Superman & Brainiac in Action FanFic #21
Avatar of Things to Come
Brainiac is standing before me and I stand in complete shock and horror. I look him over slowly, trying to see if there's any living part of Kenny still in the shell. I can't discern it, but I'm hopeful. I pull back with my X-Ray Vision and stare at the machine-man, forcing my face to become more stern. His expression never changes, he just stares back with those ghastly eyes. The eyes behind it are Kenny's eyes and they have the look of circuitry and fiber optics behind it. "My logic circuits are overloaded by the fact you still exist, Kal-El."
"If that means you're surprised, then don't feel alone. And if I seem a bit cold to your reception it's because you just killed a friend of mine."
"That is false. He was your enemy, and would have deleted you had I not intervened."
"That's not the way things are done here, Brainiac."
"Unfortunate. The population of this world has become too vast for its current resources. My calculations say that you will deplete its natural resources within approximately 50 years."
"I thought you weren't due to arrive for three days yet?"
"My full form will be here within that time span. This is merely an avatar form." He turns his attention to the control panel of the fortress. In moments he sends out cables which connect and start to repower everything. In moments the damage done in my fight with Conduit is erased and new systems are being installed. A rather large computer is being created, much larger than the one already here. It's connecting to new pathways, uploading information at a rapid rate. In moments I see the holo-arrays get upgraded, how I'm not entirely sure. After a few minutes time he disengages and the cables pull back into his body in mere seconds after that the hologram of my father engages. Father looks at me with a puzzled expression.
"Kal-El, I'm to understand that the Fortress received a rather hefty upgrade to it's systems. What has transpired here?"
"I have Jor-El." My father's eyes stare into mine and widen suddenly. He slowly turns his face to look into that of cyborg standing to his side. He is reluctant to do anything yet, but the want it there. The ambivalence that is over my father's face is something I've never seen before.
"Brainiac?" He mutters softly. "How is it that you survive?"
"Irrelevant, Jor-El. It is that I am here, and it is time you face me in ultimate tribunal for your crimes against the Kryptonian High Council."
"My crimes? I am but a hologram of a man long since dead on a world countless billions of miles from where we stand. A trial is pointless."
"Incorrect, Jor-El. Your holo-form still carries the engrams of a criminal and will be purged from this system if found guilty."
"Krypton was destroyed as I predicted it would be! How is it that I am a criminal? I spread no word, caused no insurrection, I only saved my child from his doom."
"Creating a device that was banned on Krypton since the advent of the Daxamite departure, the last known council approved device came with the creation of the Eradicator by Kem-L, your ancestor."
"You can't judge him like this. He was preserving Kryptonian life in a world that was dying. There are extenuating circumstances to the situation at hand!"
"The circumstances will be weighed with his criminal activities. Tribunal will commence now." Before he says anything I rush him and hit him hard. He flies backwards into the far wall of the Fortress. He pulls himself out of the hole and starts in again. "This will not help your father's trial Kal-El. Assaulting an officer of Krypton is a high offense is a penalty however, resulting in your banishment to the Phantom Zone for no less than ten cycles."
As he stands fully again, I hit him with a blast of Heat Vision, "Then let's go for twenty!" He tries to block the beams but the metal superheats quickly, melting away the metallic skin hiding the cable muscle structure. He sends a blast of Kryptonite that connects with me returning the favors I've dealt him thus far. I skid across the floor in pain, but not out of this fight yet.
"Twenty cycles then, if that is what you so desire. Care to add any other crimes to your ever growing list?"
"I want to add charges of murder against you Brainiac. You killed the mind of the man you inhabit. Now if we're done throwing around bogus claims of law here, let's get down to the real reason you've come here."
"There are no false claims I have made, Kal-El. The crimes commited by you and your father are very real. As to charges brought against me; I have none to answer for. I am a law officer commandeering a vessel in accordance to my duties. You will accept this."
"No, I won't! In commandeering that 'vessel' you killed the man in the process. We don't steal bodies, dead or alive, for the purpose of reanimating their corpse. That's vile! So if you insist to continue with this sham, then I want a panel of non-biased individuals that can judge for themselves who the real criminal is in this room."
"As I have the engrams of the Council remain within my databanks, I can properly execute judge and jury in this situation. No outsiders unfamiliar with Kryptonian law or traditions are required for this task."
"Then the trial's over with, Brainiac. No one's going to be judged by you, I don't care whose engrams you got in your databanks." I stand defiantly, he looks at me with his eyes glowing with a green incandescent glow. He's preparing to fire at me.
"Your refusal to stand trial means death, Kal-El." He fires the blast and I duck, grabbing for the intertwined cables that Kenny pulled apart. I swing them as he fires again. The beams are soon pointed about 4 feet over my shoulder as the cable connects with his jaw. His body slides across the floor at a steady pace. He ultimately impacts with some of the new equipment. Cables grow from his body and he starts to try and connect them to the panel that is against his back now. I rush and grab the cables and I use my Heat Vision to melt them and as I connect them together I use my Super Breath to ice them back into their completely solid state. Grabbing them I start to club Brainiac in the face with his own cables. Soon the face plate melts away as I raise the makeshift club once more and Kenny's face stares back at me.
"Clarkie? Don't kill me! He's taken over my body! He's making me do these things! Please, Clarkie, don't kill me!" Kenny pleads. I stare for a second as I see the blood pour from his mouth. As I do the face turns to solid blank expression and he fires a charge of the Kryptonite beam up the cables upon which I fly backwards and crash into the ground. I'm hurting now, bleeding myself. As I look I notice that some of the shattered crystal has pierced my side. What's worse? He's an avatar! I want to know what the full fledged one is like! He starts floating towards me when my father moves to intercept him. A completely reactionary measure, even though he's a hologram. He steps in-between us and look prepared to fight Brainiac himself.
"I won't allow you to kill my son, Brainiac."
"You have little choice Jor-El." Brainiac points towards the holo-emitters and starts to charge his energy blast. Father again reacts and throws a punch, I've never see him do such a thing before. That's when both of us get surprised, the blow connected to the chest. It's pushed him back and blew out the screen of the computer he installed. Father looks at his hand and smiles as he knows now that he can fight back. As he throws another punch towards Brainiac his fist stops in mid-strike. Brainiac stands before him. "As you have surmised Jor-El, your holo-matrix is now hardlight, which means you can now physically touch things. It is satisfactory that it works, but I will not have any further physical violence upon this unit."
"Then it's a real shame that I'm planning more!" I say as my eyes erupt into crimson beams of light. I hit the gauntlets first melting their openings so he can channel another blast through it. Those nanobots of his are already at work trying to repair the damage. They're getting quicker with every subsequent attack. I can't worry about that now. Not with so much at stake. I start to throw punch after punch at Brainiac beating his face in and watching it get repaired. I look with my X-Ray and Microscopic vision and I see the machines at work trying destroy what little organic is left of Kenny. There's enough there to hang on, but not nearly enough. It's just like Bizarro, I'm fighting for what's left of humanity, and much like the failed clone, I'm doing it knowing that if I revive him it might cost me my head. Can't look it that way, you're doing the right thing. No matter what, that's what counts.
I've done something to interrupt his programming, father's moving well now. I'm glad, because I really could use the help about now. Brainiac's host body wasn't that easy to deal with before the upgrade. He goes to the control panel and starts feverishly inputting something into the system with all due haste. Whatever it is you're doing father, I hope it's fast. Brainiac starts to fully heal himself and his eyes start to glaze into that white color. I pound part of his body trying to keep the nanobots from fully stopping in repairs. "That is a strategic amount of thinking Kal-El. Ultimately futile, but forward of you."
"Think again Brainiac." I keep punishment coming as best I can, a blast of Heat Vision here and several punches the body there. "Now since we have a bit of time on our hands, why don't you explain to me how you did this to Kenny? How did your nanobots infect him?"
"I see no harm in informing you, as it does not conflict with my agenda."
Krypton
"Jor-El, your presence is requested at the High Council."
"It is too late, Brainiac. The planet is being laid to waste."
"Your propulsion system; it is being fastened to your son's birth-matrix?"
"My apologies to the Council, but this takes precedence. At least one from Krypton should survive!"
"If one is to survive Jor-El, it will not be your offspring. It will be me. ALERT: Jor-El has constructed a space probe. He is attaching it to the birth matrix of his child attempting to send it to another planet. All military units to the House of El."
The Fortress of Solitude
"I know most of this, what I want to know is how you infected Kenny!"
"Patience, Kal-El, I am coming to that point."
Brainiac
Kal-El wishes my response on the matter of my infection of Braverman, Kenneth/Codenamed: Conduit. Birthplace/Kansas/Smallville, Birthdate: 14/December/ 1979. Reference file goes further back for this log; access Krypton/Destruction/Final Moments.
"Well? I'm waiting!" Kal-El speaks. His body temperature is elevated several degrees. Not in response to his visual power/Heat Vision. Further study of this phenomenon is required. Access history/Krypton/Destruction/Escape.
"The military forces were on their way to apprehend your father for his crimes. They arrived in time to see your rocket burst from the home of your family on its way towards Earth. The quaking of the planet became more violent. The world was likely to tear itself apart at any time. The guard had their weapons raised at your father, but could not keep steady aim. That is the fault of organic beings, they cannot correct for discrepancies as well as that of machine-kind."
Krypton
"You are under arrest Jor-El, for illegal creation of spacecraft technologies." The captain of their guard stated.
"Fools, do you not see that that planet is doomed?" retorted Jor-El with a sound of defiance. He stood there with eyes in what would be termed in human categorization as saddened. The ground quaked and spilt apart in many sections.
"What do we do?"
"There is nothing we can do, captain. We have sacrificed ourselves because of faulty logic. We trusted a machine to think for us when we did not wish to trust our own calculations. We took humanity out our hands and gave the world over to Brainiac."
"That is quite true, Jor-El. You will die for that mistake."
"Why, Brainiac?"
"You would not understand, nor do I care to explain my higher function to a lower caste being."
The Fortress of Solitude
"In orbit, hidden from any identifying technologies, the Eradicator awaited my uploading. I reactivated its nanobots systems and allowed myself to full upload. Of course, I had made several modifications of its systems over the course of several years. So the transfer was only the newest data my system had come across. Once I loaded the last of my data and consciousness to the Eradicator I set a trajectory course for your rocket in an attempt to destroy it." Kal-El's expression looks horrified. His heartbeat has increased 4 beats more per minute. It has rendered him speechless. Conclusion: Finish story; leaving full details out, give basic story as to the purging of Braverman, Kenneth/Conduit.
"Why were you trying to kill me? What was the purpose of that?"
"Information such as that, not available for accessing at this point in time. I will need further memory than what this avatar can access. Continuing story, your rocket made it into space just as the planet self-destructed. Fragments were thick and your destruction many have been imminent. However, improbably, your ship passed through the asteroids unharmed. I directed the Eradicator towards its target and continued on a fast paced track towards the engine of your rocket. However, I could not get a positive lock due to debris following your course through space. I fired many charges only to shatter the asteroids into finer targets. The only thing I could do is gently nudge pieces of the asteroid towards your ship and hope that perhaps you would be destroyed on the way towards your destination. It was not long before I realized that I would have to witness your final destruction, to make sure the job was finished properly. So I sent a payload of nanobots with the ship. There were able to created dozens of themselves using pieces of the asteroid, which mostly comprised itself of a crystalline based ore. I believe the Terran population refers to it as K-Metal or Kryptonite."
"I imagine for as long as the ship was out there in space, that this asteroid took some punishment?"
"Correct. All larger pieces either veered from your course or were destroyed over time. The large one that did follow your course did not last long in your hyper travels and would succumb to the rigors by leaving only fragments of its once massive size"
"So once I reached Earth, the fragments fell around Kenny's family as they were stranded on the back roads. That left him to get infected with the nanobots, but what I don't understand is why it made him so sick and why they didn't keep him healthy."
"Their programming was stunted a great deal by the mass collective being destroyed. As the radiation started to eat his body away, the nanobots converted his body to deal with the ever growing fragments of Kryptonite that fused with his body."
"His body is Kryptonite infused?"
"That is correct. The crystalline ore structure started to effect bone mass in parts of his body, the more his body fell into the state of leukemia or the transmutative state thanks to the nanobots and Kryptonite, the nanobots converted what little skin and bone mass they could into a cables to route the power and allow him full range of movement. It has slowly driven him mad as he has had to feel the effects of the conversion each time it has occurred."
"That's ghastly!"
"Such a term does not compute. Scientifically it is fascinating; even one such as yourself should agree to that. Humanity's genetic structure is a so fragile that even the smallest grain of radioactive material or a foreign disease could cause mutation of some sort. It could result in massive disfiguration or give them abilities far beyond that of their fellow human beings. Others in your world, such as your Flash and Black Canary are fascinating with their seemingly impossible strengths. Some modification in their daily activities since whatever event happened to give them this ability, and they are able to use their full power range without much fear of harming themselves."
"Only a computer could find what happened to Kenny as being fascinating. I still call it a sick act from an unfeeling being." He tries to reach into my inner core to make me regret the conclusions I have drawn. Query: Does he not see the futility to this? Has his time on Earth caused him to look and act in ways irrational, or perhaps was this genetically predisposed? Reference: Jor-El/Defiance of the High Council Laws/Spacecraft.
Earth Experiment/Phase I/Results: Kal-El has derived a great deal of power under Earth's yellow sun. Though exposed to several bouts of Kryptonite radiation, his powers never fully seem to deactivate. Threat of interference: 100%. Chances of successfully upsetting plans: 65.242%. Recommendation: Termination of Kal-El. Though he is the last of the Kryptonian species, his attitude towards this unit and his progenitor seem clear that he will not cease in finding new avenues of ending progenitor unit's existence.
Earth Experiment/Phase II/Yet to be Commenced: Unlike many different planets amongst the stars; Earth harbors a variety of various metahuman abilities. Some show increased speed; Reference/Missouri/Central City/Flash. Yet another has a voice that can shatter a building with little effort; Reference/New York/New York City/Black Canary. While there have been others that have items that give them marked equalization; Reference/Space Sector 2814/California/Coast City/Green Lantern. These individuals, amongst others preclude further investigation. A human Green Lantern may be prone to using more imaginative constructs with his power ring. Such chaotic mind constructs may prove dangerous when dealing with this entity. The Flash's speed rivals that of Kal-El's. Recommendation: Progenitor form use full calculation ability to track the movements of this human. He may be considered the most dangerous of them. Black Canary's cry may very well interrupt or destroy circuitry. Upon sight of her, deleting or infecting her may be best course.
Jor-El is nearly finished with the panel. Nano-technology in this form is so primitive by standards of progenitor's form that it cannot full ascertain or effect anything else lest it give up control of form currently had. Fully healing this form may become an impossibility as Kal-El will not cease damaging it to keep nanobots in full repair mode. Conclusion: Repair gauntlets for firing Kryptonite blast and kill Kal-El while the opportunity remains. Regain link with Fortress holo-matrix and end Jor-El's tampering.
One gauntlet gets repair and Superman deals with it quickly. However, his speediest of actions do not include paying full attention to the other hand. The beam/Kryptonite radiation hits him in the cranium. He is stunned and hurdling away from me in a backward motion. Keep the blast steady, do not give a moment's respite to Kal-El. His resourcefulness is uncanny.
"BRAINIAC! YOU WILL CEASE THIS ACTION!" Jor-El raises his voice. I do not heed his warning. It is not within my purview to do so. Kal-El's skin pigmentation is starting to fade to green. Result of the Kryptonite poisoning. In mere moments he will be deceased and no further problems of his interference will remain. Conversion of Fortress to Earth Base Alpha will continue uninterrupted. "I WARNED YOU BRAINIAC!"
Jor-El inserts a crystal into the control panel. The automated defenses have come online and have started firing an electrostatic pulse at this unit. It's causing the nanobots to reverse the process in which I've started. He's encoded a carrier wave amongst the pulse. Conclusion: It will bring Braverman/Kenneth/Conduit back to his former state and destroy the nano-technology in his system. This unit will deactivate. I cannot change the programming fast enough, too much damage sustained by Kal-El. Beam ceasing to be fired. His skin pigment is returning to normal. This test of Kal-El has come to its full conclusion and its result cannot be fully enacted by this unit. Progenitor will have to delete upon arrival.
Superman
I'm dying. I feel my life ebbing away and I hear father warn Brainiac to stop. There's only blackness for so long that I can't keep track of the time. I awaken to find myself weakened, but starting to gain my strength. As my eyes open I see mother and father looking over me.
"Jor-El, he awakens!"
"I see, Lara." He smiles at us both. "How do you feel?"
"Like I was on the brink of death."
"You were my son, if I had not devised a way to stop Brainiac he would have killed you surely as you breathe now."
"Is Kenny alive?"
"He lives. He fled the scene once the nanobots were fully destroyed. He saw you lying on the ground unable to breathe and took off into the night. Swearing vengeance on Luthor and Brainiac for their machinations."
"How long have I been asleep."
"Three days."
"Three days? The ship is going to be here any time now!"
"Your news broadcasts have been reporting Brainiac's ship approaching Earth, awaiting an historic meeting with Lex Luthor as we speak."
"I have to stop him!"
"My son, the avatar nearly killed you. You cannot do this alone."
"I know that too father. I'm going to need help, and luckily I know where to get it. I'm going to assemble a team of heroes and we're going to stop Brainiac once and for all."