(Thanks to ssjSega for setting up a page for this fic on . It's incredibly humbling to know that people enjoy this story enough to do such a thing.)
Cheyenne Mountain Complex
The Lions slowly crept towards their prey as the buffalo herd began to get nervous. They knew what was coming but they didn't run. Finally the Lionesses lunged forward, chasing after the massive herd of larger beasts. The predators managed to isolate one from the rest and tackled it to the ground, working together to keep it immobile as one lion clamps it jaws down on its neck. On Earth it seemed that the herbivores were usually bigger than the carnivores which was the opposite from Krypton. Still the hunt reminded Kara how she once saw a lone Drang attack a herd of Rondor on the outskirts of Krypton's Northern Territories. It moved slowly then suddenly lunged at its prey and coiling around to suffocate it. The Buffalos reminded Kara of the Rondors yet the closest creature that came to the Drang were snakes only much smaller.
For a while now, the display screen in Kara's cell had been playing videos of various subjects. Sometimes they covered human history while other times they covered Earth's wildlife. She wasn't sure why they were playing this for her. Maybe they were afraid she'd go mad without giving her something to watch and would try to escape. They had nothing to worry about though. Sometimes she was bored out of her mind yet not once did Kara ever consider ripping through the wall and forcing her way up to the surface. It wasn't the bomb that humans had installed on the same level as her cell that kept her but her own stubborn devotion to her ideals.
She was a war criminal who took part in a conspiracy to overthrow her own government and then once she escaped with her accomplices, she aided them in killing thousands of humans. The fact that she was an unwilling participant didn't matter to her no should it to anyone else. Kara deserved whatever punishment the humans could think up that could actually work on her.
The program ended and Kara just contemplated shutting the screen off before footage of a familiar figure began playing. It was Master Sergeant Richard Flagg, the man she attacked on that aircraft after she was knocked by the humans and woke up in a bad mood. Before hurting him, Kara noticed a picture of him with a human child which she instantly knew was his son. She understood what it was like to lose a father and didn't want anyone to go through what she experienced regardless of whether they were from a different world. So not only did she not harm him but also stopped his aircraft from crashing.
"They told me they'll let you see this video. I'm not sure whether that's true or not but in case it does then here goes," Flagg spoke. "My name is Master Sergeant Richard Flagg. I was assigned to transport you to a secure location a few months ago once you were incapacitated. Well things didn't go as planned and you could've easily killed me and my men but you didn't. I heard a lot of things about you, some people are calling you a monster. If that were true, my son would be growing up without a father."
Kara sat up from her bunk bed, fixated on every spoken word.
"I also heard that you helped stopped your own people from destroying our planet," Flagg continued. "I can't imagine what it was like turning against the rest of your kind. I've never been put in a position like that with my own country and I hope I never have to. But you chose to save billions of lives and you did it at such a great cost. In my book, you're a real hero and I wanted to thank you for that. Also, I'd like to thank you not just for saving my own life but also my team's and my family's lives. My son's birthday is in a few weeks and he'll get to celebrate it with his old man because of you. I wished I could have thanked you in person but I guess this will have to do. So wherever you are, just know that some of us appreciate what you've done."
For the first time in a long time, Kara was overwhelmed. The emotions she usually suppressed after years of living alongside General Zod and the rest of the Sword of Rao began to slip through the veil. They encouraged certain emotions such as rage as it motivated you to fight harder but other emotions like laughter or happiness was always frowned upon. After Krypton's destruction, Kara had nothing really to smile about. She felt hollow for all the years as she traveled among the stars until she came to Earth. The destruction of the Genesis Chamber and the truth about her father's death only made Kara was even more depressed on top of sitting around in an underground human bunker for Rao knows so long.
Hearing simple genuine gratitude, even from someone she barely even knew, was like a ray of sunshine in a dark room for the first time in years.
ARGUS Headquarters-Washington DC
Amanda Waller watched the footage from her office in Washington DC. Kara El had just watched Richard Flagg's thank you video and her body language had completely changed. Waller didn't need her team of psychiatrists that study the alien's every single word and movement to tell her she seemed slightly happy or at least content. It was the first time Amanda had seen such a change in Kara's gloomy mood.
Lois Lane reported in her grand series of articles regarding the alien invasion of Metropolis that Kara was a soldier back on her homeworld of Krypton and the alien certainly proved it. She had spent months in an underground cell and yet never once seemed closing to cracking mentally. It reminded Waller of Special Forces and their SERE training on how to resist physical and mental torture. Not that the Kryptonian was actually tortured unless you considered the prison food she was offered.
Yet Amanda's hunch about what effect Flagg's video would have on the alien paid off. Personally Waller would have preferred more time to play this out but unfortunately, events were unfolding that couldn't be held off.
Amanda decided to take a gamble and roll the dice. She picked up her office phone and dialed General Calvin Swanwick of NORTHCOM.
"Hello General it's me," Amanda introduced herself.
"You don't make social calls Miss Waller. What do you want?" Swanwick asked bluntly.
"I need Sergeant Flagg's team for a very sensitive operation," Amanda answered.
"I thought you had Task Force X for that," Swanwick pointed out.
"I don't need expendable meta human thugs. I need professional and decorated soldiers for this," Amanda replied.
"And what kind of a mission are we talking about?" demanded Swanwick.
Metropolis
"Both of the pod and the substance the subject is incased in are both not on the periodic table of elements. Their structural strength easily surpasses a diamond," reported Dr. James Andretti, going over the test results of the Kryptonian escape pod.
"And it's occupant?" inquired Mercy Graves, staring at this otherworldly engineering marvel. Her employer wanted to know everything about it. What it was made of, how it was constructed, what kind of circuitry did it use, how powerful is its microprocessor, and also just how do you open the damn thing.
"Thermal scans couldn't penetrate the object but x-rays proved more successful," Andretti answered, handing over an x-ray photo revealing a strange skeleton within. It appeared humanoid and yet there were clear differences specifically with the various protrusions along its limbs and chest area. This looked nothing like the Kryptonian corpse that was recovered in Metropolis. Was he a mutant of some kind? The fact that this being wasn't freed the second he landed indicated that he was being held in here against his will. Yet why did the Kryptonians eject him at the last moment before their ship was destroyed?
"Make sure everyone understands that no one is to even attempt to open this thing without express permission," ordered Graves.
"Yes ma'am," nodded Andretti.
Graves headed out of the lab and headed towards another sector. The whole facility was one giant containment site that enveloped the wreckage of the Kryptonian space craft that crash landed in Metropolis. The United States army had cordoned off four city blocks around the site and set up a work site to analyze whatever they could find. Scrapped parts, alien DNA, rock minerals, anything that this ship brought from another world was collected and studied by almost a hundred different scientists. The project was incredibly compartmentalized with no one having complete access to each other's research save for one person.
Mercy entered what could be considered to be a make shift office yet that didn't really do it justice. It was filled with numerous scientific instruments, some of whom had names so complicated that Graves had difficulty pronouncing them. Hand written research notes were scattered all over the room as well as enough dry erase boards that covered almost every surface of the walls. Every one of them were filled with equations and scientific babble that Mercy was certain even someone with a PHD would have difficulty deciphering.
Standing at a board, Mercy's employer wrote something down then grumbled as he quickly erased it before writing something else. Lex Luther was approaching his 49th Birthday but seemed older then that with all the incredible stressful taking their toll on him. But while age and stress was taking its toll on his physical features, his mind was as sharp as ever. This was a man who started LexCorp when he was only 19 years old and turned it into a multibillion dollar empire. Yet he was always more at home in a lab then in a boardroom. Even now he was dressed casually with clothes you could find at a local department store.
While he let others handled the corporate side of the business, Lex was the driving creative force of his company. His products including missile guidance systems, satellite communication systems, aerospace vehicles, artificial intelligence, internet firewalls, green energy generators, and those were just the things he worked on for the Department of Defense. Often he would tackle projects like these all at once, working a few hours on one thing then jumping to the next. Anyone else would have burnt out long ago yet not only did Lex persist but he was also successful. No one in scientific community could even compare themselves to him. He could do the work an entire team of the world's best scientist could accomplish all by himself.
Mercy considered Lex to not just be the smartest person in the world but also the greatest man in the world. He took her off the streets and gave her a purpose in life yet there was nothing she could do to help him with what he was going through.
"Sir I have the report on the pod," Mercy spoke up.
Lex said nothing, concentrating on his finishing his equation. This was typical of him as once his mind was set on finishing something, he couldn't focus on anything else. Sometimes it got so bad that Mercy would have to remind him to eat and sleep though it's gotten far worse since the alien attack on Metropolis.
"Sir?" Mercy called out to him. She moved closer and noticed a smashed television on the floor. "Is something wrong sir?"
"Wrong. Something isn't wrong. Everything is wrong," Lex grumbled as he erased a portion of an equation before writing in several new numbers.
"And what makes you say that?" Mercy asked. Sometimes it took a little prodding to get him to open up.
Lex spun around and shouted, "They're calling him a hero!"
Mercy immediately knew who he was talking about. "Superman," she whispered.
"That son of a bitch leaves a trail of bodies in his wake and those worthless political hacks in the media have the audacity to call him a hero. It may not be all of them but it's certainly the majority of them. I'm surprised they don't just start their own Church of Kal-El. Their slogan can be God can do no wrong!" Luther snapped.
"What they think has never mattered sir. Your opinion is what really matters. Why else would the President put you in charge of analyzing the alien crash site and all its technology? You're the only one who can do it," Mercy explained.
"All the while our glorious POTUS can't stop praising Superman whenever he can. He won't do what needs to be done when the time comes. When this government has the ability to kill that alien, they won't have the stomach to do it," sighed Lex.
"Right now you need to focus sir. This technology could advance mankind centuries ahead technologically and you'll be spearheading that achievement," Mercy pointed out.
"My whole life I built myself a legacy that was meant to outlast me for centuries. I didn't want to be equated with the likes of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs but with Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. Men who accomplished such incredible things that when people think of them, they create two eras in their minds. One era before they lived and that the one that follows would never be the same. But it's not about leaving my mark on history anymore. Now all I want is justice," Lex spoke.
He glanced over a picture frame resting on his main work desk. On it was Lex Luther smiling as he stood beside his sister Lena on her graduation day from Oxford.
"I can't get her voice out of my head Mercy. I was on the phone with her the whole time. She was so scared and there was nothing I could do to help her," Lex said somberly.
A second picture fame stood right next to the graduation photo. This one contained a cropping of a newspaper article. Billionaire Lena Luther among the deceased in Metropolis Alien Attack.
"You can't bring her back sir and if the President doesn't understand how dangerous Superman is then you have to convince him," Mercy said.
Lex was silent for a moment then took in a deep breath to calm himself down.
"I will. No matter what it takes," he said before he got back to work on his equation.
(Not a long chapter but I promise the next one will be. I heard someone on a Youtube video suggest that instead of Batman being the man who experiences the destruction of Metropolis first hand, it should have been Lex Luther. After hearing that, this story's version of Lex just came together. Hope all of you enjoyed this and please review.)