Spark of Genius
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy verse, Girl Genius verse, DC comics or any of the other smatterings of pop culture and literary ideas that I refer to in my story, I just tread through a few other sandboxes. Oh, and several names are made up, some are real, but the facts have been changed to protect the corrupt and innocent equally.
AN1: Wow, look at all the reviews when I mention that I was thinking about stopping writing. I was getting a bit discouraged that nobody thought it was good enough to review, even though there were lots of readers. Anyway, here's another chapter as a result of all those reviews, looks like we may have an epic on the way. That said, I suggest turning on some hard rock music or something with a driving beat, it's what I'm listening to while writing this chapter. I now return you to your regularly scheduled butt kicking.
AN2: Ok, so a note from me. There are some soldiers portrayed in this chapter. All I can say is that I work in defense and hold all honor and respect for the military and intelligence services in my country. That said, my portrayal of a specific Special Forces team in this story is not a description of my feelings for those who make it their profession. My friends on the teams and in the rest of the military understand this, and I hope you do also. Cheers.
AN3: This wasn't Beta'd, my beta is still in exams.
'Thought'
"Speech"
Chapter 23: Winning Hearts and Minds
"Once you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow" - Lyndon B. Johnson
Xander finished affixing his Leviathan helmet to his head by the time he exited the portal into the Castle's command center. The new command center was a vast room filled with banks of control personnel speaking into headsets while sitting before holographic screens and keyboards that backlit the room in a golden glow that both clashed and melded with the red lights that bathed the control room. The holographic systems had been a step up in technology from the energy absorption field that Xander had originally created, and a research group of Romanian computer programmers and electrical engineers had designed and installed it in the control center with the goal of keeping the Castle's command center at the bleeding edge of technology.
The holographic systems, coupled with the upgraded nano-clanks that the controllers had been injected with, allowed the command center's personnel to multitask at the speed of thought. On the walls at the front of the room were banks of screens filtering information from the little clanks that were scattered throughout the country and monitoring the borders, and in the middle of the room was the control chair through which all the information, technology and weapons control was routed.
Xander sprinted towards the command chair, blurring in motion, and appeared again seated in the control chair. Closing his eyes, Xander brought his nano-clanks in his suit and body up to full activity and allowed his brain to commune with the systems of the castle.
In the blink of an eye Xander had received an update on the situation and summed it up in words, "Shit, this is going to hurt before it gets better." Xander cringed before starting to issue commands to the computer systems around him.
Thirty minutes earlier…
"Are your people ready to launch the attack on the Romanian border Nardoc?" Asked the large bald headed mercenary with a nasty scar across his cheek asked. The mercenary leader was wearing all black fatigues and rested the latest model of a Lexcorp automated minigun on his shoulder; the feeder belt to the minigun looked as big around as an elephants trunk and connected the gun to the backpack energy source that fueled the gun's firepower.
The two men stood on the crest of a hill looking out over the border between Kasnia and Romania; the Romanian side bristling with metal towers that snapped and hissed with the release of electrical bolts.
Around the base of the hill the rebels, separatists, terrorists, or freedom fighters of Northern Kasnia unlimbered artillery and uncrated the assault rifles that had been delivered by Lexcorp. A short distance from the base of the hill came twenty older Russian battletanks rolling out of the trees to park before their crews. The tank crews then exited their vehicles and joined the mass of soldiers removing the weapons and high impact ammo that Lexcorp had provided; of course all the serial numbers and brand names had already been removed from the weapons before delivery.
Behind the mercenary was his five man team, a group of cutthroat black op veterans that had decided to leave their nations' services when they decided that living under rules like the Geneva Convention wasn't for them. The modus operandi for the mercenary unit was to hit with extreme firepower, destroy everything in their path without a care for collateral damage, and to achieve the mission's goals so they could get paid. This was clearly evident given the fact that each of the men in the group was armed with overly large flame throwers, miniguns, machineguns, or grenade launchers. The only one of the group who didn't look as though he was 'compensating for something' was the sniper; but even there his 458Lott long gun called his masculinity into question.
Nardoc looked up from where he was looking over the second generation laser penetrator repeating rifle that Luthor had provided Nardoc and his band of Northern Kasnian separatists. "Absolutely Major, your employer came through on his promise to provide the weapons that will bring my people freedom from the royalist scum. We will provide you a path through the lightning ring, but what do you plan to do once you get into Romania?" Nardoc replied with a question.
The identified Major growled, and dropped his minigun off his shoulder to point at Nardoc, "What we do in Romania is none of your fucking business. You will provide the entry into Romania, and that is all you need to concern yourself with, are we clear. And I don't give a flying fuck about your crusade, jihad or whatever you call it, I'm here for my mission, and that's all I care about." The mercenary leader prefaced his command by spitting on the ground at Nardoc's feet, the spit brown and clumpy from the chewing tobacco that bulged out the Majors front lip.
Nardoc looked up at the man, then down at the multiple barrels of the minigun pointed at him, then back up at the mercenary's face before nodding, "Yes, we will open a path for you soon. Thirty minutes until the barrage starts, but know that we will only open a path for you. My scouts have stated that a gypsy caravan lies just on the other side of the border, and we will not shell the camp for you to get it out of your way.
The Major smiled an ugly smile, teeth covered in bits of black tobacco and a bit of blood from where his gums had been abraded by his habit. "Heh heh, no worries, we won't be going past the camp, just get us into the border and your job will be done." The major chuckled evilly before turning back to his men and circling his finger in the air.
"Mount up boys, apparently there is a gypsy camp right on the other side of the border that we are supposed to be… careful, about. Heh heh." The 'Major' grinned, his evil smirk was mirrored by the men in his squad as they strolled down the hill towards their waiting helicopter.
Nardoc had a bit of a cold chill go down his back at the Major's words, and began to second guess his deal with Luthor. The year had been going poorly for his band of fighters. The southern generals, who were the really people in control of Kasnia, had fought in name only for the Kasnian Princess and had been pushing further and further into the lands of Northern Kasnia; burning and beating down the people as they fought north. Nardoc had been surprised when Lex Luthor had contacted him offering a simple trade of weapons for help in access through the secured Romanian border. Now though, Nardoc just hoped that that his deal with the devil wouldn't lead to he and his people paying the butcher's bill if they woke up the fury of The Leviathan.
The image that had initiated the Castle's call to battle stations was when the twenty battle tanks and six howitzer artillery pieces had appeared rolling up to the crest of the hill on the Kasnian side of the border. The appearance of the armed unit could only mean one thing, somebody was stupid enough to try and invade Romania by force. Somebody had decided to kick the hornet's nest to see if the Leviathan had been serious when he stated that he would respond in kind if somebody attacked his country; thus the call to arms throughout Romania.
Xander watched on the screen while the heads up display on his helmet fed him information on the types and capabilities of the weapons that he saw arrayed against his border's defenses.
"Hmmm, that doesn't look too bad." Xander said out loud before mentally communicating to the Castle.
'Bob, given the nature of the weapons we are seeing, are our defenses able to repel the firepower from those 60's era Battletanks and those howitzers? If I'm reading this right, our defenses should be able to knock down the ordinance that those things fire, correct?" Xander communicated his thoughts to his nano-clanks, through the command chair, and to the AI that controlled the castle. It allowed lightning quick communication back and forth between the Castle and Xander, giving Xander the ability to compress an entire conversation into less than the blink of an eye.
'Yes Xander, assuming they are firing standard ordinance; but you know what happens when you assume…" Bob answered back to Xander's mind. Left unsaid was the answer of "You make an ass out of you and me."
Xander continued to look at the screen as the tanks finally came to rest at the top of the hill, swiveled their guns towards the border and opened fire. This is when things went from mildly bad to 'OH SHIT!', for what came out of the muzzles of the tanks was not the standard ordinance.
The recoil from the rounds barely pushed the tanks back, the shock system in the turret and in the locked treads made it almost unnoticeable when the rounds exited the barrel and started their trip down range towards the field of lightning towers.
It was upon exiting the barrel that the real fun began. As the Lexcorp 505 condensed penetrator cloud technology came online, sloughed off the canister that had surrounded the original round and released control fins, a controlled rocket burst accelerated the round from 'damn fast' to 'fucking fast' in microseconds.
Twenty meters from the border, the little computer inside the warhead sensed incoming defensive measures, and before the lightning bolt could hit the incoming round, the thinking claymore targeted multiple towers and initiated the shaped charges that would send liquefied copper penetrator darts at the towers before it; and this was just one of the twenty similar rounds that was fired in that first barrage from the attacking tanks.
The command to fire at will was given, and the tank crews worked to pump round after round down field at the electrical field. By the time that the second barrage was launched from the tanks, the howitzers of the Kasnian rebels also came into play and started to send their ordinance on target.
Rather than the straight line drive shots that the tanks unleashed, the slightly arching projectiles fired from the howitzers didn't have the smart technology to counter the defenses of the lightning field in order to hit directly on target. Still, when the round is comprised of a Lexcorp brand miniature aerial-fuel-bomb lodged in a 75mm howitzer round, 'close' works just as well.
Xander's brain hiccupped for less than a second, which was the time it took for a two hundred meter swath of his lightning field to disappear under barrage of copper penetrators and concussive force explosions.
Xander's brain kicked it back into high gear even as the computers and command staff fed him information regarding the imminent penetration of the border.
'Bring the counter artillery guns online, fire on that ridge and then for effect in an one hundred meter radius from the location of those tanks, I want them scrap metal in five minutes or I'll be uploading an episode of grannies gone wild into your memory core.' Came Xander's first command, at the same time a little red light started blinking on his HUD as a helicopter was seen to crest the hill over the tanks and dart for the border; skimming the ground at fifty feet.
Around Xander the command center came to life, issuing commands for the batteries to come online, and on the top of the castle slots seemed to meld open from the polished surface while hundreds of rail-gun turrets larger than the turrets found on battleships immerged from the Castle. The wall behind Xander's command chair seemed to split along diagonal seams where they sunk into the floor, ceilings, and left and right walls. The walls moved, exposing four twenty foot long shelves that housed fish tanks with hundreds of brains floating in a red bubbling fluid. Wires connected to the brains disappeared into the walls, and as a humming sound came from the tanks, the brains began to seemingly twitch while on the roof above the guns swiveled and pointed towards the incursion into Romanian territory and returned fire.
'Gun system online and firing.' The voice of Bob issued solemnly through Xander's head, though Xander's attention was firmly focused on the path of the helicopter that was swooping closer to the border.
Xander's last hope that the border defenses would knock down the helicopter were ruined when the last lightning tower blew up before the helicopter reached the fifty meter range from the line of no return.
'Damnit!' Xander cursed in his head, 'I want the first brigade of Boyz on that border now! Send a company of DireWolf Mechs to support them! Hunt down those incoming forces and kill them.'
The AI system immediately responded to Xander, 'The seventh division of Dark Troopers will be onsite in one minute t-minus twenty seconds and counting, they are being transported to the launch off point as we speak.'
Xander saw the helicopter scoot right over the border undeterred, the turbine of the powerful special forces helicopter sending it speeding on a trajectory that Xander's HUD said was right over a gypsy encampment that was close to that part of the border.
"We don't have a fucking minute! Get them there now!" Xander cursed out loud as the helicopter on the screens turned into a hard bank right over the gypsy camp and seemed to expel black camo clad figures down fast repel ropes. Xander ignored the fact that the artillery rounds had started to impact the ridge, launching tanks and howitzer crews into the air from the impact of Xander's outgoing explosive rounds.
Xander shot out of his seat as an image on the screens in front of him struck him with horror; his little clanks secreted in the trees around the gypsy encampment and who had been spying on the border gave Xander a ringside seat to the massacre that was now happening.
Four of the mercenaries seemed to sky walk as they walked off the edge of the helicopter, allowing the fast repel ropes and their harnesses to drop them towards the ground twenty feet away and slowing them right before the impact with the ground before their knees cushioned the remaining blow. Then they turned as a group and opened fire of the startled Gypsy families while the sniper and the major gave covering fire from the helicopter doors. All of the ordinance they were firing exploded against the people and the mix of brightly painted trailers and RV, spreading blood and terror through the formerly peaceful Gypsy camp.
"Grab a healthy girl if you can boys, Luthor is only paying for a living one who contains whatever super cure the Leviathan is giving his people. He didn't say anything about us not having fun with her before we handed the slut over." The Major commanded into his throat mic, his teammates answering with an affirmative or chuckling along with him over the radio as they cut down the defenseless civilians.
Shooting and blowing the head off of a man who charged the mercenaries with a carving knife, the sniper laughed, "You always were a horny bugger after kill'n, weren't yah." The Sniper chuckled. The Major turned from firing from the door to briefly smirk back at the sniper before trying to see if he could carve an RV in half with the rounds from his minigun.
The big silent guy with the grenades launched a shell in the window of a red and yellow painted ornate trailer. The muffled thump of the explosion and flames flickering out the window were prefaced with a scream as a late twenty's something girl stumbled out the door, her bloodied grandmother clutched in her arms as they fled the burning trailer.
The flame thrower trooper stopped sweeping his flame over the roof of an RV camper to grab the girl away from her grandmother before punching the brunette in the face and throwing her over his shoulder while chuckling.
"Got just the right one Major." The guy gritted out over the radio, his cigar chomped out of the side of his mouth while he grinned at the fun he was having.
"No… not my Jenna! Don't take my Granddaughter!" The old woman screamed, blood flowing from her split lip and from her ears where the concussion of the grenade round had punctured her ear drums.
The thug mercenary just grunted and smirked before walking back towards the helicopter with the girl over his shoulder. Ignoring the old woman, as his objective had been completed.
Xander was stunned, absolutely stunned. No level of fighting the evils of demons had prepared his mind to comprehend the evil that man could create. He saw everything, heard everything that had happened in less than a minute to the gypsy camp.
Xander saw the death, saw the senseless destruction, and his communications systems intercepted the radio communications of the mercenaries. He knew who they were, what they were there for, who had sent him, but he was still stunned at the senseless bloodshed; here was an example of true evil.
"No, no this can't be happening." Xander whispered, wide eyed as he saw the old woman call out for them not to take the girl, watched as the soldier made it to his helicopter and threw her limp body into helicopter just as it touched down to load up the troops; right as red portals began to open up all around the campsite and the gap in the border and began to disgorge Xander's Dark Trooper Jägers.
The first few troopers were knocked back by the explosion of grenades, concentrated minigun rounds, or sniper rounds which ricocheted off of the Dark Trooper's helmets; all together it gave the helicopter enough time to escape.
"No! No I won't allow it!" Xander snarled, his eyes beginning to flash a bit yellowish green as the primal struggled to come to the forefront of his mind.
"AAGGGGGHHH!" Xander yelled at the ceiling before commanding.
"Stop them… no wait, I want Kasnia." Xander growled. "People are going to pay for this, and it's going to start with Kasnia."
Xander face was an angry mask as sat back in the command chair; in an instant he issued seemingly hundreds of commands to invade Kasnia which was pretty much summed up as:
"Send medical teams with nano-bags to the camp, prep the Lazarus Pits and warm up the Leviathan's arch, I want Kasnia's capital city on its knees and all its military forces destroyed in an hour. Activate all wings of Starscreams, I want five divisions of Mechs and seven million Dark Troopers dotting that country now! Saturate that mother fucking country and kill anything that resists but protect the civilians where possible. I want the leader of that attack dead along with all his men, and then bring him back to life so that I can deal with him when I return! And please make a call to Black Adam; politely ask if he wants to flex his muscles. I'm going to get back our girl." Xander commanded, before mentally calling for a portal to open up over him.
An instant later Xander was in the air over the castle and flying in a blur towards the border.
"Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" The Mercenary Major yelled at the pilot of the helicopter as the last of his men hopped onto the chopper. The Merc then depressed the firing stud on his gun to blast a dark armored soldier off his feet; only to see the figure stand up again a few seconds later.
More and more red portals were opening up to disgorge the dark armored beings; the ground around the helicopter was getting a little too populated for the comfort of the mercs, so the helicopter did a fast assent and evacuation of the scene to get the hell out of there.
Weapons fire seemed to explode out of the side doors of the helicopter as the six man team of mercs worked in a flurry of action in order to send rounds at the advancing figures. Time and again the mercenaries knocked the Dark troopers down only for them to get right back up again.
The grenadier emptied his six round magazine at the advancing troops before reloading. Screaming over the sound of the copter's blades and whining turbine engine, the man yelled out, "They're not human! Those mother fuckers just keep popping back up like those damn clown punch dolls! They must be some sort of machineeEEEAHHGGGH!" The merc's statement was cut off in a scream as one of the Dark Trooper's laser rounds hit the man right in the chest, killing him and leaving him hanging limp out of the helicopter, still attached to his door harness.
"Fuck me sideways, those soldiers might not be machines, but those sure as hell are!" The sniper said, eyes large and face pale as a large portal the size of a skyscraper opened up about half a mile away. The portal seemed to wink out immediately after the giant humanoid robot exited its opening, only for the portal to open up to the right of the first mech, and then to the left, disgorging a second and third mechanical monstrosity. The portal continued to wink on and off, until a 'V' formation of five giant mechs were seen tromping across the field headed right for the breach in the border; the same breach that the helicopter was currently passing through.
"Shit! Cut the dead weight loose!" The Major cursed before swinging around to yell at the pilot. "Hit the deck and get us the hell out of here, or those things will blast us out of the sky." The soldiers rushed to comply; cutting their former comrade out of his harness and pushing the corpse out the door. At the same time that the body was pushed out the door the helicopter dived towards the ground to skim the earth at about fifteen feet in the hopes that the terrain of the ridges and hills in the area would shield them from the weapons of the giant war machines.
It was a rocky flight, for in coming down to earth they entered the target zone of the incoming artillery rounds. Taking evasive actions, the pilot barely missed catching a shell on the tail rotor of the chopper, swinging the helicopter to the right and back to the left like a drunken sailor on shore leave in order to dodge the incoming shells.
As the helicopter reached the ridge where the tanks and howitzers had been the mercs were able to briefly see the ruined husks of burning steel and splattered bodies that had been the northern Kasnian separatists. Several of the former Kasnian forces could be seen running or dragging themselves into the forest that was about four hundred meters from the destroyed hill, but the helicopter quickly passed by and the merc's lost sight of the remains of their former 'allies.'
However, the helicopter didn't pass quickly enough that the soldiers for hire missed the tell tale red glow of more opening portals that opened up right at the opening of the forest. The helicopter continued over the forest, skimming the treetops as the glow of red lights could be seen in the forest below along with the occasional explosion or flash of flames that enveloped a tree.
"Incoming!" Screamed the pilot, and juked the helicopter to the left hard just as a wing of fighter jets buzzed them at two hundred feet. The wing of Starscream fighters screamed by on full afterburners and shrank into the distance but didn't circle back around to engage the helicopter.
The Major leaned forward and addressed the pilot at a yell, "What the hell is going on out there, nobody is firing at us anymore and those things should have dusted us no problem?"
"I don't know Sir." The Pilot answered back before looking at the co-pilot. The co-pilot looked over his radar system before yelling back over the sound of the rotors. "Whatever is going on, it sure is one hell of a shindig. I see blips popping up on the radar all over the place, and it looks like its raining MIGs at the Romanian border. Kasnia is getting flooded with forces." The co-pilot regurgitated what he was seeing on his radar and sensors.
"Holy fuck, I think I know why nobody is firing at us! We've got a super incoming fast on our tail, just breached the border. It must be The Leviathan!" The co-pilot screamed, eyes bugging out as he realized how deep they were in it.
The Major reached forward and 'Slapped' the Co-pilot in the face, breaking the man out of his stupor.
"Luthor expected something like that might happen, that's why we have that AHMEN missile. Fire it and start praying boys." The Major commanded, before leaning back into the troop compartment of the helicopter and pulled out his knife to start stripping the unconscious girl.
"I hope this works," the co-pilot said to the pilot as he depressed a button and a missile detached itself from the stubby wing like protrusion it had been mounted on. The missile ignited and rocketed off in front of the helicopter only to loop back and shoot back in the direction behind the fleeing mercenaries.
In the back of the helicopter the Major was busy stripping the kidnapped brunette of her clothes with his combat knife before breaking out ratchet ties and securing her arms behind her back.
"She's a pretty little thing boss, but what are you doing with her in the middle of an evac?" The guy with the flame thrower bit out around the cigar that was chomped in the side of his mouth.
The Major didn't even look up, "We just fired the AHMEN boys, and if that doesn't stop The Leviathan that is hot on our tails, I'm planning on a bit of a distraction to get us out of here. It's one thing to kill everything in your way during a mission; it's another to get killed for it." The Major answered loud enough that the still living mercs in the helo could hear him.
The girl began to awaken as she felt the cold wind blowing through the helicopter. Behind the helicopter, The Leviathan was fast approaching.
The AHMEN missile, or 'Anti Homo-Metagenus Elimination and Neutralization' missile was a product developed in secret by LexCorp for the Cadmus project; a secret U.S. government program to combat meta human threats such as Superman and the Justice League. The design details stated that the weapon was a tool for 'neutralizing near invulnerable superhuman enemies of the United States.' Lex had sold the idea to Dr. Amanda Waller, the head of the Cadmus Project, that the weapon could be used to negate any rogue superhuman threat to the United States. The reality was that it was another attempt by Lex Luthor to kill Superman.
The missile launched out of the bottom of the helicopter and deployed forward as its motor ignited. A second later its radar system matched the incoming signal of a high speed human shape as that of a possible metahuman threat, and it used a series of thrust vectoring baffles to do practically a 180 degree turn and home in on the incoming target. With that, the missile quickly accelerated to over three times the speed of sound, straight for The Leviathan.
Xander wasn't just pissed off, he was beyond angry and in that state of cold simmering hate that he held for only enemies on a par with the vampire Darla who had forced Xander to eventually stake his 'brother' Jesse.
Appearing above the Castle, Xander had accelerated fast enough to leave a brief after image and a vapor ring as he almost immediately broke the sound barrier in the cold wintery air. Going all out, he was at the border in twenty seconds and getting there at the same time that another barrage of shells hit the ridge on the Kasnian side.
Xander spared a glance down at the carnage that was scattered around the burning Gypsy camp and noted that it was swarming with medical personnel and rescue forces just as he had commanded before he left the Castle. However, rather than being thankful that his medical people were treating the wounded and deceased, Xander felt a cold anger seep deeper into his soul as he promised that not only would he make the attackers pay in blood, he would see that his people were healed or brought back to life; even if he had to storm the very gates of hell to get their souls back.
It was an instant, and then Xander was over the border and jetting in the last direction he had seen the helicopter disappear.
"Sir, Starscream unit twelve just reported seeing the helicopter north east of your current position." The voice of JARVIS the AI in Xander's helmet informed Xander in a proper British voice.
Xander didn't even answer, rather he tilted to the right as he dropped out of his higher altitude and dove to a north east angle of attack before skirting the trees. Around him on the forest floor pine trees disintegrated in sprays of splinters and blasts of fire as the Dark Troopers chased the former attacking Kasnian force through the woods.
Xander looked up from the forest, hoping to see the helicopter, only to get a quick warning as his heads up display started to flashing red warning lights at him that a missile had locked on to him.
Things seemed to slow down as Xander's eyes got larger, his helmet showed him a large two foot diameter missile coming straight at his face.
"SHIELDS!" Xander yelled, right as a stunning explosion of fire, light and a thousand kryptonite ball bearings hit Xander straight on.
"Ah Hah! Got him! Boogey is off the screens, the missile got him." The co-pilot yelled in joy before smirking at the pilot and turning around to tell the squad of mercenaries the good news.
"We got him boys, the missile knocked that bastard out of the air," The co-pilot said with a smile, informing the now smiling mercenaries who were just now starting to think about their upcoming payday. "It should be smooth sailing from here to the other Kasnian border Whoah!" The co-pilot started off bragging back to the soldiers only to get thrown sideways in his seat as the pilot took evasive maneuvers. The co-pilot looked at the mercenaries, and realized that all of the mercenaries were focused on something behind the co-pilot.
Turning around The co-pilot saw the Leviathan was clinging to the windshield.
Quick drawing a sidearm, the co-pilot unloaded into the glass and the Leviathan on the other side of the cockpit glass, only to be stopped as a fist punched through the glass. The Leviathan's black gloved hand crushed the pistol and the hand of the co-pilot.
"Give…Me…The…Girl." Xander growled, his speakers clearly broadcasting his angry voice into the cockpit loud enough to drown out the screaming of the co-pilot whose hand he was currently crushing.
There was a moment of silence, until in classic villain manner, the Major answered.
"You want her?" The Major yelled as an evil look came over his face, he pulled up the girl by her hair, held her in front of his chest, and then buried his combat knife right between the girl's naked breasts before throwing her out the door of the Helicopter. "Then go get her!"
"AGGGHHHH!" Xander screamed in rage and released the co-pilot while diving away from the now fleeing helicopter.
Xander pushed his speed to the max, but the helicopter was already only a short distance of only fifty feet off the ground when that bastard had thrown her out the door of the helicopter, and the girl was plummeting quickly towards the forested earth below.
"Faster!" Xander demanded of his body, and still the girl fell.
Twenty feet, then fifteen feet above the ground the girl fell, followed quickly by ten, her pleading eyes large and mouth open in a silent scream up at Xander, the scream not coming out as anything other than a bloody gurgle.
Xander plowed into the girl and twisted his body around to cover her at the five foot mark, only to go skipping across the ground and feel the impact of trees breaking against his back as he skipped across the ground from the force of his speedy descent.
The sounds of Thud, 'ooooof' of Xander's body was prefaced by the snapping of branches and finally a loud 'Pop' as he hit a thick pine tree and stopped.
Wincing, Xander quickly removed his arms from where he had shielded the girl, only to look into the bloody face that was a mirror of Jenny Calendar's, aka Jenna Kalderish.
"No… No it can't be. Oh God in heaven help me." Xander mumbled as he saw the eyes of his computer teacher and often times daydreams look up with him with such pain and fear that it was heart breaking.
"No no no, this can't be happening. God help me." Xander repeated, not sure if he was mumbling or really praying for some divine intervention, just as Jenna coughed and a gurgling upchuck of blood came out of her lips.
Xander's eyes got big, "No, I'll save you, you can't die on me, not now!" He shouted, tears threatening to come to his eyes as he quickly reached behind the girl and popped her bindings while at the same time reaching for the dagger that was still embedded through Jenny's sternum.
Quickly, Xander pulled the nasty serrated knife out of her chest and immediately replaced it with pressure from his other hand; at the same time he willed his nano-clanks to heal her. With everything Xander had he wished his nano-clanks to heal Jenny.
Jenny's eyes got big at the pain of the removed knife, and her now freed hands shot up to grab at Xander's arms as a tremor of agony shook her lithe body.
"Come on damn-it, you're going to make it. Heal! Come on… Please God help me." Xander cried, tears trickling down his face as he watched the face of a friend start to fade before him.
No supreme being or god answered Xander's plea for help. Instead, the sound of Jenna's gasp came out ragged as she sucked in a deep gurgling breath and looked up at Xander, her head in his lap.
Jenna Kalderish of the DC Comic book universe looked up at the black face of the helmet before her as she struggled to breath. She felt so tired, so weak, and as her vision began to blur and go grey, she reached up and laid her hand on the face of the man's helmet and simply said, "Please…"
With that, Jenny fell silent in Xander's arms, her hand went limp and fell off of his face to land to the side, and all Xander could do was stare down into the unseeing eyes of the face of his friend.
Xander wept.
"No, it can't be… No, please, not another one, Not another death, no, just no." Xander started, mumbling through the tears, but then something clicked, a voice in the back of his head stated.
'Don't get sad… Get Even.' It growled.
With the voice, Xander's sadness turned to anger. His anger turned to rage, and finally, his rage turned to Fury. And as the world turned red in his vision, Xander embraced his inner Primal Spirit. For the first time in Xander's life, he was in complete agreement with his inner voices, and his voices were all screaming for Blood.
Xander disappeared in a flash of teleporter light along with the body, but whereas the body was sent back to the medical center in the castle, the Xander who had fully embraced the power of the Primal appeared half a mile straight in front of the path of the fleeing helicopter.
Xander's senses were super tuned to the smallest sound, the smallest sensation as the symbiosis of Xander working in tandem with the Primal and the Heterodyne persona gave him the synaptic responses and super human senses to be able to see every detail inside the helicopter that was coming straight at him.
Xander could see the pilot lean back with the co-pilot to joke with the soldiers in the back of the helicopter, hell, Xander could even hear them joking over the sound of the helicopters blades and the wind that issued around him.
Xander's eyes flashed, but instead of flashing green, they flashed to black as the full ramifications of Xander's anger, powers, primal spirit and technology merged together in one goal.
"Jarvis, full power to the weapons, suck it out of the air if you have to, but give me everything you've got." Xander commanded menacingly.
Xander flexed out so that his body created the most surface space, and as he flung his arms and legs out, he became the equivalent of almost a black hole in the sky. Xander's shield flashed, and then the absorption qualities of the shield technology kicked into high gear as they absorbed the heat in the air, the energy of the barometric pressure, the forces of gravity that were pulling down on his body, and even the light that was around him. The powers of the Major Spark within Xander twisted the laws of science and nature and the world seemed to scream in agony as Xander became a vacuum in the sky; sucking in all forms of possible energy around him, even converting the mass of molecules in the air outside his shield into energy.
For five seconds Xander sucked energy into his shields, pulling it in so fast that the dark spot in the air drew the attention of the pilot of the helicopter.
"What the hell?" The pilot asked questioningly.
Xander heard the voice of the pilot travel the distance to him along with the air that he was absorbing into his shield.
In response, Xander folded in on himself, as if he was going into a floating fetal position. He held it for one second, before exploding into a standing position, hands pointed right at the helicopter that had halved the distance to him in those brief moments of absorption.
"DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Xander screamed in absolute rage, and out of Xander's hands came The Leviathan's vengeance; a beam of light equivalent to the power of a solar flare and as blinding as being at ground zero in a nuclear explosion.
There was no time to realize what was happening, no time for even pain. One minute the helicopter was there with those smirking laughing bastards who had slaughtered his people, the next it wasn't. Xander's energy blast enveloped the helicopter and continued on to punch its way out of the atmosphere as it roiled the clouds around it and then disappeared out into space.
Still, it wasn't enough, the revenge didn't feel complete. So Xander turned his attention to the Kasnian military forces and went looking to get his hands dirty.
The country of Kasnia didn't exist in the dimension that Xander had originally come from. In Xander's dimension Serbia and its 'Autonomous Province of Vojvodina' held the position where Kasnia stood on the Romanian border. The differences between the two dimensions didn't end there, for in the DC comic book universe, the country of Kasnia had been fighting a bloody civil war on and off for over a decade and would continue to do so for hundreds of years if the regular timeline of things had come to pass. In the DC comic book universe Kasnia was basically abandoned by the world's governments and even by the super heroes; left to wallow in unending war so long as no super powered weapons or beings got involved.
In the original DC comic book universe the Justice League only intervened in the Kasnian conflict when a villain used Kasnia as a launching ground for some monstrosity or bid to take over the world. The heroes would then swoop onto the scene, stop the villain, and then leave the people of the country to go back to killing their neighbors. Such was the heresy of the main heroes of the DC comic book universe, but that is another reason why Xander didn't call himself a hero.
Business was going about as normal on that cold February morning in the Kasnian capital city of Novi Sad. Cars were moving through the streets, stopping at the red lights or at the military checkpoints that dotted the city. Citizens were going about their business, the government was functioning as normal under the rule of the military, and all of them were unaware that forces in the north of their country had just declared War on Romania.
They soon got the hint as giant box shaped red portals opened up over the city, and started disgorging giant machines of war, bristling with guns and weapons galore. Where the portals opened up over a civilian building such as the hospitals, they remained hovering in the air to provide artillery support. However when the portal opened up over military buildings such as the Petrovaradin Fortress or a military building, they plummeted to the ground to crush the building beneath their immense weight.
At the same time, the architectural wonder that was the Leviathan's Arch in the middle of Bucharest lit up, showing the world that it was actually a gigantic transporter array capable of transporting line of Mechs and thousands of soldiers every second. As the arch warmed up and the giant portal came to life, the forces of The Leviathan stepped off of the Bucharest main thoroughfare and into a large park in the center of Novi Sad. The portal would disgorge about two thousand troops and a set of battle mechs before the exit point would flash to another large open park of field in the city, again depositing thousands of Xander's forces in his enemy's capital.Католичко гробље
The city was stunned and left reeling for five minute. Five minutes where the alarms did not sound, where the alert was not issued, and where none of the military or police forces of Kasnia reacted. Xander's forces used those five minutes to transport in, and wreak havoc.
This was the epitome of Blitzkrieg warfare, lighting war unlike any seen in the annals of history as Xander's forces were behind the gates, guards, and fortifications instantly upon hitting the ground. The Mech that landed at the Most-Slobode bridge that spanned the Danube river, pivoted at the waist, lowered its arm gun towards the gob smacked guards manning a checkpoint at the bridge, and fired a single gauss round that was accelerated by its electromagnets to incredible speeds. The impact obliterated the guards, the guard shack, and even the road so that there was only a twenty foot diameter crater left. It then turned and did the same thing to the guard post on the other side of the river, effectively cutting the city in half at the Danube and denying the Kasnian army the use of one of their major bridges. The Mech then took to the air with jump jets to clear the river and head for one of the military bases that surrounded the capital city.
Other Mechs landed around or in the middle of Army facilities, disintegrating rows of armored tanks, anti-aircraft guns, SCUD launchers, fuel trucks and barracks before anybody could react. All of this was accomplished while dark troopers transported into the command buildings to seize or kill all officers and resistance. Throughout the country the Mechs were supported and supporting the effort of Dark Troopers as The Leviathan swept all resistance before him.
Meanwhile, the Starscream units poured over the border in formations that darkened the sky and began to blow what little military aircraft they could find out of the air before turning to target air bases where they erased Kasnia's Air Force from existence. Absolute air superiority was the name of the game, and no truck, jeep, or military vehicle was able to maneuver the fields or roads of Kasnia without coming under fire from Xander's aircraft.
All of this was just describing what Xander's military was doing. All of which was almost nothing compared to what Xander himself was doing to the major military bases in the north of Kasnia.
Xander allowed the blood lust to take over as he quickly returned to the border and used the superior sensors built into this helmet and nano-clank suit to track down the remaining Kasnian survivors of the border attack.
Catching one, Xander dug his freshly formed nano-clank claws into the skull of the screaming man as Xander commanded his nano-clanks to suck all of the information out of the man's head. With that information, Xander then went on a systematic cleaning of every operating cell of Kasnian separatists that he could find. He found them in their homes, in offices, in military bases and hidden in the forests and caves of the country. And when Xander found them, he used his claws to drill into their brains and steal their secrets, leaving behind a corpse as he went on to track down the next level of fighters.
Xander left a bloody swath as his wrath drove him to find and eliminate all possible threats to his country, climbing the chain of Kasnia's revolutionary movement one body at a time. Finally, he found the final piece he was looking for and jetted into the air.
Spinning in a barrel roll with both arms pointed in front of him, beams of shearing energy coming out of his hands, Xander looked like a corkscrew helix of death as he dived out of the air and drilled deep into the hardened bunker that housed the Headquarters of the Northern Kasnia Separatist Movement.
Hitting the ground inside the large command center buried in the earth, Xander activated the emergency 'bleed off' of his shield, and all remaining energy that he had absorbed exploded out from him in a wave of white hot concussion. The explosive boom that Xander's shield had emitted upon energy release deafened the survivors left in the bunker; not that they would hear anything as Xander was a silent blur of nano-clank formed claws and spines that ripped and shredded their way through what few humans had been left.
Xander gave no bellows of rage, no gnashing of teeth, nor crying of pain at the loss of his people. No, Xander was a silent killer. Just as a predator on the Serengeti would silently track down and kill any threat to it or its pack, so Xander destroyed the Kasnian military forces that presented a threat to his people.
Tearing the spine out of one man while simultaneously spinning a clawed hand to behead another, Xander and his still pristine black suit absorbed the rounds from a startled survivor before Xander bisected the man with his claws.
Xander paused to make sure that he had killed all of the people in the bunker. Heaving a few deep breaths while looking around the interior of the bunker, Xander queried his Jarvis system.
"How are we doing Jarvis." Xander asked, his wholly black eyes examining the details of the invasion as well as the sensor of the situation around him on his heads up display.
"This base has been neutralized, Sir. Castle Bob is coordinating the offensive and asked me to inform you that we have sustained minor casualties due to the modern weaponry of the royal guards and those surrounding the leading generals." Jarvis explained. "However Sir, all units report ready status and my algorithms suggest that we should have the country fully under your control within the next thirty minutes." Jarvis finished.
Xander stood straight, coming out of the crouched defensive position he didn't realize he had been standing in. He took a deep breath, and then released it in a hiss while giving his back a shiver to try and release the stress he had been holding in.
"How are the casualties? Have we lost any to permanent kill?" Xander asked, not wanting to really hear the answer but understanding that since they were his people, he was responsible for them and their deaths. Such was the cost of leadership.
"Sadly sir, yes. Twelve of the gypsies killed in the initial attack were beyond help even by your level of technological prowess." Jarvis announced before continuing, " This is where my protocols make me asks you to remember Hal Jordan and his ultimately futile hope to save everyone, even to bring everyone back from the dead. I am now running an internal diagnostic of your mental capacity… noting some increased remnants of adrenaline and other endorphins in your system, a small amount of possible addiction to said hormones… calibrating, repairing." Jarvis continued as a preset control algorithm, which Xander had installed in his helmet's AI system, took over the auto-doc system in Xander's nano-clanks.
Xander felt the stress and tension in his system relax, and his eyes seemed to tingle while the urge to kill seemed to drain away from him and no longer scream at him in the back of his mind.
"Repair complete, you should be back to normal Sir. How do you feel?" Jarvis questioned.
Xander shivered his spine, cracked his neck from side to side, and then smiled resolutely. "As well as can be expected given the situation. Thank you Jarvis." Xander responded, his eyes now back to their normal color while the primal spirit receded back into the depths of Xander's mind.
"Ok, let's get out of here." Xander said as he fixed his tie before floating out of the hole in the ceiling of the bunker.
"Have the units report into me when Ahhhh!" Xander began to order as he cleared the lip of the bunkers roof, only to be blasted sideways by a giant green fist.
Xander slammed into the ground and was held down on his back by the green fist that turned into a hand, a hand that extend on a green beam of energy to a green lantern shaped ring on a floating man's finger.
"Your Tyranny ends here Leviathan, We're taking you down." John Stewart said as he willed his ring to hold The Leviathan down to the ground.
Xander looked up and stared at Green Lantern as well as Hawkgirl who was flying next to the hovering man in green.
"Your killing ends here." Hawkgirl added while fingering her mace with a look on her face like she was looking forward to possibly using it.
Growling, Xander spat out at the heroes, "You Justice League heroes are such hypocrites! Where the fuck were you when these Kasnian were slaughtering the innocent civilians of my country!"
"We're not here for them, we're here to stop you from killing anymore." John Stewart answered blankly while willing his ring to pull The Leviathan off of the ground and bind him floating in the air.
Xander stared at the heroes, and in his mind the battle between fitting the definition of a hero warred with what he knew he had to do, what he felt was right.
"I will not… I will not allow my people to be killed, and I will do whatever it takes to protect those who have put their trust in me. Release me and leave, I don't want to fight you." Xander growled, coming to a decision that he didn't like but knew he had to make.
John Stewart frowned. "It's over Leviathan, you are defeated." The Green Lantern answered while willing his energy beam to encase Xander's form in giant bindings of energy constructed chains that wrapped Xander's body from his feet to his head.
"Fine!" Xander spat, "If that is your decision, then know that I have not even begun to fight." He sneered before commanding Jarvis mentally, 'Shields on Jarvis, yellow energy spectrum NOW!'
A slight hum issued across the distance between Xander and the heroes who had 'captured' him, and a slight shimmering shield popped up around Xander's body before flipping through hues of the rainbow to end up shining in the color yellow; the one weakness that almost all Green Lantern rings had.
"Arrrgghh!" Xander grunted as he threw his arms and legs apart while flexing his muscles.
The Leviathan's green energy bonds shattered like so many pieces of glass in reaction to the yellow shield and Xander's super strength.
John Stewart had a moment to realize he may be in trouble before the Leviathan was on him and John was suddenly having the air knocked out of his lungs by a fist to the gut before an uppercut connected with his jaw and he was blasted backwards in a flurry of body blows and headshots that came at him with the speed of The Flash and the force of Superman's fists.
Xander smirked as he beat the shit out of the Green Lantern. Xander wasn't going to kill the heroes, but he was going to make sure that they remembered this fight and thought twice about trying to get all high and mighty on him again in the future.
"Right, Left, Right, Left, A, B, A, B, Select Start! And you're out of here!" Xander chanted with right and left hooks followed by head and body blows before finishing with a knee to the nuts and then the uppercut that sent the Green Lantern flying upwards; right into an open yellow transporter opening that disappeared the Green Lantern to be deposited on the ice of the North Pole.
Xander didn't have a chance to stop though, as from behind him he heard a growl of fury.
"ARRGGGHHHH!" Hawkgirl yelled while diving at Xander and swinging her mace at his head with all her strength.
Xander ducked and spun under the darting Hawkgirl before coming up the other side. Xander smirked at Hawkgirl as she missed and spun around in the air to come back at him.
Xander jokingly asked, "Has anybody ever told you not to telegraph your moves? That whole Arrrrgh thing, yeah, that's a giveaway that you are attacking." Xander said; which only made Hawkgirl angrier.
Hawkgirl charged back at The Leviathan, her mace sparking with energy as she tried to take his head off, only to have the Leviathan blur to the left, and then to the right as she swung and missed with the first two swings and the follow up where she tried to connect with the head of her mace in the hope she could stun the black suited figure.
"And thrust, thrust, parry, parry… Good! You're learning." Xander smirked as he dodged from side to side while taunting Hawkgirl before floating out of range and just floating there for a second across from Hawkgirl.
Quirking his head to the side, Xander quipped, "You know, I think I liked your look better in your video." Xander said, his smirk turning into a full smile as he saw Hawkgirl lose what little hold she had on her temper and charge The Leviathan at full speed.
"Ah ah ah, temper temper. You look like you need to cool down." Xander quickly snarked before opening a portal in between Hawkgirl and him.
However rather than Hawkgirl disappearing into the portal, this was the exit end of the portal, the other end was deep in the water under the ice of the North Pole.
Hawkgirl's charge was intercepted by a wall of 28 degree Fahrenheit salt water blasting out of the portal and hitting her right in the face before carrying her crashing to the ground.
"Woot! Wet t-shirt contest and you win!" Xander quipped in humor before realizing that he may have really hurt Hawkgirl.
Hawkgirl was lying on the ground shivering uncontrollably as the brief contact with the literally freezing salt water had caused her to go into the first stages of hypothermia.
"Shit!" Xander said as he lost his mile. Xander quickly waved a hand at Hawkgirl and opened a portal that would transport her right to the medical suites on the watch tower.
Xander's arm was suddenly snapped back to his side as he saw a green alien like tentacle phase into visibility and suddenly wrap his body in tightly squeezing limbs.
"I cannot allow you to continue harming my friends." The voice of Jonn Jonn'z the Martian Manhunter issued from behind Xander while using the Martian ability to shape shift in order to subdue The Leviathan.
Xander didn't struggle; instead he tried to reason with the Martian. "Jonn, you of all people should understand the urge to protect your family, what with yours being killed by an invading force. I don't want to fight you, any of you, but you're not giving me a choice. Please let me go and leave." Xander politely pleaded.
There was silence for a second, before the Martian's voice answered him, "I am sorry Leviathan, but I have sworn to follow the rules of the Justice League and to carry out them out to the best of my capabilities." Jonn answered solemnly in his monotone voice that he always used. At the same time his tentacles took a firmer grasp on The Leviathan's body to keep the being from escaping.
"I'm sorry to hear that Jonn, please know that I hold all of the Justice League in the highest regard and don't really want to fight you. With that said, I'm sorry but, Jarvis, initiate firewall." Xander quoted.
Xander's shield instantly quit and the nano-clanks that made up Xander's suit emitted a blast of flammable mist before igniting it with a magnesium spark.
The 'FWOOSH' sound of the firewall system igniting almost drowned out the sound of the Martian Manhunter's scream of pain as his greatest weakness, fire, flared in his arms and badly burnt his limbs, body and face.
Xander quickly commanded the firewall system to shut down as the Martian Manhunter's limbs returned to his normal humanoid shape and the alien began to fall out of the sky.
Xander quickly darted down and caught the Manhunter before he could hit the ground. Carefully cradling the body of the Manhunter in his arms, Xander cringed. "I'm really sorry Jonn, I never wanted any of this to happen." Xander said to the unconscious green skinned alien in his arms before calling a portal that would take Jonn back to the Watchtower's medical center.
"Damn, I really didn't want to do that." Xander said under his breath, one second before a blue and red blur hit him hard enough in the face to send Xander flipping head over heels and plowing into the earth.
Xander lay stunned for a moment in the middle of a crater in the dirt. Xander's eyes crossed and uncrossed as his healing ability and nano-clanks quickly fixed his vision and the concussion that he had been given. When his vision cleared Xander saw that his HUD was flashing and seemed to be jittering though images due to the damage from the blow; a visible crack running diagonally from the upper left of Xander's helmet to about where his right cheek would have been.
"Damn, did somebody get the license plate of that locomotive?" Xander mumbled as he focused up out of the crater, watching as the nano-clanks in his helmet and armor system quickly fixed the crack and damaged systems in his helmet.
Xander saw Superman hover down into his line of vision.
Superman's arms were crossed over the 'S' shield on his chest and his cape fluttering dramatically in the breeze.
Xander frowned before replying, "Damn Smallville, I never expected a Boy Scout like you to take a cheap shot."
Superman was shocked at how The Leviathan addressed him, referring to him as Smallville and a Boy Scout which were terms only his friends knew or called him by. But the Man of Steel was even more shocked as the figure of The Leviathan seemed to disappear in a flash of light, only to feel a tap on his shoulder.
Turning around, Clark Kent, aka Superman, aka Kal El, met the black gloved fist of The Leviathan right in the face.
The 'KABOOM" of the sonic boom that resulted from Superman getting blasted into the ground rocked the air above the former Kasnian bunker as Superman was planted into the ground where The Leviathan had just been; adding a good couple of feet to the depth of the original crater.
"Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow!" Xander said as he cushioned his broken hand and shook it to get the sting out of it as the nano-clanks and healing factor kicked in to heal the bones and tissue he had injured when punching Superman. "Damn Clark, you really are invulnerable. Well consider us even on the cheap shots." Xander finished, shaking out the last little bit of sting as his hand finished healing.
Superman shook his head for a second to clear it of the power of the blow before looking up at the Leviathan with a frown. Pushing his feet underneath himself, Superman exploded out of the ground right at the Leviathan, fists first.
Xander had been focused on Clark and figured that Superman wouldn't give up that easily, so he was ready for the second round.
As Superman launched off the ground at Xander, the world seemed to slow down, and Xander commanded his nano-clanks to bring up the shields, but not only the shields, Xander commanded that the kryptonite that his nano-clanks had absorbed back in Yuri's lab be unleashed on the surface of his suit.
To Kal El, the black suit of The Leviathan flickered for a second, and right before he impacted the chest of the The Leviathan he saw that the suit was no longer black, but green. Superman felt the familiar sick sapping feeling of his strength leaving him right as he felt like he impacted into a solid steel wall that was The Leviathan's body.
Superman rebounded off of Xander's body and fluttered to the ground where the hero finally got control of his flight ability before he could plow into the earth. Quickly jetting back into the sky Superman stood floating out of the range of The Leviathan's now glowing green suit. The Leviathan spoke before Superman could say anything.
"You know something Clark, do you mind if I call you Clark? I can call you Kal El if you prefer?" Xander started, not really waiting for an answer while he continued to float there talking to the Man of steel.
Xander gestured with his hands as he spoke and floated back and forth in the air as if he was pacing as he spoke. "I always looked up to you heroes, to the Justice League and to you in particular. But you know what I hate about you heroes?" Xander said before continuing quickly.
"Hypothetical question, as I was saying, the thing I hate about you heroes is that all you care about is defeating the so called villains at all costs, but don't honestly care about the normal Humans." Xander continued.
Across from Xander, Superman glared before answering, "That is not true, the whole reason we go after the villains is to protect those who can't protect themselves. I, we the Justice League members, fight people like you who kill those who can't stop you by themselves." Superman finished, pointing to several uniformed bodies that lay strewn around the opening to the former bunker that was nearby.
"Them? HA ha ha ha." Xander questioned wide eyed before chuckling darkly, "What the hell do you think I was doing?" Xander continued.
Xander stopped and turned to look at Superman, "Why weren't you there to protect the camp of civilians in Romania who couldn't protect themselves? Where were you when these scum came across the border into my country and slaughtered a helpless band of Gypsies without warning? You're here to stop me? Hell, I'm here to protect those who can't protect themselves, the people of my country who were slaughtered when these Kasnians sent troops, tanks ,and artillery against innocent civilians." Xander spat back, the same arguments that he had debated with Jesse so long ago now being spat into the very face of the hero they had argued about.
Superman was stunned before waving his arm at the corpses, "But they were normal, they were human beings. Who are you to interfere in their lives and snuff them out?" Clark argued back heatedly, still not able to get at the Leviathan due to the radiation cloud of Kryptonite that surrounded the now green suit.
"Fuck them!" Xander stated, spittle flying against the front of his heads up display as his speakers relayed his statement to Superman. "You think evil is restricted to villains or people with super powers?" Xander spat before pointedly throwing his hands up in disgust.
"God Kal, use that Kryptonian intelligence and look around you! Those bodies, those people you want to stop me from exterminating are the very forces that didn't have powers, they decided to kill, they decided to go kidnap a young girl and bury a knife in her chest and then throw her from a helicopter only to distract me. These scum didn't just blink and energy beams happened to pop out of their eyes to kill somebody by accident. These fuckers didn't just accidentally hurt somebody while trying to stop a super villain or in protecting their land from invasion. They came to my house, my people, my country and killed and burned for no reason other than they could and that they wanted what we had. These are the faces of true evil!" Xander yelled, pointing around at the dead before finishing pointing accusingly at Superman.
"And you know what, you know why I hate you heroes? You could have stopped this. These deaths, the deaths of my people, the families of women and children who died in Romania today and the deaths of all the innocents that have died in the Kasnian civil war over the years. Those deaths are yours, because you were so blind to the lives and turmoil of some no worth country in the middle of Europe."
" These deaths and the deaths of all the normal people who die in wars you refuse to get involved in; those deaths are yours because you could have stopped them." Xander spat, all of his rage at himself and anger at having to fight the Justice League in order to protect his people coming out in hurtful words that struck Superman in the heart.
Clark Kent paled at the accusations being flung at him. Though he didn't agree with everything The Leviathan was stating, the bits of truth that were in the arguments struck Superman to the quick.
Bringing his grimace under control, Superman answered back, "But where is the line then? They have to live their own lives! I don't want to control everything they do and control them all every minute of their lives. Just because we have the power to do so doesn't give us the right to rule them." Superman argued.
Xander quirked his head at Superman before quietly answering, "True, but what about the people who cry out for help? My people love me, they cheer me on and in return I protect them and lead them to a life they never expected to have. I have no violent crime in my country, no terminal illnesses, no pollution or hunger, poverty or want. At least I didn't until today, when my people were attacked and killed." Xander's voice grew in volume as he spoke, the speakers on his Leviathan helmet increasing the volume as his spark added to his voice and his argumentative skills took on a different timber.
"And so, as I promised the world governments, I am responding exactly as I said I would. You are too late Superman, Kasnia will be mine and I will end the civil war here. Kasnia will be part of my empire and I will lead them into a brighter better future than the war torn blight that you allowed it to be for centuries. You cannot stop my progress." The Leviathan finished; Xander's eyes wide with a bit of a manacle grin but hidden from view under his helmet.
Superman was stunned. He felt something inside himself wanting to agree with The Leviathan, something that made him want to follow the Leviathan's lead. Shaking his head to clear his mind as The Leviathan stopped speaking; Superman realized something about The Leviathan had been trying to make him agree with the tyrant.
Grimacing, Superman's eyes lit red as he called up his heat rays. "I'll stop you. I don't have to get close to you to blast you out of the sky." Clark threatened.
Xander held out his hand quickly and said, "Wait!" The power of the spark in Xander's voice.
Clark was stunned when he found his body instantly pause, though the power didn't leave his eyes.
"Wait? Why?" Superman questioned.
Xander smiled under his helmet when he answered, "Because I really didn't want to fight you, and all I had to do was stall you for one second more."
"What?" Superman asked, right before a blast of magical lightning nailed Superman right in the back and drilled the Man of Steel into the ground.
As Clark shakily picked himself up onto his hands and knees from the dirt he had been plowed into, he heard a voice state in Egyptian accented English.
"I see that you have already started the fun without me. More's the Pity. Should I kill the Superman?" Black Adam questioned as he came to hover next to The Leviathan; magical lightning that matched the color of the lightning bolt on the center of his outfit flashing around Black Adam's fists.
"No." Xander shook his head as he answered in the negative. "If you would do me the favor of knocking him out and dropping him somewhere uncomfortable, I would appreciate it. I'd like to leave him with the memory of messing with us, perhaps he won't just blindly attack next time we are trying to protect the lives of our countrymen." Xander stated while gazing down at Superman who was struggling to rise himself to his feet.
Black Adam smirked, "It would be my pleasure." The Kahndaqi ruler stated before putting his hands together and launching a stream of magical lightning that blasted Superman back to the ground where the lightning knocked the Man of Steel unconscious.
Flying down and easily picking up Superman by his cape, Black Adam flew up next to Xander and laughed as he said, "You throw some nice parties Leviathan. I appreciate the invite. I wonder how Superman's public image will suffer when they find him naked in an Amsterdam whore house?" Black Adam said with a bit of a smirk quirking up his lips.
Xander looked blankly at Black Adam for a moment, and then words that Adam said caused a laugh to escape Xander's lips. "Ha! I never guessed you for a prankster Adam, but I knew I liked you. By all means I give you leave to carry out your prank good sir." Xander finished, chuckling and shaking his head at the image of Superman waking up in a pile of naked prostitutes, or perhaps on display in one of the infamous Red Light district's windows.
Black Adam said "fair well" and shot off in the direction of Amsterdam.
Xander was left behind with nothing but the sound of the breeze blowing and the buzz of flies that were beginning to gather around the corpses of the dead.
Looking around, Xander was silent for a few moments before querying Jarvis. "Is the country complete ours yet Jarvis?" Xander asked.
"Yes Sir, reports are coming in that the last pockets of resistance are just laying down their arms, what are your orders for any captured soldiers or police forces that surrender without resistance?" The voice of Jarvis the AI responded.
Xander sighed, thoughts and plans zipping through his brain as the voices in his head once again discussed the proper way to proceed. As he looked out over the green countryside, floating but not moving in the breeze, Xander decided on the path forward.
"Disarm all forces in the country. Leave them basic kitchen knives and any tools they need to go about business, but make sure that all weapons of war are seized and all armament plants are shut down. All captured individuals are to have their memories scanned to determine whether they have taken part in any atrocities. If they are innocent, then send them home. If they are guilty, well you know how we deal with criminals in my Empire." Xander commanded.
"Order all forces on alert and have my troopers police the newly conquered territory. Extend our existing border defenses to ring Kasnia and include it under our sphere of control. Send in the little clank brigades to monitor the populace and track down all criminals in the country, and I want a scan done of every detainee and prisoner in the country to determine guilt or innocence. Forward any questionable cases to Igor for me to deal with later." Xander continued to command before floating up into the air to give himself a better view over the surrounding lands.
"Lastly, I want miniature clanks in space." Xander said, a portal opening up before him.
"Clanks in space sir?" Jarvis questioned as Xander floated towards the portal.
"Yes Jarvis. I want miniature clanks in orbit around the planet watching and listening to everything that goes on below. I WON'T get caught blindsided again like we were today. If somebody is going to attack us, I want to see it long before they can get into a position to attack us." Xander continued, "And prepare the clanks to hijack all radio and television signals, I'll address the world in an hour." He completed.
With that, The Leviathan disappeared into his portal, leaving the dead rebels to stew in the Kasnian sun.
AN: Whew, parts of that chapter were hard to write, but I hope you enjoyed it. I was amazed that you were able to write so many reviews last time, more than double what I had been getting on other recent chapters. This chapter is an example of what I will put out if this is going to be an epic. If you like, then please it let me know. If you think they should be shorter chapters, let me know. Cheers.