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

9

"Move, you morons," General Sam Lane thundered as he strode down the hall with a gaping hole in titanium-reinforced steel.

Behind him came a squad of his personal best, just in case.

Sam had not gotten where he was, and survived real combat by trusting self-important martinets like Lex Luthor. He had not come into this vipers' nest without his own backup, and more waiting. He was not that stupid.

Luthor, on the other hand, was.

X-2 and X-3 gone, both failures. X-1 led right to their door, and who knows what was in that self-styled hero's head after he had faced down X-2. Faced him down, and spanked him like a raw recruit.

Damn, and he already knew their best metas didn't have a chance of facing the creature. He still wasn't buying the altruism. Then again, nothing about the creature made sense. He had faced aliens before now. He knew some came right at your, claws, or whatever ready to maim and kill. Some tried to play sly games. Some played at being helpful, but wanted to order you about on your own world. In your own nation.

Well, whatever game this alien was playing, he wasn't buying it. And sooner or later, he would find a way to stop him. Permanently.

Until then, he had to ensure that Cadmus wasn't completely compromised.

Damn Luthor anyway.

"Where," he barked as soon as he saw a security uniform that looked to have enough rank to know what was going on.

"Straight for the labs," the man nursing an obviously broken arm as a medic tended him pointed with his good arm. "He went right for the labs. Like he knew exactly where everything was before he got here," the man complained.

Sam shook his head.

It was obvious the alien could see better than advertised. X-ray vision, indeed. Which implied his other senses were just as sensitive.

Which still made him wonder about the mind guiding the body.

"Follow me," he barked, his secret weapon a somber weight in his right pocket, ruining his uniform's crease.

"Sir," one of the grunts with him asked. "If he can do….all this," he asked, taking in the destruction left in the wake of the alleged hero. "How do we stop him?"

"We can't. But I'm hoping to at least slow him down before he turns loose something on the public we don't want out," Sam admitted.

"How," another of his men asked.

He frowned, finding it telling that his men even bothered to question him at a time like this. Then again, he knew all about fear after his own combat experiences. Some of them with forces not of this world.

"That's my problem. Yours is to protect my back from our host while I deal with that problem."

"You mean Dr. Luthor? But isn't he….?"

"He's a back-stabbing snake that would try to slit your throat while picking your pocket, and telling you how happy he was to see you," Sam growled. "Now, keep your eyes open. His handpicked thugs are just as bad."

He couldn't help but grimace as he followed the swath of destruction that did, indeed, lead invariably through the most sensitive labs in Cadmus. Years of research had been destroyed in seconds from the look of it, and yet so far he had seen only minor injuries. Most of them caused by personnel simply fleeing the alien, or being caught by flying debris as the creature slammed through walls, doors, or anything else in his way.

If only that power could have been harnessed. Channeled. Only the alien was obviously uncontrollable, and a genuine threat. His power levels seemed to have grown exponentially over the years if he had been able to take out both Metallo, with his meteorite-powered frame, and X-2. He didn't want to think of what might happen if the alien proved genuinely unstoppable.

He turned a corridor, and stared down the hall into an area he knew all too well.

"Damn," he rasped, staring at the open vault door where the worst failures of Cadmus' sometimes too creative brains were housed.

Some, he felt, should have been put down on conception. Or even realization. Only the science geeks here felt there was something to be learned even from the genuine freaks they had inadvertently created in their rush to map and manipulate the human genome. Or even those not-so-human genomes they occasionally obtained.

Moving carefully toward the door, he didn't see any sign of the caped hero, or the area security.

Then he peered inside.

MoS

Connor, or Superboy as he now fashioned himself, stood staring at the massive, white creature that looked more like a caricature of life than any real being.

He didn't want to be a true copy, though, so he had the robots make him a wardrobe more suited to his own tastes. Where those tastes actually came from, he wasn't sure, but he felt pretty stylish just then wearing sturdy jeans, boots, and leather jacket with the El crest on the back over a plain blue tee.

It certainly beat the bargain basement rip-off of Supes' costume this guy wore. It unnerved the young teen that he could have easily ended up like that poor thing, or worse. If it hadn't been for Harper, it would have definitely been worse. It still grated that those men were back there playing with life like it was some kind of toy.

He would have rather joined Kal-El when he went back to ensure there were no more Kryptonian puppets made of his….their DNA, but he did see the value in learning all he could from the astonishingly thorough archives that Jor-El had sent along with his son. He had already absorbed maybe twenty percent of them, but his mind just didn't work as well as his 'brother's' did. Some of that stuff he had to really work to absorb, if he could comprehend it at all.

He had chosen to take a break from his latest lesson when Kal had zoomed in, left the clone in the care of his medical-bots after he explained what had happened, and then went back for a little payback.

He was still wondering how well the clone could be repaired, or if it could, when the white lids suddenly flared open, and those eerily opaque orbs fixed on him.

"You am not Superman," he growled.

"I'm Connor. Your younger brother," he told him frankly.

"Me have brother?"

"You have two brothers. Superman is our….older brother."

"Me am not knowing this," he said, sounding more than confused.

"Hey, bot," Connor spoke to the nearby hovering machine. "I thought you guys were going to fix his brain so he wouldn't be….. You know? Dim."

"Unfortunately, the damage to the temporal lobes is too extensive to repair," the robot informed him. "However, we were able to purge the mind-control that kept him from making conscious decisions of his own. He will no longer wish to attack the master on anyone's orders. He will, as best he can, now think for himself."

Bizarro sat up, heedless of the straps he snapped as he did, and looked around the alien structure.

"Where am Bizarro. This not father's house."

"No. This is Superman's home. Your home, too, I guess, if you want to stay. And, dude, father? He's not your real father. He lied to you."

Bizarro frowned.

"Father….lie to Bizarro?"

"Big time," Connor nodded. "He wanted to make a….monster out of you. He wanted you to do bad things for him. You were just a tool for him."

"Little man talk too fast. Make Bizarro's head hurt."

"Sorry. Listen, the main thing? Father isn't your father. He lied to you. He wanted to use you to do bad things. Terrible things. Got it?"

"Me get little man talk funny," he snorted.

"Everyone's a critic."

"Me am not critic," the clone huffed. "Me am Bizarro."

"Oh, boy, this is going to be fun."

"Bizarro like fun," he suddenly grinned, and lunged to his feet, slapping Connor on the back. "Little man show Bizarro fun."

Connor stared blankly for a moment, then an idea occurred to him.

"I have an idea. Follow me," he told him, and led him to the archives.

MoS

Lois sat at her desk, still unsure of just how she was feeling just then.

Abducted by Lex, that bald freak, and dangled over a bridge as live bait by a walking freak-show right out of her worst nightmare, she was then left behind while Superman literally pounded the creature into the ground before taking off, and leaving her to be rescued by the emergency workers who had been unable to stop sniggering at her since.

It didn't help that her skirt had been covering the wrong half of her body as she dangled upside down. She swore to God, she was never going to wear anything but slacks again.

Then, getting back to write up her story, surprised to find Kent hadn't scooped her on it, she learned that he was dead. Another victim of Luthor treachery, though there wasn't any proof. Which, to her, was proof.

Just when she was starting to get used to the big goof, too.

That was why she hated partners. He wasn't the first she had lost.

She stared at the blank screen before her, and wished she had something she could write that would finally nail the no-good slime behind half the city's ills to the wall for a change. Not necessarily proverbially, either.

She would love to see that tyrant go down hard.

Just once, she would like to see him pay for what he did to others.

Just once.

She couldn't help glancing over at Kent's desk. Already empty, a box of his personal effects setting in the chair. Things that no one would ever collect, since she knew he had no surviving family. No friends so far as she knew.

No one that would really miss the guy now that he was gone.

It all felt….unfair. And if there was one thing she hated, it was injustice.

Turning to her word processor, she began to write.

MoS

"Easy, friends," Jim Harper, the Guardian called out as he stepped around Superman. "Superman is not here to hurt you. He's a friend. Friend," he stressed to the massive thing that looked not unlike a slab of walking rock that turned to glower at them.

All around them, Kal-El could see creatures that literally defied description. Some mammalian. Some avian. Some amphibian. Some not even humanoid any longer. Yet, his eyes could see now, they all shared the same base human DNA. DNA altered beyond rhyme or reason into the nightmarish creatures before him. Some were so horrific, they seemed to be amorphic blobs that likely couldn't function outside of the tubes of fluid that continued them.

"This has to stop," Kal-El said more to himself not anyone else as his retrained his vision, and swept the massive Vault that was more a series of cages and pens to hold these unfortunate beings.

"I cannot disagree," a lean, humanoid creature with grayish skin, and an overlarge cranium adorned by blunted horns spoke as he stepped forward, one of the few not in cages. "However, I doubt the backers of this zoo would agree with us."

"This is Dubbilex, Superman," Guardian told him.

"I favor Kal-El. Superman was just an appellation the media put on me," he told them as he walked forward to stand before the not quite human being.

"The famed X-1," Dubbilex nodded. "It actually cheers us to hear of your exploits when our keepers rant over their losing you."

"As I said. Kal-El," he told the strange humanoid. "I take it you are with Mr. Harper in this regard, and wish to….spare your….companions?"

"Naturally. I would think a Kryptonian would feel the same way."

"And what do you know of Kryptonians?"

"I was in the lab the day they let you interact with your father's holographic farewell. It left me with quite the headache."

"You're a telepath," he reasoned.

"I am. You need not fear I betrayed any of your secrets, though. What little I absorbed, what little I understood, I have kept to myself. There was nothing I learned that I felt…..valuable to those in charge here."

Kal-El eyed him for a moment, then slowly nodded.

"I appreciate that."

"You are welcome. I will now add my plea to Guardian's, and ask you leave this matter to us. You might think freeing us outright is best, but….."

He turned to eye some of the more bizarre creatures that looked ominous even to his eyes, but behaved more like fearful refugees. He realized that he could not begin to imagine what life must be for them. Still, he sympathized well enough over their captivity.

"You would prefer staying in this…..cell," he asked.

"Of course not," the surprisingly articulate rocky behemoth declared curtly. "However, where would you expect us to go looking as we do. If civilians, if ordinary people got one look at some of us, they would run screaming from the freaks and monsters," he snapped self-consciously.

"Indeed," Dubbilex nodded. "You, at least, Kal-El, can pass as human. Few of us have that luxury."

Kal-El considered his own refuge.

"Then why not leave, and make a place for yourselves somewhere else," he asked bluntly.

The living rock eyed some of the others as Jim Harper said nothing.

"Some of us have considered that before now," Dubbilex admitted. "We are just not sure where that place might be. It would, naturally, have to be isolated, but defensible, since Cadmus would be sure to hunt us."

Kal-El's gaze swept the huge chamber labeled the Vault that still looked like a prison dumping ground in his eyes. He nodded, and told them, "I will keep an eye open myself. If I find someplace likely, I'll let you know."

"Merely call me. Mentally, and I will hear you," Dubbilex told him. "So long as you are within a hundred kilometers of Cadmus, I'm sure to receive your message."

"A hundred kilometers," Kal-El murmured. "You are very strong."

"Just don't tell the scientists here that," Dubbilex remarked with a wry expression. "They think I'm only able to do a few tricks."

"I understand," he nodded. "Since you are….powerful, can you assure me I found all the DNA taken from me by these men? Are there any traces left hidden? Any other….clones?"

Dubbilex seemed to frown, then blinked, then shook his head.

"You've apparently found them all. I did get a glimmer of something…..other. Another powerful alien they attempted to conscript to no avail."

"Where is he?"

"Only Dr. Luthor knows. He was, apparently, ordered to eliminate him since he was both powerful, and uncontrollable."

"Which is likely why they hunt me so earnestly now," Kal-El murmured.

"Indeed. I think you had better go now. We have company coming," Dubbilex told him.

"I'm already…"

'Gone' whispered in the telepath's mind even as the rush of air betrayed the Kryptonian's super speed departure.

Even as he seemed to vanish, a familiar face peered into the Vault, and Guardian and Dubbilex turned to face General Lane, and his men.

"Where is he? We know he came this way."

"He was here," Guardian nodded, and gestured around. "He left. After seeing there was nothing here to concern him. I think you would have avoided a lot of trouble with Kal-El if you had just spoken to him, General Lane. He's a very reasonable man."

"Indeed. Quite rational, and concerned with the preservation of life in general," Dubbilex agreed. "He harbors a rather understandable fear that you, and your peers across the globe are going to destroy this world. The same way his own home was destroyed by men in the blind pursuit of power."

"You were able to read his mind this time," Sam demanded, looking eager.

"Just….barely. I received only superficial, conscious impulses from him. His mind is….hardly human. It is far more powerful than any I have ever sensed since my birth. Still, his is ironically more open, and reveals an integrity I've yet to find in any human."

"Stow it, freak," a security guard spat. "Just get these things back in their cages, and…."

"Sergeant," Guardian stepped between him and one of the frail, avian creatures he would have shoved with his weapon. One with the safety off. "Perhaps if you just asked nicely, they would comply without the need for further violence?"

"Handle this, Harper," Sam Lane snapped. "The rest of you, get back out there, and help restore order. You said the alien left," he turned back to Dubbilex. "Do you know where he was going?"

"He seemed concerned with your daughter. She was, at last reckoning, marked by Dr. Luthor for death. The man does have a very long list of enemies he intends to eliminate. Did you know that you are on it, too, General Lane?"

Sam said nothing. He just glared, and walked off muttering under his breath.

"Dubbilex?"

"You do not want to know," the gray-skinned telepath remarked blandly to his friend. "I do not think Dr. Luthor will be an issue after today, though."

"You think even Lane will eliminate him?"

"I was not speaking of him. Our alien friend is not overly fond of him, either. He may not have truly shown it, but he was beyond furious over the creation and abuses forced on his clones. Very furious."

"Do you think he would kill him?"

Dubbilex considered his words, and simply said, "No. What he would do would be worse. At least, to someone like Dr. Luthor."

MoS

"Sorry, sir," one of his men reported, a scowling woman in tow behind him bracketed by two more men. "The slippery devil got to a transport, and flew off before we could stop him."

"He can't go that far," Sam spat. "Meanwhile, take this woman to the brig, and hold her for my personal interrogation. You," he turned to face Mercy, "Are going to help me tear down Luthor's private empire, if you kow what is good for you."

"Why should I care? Once he gets back, Lex won't stop until he's crushed all of us anyway."

"Lex won't be the only one doing some crushing, little lady," Sam growled. "You can help, or…. Well, I hear Cadmus is always on the lookout for fresh…..volunteers," he warned.

Mercy, who had seen some of the horrors created here, shuddered.

"Just keep that in mind," she was told as the general stalked off, barking orders to men that had yet to realize just how much had changed as yet.

MoS

Lex was beyond furious himself as he was forced to flee in the hypersonic minijet he kept stashed for just such emergencies. He had a hideout in the Alps, well beyond the usual tourist destinations where he could hole up for the moment, and plan his retribution. And he would have it.

Against Lane. Those short-sighted fools that doubted him. And most especially against that arrogant, annoying alien who…..

The small jet suddenly shuddered, losing power as he fought the controls. He searched the console before him, trying to understand how a perfectly designed ship had just lost all power and thrust when he realized he wasn't falling.

He was, however, not in control.

He looked around, and realized two things at once.

First, he no longer had wings, or an engine.

And second, a very colorfully clad freak was holding his aircraft up by a grip on the fuselage made by digging powerful fingers into the reinforced steel frame just behind the cockpit.

"It's over, Dr. Luthor," Kal-El told him over the rush of wind as Lex glared impotently at him. "I cannot, in good conscience, allow your madness to continue to endanger this planet, or its people. It is over."

"Nothing's over, you tin-plated demigod," Lex spat over his shoulder, trying to find a weapon system that was still active. "Even if you drop me in jail, I'll just….."

"Who said you were going to jail," Kal-El asked, and Lex belatedly realized they weren't flying back toward the mainland. They were headed due north. Away from any continent. Away from any nation that might have the authority to hold him.

"So, you're going to kill me," he sneered. "I didn't think you had the….."

"There are worse fates than death," he told the man, and flew toward his Fortress. His Fortress of Solitude, as Connor had dubbed it.

Of course, he had not quite put it that way.

"Dude, this place screams 'lonely and isolated,'" he had remarked. "I'd think you would have a place out where the excitement was happening."

Kal-El smiled faintly, rather liking Connor's audacious manner. He was so unlike him in personality, or demeanor, and yet he was still his genetic twin. After a fashion. He still wasn't sure just what Connor was truly capable of, as the young man wasn't truly a pure Kryptonian. Still, he was strong. Fast. And he apparently had some of his abilities. Not all, but some. It would be interesting watching him progress, and grow.

Unlike their former captors, though, he would allow Connor his own pace, and his own freedom.

That, after all, was both the Kryptonian way, and the human thing to do.

"That's it, isn't it," Lex shouted, interrupting his thoughts as the man stared at the huge, crystalline dome before them as he flew toward it. "Your secret armory."

"Hardly an armory. Just my home," he said, pleased that the atmospheric scrubbers had removed the last traces of radiation, and snow was already replacing the superheated ice and snow vaporized by the bomb earlier that week.

Lex's snort was born of pure skepticism.

"Let me guess, you think you're going to lock me up in this….ice castle?"

"Not quite," Kal-El smiled thinly as he descended right through the center of the structure's roof, and down into the chamber below that seemed to be a complex melding of crystalline structures and metal machines.

Lex just gaped at the room as Kal-El set the small jet down, then ripped open the cockpit to pull him out.

"I think this is far enough," Lex spat, dangling from his fist as he reached into a pocket, pulled out a small box, and opened it to reveal a glittering green jewel.

Kal-El blinked, and tossed him to one side of the chamber even as his free hand flashed out to seize, and close the box simultaneously.

"Honestly, Dr. Luthor," he drawled indifferently as he tossed the lead box across the room. "Do you really think such antics will catch me off guard now? Or bother me," he said, and walked to a shelf of sorts where he manipulated a few crystals to open the apparently locked panel.

Reaching inside, he pulled out a small, squat device that looked not unlike a miniature satellite dish.

"You're really immune to the….Kryptonite fragments now," he frowned, his mind absorbing that one as he tried to conjure any other weakness to use against his enemy.

"I think you humans like to say, 'Knowledge is power.' You'll understand if I don't empower you any more than you are, Dr. Luthor," he said, setting the device on a counter now, and aiming it at him.

Lex rose to his feet, but found himself unable to move beyond standing. Somehow, the place where he stood had magnetized his feet to the floor.

"What is this?"

"Your jury, Dr. Luthor," Kal-El told him as Connor and Bizarro walked into the chamber just then, led by a floating device in a teardrop shape with spindly arms.

"K-908 said you wanted to see us, big guy," Connor said as Lex's eyes went to the pair.

"Father," Bizarro growled in that low, gravelly voice of his. "Bizarro am very happy to see you," he said, but his expression suggested he would be even happier to rip him into very small pieces.

"Free me, X-2," Lex shouted. "I order you…..!"

"Bizarro very obedient. He am going to listen to you forever," he said with a scowl.

"Brothers. It is my contention to send Dr. Luthor to where he will not harm anyone else, ever again. I leave it to you to make the final decision. Do we send him to the Phantom Zone, or do we entrust him to the local authorities?"

"Do what you want, Supes," Connor spat, lowering the dark shades he wore to scowl at the bald freak. "Just make sure he pays, because we both know he won't if you trust the law back there."

"Bizarro," Kal-El asked the slightly more reasonable creature who seemed quite docile since he had been freed of the mind control forced on him. "What do you think?"

"Him? Think," Lex scoffed.

"Bizarro just hope to see father live long and happy life," the damaged clone grunted. "Very long, very happy life."

"That, I can promise," Kal-El said, and flipped a switch.

"Wait, what is that? What is this…..?"

Whatever he was saying was lost as the yellow beam hit Lex, and he seemed to just vanish. Nor did he reappear when Kal-El shut the machine down.

"Whoa! You disintegrated him," Connor asked.

"You haven't learned about the Phantom Zone as yet?"

"I'm not quite as great as you about absorbing all that endless data, big guy," Connor exclaimed. "Honestly, I was going to talk to you about that anyway."

"You can talk to me about anything you wish, Connor. This is your home, now, too. I told you that."

Connor sighed.

"Look, the brooding hero bit is…. Well, it's not me."

"I do not brood," Kal-El frowned.

"Dude. You brood like nobody else. Sure, you make the scene, smile and wave, but you always come back to brood. Seriously? That's been done to death. Life tossed us some crappy deals. All of us," he said, turning to nod at Bizarro. "But we got the power to make it rethink, and redo those deals. So, enough brooding. I…. I want to go live with other people. Maybe…. Myabe even go to school. A real school. You know, be a reg'lar kid, and learn things. Date girls. That sort of thing?"

Kal-El sighed.

"I'd still like to come by and visit, of course. And I do want to keep learning from your archives. Only, like I said, maybe everything doesn't have to be so….intense?"

Kal-El put a hand on his shoulder, and looked into his eyes. Bright, blue orbs much like his own.

"I'm not your jailer, Connor. Whatever you want to do, it's your right to choose. Just know you can always come back here. It remains your home. Just….keep it a secret, if you don't mind. We already have too many people that know about it. I'm going to have to address that, too."

"Sure thing," Connor said with a wide grin. "And don't worry, Superboy will be doing his part to help out in the big picture, too. I just don't see myself wearing long underwear anytime soon," he grinned insolently.

"Kryptonian bodywear is not….."

"Gotcha," Connor laughed, and slapped him on his shoulder. "You really need to lighten up, Kal. You don't even know how to joke."

Kal-El allowed a faint smile.

"I suppose I deserved that. And, you, Bizarro? Have you been thinking of what you will do now," he asked as he put the Phantom Zone projector away.

"Bizarro am very happy," the white giant rumbled in what passed as thoughtful for him. "Him think he stay here for long time. Maybe see what find him."

"You mean….?"

Just that fast, the bizarre doppelganger was gone, having flowing straight up, and out of the Fortress. Kal-El needed only a glance to know he had kept going straight up, and right out of the atmosphere. Nor had he faltered when he hit the void. He just flew on all the faster.

He had never considered it before, but could he survive in space, too?

After all, he was actually stronger, and slightly more powerful than Bizarro.

"Where'd he go? I thought he said…."

"You forget," Kal-El said quietly as he dropped his gaze. "Bizarro still usually says the opposite of what he means. I think he intends to go…..find himself. Or a place for himself. Just as you are doing."

"Oh. I guess that's cool. But don't you think he's going to….stand out?"

"I don't think that's an issue. He just left the planet."

"He what? You're saying we can fly into space," the teen exclaimed with bright, eager eyes.

"Me? Maybe. I'm not sure about you. Recall, you still have over seventy percent human genes. You still need to work out just what you can do before you try something…..dangerous."

"Hey," he huffed, "I've been working out in your….practice gym. I think I'm pretty tough."

"Just be careful. We still don't know your limits. Don't forget, Cadmus is still sure to be after you. Likely more than ever after today."

"So," Connor remarked, deliberately changing the topic. "What is that….Phantom Zone thingy? Where did old baldy go?"

"Kryptonians have a natural respect for all life. Even criminals, and deviants. So, rather than kill those that could not, or would not fit in, they were sentenced to a…. You would call it a pocket dimension. Uninhabited except for the very worse criminals the galaxies spawned."

"Galaxies," Connor echoed. "So….?"

"So, Lex is now in the company he deserves," Kal-El told him firmly. "That is….something else we should never let the humans know. They wouldn't understand."

"No prob, Big Bro. My lips are sealed."

"Let's go to the communication room," Kal-El told him.

"What for," Connor frowned.

"Well, you did say you wished to live a normal life for now. We need to set you up an identity if you are going to pass as one of them."

"Oh. Right. Like the whole secret identity thing those other heroes use. This is going to be righteous," COnnor grinned.

Kal-El sighed.

"Just be careful," he told him, leading him to the communications room where he could literally tap into the Web without anyone being able to trace him.

"Hey, it's me," Connor grinned. "What could happen?"

Kal-El chose not to answer that one.

Continued….