Author's Note – I do not own any of the characters, Marvel and DC do.

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Chapter Twenty-One

Power

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Clark looked round at the shattered landscape which looked as if a bomb had gone off in the middle of an earthquake. Not a single building was standing, the alien ships that had been flying were now embedded in or scattered across the ground and both sides had stopped fighting in favour of simply picking themselves up.

"Clark?"

Clark raised his hand to his ear to indicate to the few allies around that he was responding to a transmission. "Yes, Peter?"

"I really think you should get here. It's… you need to see this."

Clark blinked, allowing the holographic HUD to re-focus. The spider-in-a-circle icon used for Peter was located beside a squirrel-in-a-circle and the icon of the Infinity Gauntlet.

"On my way." Clark said as he rose from the ground and then arrowed forwards. The ground almost blurred beneath him, then he slowed down as quickly as he could before landing, his eyes wide.

"How?"

"Hey, it was all her." Peter replied, his voice slightly shaky. "Dunno how since I was busy with the flunkies, but she took him down, pulled off the Gauntlet and then tied him up. I'm never teasing you again for being nervous around her."

Clark nodded absently as he slowly stepped up to by Squirrel Girl's side.

"Hey!" She chirped, grinning at him.

"Hey." He replied, then looked down at the bound-and-out-cold form of Thanos. "Well done."

"He was a challenge, but I beat him." Doreen smiled.

Clark nodded, then knelt beside the golden gauntlet with the six gleaming gems.

"What should I do with this?"

"Art thou not tempted by its power?"

Clark spun round and froze. Facing him was a golden humanoid with an unearthly glowing white/blue gem set in its chest, a gem that at the same time somehow seemed to be a void filled with energy. Above the body, floating above the shoulders but unconnected to it, was a head comprising three faces. The one facing him wore a purple hood while the face to its left wore a cowl that covered its upper half. The face to the right was completely covered by a purple mask with the mask, hood and cowl all being the same piece of fabric.

"By the name of my Father." Thor breathed as he landed by Clark and then dropped to one knee. "'tis the Living Tribunal!"

The three-faced figure nodded, then turned towards Clark once more. "I ask thee again, art thou not tempted by its power?"

Clark looked at the imposing figure, then at the gauntlet on the ground before him. "Who could not be?"

"Then doth thou plan to take up the Gauntlet to claimest for thyself?"

"No." Clark stated. "I am not worthy of that much power and I do not believe that I could use it without it corrupting me."

For a long moment, the Living Tribunal stared at him, then it nodded.

"What is thy wish regarding the Gauntlet?"

"Return the Gems to the ones that owned them and if the Gauntlet itself cannot be destroyed, put it somewhere that it cannot be retrieved from, like a black hole."

"Are there any who wouldst speak against the decision of Kal-El of Krypton?"

"Hell, no." Tony Stark said as he stepped up. "I'm with Clark on this one. No-one should have that much power."

The golden figure gazed at him with glowing eyes before nodding.

"As thou hast said, so shalt it be."

A beam of light lanced out from the Living Tribunal's chest and engulfed the Gauntlet. As the beam faded, the Gauntlet was gone and a blueish glowing cube remained.

"The Tesseract!" Thor half-shouted.

"Return it to thy father and bid him guard it well."

The Tesseract rose from the ground and floated over to Thor, settling into his outstretched hands, then the Golden figure vanished.

"Whoah." Clark said, impressed. "That wasn't a normal teleport. No dimensional warping, no fading, no movement blur, not even a twitch before vanishing. Just… gone."

"So, what do we do now?" Brian asked as he limped across, using a strut of metal as an impromptu crutch. "And what do we do with him?"

"I have several stasis modules remaining." Clark mused, looking down at the unconcious Titan. "If we place him in one of those for a while, it'll keep him out of the way until we can work out how to de-power him."

"That could take years, decades."

"Possibly more." Clark agreed. "But to him, no time will have passed, so we won't be removing any of his lifespan. Just… postponing it."

"So we pause the bad guy until he's not a threat, either because we've removed his powers or there are more people around with enough power to stop him." Tony nodded. "Has my vote. I'll call in the Harpoon so we don't have to trek back to it."

"Remote auto-pilot?" Sunfire asked as he staggered up, cradling his broken arm to his chest.

"JARVIS." Tony smirked. "Jarvis, please bring the plane up, it's time for us to leave."

"I am already warming up the drive systems, sir." Jarvis replied through the speakers of Tony's armour.

"How do we keep him out cold for the return trip?" Clark mused, then a thud sounded. Looking round, Clark saw Thor straightening up, his hammer held in one hand.

"What?" The Thunder God asked. "He twitched."

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The planet dropped away as Clark leaned back in his seat, wincing as the bruises he had earned finally made themselves known.

"Urgh."

Tony glanced at him, then chuckled.

"What?"

"Nothing. Nothing."

"…what?"

Tony sighed as Clark half-glared at him, then he chuckled.

"Sorry, it's just I've never seen a Kryptonian so… knackered before. You look like you're going to simply collapse."

"Hey, those ships were nasty." Clark protested and Tony laughed.

"Thanks to Henry Pym, we've got about thirty of them in the cargo hold, shrunk for transport. Rhodey asked me to turn one into a sword for Henry while the rest… there's a lot that we can learn from them. I've claimed two so I can reinforce the Harpoon's wings, make it so I can fly through enemy formations. That'll be cool."

Clark chuckled, then closed his eyes as the seat tilted back.

"Have a nap, Clark." Tony said with a wide smile. "You did good."

The plane suddenly shuddered and Tony flipped a switch as Clark almost leapt out of his seat.

"Anyone, what the hell was that?!"

"He twitched again." Thor's voice replied and Clark started to laugh helplessly.

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"Here." Rhodey smiled as he handed the drink across to the most powerful member of the team he was on. "One Hazelnut Milkshake with extra hazelnut sprinkles."

"Thanks!" Doreen chirped as she accepted the large glass. Taking a small sip, she smiled broadly. "Wow, this is great!"

"Glad you like it." Rhodey replied. "I'll have Jarvis order some in for our headquarters."

"Hey." A new voice said and everyone looked round to see Henry Pym stagger in, his top cut away so that his torso could be bandaged.

"How are the ribs?"

"Cracked but healing." Henry replied, accepting a can. Pulling the ringtab, he chugged it down, then quickly suppressed a belch. "Hell of a fight."

"It was nasty." Agreed Wasp, sipping from her fruit-juice-and-lemonade. "But we all made it through. I honestly had doubts at times."

"Heh, I didn't." Miguel said. "I mean, we had Superman leading us. How could we have failed? He's the Hero."

"With a great ass." Wasp added, causing both Doreen and Miguel to nod in agreement. Pym stared at his team-mates for a moment, then took another gulp of his drink.

"Attention all passengers, we will be entering the Sol System in one hour." Tony Stark's voice echoed from the PA system. "At that time, please ensure all seat-belts fastened, all trays are in their upright positions and remember to obey the no-smoking sign. Thank you."

Rhodey shook his head. "It's times like this that I wonder just why I'm friends with him."

The plane shuddered again and Tony's voice echoed through it.

"DAMMIT, THOR!"

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"Entering atmosphere." Tony smirked as Clark finished strapping himself into the co-pilots seat. "Did I feel Thor give Thanos another dose of hammer-time?"

"Just to make sure he stayed unconscious until we've landed." Clark supplied, quickly scanning the control screens. "You may want to drop the angle by point two five degrees."

Tony blinked, then quickly glanced at the screens before nodding. "Yep, you're right. We want to avoid those air lanes, but it'll land us on the west coast."

"Where there is a Door that will let us get Thanos into stasis within moments."

Tony blinked several times before nodding. "Okay, I'm with you. Adjusting course to land on the West Coast Avengers airfield. I'll have Jarvis fly the Harpoon back to New York afterwards."

"Incoming communication, sir." Jarvis' voice said. "Director Fury wishes to speak to you."

"Put him on." Tony grinned and a screen blinked out before reappearing with Nick Fury's image.

"Nick!" Tony grinned. "Hey, good news, we've saved the universe and we looked good doing so! Anything happen while we were away?"

"Yes." Fury grated. "Magneto relocated the Golden Gate Bridge and used it to launch an attack."

"What?" Both Tony and Clark gasped.

"I'll meet you at the WCA base and give you the overview."

"Give me a couple of minutes to secure our prisoner first." Clark said.

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"Kal-El."

"General Zod." Clark said with a slight bow. ##How goes New Krypton?##

##It goes well, son of Jor-El.## Zod said with a slight smile. ##Within three days, the air will be fully breathable by humans.##

##I am glad to hear that so much progress has been made.##

"And for those of us who don't speak kryptonese?" Fury growled.

"My apologies, Director Fury." Zod said. "We were just discussing New Krypton's transformation."

"Yeah, well, I need to bring them up to date. Clark, I have bad news for you. Angel is missing, presumed dead."

Clark paled slightly. "Warren… he's gone?"

"Went up against Magneto's Supergirl-clone and lost. Storm witnessed it and took her down."

Clark blinked. "But surely she would be immune to… ah. Lightning. The lightning itself isn't…, yes, that would make sense."

"Aaaaand for those of us who aren't versed in Kryptonian thought-processes?" Tony prompted.

"Sorry." Clark said with an embarrassed grin. "While Kryptonians are immune to direct X-gene powers, we're still vulnerable to the indirect effects. So, Scott's blasts are useless against us, but Colossus can actually hurt me because his power turns him into metal and it's the metal that lets him hit hard, rather than the direct application of his power. Same with Boom-Boom and Gambit. Boom-Boom's spheres are pure X-gene power manifestation, therefore they're as effective as a medium breeze. Gambit's power, though, overcharges objects with kinetic energy and causes them to explode from that overcharge, therefore the explosion actually has an effect. Therefore Storm could have taken her down by using her power to summon and concentrate her lightning before releasing it at her target."

"Makes sense." Tony agreed after a long moment.

"It is interesting." Zod agreed. "Although this does mean that the danger level of mutants is less than I originally anticipated."

"Don't underestimate them." Clark warned. "If they use their powers in ways you don't expect, they can probably still take you down."

Zod nodded slowly.

"Actually, what are you doing here?" Clark suddenly asked. "No offense meant, but I thought you'd be on New Krypton."

"I had business here." Zod shrugged. "Returning the Golden Gate Bridge to where it should have been and also sorting out a few immigration issues for the second continent. Speaking of which, in another month, we should be ready to start using the QNA samples you hold to begin rebuilding our species again."

"Really?" Clark asked. "But… how many?"

"We believe that we can accommodate over a hundred. That reminds me, I need to ask your mother if she is willing to give talks on the differences between raising a child of Earth and a child of Krypton."

"Human adoptive parents?" Clark asked and Zod nodded.

"The more I find out about you, son of my old friend, the more impressed I become. If you are the end result of being raised by humans, then the more of the next generation of Kryptonians that are raised as you were, the better for our future it shall be."

Clark nodded slowly, then paused. "How are you recruiting humans?"

"Tomorrow, you shall see." Zod smirked and Clark froze.

"Why does that not reassure me?"

"I assure you that I have ensured that not a single one of those who have asked to move to New Krypton will be harmed." Zod promised.

"That really doesn't reassure me."