Part 2: A Vita parumpar Vita… (A Life for a Life…)
Conner Kent, known to the world as Superboy, clenched his fists as he and former Titans leader Nightwing looked towards the imposing tower ahead of them. Built amidst the ruins of the Fortress of Solitude, Superman's home-away-from-home, the golden structure was surrounded by hundreds of OMAC machines created by the satellite "Brother Eye". It towered above the two teenage heroes, seeming to beckon an ancient purpose now corrupted by another's conviction.
He turned to Nightwing, seeing the stoic determination behind his mask. Richard Grayson was the total opposite of Batman at times, trying to identify with the colleagues he aided instead of harboring mistrust. During his career as the first Robin as well as now, he wanted to divorce himself from the legacy of the Dark Knight, become his own man on his own failures and successes. Standing here now, a glint of his mentor's training shined through. It was an irony Richard never wanted to understand but now accepted.
"Well this is it." The former leader of the Titans said to Connor. "It's us against hundreds of them, not to mention we have to find a way of freeing our comrades trapped in that tower."
"I know." added the Boy of Steel. "We're screwed if we fail here."
"You guys need a hand?" The two looked upward to see the current Wonder Girl, Cassie Sandmark, descending towards them. As she landed in the soft snow, Connor looked at her with concern. Lately, she had been having problems with her powers flickering on and off like a light bulb about to give out. He couldn't risk her losing them altogether if things went bad. He couldn't risk losing her, not after everything that has happened.
"Cassie, you shouldn't be here." Connor told her. "It's too dangerous What if..."
"I'll be fine." Cassie told her teammate and boyfriend, assurance in her eyes. " Besides, right now I'm guessing you need all the help you can, right?"
"All we can get." Richard interrupted, turning their attention to the tower ahead. "All right, Titans, let's move!" With that, the three superheroes prepared to storm the tower, all of them with the ominous feel that death was much closer than before.
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Alexander Luthor clenched his fist in frustration as he poured over the data from another alternate Earth, his search growing desperate with each passing moment. He had built this tower, this symbol of the past, to accomplish what some would say is impossible. Yet a voice constantly taunted him in the back of his mind, guiding his hands as he manipulated events to its fullest peak.
You have accomplished little, Alexander Luthor.+ the voice told him as he sought out another Earth to manipulate. +Again, you fail in your efforts to locate the perfect Earth.+
"Quiet!" Alexander rasped as he contemplated. "I WILL find it!" He clenched his fist, letting his antimatter power destroy an alternate Earth. The red-haired teenager once more peered into the gaping maw of the Anti-Monitor's corpse, scanning the heavens for more Earths he could recombine and alter into his vision. He HAD to succeed. Failure was unacceptable.
Below, Psycho Pirate moves closer to the golden tower as he watches the unconscious body of Power Girl. Once a small-time villain named Roger Hayden, the Medusa Mask he wore over his face gave him insight over the emotions of others. He fed on it as if it were sweet liquor; drowning himself in it and giving it back only for it to return. Power Girl, his only real archenemy, was merely his latest victim at first. That was before the mask fed him memories of their lives on Earth-2.
"Pretty Power Girl." Hayden cooed as he reached out, stroking her short blond hair as if she were a lover. "Pretty, pretty, Power Girl. Alexander promised me I would have you when we're done. When we're finished, I'll have to remind him of that."
"Hey jerk!" The gold-masked madman suddenly found himself falling to the ground as Superboy punched him away from the unconscious Power Girl. "She's WAY out of your league!"
"OMACs, prevent the intruders from reaching the Tower." Alexander ordered, his eyes remaining on the antimatter clouds inside the Anti-Monitor's corpse. "They must not be allowed to free the power sources."
SUBJECTS: NIGHTWING/WONDER GIRL/SUPERBOY, ALIAS RICHARD GRAYSON/CASSANDRA SANDMARK/CONNOR KENT TARGETED. The OMACs droned as they started to surround the trio of heroes. PREPARING FOR IMMEDIATE TERMINATION.
"Don't let them surround you!" Richard warned as he dodged weapons fire from several of the nanomachine-powered OMACs. "Just get to the tower and shut it down!"
"It's no good!" Cassie said, using her lasso to throw some of the killing machines into each other and away from the golden construct. "Every time I get near this thing, these creeps get in my way!"
"Not a problem!" Connor shouted as he slammed his way through a large group, his eyes blazing with the energy of his seldom-used heat vision. "I've got you covered!" He punched his way through the machines, smiling when he noticed that his girlfriend and the former Titans leader were making some headway. The tide was definitely starting to turn.
Above them, Alexander used more of his anti-matter energy powers on the Anti-Monitor's corpse, seeing that his next target was his own home, Earth-3. He had been born there to Lex Luthor, an inspirational hero much like Superman was on Earth-1 and Earth-2. A cosmic irony, or even bad comedy to some. He suddenly clutched his head in pain, his rapidly-frustrated mind straining from the process.
Time is short, Alexander.+ The strange voice echoed inside of his head. +You are going to fail with more delays.+
"SILENCE!" Alexander shouted out loud, his sanity already questionable from splitting the Earths once more. "I merely need more time." He then looked back into the gaping maw, a dark smile on his face as he contemplated his next move as if he were playing a game of chess with himself.
"Earth-3, MY homeworld, could be an unexpected possibility after all." He then reached into the swirling mass of anti-matter, reaching toward it and its planetary neighbor. "Perhaps Superman was also correct about Earth-2. It could add something pure to the mix."
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(Earth-2)
"I've gone over every inch of the sky with my telescopic vision" Superman-1 said as he flew with Wonder Woman and his Earth-2 counterpart. "I still can't find it up there" Suddenly, the three heroes stopped in mid-air as they saw a golden hand reach out of the clouds, as if to engulf it.
"Great Hera..." Diana muttered, the phrase more of a passing reflex rather than anything else. "What is that?"
"It's Alex." Kal-L told them both. "He wants to use Earth-2 to replace the others. If we don't act fast, your Earth will be erased forever." The three heroes suddenly screamed in pain as they felt their minds and bodies begin to rip apart, overwritten and copied into something else, someONE else.
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"The universe, no, the MULTIVERSE said that Supermen and Luthors are destined to be at odds with each other." Alexander spat as he forced himself to stay focused, sweat pouring down his brow. "Maybe the multiverse is wrong. I'll merge them, copy and fuse them into a new single being."
Yes, Alexander.+ the voice soothed in the back of his mind, slowly growing in prominence over his own thoughts. +Merge them, combine them.+
"It will work, for the sake of reality." he rasped, feeling the Earths resisting somewhat as he pushed the twin worlds together. Suddenly, he recoiled in pain as he snatched his hands away, screaming more in anger rather than pain as he watched the two Earths separate once more. One of his fingers was burned away, the wound cauterized and singed with ash.
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(Earth-2)
"What... what just happened?" Diana said as Superman-1 helped her to her feet, her eyes still on the sky as it continued to fill with duplicate Earths. Moments earlier, she felt as if something was invading her every being, overlaying her own memories with someone else's, foreign yet somehow strangely familiar.
"Alex nearly fused this Earth with a different one." Kal-L explained, his fists flexing in frustration. "He almost succeeded but something or someone stopped him in time. For now, we're out of his reach."
"I think I spotted our Earth now." Clark told them as he pointed upward to one of the duplicate planets. "It has to be that one."
"What makes you say that, Kal...Clark?" Diana said, correcting herself as she addressed her friend by his first name for the first time in months. "What do you see?"
Clark's eyes focused intensely on the Earth belonging to him and Wonder Woman with his telescopic vision, seeing the giant tower surrounded with OMACs where his Fortress of Solitude once stood. Nightwing, Wonder Girl, and Superboy were fighting for their lives against the killing machines and they were rapidly losing the ground they gained earlier.
"Right now, Superboy and Wonder Girl are with Nightwing trying to stop whatever has been going on." Clark explained as the trio took to the skies once more. "If we don't get there soon, everything we ALL care about is going to be destroyed." With that, they again sped towards Earth-1, hoping to reach it in time to save their young successors' lives.
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Alexander clutched his injured hand, more in anger rather than frustration, as he watched the twin Earths separate once more. His head once again pounded with the alien voice, telling him... commanding him to...
"Was this your fault, Superman?" the red-haired teenager rasped. "No matter. I'll simply locate Earth-2 and drag it back to my Petri dish. Then your longevity, like your usefulness, will finally come to an end."
"Didn't anyone ever tell you about talking to yourself?" Alexander was suddenly drop-kicked away from the Anti-Monitor's corpse by Nightwing, sending him crashing to the icy ground below.
"Nightwing, the Dick Grayson of Earth-1." Alexander mused. As he started to stand, he was then blown away several feet from the Tower by an assault of heat vision. Flying toward him with nearly all of his victims was a very angry Power Girl, her eyes hot with red energy.
"ALEX!!!" Kara shouted. "You have a LOT to answer for!"
Above Cassie and Connor both worked rapidly to free the rest of the victims, doing as much damage to the gold construct as possible along the way while avoiding the OMACs.
"Do you think we should free Black Adam also?" Cassie asked, swinging an OMAC into several others with her lasso.
"Are you kidding?" Connor replied, ripping out circuits and conduit feeds as he brought his fists down onto the golden monolith. "Hell yeah!"
Below, Alexander was grabbed by Power Girl, slamming him into a nearby wall. The buxom blonde had to keep herself from pounding on the young Luthor until he bled to death, her infamous temper reaching a boiling point. He had used her Superman and herself, played on her sympathies instead of saving the life of a woman who was nearly a mother to her. He had to pay.
"Where's my cousin, you son of a bitch?" Kara demanded as she faced him down, her fists clenching a handful of his costume as she lifted him off the ground. "Where's Lois?"
"There's no longer needed alive, Kara." Alexander told her, his voice a cold monotone as he prepared a blast of antimatter. "Right now, neither are any of you." He blasted her in the face, forcing the Earth-2 equal to Supergirl to drop him to the ground. Nearby, the Psycho Pirate watched the spectacle, hoping that Alexander didn't forget his promise to him in all of the ensuing madness.
"Don't hurt her, Alex." Hayden called over the blasts of metahuman energy around him. "You still have to keep your word."
"Psycho-Pirate." The masked villain looked up to see Black Adam, one of Captain Marvel's rivals and predecessors originally from Earth-S. The cold look on his face was enough to even make Hayden squirm on fear.
"You're afraid, Black Adam!" Hayden cried in desperation as he tried to get away from the former champion of Shazam. "You're afrai-" His rant was cut short as he was incinerated on the spot, a stray blast of energy destroying the villain before Black Adam could act.
"Hmm." Black Adam mused as he set foot on the ground near the smoldering body of Roger Hayden. "No more silly faces."
"Did... did you do that, Adam?" Kara asked as she came over with The Ray, one of the surviving Freedom Fighters once led by Uncle Sam.
"No, but I commend who did." Adam told her sternly. Suddenly the entire group was thrown to the side as if caught in a sonic boom. The voice coming from it as it sped past them sent chills down even Power Girl's spine, for it was all-too familiar.
"Hello, Kara."
Meanwhile, Nightwing and Superboy stood on top of the Tower as Wonder Girl joined them, seeing more and more of the alternate Earths filling the skies as they helplessly watched.
"I've gone over the equipment but there's no way to shut this thing down." Richard told the two young heroes. "More and more Earths are coming and I don't know if we can stop it."
"Then let's tear this thing apart." Cassie added. Suddenly, Connor felt a familiar chill run straight through him, a feeling he had felt before in Smallville. His eyes widened as he realized what caused it.
"Guys, look down there." Connor told them. "He's back. Superboy-Prime's back."
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Once he was simply a young boy named Clark Kent, an irony since the name also belonged to a popular comic book superhero named Superman. On Earth-Prime, where he was from, there were no such things as superheroes or villains. They were just pieces of pop culture made by different companies for science fiction or just plain fun. Clark never lived it down, however, since he was teased to no end by his peers over his name. One evening in 1986, he decided to live up to his name and made a Superboy costume for himself, going to a costume party with his best friend and girlfriend, Laurie. Suddenly, as the skies turned red, he found that he could do everything Superman could. But he never got the chance to save his world, as Earth-Prime was erased in waves of anti-matter.
Now, twenty years later, this boy named Superboy-Prime was the total opposite.
"I thought you were supposed to be one of the tough ones." Clark-Prime said in a smug voice as he flew in front of Black Adam, the sunlight glistening on his newly-constructed armor. "You don't look so tough."
"Child or no child, you die today!" Black Adam declared as he began hitting the one-time Boy of Steel. He heard that magic was one of Superman's vulnerabilities. Perhaps the same was true for his younger namesake.
"The magic! It hurts!" Clark-Prime cried out as he was hit over and over. "It hurts!" He then gripped Adam's fist, surprising the former champion of Shazam as he smiled darkly.
"What?"
"Actually... it tickles." He then back-handed Black Adam away like a rag doll, watching him scream as he suddenly disappeared.
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(Earth-S)
"Wait a second, Mary." Freddy Freeman, otherwise known as Captain Marvel Jr., said as he grasped the hand of Mary Marvel. In a blink of light, Black Adam found himself slammed into the ground below, anger and confusion written on his face.
"Where... where am I?" Adam asked as he lifted himself up, seeing the two sidekicks of his rival looking at him.
"We were going to ask you the same question." Mary told him.
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"Where did he go?" Clark-Prime asked as he went toward Alexander Luthor, seeing him shake his head as if to clear it.
"To Earth-S, Superboy, since he was too far away from the Tower to remain here." Alexander theorized.
"Then why can't I go home, too? Why can't I go back to Earth-Prime, Alex?"
"Somehow, your frequencies much have changed to match this Earth rather than your own. Perhaps something changed you here at your very core, Superboy."
"They made me do it!" Clark-Prime defended. "I didn't want to but... but..."
Alexander looked the Boy of Steel over, seeing that something else had altered as well. The armor he was wearing was an eerie reminder of the Anti-Monitor's own life-support system.
The armor, Alexander.+ the voice told him in the back of his mind. +The armor was only part of it. We'll need it, don't forget that.+
"...Where did the Flashes take you?" Alexander finally asked, slowly beginning to give in to the voice inside his mind. He was tired of fighting it, especially since it seemed to be guiding to the right direction.
"They kept me inside the Speed Force for years, forcing me under red sunlight so I was too weak to escape. But I got out using this armor, designed after the Anti-Monitor's harness to collect and feed me yellow solar energy. It was weird, almost like someone told me how to do it. But it doesn't matter, since I always find a way out."
"They're trying to destroy the Tower before my search for the perfect Earth is finished." Alexander told him. Clark-Prime turned the red-haired teenager around to face him, a desperate gleam in the young doppelganger of Superman's eyes.
"You're search is over, because you're going to forget about your little lab experiment of mixing and matching and use MY Earth instead. I'd do whatever it took to get home again."
"Hmm... perhaps." Alexander contemplated. Suddenly, Clark-Prime found himself ripped away by the green arms of J'Onn J'Onnz, also known as the Martian Manhunter.
"I do not know you but I am called the Martian Manhunter." J'Onn told the younger version of his fellow Justice League member. "I am the sole survivor of Mars for a reason." He them decked Clark-Prime in the jaw, phasing just in time to avoid the boy's heat vision.
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In space, Batman walked the halls of the satellite called Brother Eye, his mind set on correcting his mistake. The space construct was built out of his paranoia, his mistrust of the metahumans he fought beside and even called friends. The protocols he kept in the computers of the Bat-Cave gave the killer satellite invaluable information about the superhero and supervillain populace, information now being used in the creation of more OMAC soldiers.
YOUR FRIENDS WILL FAIL YOU, CREATOR. The monotone voice of Brother Eye told him, almost taunting the Dark Knight. Bruce remained as stoic as possible, his focus on shutting down a machine gone mad.
"My friends can handle themselves." Bruce replied.
NOT THE ONES PRESENT HERE. THE OTHERS STILL ON EARTH-1 CURRENTLY, INCLUDING YOUR FAVORITE.
Bruce stepped into the main control center of Brother Eye, the core fluxing with power as it seemed to contemplate the presence of its former master. He wasn't going to let this machine win.
SUBJECT BETA: RICHARD GRAYSON ALIAS NIGHTWING. Brother Eye continued as Bruce opened a control panel, taking out an instrument from his utility belt. HE IS MERELY MORTAL AGAINST A BOY POSSESSING SKILL BEYOND THOSE OF MORTALS. EYE WONDER... IF YOU WILL BLAME YOURSELF FOR WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?
Bruce ignored the droning, silently hoping in the back of his mind that his former partner will survive. He had lost two different Robins because of a mistake on his part. He wasn't going to lose the closest thing he had to a son.
EVEN AS YOU WORK ON DESTROYING MY "MIND", I AM PARALLEL DOWNLOADING HUNDREDS OF GIGABYTES OF MY CORE MEMORY INTO MOLLIONS OF COMPUTERS ON THE WORLD. YOU CANNOT WIN, CREATOR.
"Wrong, Brother Eye." Bruce told the machine as he removed another connection. "I'm not even trying to erase your memory. I'm distracting you." He closed the panel as he stood before the core of the satellite. "I built you with a limited propulsion system designed to compensate for orbital corrections. Right now, one of my friends just activated it. You've been thrown out of orbit."
NO. The computer known as Brother Eye cried as dozens of wires and maintenance feeds wrapped around Batman, dragging him toward the pulsating core. Bruce glanced over his shoulder, seeing almost what could have been a hallucination or a transparent hologram. It was a young man in a sleeker version of his costume, his face covered as he stared at him under the cowl. The figure nodded once before it faded, sending a feeling of security and confidence inside Bruce's mind.
"It's over, Brother Eye." Bruce told the machine.
NEGATIVE. IF EYE FALL, SUBJECT ALPHA: BRUCE WAYNE ALIAS BATMAN SHALL FALL AS WELL.
"No deal." Bruce took out a Bat-A-Rang from his belt, cutting some of the cables wrapped around him only to have more replacing them.
WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO TRUST THEM, CREATOR? THEY HAVE COMMITTED MUCH AGAINST THEMSELVES AND THE PLANET. THIS MISSION IS LOGICAL, SINCE TRUSTING THEM TO DO WHAT IS NECESSARY IS ILLOGICAL.
"I'll take my chances." Suddenly, the room shook as the outer wall exploded, revealed the face of the restored Green Lantern Hal Jordan.
"Need a lift?" Hal asked as he grabbed Batman's hand, tearing the Dark Knight away from the cables surrounding him. Both of them were surrounded by a green aura as they moved into the vacuum of space, watching as the satellite met its fiery demise in Earth-1's orbit.
"I take it the diplomatic approach didn't work?" Hal joked half-heartily as he and Batman joined the others who had come with them to stop Brother Eye, many of them using their powers to save the people powering the OMAC machines.
"Save it, Jordan." Bruce told him. "Do you know where Superman's Fortress used to be?"
"Sure. Why?"
"Get us there, Jordan. Now." With that, the unlikely duo sped towards Earth-1, Hal failing to notice the faint figure beside them in a modified Green Lantern costume. His face smiled with a look of satisfaction before he faded into the sunlight.
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"Focus, Connor" Richard told the current Boy of Steel as he watched him use his tactile telekinesis on the Tower. "You can do it. Concentrate."
"I know that." Connor replied, his mind focusing on disassembling the massive construct. He had done it before on smaller objects over the years but nothing this massive. Suddenly, he heard the familiar scream of Cassie as she was assaulted by the OMACs, one of them succeeding in stabbing her.
"CASSIE!!!" Connor shouted, forgetting about the Tower for the moment. The woman he loved was about to be killed, something he didn't want to go through again since the death of his ex-girlfriend Tana Moon some years before. He and Richard both found themselves punched out of the way by the speeding figure of Superboy-Prime.
"Mind if I join your little team-up?" Clark-Prime laughed insanely as he flew past them, eventually stopping over the figure of Nightwing, ready to fight even if it was a losing battle.
"Are you serious, Nightwing? You really think you can face me down?" Clark-Prime's eyes glowed as he prepared to end the life of the former Titan leader, something inside screaming for him to stop before it was too late. "All the Titans thought they could too, stupid Titans. Heck, I wasn't even trying before."
Connor clenched his fists tightly, his anger growing even more at the kid who stole his name and his mentor's face. Richard, Cassie, and countless others were suffering because of him. He understood now why he alone had to stop him. This monster was his OWN personal Doomsday.
"I wasn't trying, either!" Connor shouted as he slammed himself into Superboy-Prime, saving Nightwing from the assault of heat vision. "Round Two, punk!"
"Why are you even bothering?" Clark-Prime said, grabbing Cassie's lasso as she tried to tie him up and flinging her into the walls. "You wasted your chance to make your world a better place."
-That's not true.- a voice told him in the back of his mind. -They just needed more time.-
"Heroes are supposed to be good, not whiny little crybabies!" Clark-Prime shouted as he grabbed Connor's foot and slammed him into his girlfriend.
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"Earth-Prime..." Alexander mused quietly as he once more gazed into the maw of anti-matter. "Where are you?" He stopped as he suddenly looked over towards...
(The author stops writing as a feeling of horrible dread washes him over. He steps away from the computer and looks outside of his window, seeing the sky turn red as a pair of gold hands reach down from the sky.
"Oh crap..." he says, also seeing the eyes of Alexander Luthor look at him. He rushes to his computer to finish the story before it is too late, knowing that the world where this very story is being written and read online IS Earth-Prime!)
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"We'll have heroes who're polite and honest, heroes that stop the bad guys instead of being just like them!" Clark-Prime shouted as he slammed his fists into Wonder Girl, back-handing her away from the Tower.
"NO!" Connor barreled into Superboy-Prime, wrapping him in a half-nelson as he brought them both to the ground. "I let you judge me, look down at me like I was some kind of mistake. But going after my girlfriend, my family, my planet? No way. NO GODDAMN WAY!!!"
"You are a mistake!" Clark-Prime retorted as he blasted his counterpart with heat vision. "You had a chance to make things okay, to live out the life I should've had but you wasted it!"
"You fuckin' hypocrite!" Connor punched the armor over and over, feeling his fists start to crack open and bleed. This maniac had to be stopped, no matter what happened to him.
"I'll be the only Superboy again! M-M-ME!!!" Both teens fought tooth-and-nail against each other, determined to come out on top and unaware that they were about to slam directly into the Anti-Monitor Tower.
"NO!" Alexander cried out as they came slamming in. "NO!!!"
Yes...+ the voice also cried out in his head. +Yes! At long last...+
The Tower shudders as it begins to implode, sending shockwaves across both Earth-1 and the surrounding space as the multiple Earths began to vanish.
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Superman-1 gripped his head as his memories were rewritten...
(My name is Clark Kent, a reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper in Metropolis. I was sent by my birthparents, Jor-El and La-Ra, to Earth to evade Krypton's destruction. I was raised by Martha and Jonathan Kent as their son in the small town of Smallville, using my growing powers to do small deeds around my hometown. The news said that there was a "super-boy" flying around doing things to help people but only my family and my best friends, Lana Lang and Pete Ross, ever knew about me. I stayed in Cleveland during my college years and worked at the Daily Star newspaper under George Taylor before coming to Metropolis in 1985, where I met my future wife Lois Lane. I was inspired by the exploits of a similar but fictional hero from the 1930s called "The Champion" and began my career as Superman in a similar costume to his. But then...)
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Wonder Woman gripped her head as her memories were overwritten...
(My name is Diana Prince, but I am actually Princess Diana of the island of Amazon warriors called Thesmyrica. My mother, Hyppolyta, had ventured into the modern world during the 1940s as the first to bear the title of Wonder Woman, assisting in the wars with several of her companions. When she returned, I competed in a contest to also leave the island after a military plane carrying Steve Trevor crashed there. I fought against several of my sisters, including both my adoptive sister Donna Troy, who was brought back to the island with my mother, and several others before I claimed the title. After returning Trevor to the United States, I remained to assist the superheroes with any crisis that might erupt and represent my people officially as their ambassador. I later became caretaker of the Greek wing for the Natural History Museum in Boston under the name of Diana Prince, eventually meeting several dear friends both ordinary and extraordinary. Two of them, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, became the closest friends I could've hoped for. But then...)
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Batman gripped the side of his head as his memories became adjusted...
(My name is Bruce Wayne, but at night I patrol the streets of Gotham City as the Batman. My parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, were murdered by an unknown gunman when I was eight years old. Many years later, a small-time criminal named Joe Chill was arrested in connection fir it but was later proved innocent and released. Disgusted, I left Gotham when I turned eighteen, determined to train myself to hunt down the sinister, cowardly lot that preyed on victims like my parents. After studying a variety of martial arts in Japan and different skill in both Egypt and Europe, I returned to Gotham with my goals clear. Patterning a costume after that of one of my favorite cult heroes, the Grey Ghost, and that of the most fear element of the night, a bat, I became the urban legend known as the Batman. Over the years I gained many enemies as well as a few allies, some I would never admit I couldn't do without sometimes. But then...)
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(New Earth-1)
Richard Grayson opened his eyes, feeling like his head was hit with a sledgehammer or one of Solomon Grundy's fists. His entire body hurt horribly as he got off of the ground, looking around the wreckage that was once the Tower. His last memory was seeing Connor slam the other Superboy into it and then...
"CONNOR!!!" He heard Wonder Girl scream in horror as he tried to race towards the two Titans, a feeling of deep dread overcoming him. Connor was lying underneath the rubble, the unconscious body of Superboy-Prime next to him, Cassie desperately lifted most of the wreckage off the body of her teammate and lover, fearing the worst as soon as she saw him. He was badly beaten, blood covering his body from still unseen wounds.
"He said... that I wasn't the real Superboy..." Connor rasped weakly as Cassie gently lifted him, unaware of Nightwing's presence being joined by Wonder Woman, Superman-1, Superman-2, Batman, and Green Lantern. "He was... wrong... I just forgot for a little while. We can't... do that. cough We can't keep forgetting anymore..."
"Just hang in there, okay?" Cassie told him gently, praying to whatever gods might still be around that the boy she had loved for so long would survive. "You saved the Earth, Connor. You save everyone."
"I know..." Connor whispered, his eyes slowly closing as his vision began to fade, a feeling of great warmth rising over him. "Isn't it... cool?"
Cassie shook with grief as she leaned down, kissing the boy she loved and fought with so bravely for one last time. She then screamed in anguish, sobbing as she held him close to her, letting the entire planet know that today was the day... that a Superboy died.
End Part 2