answers to reviewers questions or statements:
MeteorElDrago: Yeah, Peter's rising power will be a bit of concern to many... Peter included.
Tom2011: Oh yeah. Especially one sired by Darkseid.
Davies96: He's never been dismissed by the League at all. The only people who ever have are his own siblings and he's generally dismissive of them as well. Hard for her to respect someone that's so apathetic of most others around him.
Djberneman: It isn't puberty in the sense he's becoming an adult, more of his body further developing as a result of exposure to cosmic energies and the like. But even if it wasn't, The League wouldn't let that slide simply because of who and what Peter is.
Phazer: I wouldn't say it was more, several points previous it was alluded and mentioned that Peter was growing extra limbs, another set of eyes, and that there was more to him than it seemed. It's just finally come full circle.
Batros940: How was it odd? He was already critically injured from his fight with Ultraman while she was arguably still 'fresh'. And why would she deserve getting blasted in the leg like that? He was killing people left and right with no regards or restraint and even attacked Diana when she tried to get a answer out of him, if anything she acted very restrained in how she could've approached it. It's not exactly being equal or near Superman in terms of strength so much as Peter's body has developed in ways that would render most of Kal's immunities null.
IPoisioNI: There's a bit more to being a 'True Son of Darkseid' than simply raw power, but Peter's status will be different now because of it. At the very least, most of his siblings and members of Darksied's court will be a bit more wary of him.
Harbinger of Kaos: We'll be exploring the connection between the four of them very soon. Peter could now be considered in the top seven in terms of sheer raw power but there's still a bit more to being a True Son of Darkseid than just overwhelming strength. And really Peter only beat Ultraman because the man wasn't taking Peter seriously, though he's gonna be regretting that now.
CRUDEN: We shall see soon though the hints are there.
superpierce: Yep.
Guest: Peter's standing will have improved by the time he get's back to Apokolips, but other things will be on people's minds by then. Peter and Diana's relationship, as we've seen, will be very complicated and grow even more so.
Guest: The point of starting off weak is it gave Peter a reason to want more in life, if he just had everything given to him right off the bat, can you honestly say his character would've been just as interesting? He would've been a smaller Darkseid basically, with spider powers.
Ronak: No it's the Felicia he used to know.
gonthethrone: It takes more than just sheer power to be seen as a fully fledged son of Darkseid. As for training, he's already been training, at least when he was on Apokolips with Kalibak.
Superfan: Peter won't be getting his ass kicked, chewed out yeah, but no one's gonna put a hand on him at the moment. Though after this is all said and done? Who knows.
Laser Crusader: No Owlman pulled people out when he saw Luthor's team at the Plaza and when Ultraman arrived, though he didn't get everyone out in time. The lie would be short lived considering that anyone could go and see for themselves and Darkseid might notice the lie right off the bat when Peter utters it and be even more pissed off.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or DC characters seen, mentioned or used.
"Well this all seems vaguely familiar" Peter said in a bored tone as he found himself sitting at a desk that looked like it's seen better days a century ago with the likes of Superman, Diana and Luthor looming over him.
Well Superman was looming, Diana's expression was carefully neutral and devoid of any hint to what she was feeling internally while Luthor was... torn between resigned and relieved. Though Peter supposed he couldn't blame the man, a major threat and enemy of his was finally brought down, but possibly worse than he ever imagined and didn't know quite how to feel.
At least he wasn't pissed off for no reason like the Kryptonian always seemed to be whenever he was around-
"This is all some kind of game to you, isn't?" Superman demanded with a glare on his face "Crippling people, mutilating them, it's just another day in the life for you, isn't it?"
"You have no idea how accurate of a description of my life that was" Peter snickered before he leaned back in his seat with a yawn "But honestly, what do you have to be angry about this time? This Ultraman was one of the most powerful people we're gonna have to deal with and was a 'bad guy'. Figured you'd be happy I took him out"
Well, blinded him until his eyes eventually regrew and he decided to hunt Peter down for it, but you get the idea.
"Wait, don't tell me, he was someone's brat too wasn't he?" Peter smirked at the unhappy Justice Leaguer.
Peter could practically hear the man's jaw clenching in rage as he glared into Peter's very being with those flickering red eyes of his. For a brief moment, Peter entertained the idea of blasting the Kryptonian's eyes the split second they lit up with his heat vision with his own optical beams before deciding against it. Something told Peter that it wouldn't be as easy with Kal-El as it was with... well whatever the hell the name of Ultraman was, though the image still threatened to make him smile.
"What about the people that were inside the ball room, what happened to them?" Luthor suddenly asked.
"Which ones?" Peter asked with a lazy look thrown the man's way.
"The ones that were reduced to piles of rotted, burnt flesh" Luthor said with a pointed look on his face "While Ultraman can liquify metal with that heat vision of his, it can't induce necrosis like whatever hit those people. So I wanna know if either you were responsible or if someone else there did it?"
"Honestly I can't remember" Peter shrugged before he pointed towards Diana "She'll likely know since between the two of us, she was still... right for the lack of a better term, in the head while I was a bit... not right in the head"
"What's that mean?" Luthor questioned.
"Whatever you want it to mean human" Peter answered.
Not for the first nor last time was Peter relieved his suit was able to repair itself in time for this pseudo interrogation, with his face completely covered he could still steal glances at Diana without being noticed. So when he pointed to her in regards to knowing more of what happened in that room, he was a bit surprised to see her... express nothing. Honestly he expected her to be furious for the random humans he tore through to try and get Felicia before Ultraman and she got in the way, but so fa she's simply been... unexpressive.
Curious, he thought.
"Great..." Luthor sighed as he ran a hand over his face.
"If you say so" Peter said.
Luthor gave him an annoyed look before he turned to leave "While I would've liked for have things to have gone... well a helluva lot better than what happened tonight, it wasn't a total lost. We were able to acquire the information we need from Owlman's archives and take out possibly the most dangerous member of the Syndicate before he could become an issue"
"You can't be serious?!" Superman said as he stared at Luthor in shock "Dozens of people lost their lives tonight, several of them because of Ultraman and this thing's fight in the middle of the city!"
"At this point, I'll take what I can get" Luthor said as he turned to regard Superman with a look of deep rooted exhaustion on his face "This is a war Superman. The time for half measures and kitty gloves have long since passed. While I won't condone lethal actions or civilian casualties, I'd like to avoid those unless absolutely necessary, I'll do whatever it takes to ensure the Syndicate is finally brought down once and for all"
"So the ends justify the means? Why am I not surprised to hear you say something like that!" Superman scoffed, causing Luthor's look to darken as the Kryptonian turned, and in Peter's opinion, stomp away like a child.
The New God shook his head at the alien's behavior before he glanced at his wife "The sex had to have been that great if you were willing to put up with that"
Diana closed her eyes and mentally counted back from ten before opening them and giving Peter as reproachful look "Please just shut up"
"Can't, I'm on a roll now, center of my desire" Peter said in a sarcastic tone before he focused his attention on Luthor "So what's next cue ball? You got what you wanted to take on the Syndicate, right?"
"For now, we plan out who we'll take out and when" Luthor revealed "The Syndicate's founding members and leaders are going to be busy deciding what their going to do with Ultraman out of the picture. A power vacuum has opened and I bet every penny I've owned that their going to use this time to figure out who should be in charge now. My money is on Owlman taking control"
"So why not hit them now?" Peter asked.
Luthor pointed up towards he ceiling at this "They'll be hold up in their fortress on the Dark Side of the Moon by now. An assault on that place will be next to suicide with all of them there. Best we can do now is plan and wait"
"Hurray" Peter said in a even more sarcastic tone than the one he used earlier.
"Now if anyone needs me, I'm going to go and take a very long nap" Luthor said, a hint of weariness in his tone "You people are draining to be around"
"I feel like I've lost a century of my life whenever I'm in a room with more than one 'Justice' Leaguer" Peter agreed as he made to get up but stopped when he saw a certain look in his wife's eye "Oh look, you have more to say on what happened today, and waited for the Kryptonian to leave no less! Alright, color me intrigued. That's a joke, Intrigue doesn't have a color in third dimensions, your gonna have to reach sixth or seventh ones before they start to appear"
Diana's eyes narrowed at Peter's prattling while Luthor quickened his pace out of the room and had the door close behind him, he did not want to be dragged into whatever it was that was about to happen between those two. He's seen some hostile relationships in the past and this one definitely ranked the top ten, maybe even the top five.
"Well, are you going to explain?" Diana said after several moments of tense silence passed between the two and Luthor's footfalls had faded away with distance.
"Didn't I just do that?" Peter asked with a snort.
"Who was that woman, really?" Diana pressed, doing her best to ignore Peter's flippant remarks.
It's taken her a while, longer than she'd care to admit, but when Peter starts acting in such a way, it's usually to divert someone's attention away from a subject he himself wasn't comfortable with. Whoever that white haired woman was, whatever it was she did to Peter in the past, it was enough to send him into a berserking rage at just the sight of her.
"Someone I used to know but in the end turned out to be someone I really never knew in the first place ironically enough" Peter said with a shrug as he stood up and began to make his way towards the door before he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Peter froze, not because the grip on his shoulder was tight or indicated some sort of threat against him, but because the softness of it felt almost... caring.
"Peter, please, can you just for once tell me what's going?" Diana asked, her voice tired "I'm not asking for much, I'm not. But clearly this woman is someone of significance considering you nearly blew this whole operation, went as far as facing off against Ultraman himself and even risking the wrath of the League to kill her"
She left out the sheer savagery he inflicted upon the civilians that were present, all it'd do aside from ignite her anger upon him would be to 'tune her out' and ignore what she has to say completely.
"I did... didn't I?" Peter said with a thoughtful look underneath his armored mask 'Hmm, interesting, she forgot the worthless humans I incinerated along the way. Or she thinks Felicia is the more important matter... interesting'
"Yes" Diana said with a sigh as she reached up and ran a hand down her face.
"How's your leg?" Peter suddenly glanced down towards the mostly healed limb.
He could still make out faint markings from where the flesh was... damaged, and the skin still showed some discoloration, but it was far better than the rotting look it had when Peter last saw it.
"It's... fine" Diana said, though her leg still felt a little numb around the area the damage was most severe.
"I am sorry you know" Peter said as he stared at the limb he damaged earlier, his eyes slowly raking over the lean muscle of her thigh "I wasn't really trying to hurt you, not like that. I just... I just needed you out of the way before she got to far"
"She must be quite formidable if she was able to evade you. Your ferocity alone would've been more than enough to catch her" Diana noted.
Or his sudden increase in raw physical strength, she added silently.
"Heh, just a case of bad luck" Peter said with grim chuckle "She's the New Goddess of it after all. Well just luck in general, but she tended to delve more into bad luck than good. Sometimes it was useful, other times, like tonight, it wasn't so useful, to me at any rate"
"I see..." Diana said as she filed away this bit of information, a rogue New Goddess with the ability to manipulate a person's 'luck' would need watching out for-
"If your worried she's gonna mess things up for you all, don't" Peter said as he reached up and gave Diana a quick pat to the shoulder "After what I nearly did to her? She'll be lying low for a while, if not leave this Universe for another"
It pissed Peter off, in actuality, to lose Felicia after she was so close to paying for what she did, but there was no use crying over spilt milk at this point. Besides, he was a God, he could wait another hundred years if he has to until he can get his hands on her. In fact, Peter could use this time to see just what he can do with some of his newfound abilities, it'll help him plan out a nice... routine, for her when he finds her.
'I wonder how she'll sound when I start to slowly expose her face to my new... hmm, what can I call those eye beams of mine?' Peter thought as he turned away from Diana and began to make his way out of the room and into the dimly hall outside 'Then there's my Venom Blasts and their apparent newfound effect of invoking necrosis in someone. Guess they can finally live up to the 'Venom' aspect of it's name-'
Peter suddenly stopped as he felt a faint tremor at the base of his skull and heard, for the briefest of moments, the sound of something scuttling across the floor a few meters further down the hall. The New God's eyes narrowed as he turned to glance in the direction he heard the noise and where he believed the feeling of danger he was experiencing was coming from. Diana noticed Peter's behavior as she stepped out of the room behind him and followed his gaze.
"What is it?" she asked as her eyes searched the hall for whatever drew Peter's attention.
"Thought I heard something..." Peter muttered quietly as he used his suit's sensors to see if they could pick up anything or anyone.
He knows for a fact the heard something moving, and the fact his sixth sense went off, whatever it was, it was a threat. In fact, ever since he and the rest had arrived at this place, he's been hearing and sensing that they weren't alone in this building. He has a pretty good idea of who it is, but he couldn't exactly confirm it without drawing unwanted attention from both the League and this slippery little intruder. True he could tell the League about his suspicions but considering they'll more than likely ignore anything he has to say, at least Flash and Superman will with Lantern and Manhunter backing them out of personal loyalty than anything else, he'd decided it was best to keep quiet. Luthor was still up in the air in regards to whether Peter can place some distant relative of trust in him and Diana was... unknown, at this point.
"It could be rats, or some other critter that's made it's way in here" Diana said as she scanned the hall carefully for signs of anything that seemed out of place "Nightwing did find a rat in his cot earlier"
"You mean the one you placed to kill any sorta mood that he and your sister would be in?" Peter asked with a knowing smirk as he turned to stare at a surprised Diana.
"What are you ta-" she began before stopping and let out a frustrated sigh, already knowing that denying would be of no use "When did you find out?"
"On the way back here and I was going through my suit's systems to see what sorta of damage I'll have to deal with. Security on it picked up and saw you planting the rat in Nightwing's bed while he and Manhunter were being briefed by Luthor and I was changing into that insufferable tux you made me wear" Peter revealed as he brought up an arm and had it project a recording of Diana approaching Nightwing's cot with a small rat in her hands and gently place it within the confines of his covers.
Diana watched as the recording was then sped up by several minutes before resuming it's normal speed to show Donna and Dick nearing the latter's cot, both of them practically mauling one another's faces and working to remove one another's suits as quickly as possible. Diana had to suppress a smirk when she saw the two collapse on to the cot only to immediately jump up, her sister letting out a startled scream, as a rat raced across the pillow and off the cot and towards another part of the factory. Whatever desire was between the two quickly died as Donna quickly left to find something, anything, to wash herself down with while Dick began to search his cot for more rats or worse, any droppings they may have left.
"You really don't like that their together, do you?" Peter said as he shut off the projection and lowered his arm and waited for Diana's response.
"No, I don't" Diana said with a long suffering sigh "Nightwing, he's not a terrible person, but his decisions when it comes to things of the romantic sort are... questionable at best. For years he's flirted back and forth between two women, only to end things and break their hearts. I wish to keep Donna from being dragged into that as well"
"Well I have an answer for that" Peter revealed.
"Oh, and what's that?" Diana asked with a raised brow "Let me guess, kill him?"
"It's like you read my mind" Peter teased.
"If I could read your mind, I'd asking whatever powers that be why they cursed me so" Diana shook her head in mock sadness before she looked at Peter with a more serious expression on her face "May I ask you something?"
Peter's brow furrowed a little "You may..."
"Why do you want to offer this world to your father?" Diana asked as she gestured to the hall, building, city and planet around them "What good does it do to trade this world away to Darkseid?"
"My Father lost a valuable world recently and is in a... very, very bad mood because of it. So, to avoid being a outlet for his rage when we return to Apokolips, I thought to try and lessen the pain to come by giving him a new world of which to breed new strands of Parademons on" Peter revealed to a surprised Diana.
Peter of course COULD find something aside a new world to add to his Father's massive Inter-Universal Empire that would be of even greater value or worth in the long term, but he had already promised him that he'd bee bringing him a world. Anything less than that would be... unwise, and likely lead to a myriad of less than pleasant experiences that will end with Peter hating his wife for convincing him to abandon his plan in the first place.
'Than again, no guarantee that Father will be merciful to begin with when I get back' Peter thought darkly 'Considering he just had one of is grandsons killed, he's gonna be in a bad mood for a while anyhow and he'll likely lockdown any and all Motherboxes on the planet to keep anyone from-... Huh, I wonder if he'd be okay with... if I spin it right it could work...'
"Peter, I know what I'm asking is... difficult" Diana said started as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other "And I know that your father will not be pleased and see to make that known upon you WHEN he gets a hold of you-"
"Sure as water falling from the sky on a rainy day" Peter grimly joked as his mind continued to race through a possible substitute for his father.
Diana nodded "Yes... which is why if there's something, anything you can offer up as a substitute that doesn't involve the sacrifice of innocent lives... I'm willing to help you obtain it and equally share in the displeasure your Father will have for you, for us, when we return to Apokolips"
Peter's brow rose at this "Really?"
"Yes" Diana said, her resolve as firm as her nigh indestructible bracelets, if enduring Darkseid's wrath saved countless millions from his influence, it'd be worth it a thousand times over.
"Alright... help me give him a Grandson" Peter said, causing Diana's eyes to widen in shock, completely blindsided by his request.
"W-What?" she stuttered, unsure if she heard the New God "A-A Grandson?"
That was... that wasn't even close to what she thought he'd demand her to help him acquire. She was expecting some sort of super weapon the Crime Syndicate or Luthor might have, or some kind of mystical artifact, like the Black Vortex from Asgard. A child though, the thought hadn't once crossed her mind of being a possible choice considering Peter's lack of interest in any sort of reproduction. Sure he's hinted or outright stated he'd like to sleep with her, but it was obvious he simply wished to satisfy a base carnal desire, not go out of his way to create a life.
"Or Granddaughter, whichever works" Peter said with a shrug, a smirk beginning to slowly grow underneath his mask "I've been thinking for some time now, about what you said, Darkseid choosing Me of all of my brothers to wed you to. Well it's finally occurred to me, more so after my fight with Ultraman, why I was picked"
"Your... transformation" Diana said in a quiet voice as she remembered the power Peter wielded and what he was able to accomplish with it.
"Correct holder of my heart" Peter nodded, doing his best to hold back a laugh as a look of horror began to slowly creep into his wife's eyes "It's obvious he sensed what I was to become and figured that a child with that kind of power, combined with your own as a daughter of Zeus, would fashion him quite a powerful Grandchild in the future. It's really quite ingenious when you think about it. And as a bonus he can perhaps, if the Source wills it, use said child to kill your former lover Superman and conqueror your world in a form of poetic irony"
Diana was now openly staring at Peter in horror, causing the last bits of his resolve to crack and descend into a fit of laughter.
"Oh by the Source, the look on your face!" Peter said before he broke out into another fit of laughter while Diana stared at him with a dumbfounded expression "Y-You, you actually think I wanna have a kid? BWAHAHAHA!"
Diana blinked several times at this before her eyes narrowed in anger and shoved the New God back a few feet "You bastard!"
"Aww, what's wrong Diana, mad that I don't want a kid with you, or mad that I got you?" Peter asked as his laughter began to die down and he caught his breath, it's been a while since he laughed that hard.
"That wasn't funny!" Diana scolded the New God.
"Normally I'd be offended, but considering your humor is as vibrant as a chunk of rock, I think I can take your... criticism" Peter said, further angering Diana "But on a more serious note, you actually can help me. I want Luthor's teleporter, or at the very least the schematics for it"
"His teleporter?" Diana said with confusion.
Peter nodded "Yes, it may not be as grand as a planet, and it's not as fast as a Motherbox in transporting people across vast distances, but a bit of tweaking on my part can fix that and give Apokolips an advantage over New Genesis. I'm sure you can guess the most prominent tone"
Diana's brow furrowed at this statement before it clicked "They won't be able to track it..."
After centuries of warfare between the two New God factions, and the fact their respective means of transportation, Motherboxes and Fatherboxes, share similar attributes, each side as long since developed technologies to monitor the use of said devices. If Darkseid so desired, he could sent a small squad of Furies into the very heat of New Genesis and perhaps... assassinate Highfather.
"And before you refuse, this is the alternative" Peter said as he stared at Diana's face and closely observed her reaction "Either this world, or Luthor's teleporter"
"And I suppose if I fail to choose, you'll make the decision for me" Diana said with a glare.
"You know me so well" Peter grinned darkly as he reached out and cupped Diana's face, causing her to tense at the feeling of his armored glove touching her skin, his thumb tracing small circles on her flesh.
"Perhaps your simply becoming predictable" Diana countered as she reached up to remove Peter's hand from her face.
"Perhaps, perhaps" Peter said with a nod as he watched as Diana step around him and head back to the main room the rest of the League will be located "Oh, and Diana?"
"What?" she stopped and looked over her shoulder at Peter to see what he had to say.
"You mind asking Luthor to give me access to what information Luthor has on the Crime Syndicate? Not now, but later?" Peter asked.
"You don't have access to it?" Diana asked, a bit surprised that Peter hasn't seen any of the date Luthor collected on the Crime Syndicate, regardless if he had permission to access it or not.
"Honestly, don't know, but I figured I'd ask for first before I go looking" Peter said, causing a sliver of suspicion to worm it's way into Diana's mind.
"For what purposes? I very much doubt it's to study our adversaries and discover some way to beat them he hasn't thought of yet. You've been fairly adamant you can care less about the Syndicate" Diana pointed with a pointed look.
"True, but that was before, this is now" Peter said with a shrug, his tone taking a slight edge to it, an edge that Diana didn't fail to see.
Diana's eyes narrowed a bit at this before she slowly nodded "I'll ask Luthor to let you review the files he has"
Peter bowed his head at this "Thank you"
Diana nodded and turned to leave while Peter remained where he was before slowly looking back over his shoulder and into the dimly lit hallway and slowly began to grin, his eyes glowing through the lenses of his mask, giving them an eerie glow while small arcs of his Venom Blast danced between his fingers.
'I think I might get a potential volunteer to see what my newfound powers can do after all...'
It seems the more positive side of Felicia's domain was beginning to shine through for him.
...
Hundreds of thousands of miles away, hovering over the dark and desolate crater ridden surface of the moon sat the Crime Syndicate's base of operations.
Despite the wealth the Crime syndicate amassed over the years, and the pride and egos of some of it's members, the base had the appearance of a simple dull black cube that was the size of a small city and seemed to be 'standing' on one of it's corners and slowly rotating on it. Despite the relatively bland appearance, the Crime Syndicate's stronghold could take any sort of punishment the Earth had, from Nuclear Weapons' to literal Gods, and not even so much as show a scratch. Hidden across the smooth surface of the cube was tens of thousands of missile pods and point defense turrets ranging from ballistic to nuclear as a further deterrent if the power of it's inhabitants failed to be enough for any poor fool looking for a fight.
And deep within the massive structure, was a small meeting room where the Crime Syndicate's leaders met to discuss recent changes, to it's governing body-
"THE FUCK YOU MEAN HE WAS BEATEN?!" the group's resident speedster, Johnny Quick asked with outrage as he shot up from his seat and stared at his fellow syndicate members with disbelief "Ultraman, the meanest and toughest bastard on the planet was taken out by some no name from another universe?"
"It was bound to happen eventually" a woman dressed in a black gold trimmed suit that looked more like swimwear, said with a smirk on her face as she leaned back in her seat and rested her feet, covered in black thigh high leather boots, on the table's edge "I'm just surprised it took this long. And that it wasn't one of us that finally did him in"
"I'm sure he's thinking the same thing in whatever hole Luthor has him in at the moment" Owlman said as he stood at the head of the table, a place once occupied by Ultraman at these gatherings, while a hologram projected up from the table and showed Luthor with his new Justice League at the bald headed bastard's old headquarters "And the one that defeated Ultraman wasn't a mere nobody, he was a New God from the same hellhole Zunn came from"
"Good for him" Johnny Quick said with a scoff as he fell back into his seat and folded his arms across his chest and placed his feet on the table "So, anyone gonna risk touching Ultraman's stuff or we gonna leave it for now?"
The members of the Crime Syndicate all looked at one another with varying degrees of curiosity and suspicion, minus Power Ring who was shaking in his seat and was looking at everyone with terror in his eyes.
It was Owlman who broke the silence "For now, we preserve Ultraman's territory and people. There's no telling how long he'll be imprisoned by Luthor and if he gets out and sees we took anything of his... J'edd J'arkus won't be the only member we'll need to find a replacement for"
"Fine with me" Superwoman said with a smirk "He has nothing of any real value anyway. And his people are too loyal to trust them"
"Agreed" Deathstorm nodded as he folded his hands in front of himself and leaned forward slightly to rest his chin on his knuckles as he stared at the images of Luthor's allies with his skull like head's burning eye sockets.
"Fine, sure, whatever" Johnny Quick said with a shrug.
"S-So a-are w-w-w-we going to s-save him?" Power Ring asked nervously, causing Owlman to glare at him.
"He got himself into this mess, he can get himself out" the cruel dictator of Gotham's criminal element declared "His actions ruined any plans of mine to ambush Luthor's allies while they were infiltrating Wayne Plaza"
"What were they looking for in there anyway?" Superwoman asked with a faint grin "You perhaps?"
"They were seeking Owlman's contingencies for us" Grid revealed, causing Owlman to look at him in surprise, or as close to surprise as he was willing to show "Your encryptions was... more adequate then any system I've ever encountered before, but even they have their holes"
"I'll keep that in mind" Owlman growled before he turned his attention towards the rest of the Crime Syndicate "It doesn't matter, the data they acquired is incomplete, in the event someone did attempt what they have, and most of the data that is there is misinformation with a few grains of authentic intel sprinkled in"
"How generous of you" Johnny Quick said with a eye roll.
"We will need to plan a response to Luthor's actions" Grid remarked "Inaction on our part will incite bolder incursions from him and his allies"
"I'm already taking care of that" Owlman said with a dismissive wave "I have my Talons hunting down those affiliated with various charities Luthor's donated to and killed and Omen is moving to freeze any assets Luthor has"
"Well if that's settled than, what are we going to do in regards to these newcomers?" Deathstorm asked in a eerily calm voice.
Owlman said nothing as he glanced at the images of the 'heroes' that Luthor brought over to fight them, his gaze lingered on the 'Spider-man' the longest. Originally he believed out of all of these people he'd end up being the least threatening. But seeing as he just took down Ultraman, someone that even Owlman privately thought would cost more than it was worth to deal with, he quickly restructured this Justice League's members' threat levels with him now at the very top beside the man that seemed to greatly resemble Ultraman in both appearance and power.
"We're going to do what we've done to every upstart that thought they could muscle in on our turf" Owlman said after a lengthy silence.
"Oh, and what's that?" Superwoman asked, a predatory grin growing on her face at the prospect of some good old fashion payback.
"We hit them where it hurts, and when they come at us blinded by rage... break them" Owlman declared before he looked at Grid "And your gonna help me"
"Specify" Grid demanded while Owlman typed in a few commands on a small screen on his gauntlet and projected an image of a close up of the hand Luthor used to hold his teleporter.
"You wish to gain custody of Luthor's teleporter?" Grid inquired as his unblinking gaze focused on the image.
"No the device itself, I've already made one of my own, superior in every way" Owlman claimed as he pointed towards the image "But I need the information in that device to locate these newcomers home Universe. Once I have it-"
"We can mosey on over while their still here and have some fun with their Earth like they seem to be with ours" Superwoman finished with a feral grin "Sounds fun, I volunteer to lead the party"
"So let's g-g-get it then" Power Ring mumbled "W-We can d-draw them o-out"
"Don't be an idiot Power ring, Luthor isn't likely to still be carrying the device when he arrives to confront us" Owlman said with a scoff "He'll likely leave it at whatever base of operations these fools are using-"
"Jester's old hideout" Johnny Quick suddenly said, causing everyone to look at the speedster with surprise.
"How do you know that?" Deathstorm asked.
"Atomica" Johnny said with a grin as he pointed towards Owlman "She tagged along with him to see what he'd get up to and when Luthor and his people fled, she hitched a ride with one of them and has been with them since. She called me earlier when she was finally able to secure a line to me and fill me in on what they've been up to"
"And you waited until now to say anything?!" Owlman said with a snarl of anger.
"What? I wanted to have fun with them first before letting the rest of you know" Johnny Quick said with a helpless shrug.
"Can she get Luthor's device?" Owlman asked as his mind began to race through possible plans to draw Luthor and his people away.
"Yeah, if you can buy her enough time" Johnny Quick said with a yawn.
Owlman nodded at this and began to go through a mental list of possible scenarios to implement before his gaze landed on Power Ring and a ghost of a smile began to appear on his face.
...
And done.
Next chapter, A Goddess's fall...
