BEYOND GOOD & EVIL

by Hexenadler

Author's Note: This fanfic is inspired by events depicted in BATMAN/SUPERMAN: WHO ARE THE SECRET SIX?, except in this alternate version, Kara (Supergirl) is the one who Bruce and Clark capture instead of Commissioner Gordon.

Kal-El slowly walked down the flight of stairs leading to Kara's holding cell. The Hall of Justice's brig had been built to temporarily hold any supervillains who were too powerful to be locked inside a normal penitentiary. But never in his darkest days did Kal foresee having to lock his own cousin away in one of those cells. Simply thinking about it made him feel horrified and nauseous at the same time.

He wasn't looking forward to this at all, but this wasn't something he wanted to do. It was something he had to do, even though Bruce had already warned him that the endeavor was pointless.

"You must understand that her entire way of thinking has been completely rewired," Kalrecalled Bruce saying. "It's impossible for Kara to comprehend compassion anymore, or integrity, or love, as anything aside from weaknesses to exploit. She'll simply mock and taunt every effort on your part to break through to her. Spare yourself the pain and just focus on putting together a cure."

Kal couldn't believe that. It wasn't as if Kara was being mind-controlled; at, least, not exactly. She'd merely been transformed into her worst possible self; all the best aspects of Kara forcibly ripped away, leaving only the bad behind. Perhaps that's why the infected heroes were always able to get the upper hand over him during their struggle back at the Fortress of Solitude. He kept insisting the infected weren't themselves, when in reality, they were themselves, albeit as reflections from an evil prism.

Now that Kal was willing to accept that aspect of the infected, there was a chance of making some leeway with Kara. He knew she was in there, locked into that evil shell by the Batman Who Laughs. He remembered the look on her face a few seconds before the infection kicked in. The fear, the confusion. It was burned into the back of his retina. One way or another, he had to try to save her. To bring her back, despite the odds. He owed her that much. And yet…could a purely evil person be reasoned with?

Kal stood in front of the orange-tinged forcefield separating himself from Kara. She was pacing back and forth inside her cell like a onery wolf. Kal still hadn't gotten used to her new appearance. The black gear, the punkish mohawk, the hideous black lipstick curled up from the edges of her mouth to resemble a monstrous grin. But her eyes were the worst part. There was no humanity in them, no spark of kindness or empathy. Even now, they glinted with a devil's hatred as she turned them on Kal.

"What do you want?" she snarled.

Superman sat down on the hard steel bench adjacent from Kara's cell, hands clasped together. He looked at Kara with eyes full of pain and love.

"I just thought it'd be nice to talk for a while without our fists in each other's faces."

"Let me guess. Are you going to give me the same coddling monologue about fighting the infection?

"No."

"Good."She turned her back on Kal with a contemptuous air. "Because I'm not going to let you take this away from me."

"Take what away, Kara?"

"My freedom."

"What do you think you've been freed from?"

"Lies. Stupid ideals. Naïve idiocy."

"Trying to make the world a better place to live is naïve?"

"The way you've been doing it is."

"Then how would you do it?"

Kara turned back around to face Superman. She pressed her hands against the crackling force field."The only way it can be done: Through brute strength. Humans are sheep, Kal. Don't get me wrong. Sheep can be useful, but they still have to be treated as such if you want results."

"Is that what the Batman Who Laughs told you?"

"I figured it out for myself."

"What about everything we've taught you? Your friends, your family…"

"Don't patronize me!" Kara spat, beating a fist against the force field. "I know you've always been secretly envious of me, always trying to keep me in check, to ensure I retained my secondary position of 'Superman Lite'…"

"Is that really how you see everything now?" Kal asked, the dismay audible in his voice. "Schemes, plots, hidden agendas?"

Kara lowered her voice to a sharp hiss. "What I see is the truth. Don't deny it."

"They're lies, Kara."

"The Batman Who Laughs opened my eyes…"

"He's sealed them shut."

"He's freed me!"

"He's chained you."

"Chained me to what?"Kara burst out laughing. "To live life how I want?"

"No. To a lonely death."

"Spare me the…"

Kal stood and approached the force field. His normally stoic demeanor was cracking. At first, he was willing to allow Kara to rant. But his desperation was getting the better of him. He'd had enough of taunts and sneers.

"Kara, for Rao's sake, please listen to me! If you go on the way you are now, you'll die a miserable woman, hateful and hated, abandoned by everyone! Because that's what happens to all villains in the end, and I don't want to see it happen to you! You're better than that!"

Kara was momentarily taken aback by Kal's sudden outburst. For one fleeting second, her face took on an expression of indecision, of conflict. Then it vanished, and the familiar venom came back. "Losing your cool, Clark? That didn't take long."

Already feeling exhausted, Superman turned away from Kara and sat back down on the bench. Was there any way to break through Kara's hardened layer of ugly cynicism? Interpreting Superman's silence as a sign of defeat, Kara smirked and resumed pacing her cell. Two minutes passed in dull silence, the soft hum of the force field providing an almost tranquil atmosphere.

"By the way…" Superman said, breaking the stillness, "…thank you."

Kara stopped in her tracks and stared at her cousin. She seemed genuinely perplexed. "For what?"

"I know it doesn't mean anything to you now," he said gently, "but when you grabbed that contaminated batarang, you took the bullet meant for me. If we can't find a cure, this might be the only chance to express my gratitude. So, again…thank you."

Kal saw a strange look come over Kara's face that he couldn't quite figure out. Her mouth opened as if to say something, then turned away, folding her arms in contempt.

"Hmph," she muttered. "It won't make any difference once the Batman Who Laughs infects the entire planet."

"And then what?" Kal shrugged his cape-shrouded shoulders. "Everybody backstabs and murders each other until we're all dead?"

"No!" Kara scolded him as if he were an idiot child. "We fan out to other galaxies. We spread the truth to world after world, and then…"

"Come on, Kara. Just because you're evil doesn't mean you're stupid. How can the Batman Who Laughs create a civilization where everybody's always looking out for number one? Where people are trying to sniff out each other's vulnerabilities? Where trust is completely nonexistent? Everything will be about stone-cold practicality where I'll be figuring out how to use you, or you'll be figuring out how to use me, rather than counting on ourselves to help each other when we need help."

Kara rolled her eyes. "Oh, barf."

Superman clasped his hands to his mouth, thinking. He now knew that this was the only way of talking to the infected. One-on-one, separated from the rest of the group, where they couldn't feed off each other's bad vibes. He remembered how Blue Beetle seemed to momentarily regain his humanity at the Fortress of Solitude, only for Deathbringer to barge in between them and reactivate Jaime's paranoia. That seemed to be a recurring trait among villains: Paranoia. Cynicism. Distrust. But most of all, hatred.

"Krypto misses you," he said, as softly as he could.

Kara glanced at Kal over her shoulder. He saw a cold fire burning in her eyes.

"Don't you dare," she hissed like a rattlesnake. "Don't you DARE try to use him against me."

"He just wants you home."

"Then let me OUT!"

"Supposing I did. Suppose I went against my gut instinct and my common sense, and deactivated the force field. Can you honestly look me in the eye and say you'd go straight back to where Krypto's waiting for you, instead of breaking my neck and rejoining the Batman Who Laughs's army?"

Kara took a step closer. Some of the hard cruelty withdrew from her features. Her normally razor-sharp serpent's voice took on a softer quality.

"Kal," she said, "I'm ready to hurt you. I'm ready to hurt just about anyone who'd get in my way. But you know I'd never, ever hurt Krypto."

Kal studied her eyes. He didn't need x-ray vision to know what was behind them.

"Kara, you know that you and I have fought too many villains over the years to be taken in by that kind of trick." He sounded more tired than depressed when he uttered those words.

In a flash, the tenderness was gone from Kara's face. It had been a sociopath's attempt to imitate love, nothing more.

"That's good, Kal," she leered. "You're learning."

"Kara," he said meditatively, "remember when we were fighting back at the Fortress of Solitude? Suppose for a moment you were injured, or crippled in some way, to the point where you could die. Can you see any of the other infected coming to rescue you? To save you? Can you see yourself trying to help them if the situation was reversed?"

"I…"Kara stopped, uncertainty beginning to take hold.

"Now can you see why his kind of world couldn't work?"

Kara snarled, already rebounding. "If I was injured, I'd deserve death, or worse. You can't afford to be weak, ever."

"According to the Batman Who Laughs."

"According to reality!"

"His brain isn't cured, Kara. It's diseased. He can only see the worst in everyone, instead of the best. He thinks love is beneath him, but it's not. It's beyond him. And now he's done the same to you."

Kara punched at the force field with enough force to make it stutter and spark, but it continued to hold. "His brain's just fine, and so's mine! You're the one who's retarded! You're the one who can't see reality for what it is!"

Kal realized, much to his heartbreak, that he wasn't making any progress. He released a weary sigh as his head lowered.

"Seriously,"she said, anger cooling somewhat, "what did you think was going to happen when you came down here to talk to me? That I'd change my mind after the Batman Who Laughs fixed it?"

"I came down here because…" He looked up to peer right into Kara's eyes. "Because I want to see you beat this thing on your own. Without any cure."

At first, Kara couldn't grasp what her cousin was getting at. Then she snickered.

"Ooooooh. I get it. You want me to be a good guy again even while I'm still infected so you can have hope. Hope that someone can actually resist the infection if they tried, without having a cure forced on them. Is that it? I'm right, aren't I?"

Kal stared at Kara, his face simultaneously grim and stoic.

"But that means I'd have to want to resist it, wouldn't I?"Kara cackled."Well, newsflash, boy scout: I don't! If you miss that nauseatingly wholesome girl-next-door, that's just too bad! She's gone, and I'm not going to let her come back ever! Either you learn to live with that, or you can curl up into a corner and suck your thumb for the rest of your pathetic farmboy life!"

Kal mulled over Kara's words. Then he nodded. "All right, then."

He reached into a small pouch hidden in his cape and removed a tiny object that resembled a human tooth.

Kara frowned. "What is that?"

"Batman put this together for me last night," he said, studying the pellet between his fingers. "He told me that it takes approximately ten to fifteen seconds for a metahuman to pass out after the toxin enters a metahuman's bloodstream, during which time it attacks and alters the frontal lobe. That means I'll have ten to fifteen seconds to bite down on this capsule before I'm turned into another psychopath with superpowers."

The smirk that seemed permanently fixed on Kara's lips disappeared. "What…what the hell are you talking about?"

Superman inserted the capsule back into his cape. "I'm done being used as a tool, Kara. It doesn't matter if it's Darkseid, or the Joker, or Poison Ivy, or Maxwell Lord, or the Batman Who Laughs. I'm sick of having my head invaded and my body turned into a weapon to hurt or kill the people I care about. This pellet contains raw, undiluted kryptonite dust. Batman even added his own secret ingredient just to double its potency. If I'm ever infected, all I have to do is crack it open inside my mouth, and…"

He trailed off, allowing Kara to figure out the rest.

She stammered for a moment, unable to piece her thoughts together. "But…I don't…" Finally, she screamed loud enough to shake the entire Hall of Justice to its foundations. "Are you crazy?! You can't do that!"

"You proved it yourself just now," Superman explained with a level voice. "I won't want to be cured after I'm infected. My whole way of thinking will make a total 180, just like you, and Shazam, and all the others. I can't let that happen. I'm too great a threat."

"NO!"

Kara threw herself against the force field with more power than she had ever mustered before. Her fists smashed at the electromagnetic barrier again and again, to the point where it began to sputter like a flickering lightbulb. The Hall of Justice's interior alarm immediately went off. The entire corridor was alive with flashing red lights and shrieking klaxons. Kal jerked back in amazement.

"I won't let you! I won't let you do something so stupid!"Kara was shrieking at a volume that could split concrete in half. "Do you hear me, you goddamnIDIOT?!"

If she keeps this up, she could actually break out, Kal realized. Then he saw the tears streaming down from her eyes, and understood something else. It's Kara. The real Kara. She's scared that I'll really do it. That I'll kill myself before I turn.

"I'm sorry, Kara," Superman managed to mutter between her screams, and walked away, holding the tears back through sheer willpower rather than any kind of superpower.

But what Superman didn't know, what Kara didn't know, what even the Batman Who Laughs didn't know, was that another contagion was about to be unleashed upon the Earth, one which would assault the forces of Good & Evil alike and bring about stories that were never meant to be told.

Ray Hartigan was rocking out to his favorite Radiohead tune on his smartphone. He strolled along one of New York's innumerable sidewalks, passing other strangers with the exact same indifference they regarded him. The sun was high in the sky and beat down upon Ray's bare neck. The day was bright and cheery. There was no warning or portent to indicate what was about to happen.

A man abruptly materialized on the pavement in front of Ray. A hole tore itself open less than a dozen feet above and dropped him to the ground with a lack of ceremony that was almost hilarious. The man was African American. 60% of his body had been replaced with cybernetic skin and mechanical armor. He looked beaten and bloody, as if he'd only just been dragged through a horrific torture session. His eyes shot up at Ray a desperate, imploring gaze.

"N-Nuh!" The cyborg man called out, reaching toward Ray with one hand, as if to warn him of something. But his tongue had been cut out. There was no way to prevent a corrupted version of the dreaded Anti-Life equation from transferring itself directly into Ray's smartphone, a heinous virus that could actually bridge the gap between the biological and the digital.

The equation took hold of Ray's mind. He dumbly transmitted outwards to others, and they transmitted it to others still. Then every one of them went completely insane, tearing the flesh from their heads in some deranged attempt to rip the equation from their very brains.

The end had begun...for everyone.