falling to his knees and throwing his hands over his ears.
The ringing in Kal's ears drowned out all other sound in the room. Bruce was saying something about the high frequency being inaudible to anyone but him, but Kal couldn't hear it. He clenched his teeth and held his ears and waited for the ringing to fade.
Bruce delivered another crushing blow to Kal's face, then another to the side of the head. In a rage, Kal jumped to his feet, blood streaming from his ears, and clasped his hands on either side of Bruce's face. Then, he rammed his head right into Bruce's forehead, and tossed him to the ground like a rag doll.
"I've been holding back, Bruce," Kal yelled, his voice thundering as he had to yell to hear himself above the ringing in his ears. "I don't want to kill you. I once considered you my friend. I thought you were like me… I thought you understood." He hoisted Bruce up off the ground. "But I will kill you if I have to."
He lifted Bruce high into the air, and then threw him clear across the room. His armor, as well as several of his bones, shattered on impact. One of the kryptonite gloves split clear in two and fell off his arm. He struggled to get up, but he was having trouble feeling his legs.
Kal wobbled over to where Bruce lay, having trouble keeping his balance due to his popped eardrums and the kryptonite beating he'd just taken.
"Giving up yet, Bruce?" he asked.
"No." Bruce reached for his belt, and took out a small communicator device. "Just calling in the sub." He pressed a button on the device.
If Kal had retained his super hearing he would have heard him coming from miles away. As it was, he barely noticed the gust of wind a microsecond before he felt the impact. He had just enough time to turn and see the orange and yellow blur streak into the room before he felt the fists fly across his face. He was hit by a barrage of hundreds of attacks before he could even raise his arm to block one of them.
"Bart," Kal scoffed in recognition. It took all the strength he had to summon his super speed, and start to block the punches as they came at him. As he shifted into super speed mode, the image of the man before him became clear, and was no longer just a blur. Before him was the young man that he'd known as Bart Allen, wearing his trademark orange and yellow jumpsuit.
"Hey, Clark," Bart said, still throwing punches at his face, chest and stomach.
"My name is Kal-El," he replied, struggling to block each one as it came. When Bart did manage to connect, it stung. Normally, he would not have felt a thing, but in his weakened state, a punch at this velocity resonated.
"Whatever, man… I know all about name changes, you know that already," Bart said. "What happened to that farm boy I met in Smallville? When we first met, I was using my powers to steal from people. You were the one who told me that I should use my powers for good, and help others! I thought that was the whole reason we started The League!"
"I was young and naïve then!" Kal yelled. "I was meant to rule this world, Bart! You can either stand beside me, or get the hell out of my way!"
Kal picked up speed, and began to overpower Bart. He was now blocking all of Bart's punches, and even getting in a few of his own. Bart turned and ran, and zipped around behind Kal and started punching him in the back. By the time Kal was able to turn around again, Bart had sped around behind him again.
"I always was faster than you, slowpoke!" Bart taunted.
"Oh yeah?" Kal darted away from Bart in a burst of speed, and ran all the way around the room, building up momentum. Then he plowed himself right into Bart, driving him straight towards the wall. At the last moment, Bart slipped away and ran all the way around the room himself, trying the same trick on Kal. As he approached, he wound up and punched Kal square in the jaw twelve times. Kal ferociously shot back with a punch to Bart's chest that sent him flying backwards. When Bart caught himself, he continued to run around the room, trying to sneak up behind Kal again. Before he could get close, Kal darted away. The two began to race around the room, darting at each other every few seconds to try to land a few punches, and then zipping away again.
To Bruce and Diana, the room was overtaken by a gale force wind with the strength of a hurricane. It was all they could do to grab onto whatever was nailed down and hold on as tightly as they could as the room was torn apart by an orange and black tornado.
Within the whirlwind, Kal and Bart continued to clash, their movements almost like a choreographed dance as they came at each other over and over again. Each time, the shockwaves from their punches grew more powerful as their speed increased, and the ground beneath them started to shake. The whole fortress was in danger of being ripped apart.
Finally, Kal landed a crushing blow to Bart's jaw, shattering it. His head twisted around, nearly snapping his neck. Bart hit the ground with a crash so powerful that it ripped a crack across the floor. He twitched at super speed, his features a blur.
"You may be faster than me," Kal said. "But you're not stronger. Did you really think you could beat me?"
"N-No…" Bart managed to sputter as he shook. "J-J-Just d-d-distract y-you…"
Suddenly Kal felt his arms pinned violently behind his back, his head was forced down and his knees buckled beneath him. It was only then that he noticed a faint green light around him that was growing stronger and brighter by the second. Though he couldn't move his head, he rolled his eyes upward to see that he was encircled by a group of men in green and black costumes, all with their outstretched arms pointing straight at him. Each of them wore a green ring.
They had called in the Green Lantern Corps.
Some of them Kal recognized… Jordan… Rayner… Stewart… even Gardner. Some of them, he didn't. Some of them didn't even look human. He knew the Corps spanned many different planets. He wondered if the big one was the one they called Kilowog. In all, there were about a dozen of them, all with their rings pointing at him, shooting out beams of green light that, at present, had him completely immobilized.
"Well," the Green Lantern known as Hal Jordan said, his tone grim. "We've got him. Now what the hell do we do with him?"
