I do not own any DC Characters used herein, and am only employing them in a story meant for entertainment purposes only.
Man Of Steel
Original Story By Twisted-Wun & LJ58
Edited and Reposted (With Permission) by LJ58
8
"Who lives here," Dan asked. "Or rather, who lived here," the stocky detective asked as he walked into the chaos as forensics went through the apartment that was little more than blackened support posts, and shattered walls now.
Even the furniture was pretty much smoldering ash by now, proving whatever had exploded, it had been powerful.
"Guy named Kent," one of the uniforms told him. "Super said he just moved in. Quiet guy. Kept to himself."
"Not enough," Maggie drawled. "Kent. He was the Planet's new reporter. Right?"
"Bingo," Dan pointed a finger her way. "Knew I heard the name. Think Lane did in him," he teased.
"Lane's more bark than bite," Maggie growled. "Whoever did this was a pro. Which means Kent was ruffling some very serious feathers if they went this far. Any collateral damage," the head of SCU asked as she eyed the walls around the ruined apartment.
"We got lucky. No one was home. Except for the poor mook that opened that door," he said, glancing to the coroner just about to depart with the covered body.
"Kent?"
"Well, he had glasses, and a charred press pass, but that's the only ID we'll get off this body," the coroner told her. "Whatever went off, pretty much vaporized the flesh, and left a lot of shattered bone and gory tissue," he added as Maggie lifted one corner of the sheet, and clenched her jaw as she stared at the raw, ravaged thing that had once been human.
"Hell of a way to go," Dan grimaced.
"Is there a good way," Maggie demanded with a grim scowl as she eyed the wreckage after turning away from the body. "Anything left that might tell us what he was working on?"
"We could ask Lane," Dan suggested.
Maggie's expression suggested he find a short pier for a long walk.
"I guess we'll have to see someone. I'll go talk to the editor."
"Perry White?"
"You know him."
"Heard Lane talk about him. Nothing flattering," Dan admitted as Maggie walked to the gaping hole that had been a window, and fixed her eyes on the colorful figure moving through the sky toward them.
"You're late," Maggie told him as the powerful Kryptonian slowed to hover just before them outside the shattered windows.
"It's a big world even for me," he told her grimly. "This is Clark Kent's residence, isn't it? Was he home?"
"Not anymore," Dan drawled insolently.
Blue eyes flashed as he glanced toward the gruff man, and then looked back to Maggie.
"I can guess you're wondering if what he was working on might have led to his death. I think it did."
"Anything you want to say? On the record," Dan asked bluntly.
"Dr. Luthor," Kal-El remarked with a nod. "He was helping me research Lex-Corp's illicit meta-human experiments at Cadmus on behalf of your American military."
"That's….a pretty sweeping statement. And a damning one," Maggie told him.
"I see, and hear far more than you can, detective. As you say, proving matters to your judicial and legal satisfaction is another matter. Mr. Kent was aiding me in doing so. He was getting very close to hard evidence. He suggested he might have found the evidence we needed when I called him earlier. I was to meet him at the Planet in the morning to collaborate when I heard the explosion."
"Couldn't get here sooner?"
"I was in Germany at the time," Kal-El told Dan Turpin smoothly, setting his own distance from the now late Clark Kent.
"You have any idea what that evidence might have been," Maggie asked.
"I have some of it at…..my place. What would have implicated Dr. Luthor directly, however…. Only Clark Kent could say," he added pointedly with a sweeping glance at the ruined apartment.
It had been a close thing when the bomb literally went off in his face. Ironically, he had been worrying about Clark's human façade being attacked, and had been considering fail-safe's when the bomb had exploded. It had been the work of seconds to find a suitable body not likely to be in any DNA database, dress it in Clark's now scorched rags, which weren't much, and plant the identification to mark him. He had then flown off to access a computer that ensured what DNA was taken would coincide with the dead 'Clark's' if or when checked, and then waited for the authorities to arrive.
He had no doubt Luthor was behind the assassination attempt, which proved he didn't know Clark's true identity, or he would have known not to bother trying such ordinary means.
Still, that left him without a viable human mask to interact without suspicion. He would have to work on that later. For now, he had other concerns. What he had said about Luthor wasn't fabricated. He had been researching the man, and getting close, when his female operative had obviously arranged for his demise. If he had not been so distracted, he would have spotted the bomb in time to diffuse it. Unfortunately, after his evening with Connor, his mind was on other things, and he had not noticed the death trap until he literally walked right into it.
C'est la vie, as the humans said.
He resisted the urge to smirk as he mused that Lois Lane wouldn't be worrying over Clark's scooping her any longer. Then he had another thought.
If Lex Luthor was now overtly moving against his enemies…?
"Have you heard from Ms. Lane? I believe she was working on another angle of the investigation with Clark," he asked Maggie as he turned, focusing his super-senses on the woman's apartment, her office, and her known haunts in swift tandem.
"You tell me," she said, guessing what he was doing.
"I found her," he said grimly, and vanished in a blur of speed before the detective could question him.
"Where's he going?"
"I don't know," Maggie growled, heading for the door. "But tell everyone to head to the east end. If our flyboy is headed that way that fast, something big must be up."
"Captain," a uniform met them at the elevator even as she and Dan both reached for radios. "We just got a call. Something…..big is on the City Bridge demanding the alien appear or he…. He's got hostages dangling from the bridge, he's threatening to drop."
"Lane?"
"And some kid," the uniform nodded.
"Call Tactical, and get everything we have headed that way. If what I'm thinking is right, this could be a disaster in the making," she swore as Dan only frowned.
"What do you mean, Mags," Dan asked as they stepped into the elevator, stabbing a button, and found they had to wait to call in themselves since they had no reception in the descending car.
"Think about it. If Luthor is involved in meta-human experiments, and Metallo was one of his first, then what else has he got out there ready to toss at us? If I'm right, whatever that something big is out there, it might be something at least on a par with Superman," she spat uneasily. "Which translates into more collateral damage if this leads to a real fight."
"Crap," Dan hissed, recalling how easily that walking tin can had trashed SCU when he showed. If the bald control-freak had something even bigger…..?
"Let's hope Supes can hold his own," he grimaced as he eyed the slow moving car's digital indicator, and willed it to move faster.
"Let's hope," Maggie found herself agreeing.
MoS
"Superman," Lois cried in relief when the rush of wind announced his arrival even before her eyes fixed on the swirl of a cape that settled around broad shoulders.
"Me am not him," the chalky behemoth in a caricaturized version of Superman's new costume growled as Lois looked up from where she sat in what seemed a broom closet he had just ripped the door off to enter.
"No kidding," she gasped, staring up at him as big, chalky-white hands reached for her.
"Me am Superman's biggest fan," the monster grinned. "Me will take you to him, and destroy him good."
"What," she hissed as she was lifted like an old rug, and tossed over one broad shoulder still bound hand and foot.
She barely had time to scream before they stopped again, and he was tossing Jimmy over his other shoulder, the redhead looking uneasy as he turned his head to just stare at her. His black eye suggested his stay had not been as peaceful as hers.
"They broke my camera," he muttered sourly, as if that was all that mattered to him just then.
"Somehow, I get the feeling we're next," Lois told him even as the big imposter moved again, and they were suddenly flying out over the city, and toward the bay.
She had an uneasy feeling he might just drop them in the water, consigning her to a fate she had thought she had escaped. Only he kept going, and then he was hovering over the tallest support strut of the bridge that spanned the wide harbor as he made short work of just hanging them from the support cable by simply snapping a few guide wires and threading them through their bonds holding their ankles together.
"You know, Ms. Lane, I've got a really bad feeling about this," a slightly greenish Jimmy moaned as he tried not to look down.
Or anywhere else at all as the big monster turned to look down at traffic, and then boomed in a voice like thunder, "Bring me Superman, or his friends get hurt good!"
"Hurt good? Oh, brother, who taught this guy how to speak," Lois muttered.
The white behemoth turned to glare at her, his opaque eyes glittering crimson as he growled, "Me is good talker. You shut up now, or you fall down."
"I think I'd listen," Jimmy whimpered, unable to help looking down again as he turned a faintly darker shade of green.
Just before Lois could answer, the sound of a sonic boom filled the air overhead, and just that quick, a new caped figure was hovering before the trio.
"You are X-2," Superman asked him after a frown as he looked at the creature. Looking even deeper than anyone supposed as his cerulean eyes narrowed, focused, and looked into the startlingly familiar cells that he could see were still going through an obviously devastating mutation before his eyes.
He realized whoever had been working on his DNA had obviously not been as good as they thought. This creature was self-destructing by the second, but didn't seem to realize the danger he was in even as he lifted huge fists, and smiled at him.
"Me am not X-2. Me am Bizarro," he stated proudly. "Me am your biggest fan," he declared, before smashing an unexpectedly hard and fast right into Superman's jaw.
To Lois and Jimmy's shock, the more colorfully clad hero went flying into the bay hard enough to raise a small wave that flooded the nearby docks.
Then, just as quickly, Superman was launching himself back out of the water, and smashed into the self-named Bizarro's midsection hard enough to fold the massive creature in half, and drive him across four miles of open sky before they slammed into a mountain just outside the city.
Even as the reporters dangled over a fatal height, Lois complained, "We're missing everything," as the sounds of thunderous blows, and almost feral howls of rage and indignation floated back to them.
"Never mind them," Jimmy wailed. "What about us," he demanded as the wails of sirens only then began to reach their ears.
"We'll be fine," Lois declared, and only then looked down. "I hope."
"You hope," Jimmy whimpered, and finally lost what little lunch he head eaten the day before they had been abducted.
MoS
Kal-El stood over the cringing, white doppelganger that lay on the ground before him, staring up at him in confusion.
"Me….lost? Why me lost? Me am strongest there is. Father said so."
"Your…..father lied, brother. Bizarro. You have….an illness. It is killing you."
"Bizarro sick," the creature frowned, cocking his head as if even more confused. "Me don't feel sick. Me feel very fine."
Kal-El had already realized from what little he did say that the creature twisted and reversed everything he said. His mind, obviously, had been severely injured, or likely tampered with by those scientists.
He recalled the horrors of Krypton's own wars over clones and their rights, and saw before him a potent reminder of the abuses of power.
"You are sick. I can help you, though. I can make you better. If you will trust me," he told him, and held out a bruised hand already healing under the yellow sun's empowering rays.
Around them, the mountainside had been reduced into gravel in places, and great holes now gouged out he once impenetrable rock. He had other considerations, though. Kryptonian life-appreciation aside, this was literally his brother. His very twin, after a fashion.
The idea that Lex Luthor, or those men at Cadmus were playing God with his cells infuriated him. He would see to that later. First, he had to hope he really could help this poor creature.
"Father say not trust you. Me am biggest fan. Me am to destroy you. But me feeling too good to fight," the simulacrum protested as he ignored the hand, rose on trembling limbs, and then promptly fell flat on his face.
He didn't move again.
Kal-El knelt beside him, found his pulse, which was weak and thready, and frowned darkly. He glanced behind him, saw emergency workers were already lowering the hapless reporters, and could just imagine Lois' ire at being rescued so.
She imagined she was likely thinking Clark Kent was off scooping her, too, but she didn't have that worry any longer.
That reminder of how far Lex was willing to go for his own ambitions made him all the angrier. He scooped up the limp creature, and flew north without hesitation.
Dr. Luthor was going to regret ever tampering with his genes. The law wasn't made Luthor apparently couldn't twist, or break, but Kal-El wasn't thinking about human laws just then.
He remembered a life filled with pain and misery, and he was thinking only of vindication just then. Of true justice.
First, however, he had to save his brother.
MoS
"Inconceivable," Lex swore as he banged both fists on his desk as he watched the television footage that didn't catch all of the battle, but caught the abrupt departure of the Kryptonian carrying off his pet enforcer like a broken toy.
"Dr. Luthor," a familiar growl sounded as a burly man shoved into the office despite Mercy's attempt to keep him back. "We need to talk," General Sam Lane demanded as he looked at him with cold, angry eyes.
"I have a failsafe," Lex told him. "Don't worry. We'll bring down that….."
"And my daughter? When were you going to get around to telling me you put her in harm's way? When were you going to tell me you intended to kill her, too?"
"If you could handle that….willful bitch, I wouldn't have to do anything," Lex barked back, his temper roused just then.
"You're suspended. Pending a full investigation. Frankly, after these fiascos of late, I'm starting to wonder if you are the right man to trust with this kind of operation."
"Trust? Trust," Lex hissed. "I'm the only man on the planet with the brains to…..!"
"I think you're done, mister," Sam Lane told him, and stood aside to nod at two very large men in Marine uniforms. "Take him to holding. He's not to have so much as a cell phone. Keep him until I personally say otherwise."
Mercy shot her employer a look, but Lex only smirked.
"You honestly think you can take me out of the heart of my own facility?"
"Cadmus is not your personal workshop, Lex," the general shot back. "You are going to find….."
All five shared an uneasy look as the entire facility seemed to shake, and a near deafening vibration echoed through the very walls.
"Someone's back," Mercy articulated for them her own dark eyes were bright with worry.
"And I think we can safely say he's pissed," Sam agreed, reaching for one of the soldier's radios. "This is Lane. All personnel, stand down. Do not engage the alien. I say again, do not…."
Lex stabbed an alarm that would send every man with a weapon after the attacker. He smirked as the klaxxons drowned out the general as Lex used the diversion to hit another button in rapid tandem that dropped his chair down into a hatch that opened beneath him, and then he was gone.
"That….two-timing…..weasel," Mercy hissed, realizing she had just been left behind.
"Take her," Sam shouted at the men over the wail of the alarm. "I've got to try to stop this before that so-called hero slaughters everyone down here!"
"Wait," Mercy shouted. "I know where he's going. I can show you….."
"I'm supposed to trust you," Sam Lane demanded curtly.
"That bastard crossed me," the assassin swore. "No one crosses Mercy Graves. Not even the great Luthor!"
"Take them. You find Luthor," Samuel told them. "Shoot to kill if need be," he ordered them. "We can't take the chance he won't unleash everything in Cadmus out of spite."
The men's eyes rounded. Even they knew there were some real monsters in these labs.
"This way," Mercy shouted, and led the soldiers not to the door, but to an apparent closet. Sam shook his head as they disappeared through a hidden passage, and then ran toward the security outpost, hoping to override the alarm, and regain control before someone did something stupid.
MoS
"I'm sorry," a man in blue and gold stood before Kal-El after he tore through the last security door between him and the lead-lined chamber he had chosen by process of elimination.
That, and it was the most heavily protected chamber in the entire complex. It stood to reason that any remaining DNA he had yet to find had to be inside.
"You can't stop me," Kal-El told him. "And I will not allow Cadmus to continue toying with my DNA, or with innocent lives."
Guardian nodded.
"And if I told you there isn't any of your DNA left in there?"
"I prefer to see for myself."
"I have my duty," Jim Harper's jaw rose as he lifted his shield.
"You're the one that helped Connor," Kal-El surprised him by saying as he took a single step forward.
"Connor? You found him? Is he….?'
"He's fine. So is….Bizarro. Or, at least, as fine as he can be. I'm still hoping I can undo the damage to his mind, but….."
"X-2? You beat X-2?"
"His cells were deficient. They couldn't handle the energy levels required to keep him powered up at my levels."
"I warned them about playing with things they can't comprehend, or control."
"Then why don't you help me stop them?
"This is still my home," he told Kal-El. "I have a duty to defend it. And my friends."
"Friends? You call these madmen…..?"
"Not them," Jim told him. "The others. Those experimented on, and left to rot by those scientists who saw no use in them for….whatever reason. They can't leave. There is no place in this world for some of them. That, and the military would be sure to hunt them down, and kill them if they did escape."
"The way they hunt me," Kal-El asked. "Or you?"
"My case is…..different."
"Care to explain," Kal-El asked. "I do favor reason over violence," he pointed out.
"Then you are an exception. As to myself, I died over forty years ago. I was a cop in Suicide Slums. One that tried to make a difference. I decided to play hero when corruption made my job impossible, and I died saving lives. I had no regrets about it, either. Only I woke up here. With a new job, and new friends to protect."
"Like Connor?"
"I knew they couldn't hold the kid. He was showing all the signs of rejecting their programming, and when that happens, they always kill the subject. Always."
"They didn't kill you?"
"I was one of their early successes. They didn't know I kept my free will. Not at first. Now, I'm just useful enough to keep my place here."
Kal-El smiled thinly.
"And help wherever you can?"
"Exactly. Will you trust me that there isn't anything inside for you?"
"I have to see. You understand."
It wasn't a question.
"Then…. I'm asking you, as a friend. Don't overreact. The Vault is where they keep….less than successful experiments."
"I'm not here to judge the unfortunates damned by your masters," Kal-El told him. "I'm here to ensure they do not toy with my genetics any longer before they unleash a true plague on their own world. Which, by happenstance, is mine as well now."
Jim nodded, and stepped aside.
"I'd offer to open the door, but since Connor….somehow escaped, all high security codes were changed, and even I don't have them. Yet."
Kal-El only smiled, walked over to the keypad, and punched a powerful fist right through the mechanism, opened his hand, and then grabbed all the nearby wires, and ripped them out with ease. Even as he tossed the debris away after withdrawing his hand, a faint chirping sounded, and a light over the door blinked green as locks inside the heavy, steel panel released.
Not that it mattered. He already knew he could have pulled the door open with ease. He simply didn't want to trigger any fail-safe's that might have endangered those inside.
Pulling open the door, Kal-El ignored the wailing klaxons around him, and stepped inside. Freezing after just one step.
Kal-El stared into the huge chamber as his eyes rounded, and found himself stunned beyond belief.
"Great….Rao," he exclaimed, unable to express his genuine astonishment at the sight before him.
Continued…