Part 8 - The Scream.
The sky screamed as Ultraman rocketed towards Midvale.
She had killed his favourite ultra-dog. She had killed Neutro.
No one was allowed to damage his property and get away with it. He would finish the job his ultra-dogs had started; he would tear her apart with his bare hands.
He needed her body, but he didn't need it intact. Let Brainiac sift through the pieces later; that was the way he always did things.
Ultraman increased his speed, and the sky's howled protests fell on deaf ears.
Ultragirl stared at the remote in Alexander's hand, terror gripping her heart like a steel vice. She could remember what had happened the last time she had seen that remote.
She was a different person then, not Demi Lee but Lana Lang, a reporter Ultraman had murdered when she got to close to his identity. Alexander had tried to resurrect her, using the proto-matter he had developed as a weapon against Ultraman.
He had created a far better weapon than he could ever have hoped for in the process.
He had created Ultragirl.
Together, they battled Ultraman, as well as the then Crime Syndicate International. They were heroes. But Alexander disagreed with her methods and he tried to destroy her using the remote. He turned her back into Template, hoping to start all over again.
But Ultraman had other ideas, and stole her. From there, everything became blurry. For a while, she thought she was Ultraman himself.
He almost killed her for that. In many ways, she wished he had, because what came next was far worse. What came next was the remote again, and then darkness and cold.
Until now.
Until Demi Lee filled the void Lana Lang once did.
Until Demi Lee recreated her, recreated Ultragirl.
She refused to go quietly into the darkness again, and so she screamed.
Luthor pressed the button again.
Nothing happened.
He knew the remote couldn't be broken; he had built it stronger than that. But if it wasn't broken, then that meant Ultragirl was now beyond his control.
It had to be the girl; somehow, absorbing her had changed Ultragirl's template, making her immune to the frequency of his remote. Perhaps if he altered the frequency…
Luthor looked up. It had gone quiet. Ultragirl had realised the remote no longer worked on her, and had stopped screaming.
"Well, isn't this an interesting development?" she asked sweetly.