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.
AN: Ok, special thanks goes to Hasty who bit the bullet and offered his services as Betareader for this story. Thanks also go to those of you who dropped me ideas, reviews and recommendations, several of which were very inspiring for new ideas or had me thinking more deeply about several character relationships and background plots. So, we've had war and combat, we then had drama and politics, and now we finally get back to crazy insane stunts and all out Sparky madness. Let the games begin! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha…
'Thought'
"Speech"
/foreign language/
Chapter 38: Of Pranks and Payback
One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said. "Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late. ~Jack Handey
Monday morning dawned bright and early for the Man of Steel. Much like the rest of the world, Superman' woke up to the sound of his radio alarm broadcasting the news followed by one of those annoying radio talk shows that can't help but wake you up due to shear irritation. This was followed by a quick shower, and I'm talking super speed shower here, followed by the other two S's of the morning chores; also done at super speed but with a mirror and heat vision in order to shave rather than with a razor blade. Yes, Clark Kent was a happy man that morning as he went about his normal ablutions. The gift of super speed enabled Clark to get those extra few hours of sleep before he had put on his simple pair of glasses, his incredibly effective alter ego disguise, and then headed out the door and into the beautiful Metropolis spring morning on his way to the Daily Planet.
As he walked, Clark pulled out the personal electronic device provided by the Daily Planet in order to check his morning emails; Clark smiled to himself while nodding in greeting to the joggers passing by or to the kids running to the bus stop on their way to school in the city.
"Hmmm, spam, spam, spam," Clark said to himself as he scrolled through the emails he had received over the weekend. "An email from Lois regarding an Arms Expo being put on by Lex Luthor, I guess I'll have to stop another of his nefarious plans again," Clark stated quietly as he got to his bus stop and waited by himself for the number 5 bus to reach his stop to take him to the square where the Daily Planet building was located.
The bus pulled up and Clark continued to concentrate on his PED and the emails contained within as he boarded the bus on autopilot, showed his pass to the bus driver and then decided to stand rather than take a seat that one of the other passengers could use.
As the bus pulled away from the curb and into the Monday morning Metropolis traffic, a specific email caught his attention. 'Hmmm, what's this?' Clark thought to himself as he saw an email from an address labeled "fairwarning at sparkyscience dot com." The email was simply labeled, "BWA HA HA HA HA!"
Clark silently read to himself as he opened the email and found that it only had one sentence in it, "Let the Fun begin! Bwa Ha Ha Ha Ha!" Clark frowned in confusion, looked up from his PED and looked around and then shook his head as he pressed the delete key.
"It's just spam." Clark mumbled before putting the device away in his pocket and looking up, he had reached his stop right on time.
Clark smiled to himself; his day was going great so far.
The disguised Superman stepped off the bus, walked across the street towards the Daily Planet and entered the building.
This is when Clark Kent's day started to go to hell in a handbasket.
The news room of the Daily Planet was absolutely silent, as if Clark's coworkers were afraid to breathe too loudly for fear of some unknown force. A palpable air of foreboding seemed to cover the news room in a miasma of fear as Clark's coworkers quickly scurried from the computer to the printers and then quickly ran back to their cubicles as if hiding from the oncoming apocalypse.
Well, in truth only half of Clark's coworkers were scurrying to hide, the male portion of the staff that is. The other half of the Daily Planet's work staff, the female portion, appeared to be on the war path as staffers and journalists alike angrily slammed their work around on their desks, and high heeled shoes clicked on the hard tile floors of the news room with all of the sound and fury of military jackboots.
Clark quickly looked around for the source of disruption as he slowly and carefully made his way towards his cubicle. Perry, the editor of the Daily Planet, had his door firmly closed and the blinds covered the glass windows as Clark's x-ray vision told him that the older journalist had bunkered down in the safety of his office. Eyes continuing to dart back and forth, sweeping for some hidden danger, the disguised Kal-El noticed that Jimmy Olson had hidden himself behind as many piles of paper as he could and was trying to duck behind said piles.
One of Clark's female co-workers turned the corner in front of Clark, and he gave her a smile of greeting, only to receive a glare that seemed to be powered by the fires of hell as she stormed past. Clark gulped and turned to scan after her to see if his x-ray vision could get a hint of what was wrong.
'No sign of an alien parasite taking control of her, can't see through the underwear or bra for some reason, no unusual devices implanted, I can't figure out what is - wait a second, I can't see through that underwear or bra.' Clark thought the last part in alarm as his x-ray vision pretty much gave him an unfettered view of any human. The only thing that Clark couldn't see through with his x-ray vision was lead or other substantially dense materials.
That's when the sense of foreboding sent tingles down his spine, and just when his Kryptonian senses were tingling the proverbial heavenly messenger of doom stomped up and met him at the entrance to his cubicle; it was Lois Lane, and she looked seriously ticked off.
"Just what do you think you are doing?" Lois hissed in anger, the fury in her eyes seeking to eviscerate her boyfriend where he stood.
Clark paled and looked at Lois as she pushed her way into his personal space and backed him up into his cubicle. Clark could stare down new gods such as Darkseid, wrestle with monsters and villains like Grundy, was invincible to bullets and explosives, but Lois Lane on the warpath scared the crap out of him.
"Wha, What do you mean what am I thinking, um, doing?" Clark questioned hesitantly as he backed up until his knees met his seat and he sat down quickly, now looking up at the very angry Lois Lane. A little thought trickled through his mind that his girlfriend was damn hot when she was angry, but he realized it would probably be a bad time to tell her that.
"As if you don't know!" Lois spat as she thrust a folded piece of nicely embossed paper at her boyfriend Clark Kent, whom she knew was also Superman.
Clark unfolded the note and read the contents, the color draining from his face as he read lower on the document:
"Lovely ladies of the Daily Planet, are you tired of our city's hero Superman staring through your clothing? Wait, you didn't realize that a hero who travels all the way to Amsterdam to visit the brothels probably uses his other powers for perverted purposes? I ask you, what are you doing about his x-ray vision? Are you giving our city's protector a private peepshow without realizing it? Well then, we here at the Acme Underwear Company are proud to announce our new line of lead infused panties and bras. Perfectly safe from lead contamination, our underwear protects you not only from UV rays to those sensitive areas, but also from the peeping of the city's Super-Pervert. As a gift to our fair reporters of the city and due to your continued interactions with the hero, we would like to offer you this complimentary pair of lead lined underwear and bra. Remember, Acme Underwear's lead lined series of panties and bras, 'We Keep the Pervert from Peeping through your Panties!'"
"Oh crap." Clark said wide eyed as he looked up from the letter to Lois.
"Crap is right, as in Superman will be up to his eyeballs in Crap if HE doesn't get the message to stop peaking! And I mean immediately." Lois stated, one hand in a fist on her hip as her other well manicured hand had a finger pointed right between Clark's eyes.
"That letter came with a free pair of lead lined underwear, and every one of the female reporters here received it first thing this morning. I expect Superman to get this message immediately and deal with it." She stated while punctuating her statement by poking him in the forehead. "Otherwise you and me will be having words tonight." Lois threatened while putting emphasis on the word "Superman" as she thrust her pointing finger two inches from Clark's nose.
Clark Kent found himself cross-eyed as he stared at the perfectly painted nail of Lois Lane that was pointing between his eyes. He got the message loud and clear.
Lois swiveled on her foot and tromped away, but before she fully left his cubical she said, "Don't make me contact Ma Kent, and I will if Superman doesn't get the message ASAP." Lois threatened, and if it was possible Clark paled even more and gulped in fear.
Continuing to stare wide eyed at the angrily retreating Lois, Clark remembered the email he had received that morning and thought to himself, 'Maybethatemailwasn'tspamafterall…'
An angry Lois was frightening, the possibility of Ma Kent being angry at him was terrifying, but the worst thing of all was that it was only Monday morning and he had a feeling that his suffering wasn't anywhere close to being complete.
While it was Monday morning for Superman in Metropolis, it was already Monday afternoon in Romania, and Xander had already spent multiple hours prepping for the next day's prank on Superman.
Having completed the laboratory work of welding the frames together and installing the electronic packages, followed by a fluffy furry outer layer, the prank was ready and currently having the last step completed for the Tuesday prank.
Xander sat smirking in his office chair staring at the latest object to come from his insanity. Xander had created a monstrosity, and he loved it.
With a gleam in his eye and an insane smirk on his face Xander cackled madly, "Mwa ha ha ha ha, BWA HA HA HA HA!"
The small seemingly demonically cute device opened its eyes and cackled back at Xander, "Mwa ha ha ha, BWA HA HA HA HA HA!" The little device imitated Xander's laugh in a high pitched evil sounding laugh as it continued to blink its big cute eyes and laugh back at Xander in trained insanity.
"Hello my pretty, Bwa HA Ha HA HA!" Xander continued to laugh as he tipped back his head and laughed towards the ceiling of his large office.
"My pretty, BWA HA HA HA, MWA HA HA HA HA Hello my pretty." It cackled back, only making Xander laugh louder in maniacal glee.
Soon the only sound in the office was Xander's loud evil sounding laugh, a laugh that was mirrored back at him in a higher pitched voice.
The prank was ready, and for this one Xander had called upon the pure power of his inner insanity. From the depths of Xander's twisted mind, in a place in the back of Xander's brain where colors tasted like kumquats and the sky was the sound of puce, came the next part of Xander's dastardly plan for Superman as Xander brought to life a creation that should never have seen the light of day.
Into the DC Universe Xander introduced an agent of entropy, of chaos and a madness inducing mix of cute and cuddly meshed with pure creepy.
Xander had created the Furby doll.
Lois Lane woke up in her apartment in the middle of the night with the feeling that she was being watched.
Blinking her eyes, Lois struggled to fully wake up from her deep sleep, only to feel a slight weight on her chest. Almost as if something was laying on top of the beds covers.
Lois's eyes shot wide open, only to come face to face with a pair of glowing green eyes that were perched a mere five inches from her face.
"Hello my pretty! MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" a high pitched voice sounded from right in front of her face, a glowing beak and eyes seeming to stare into her soul as it cackled madly in almost a twisted parody on a child's voice.
"AIEEEEEEEE!" Lois screamed and flailed, launching the glowing eyed little creature up off the covers of the bed that she was alone in and across her bedroom.
Flailing like crazy, Lois's hand shot out for her bedside stand and flipped on the light in wild eyed terror, only to illuminate a room absolutely covered in little fuzzy creatures.
The bedside stands, the book shelves, the small desk in the left corner of the room, on top of the dresser, on the armoire and peaking out of the cupboards and closet, everywhere she looked were little furred doll like creatures with little beaks, pointy fuzzy ears and closed eyes.
With the flip of the light switch and the sound of Lois's scream, thousands of little eyes opened as if waking from their sleep… thousands of little eyes that stared right at Lois Lane.
"EEEEEEEEEEEE!" Lois screamed in fear as she scooched back as far as she could in her bed and pulled her sheets to her chest.
"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" A thousand little high pitched voices screamed right back at Lois.
Thus began a series of screams, Lois would scream in fear, the little fuzzy dolls' eyes would open in wide fear and scream right back at her, only to cause Lois Lane to scream louder.
Also adding to her mind blowing fear, every now and the Furbies would start laughing like maniacs, and the constant scream of "EEEEEEEEE!" was prefaced by statements of "Hello My Pretty!" as well as "BWA HA HA HA HA HA" or "MWA HA HA HA HA!"
This is what Superman found as Clark Kent heard Lois's distinctive scream from clear across town, causing him to quickly change into his costume and zip across town faster than a speeding bullet.
Superman burst through Lois's bedroom door sending the door flying in a cloud of wood splinters only for Kal-El to stop at the sight of a thousand miniature fuzzy toys screaming and laughing at his girlfriend. Superman didn't know what to do, as he stood their stunned as Lois to scream right back at the toys, which then screamed in reply.
As Superman stared at his girlfriend, and then the toys, each seeming to take turns screaming at each other, he was at a loss on what to do.
Lois's scared eyes moved to take in her boyfriend standing in the door, and she was up and off the bed in a leap towards the safety of his arms where Superman caught her before she could hit the floor.
When none of the Furby dolls moved to look at where Lois had gone to, Clark realized that there was no real threat here. Just irritation as the thousands of high pitched screaming and laughing voices was kind of like nails on a chalk board to his highly sensitive Kryptonian ears.
"There there Lois, there's nothing to worry about, it's probably just another prank played at my expense." Clark stated as he comforted his girlfriend in his arms, realizing that the prank was probably along the lines of the lead underwear provided by a company that, according to his research, didn't actually exist.
Lois stopped shaking in his arms as Superman's words filtered through her shock at waking up with thousands of little creatures looking and screaming at her.
Lois blinked, and that was when Clark Kent was witness to another example of how Lois Lane could go from zero to ticked off in no time flat.
"You mean this is a prank that was actually targeted at you?" Lois asked from Superman's arms, a strangely quiet and emotionless sounding voice coming from his girlfriend.
"Yes." Kal-El answered simply, scanning around the room and realizing that the little fuzzy dolls were just mechanical creatures with some electrical relays in them. In his detailed examination of the toys, he didn't hear the warning in her voice.
"This is all your fault!" Lois snapped angrily, releasing her hold on Superman and storming past him heading towards her apartment's kitchen in her pajamas.
"Wait, what?" Clark questioned while blinking as Lois's female logic filtered through his head and then right out the other ear.
"Yes, your fault. If it wasn't for you playing hero then I wouldn't be waking up at," Lois paused in her rant as she pushed the start button on her coffee maker and looked at the time it read as her Sparkbucks coffee started to brew. "Then I would have had to wake up at three o'clock in the morning!" She ranted, hands gesturing threateningly before being planted on her hips.
Superman turned from looking at the Furby dolls to glance quizzically, one eyebrow raised in confusion as he tried to clarify. "So let me get this right, all the times Lex Luthor, Toy Man or one of the other villains targeted you while perpetrating a crime, it's their fault when I have to save you. But this time you get pranked as part of somebody teasing me, and it's my fault?"
"EXACTLY!" Lois yelled back at him with an angry look before turning back to her Sparkbucks brand instant coffee maker and pouring herself a cup.
Clark just shook his head and rolled his eyes in frustration at his girlfriend's logic while she was looking down at her coffee pot.
"And don't you roll your eyes at me Clark Kent." Lois said without even looking up at him.
Clark's eyes went wide as he thought 'How the hell did she know that? It's like she's taking lessons from Ma Kent or something.'
"And don't even think about me with that tone either! I still haven't decided if I'm going to call your mother on these problems or not." Lois snapped as she stirred sugar into her coffee and added some cream.
"But, but honey…" Clark pleadingly stated stepping forward towards his girlfriend with his arms out; her seeming ability to read his thoughts with her women's intuition scaring the crap out of him.
"Don't you but honey me Clark." Lois stated as she turned to look at him with angry eyes as she continued to stir her coffee before taking a sip. Unfortunately even the perfection that was Sparkbucks coffee couldn't cut her ire.
"Now clean up my room and repair the door, and then you and I are going to have a long talk about the types of villains you have been interfering with recently." She commanded as she walked imperiously into her living room and sat down on her couch and waited for him to get busy.
"But…" Superman started to plead with his girlfriend, only for Lois's glare to shut him up.
Superman's shoulder slumped as he replied, "Yes Dear." and turned to start tidying up her bedroom.
'I'll keep one of these and give it to Batman for analysis.' Clark thought as he quickly blurred about the room picking up the fuzzy dolls. As he cleaned up the room, Superman noted that the name "Furby Dolls" was machine printed on the bottom of every toy.
Clark quickly zipped about Lois's bedroom picking up the toys and then bringing them back to his own apartment before returning to try and finish up his chore.
"None of the other heroes have to deal with this type of crap." Superman mumbled quietly under his breath as he went about fixing the door.
"I heard that!" Lois snapped from the other room.
Superman's shoulders slumped further and his head drooped as he continued to do what his girlfriend told him to. Thus the Man of Steel with the backbone of Playdough patiently received a tongue lashing from his girlfriend, while in the back of his mind he cursed that the week was still only starting and didn't look to be getting better any time soon.
Meanwhile in Pokolistan the sun was just rising on that Tuesday morning and with the dawning of the new day the streets of the capital city were lined with cheering throngs as red portals snapped to life in the middle of the capital city's thoroughfare.
The Leviathan had arrived to take control of the Pokolistan.
The Leviathan floated out of the giant red portal in a standing position, a good twenty feet off the ground and hovering right out of the middle of the fifty foot wide by one hundred foot tall red portal. The crowds went wild, cheering as their new Dictator arrived to save their country from its current dismal existence.
Out of the portal beneath The Leviathan marched rank after rank of DarkTrooper armored Jägermonsters; marching lock stepped out of the portal and down the street as the Hell March music blasted from thousands of speakers housed on the DarkTrooper armor.
Above the head of The Leviathan exited his top cover; grey armored feminine figures bearing the trilobite and skull motif of the Grey Knight but with the three headed gold dragon on their left pauldron, and these were his Valkyries.
Each Valkyrie wore a matching suit of power armor that looked solid but moved like a skin tight flexible material that seemed to curve and form to their very feminine forms. Golden mirrored view plates covered the face of the helmet and from their armored backs came two sets of multiple blade like projections that looked like some sort of mechanical angel's wing, yet it was clear from how the Valkyries flew that the blades were not used being used as actual wings. In triangular "V" formations the Valkyries exited the portal above The Leviathan and flew forward to scouting positions above the parade path, yet one "V" stayed directly above and slightly behind The Leviathan. This formation of Valkyries was led by a feminine armored figure whose helmet was decorated with a red crest that cascaded backwards as if it was a ponytail of long red hair, and the blade like wings on her back were black in color rather than the usual grey of her sister warriors.
Xander smiled from behind his helmet as he waved to the cheering crowds of Pokolistanies.
"How's it looking up there Artemis?" Xander questioned into his communications system as he waved to his new adoring subjects.
"You're butt is looking as scrumptious as ever from my vantage point." The slightly laughing voice of Artemis said which was then followed by the sound of several laughing female voices as the leader of the Valkyries broadcast in reply to Xander's question and he heard her squad of elite Valkyries laughing in agreement at her quip. The newly christened Valkyries were warrior women in everything that name meant, and bawdy comments and sexual jokes were more common than not among the warrior tribe.
Xander smirked behind his helmet as he continued to focus on waving to the people. Just then, more of his portals opened up in the skies above, and wings of his StarScream fighters arrived in the air above to provide high support while simultaneously, around the small protectorate's boarders, lightning towers seemed to spring out of the ground as the new territory was protected by Xander's defensive systems.
"But seriously," Artemis continued, now being professional as her systems fed back security information to her heads up display of her new Valkyrie armor. "Security checks out as all clear with no visible or hidden threats and all green across the board. Should I send the order to begin the upgrading and integration of the country?" Artemis finished in question; the nano-clank upgrades Xander had given her and the rest of her tribe enabled them to instantly read and understand the information that the power armor suits fed them. The nano-clank systems had in effect quickly upgraded the warrior women into soldiers of the twenty first century and beyond. And in addition to the physical boosts Xander had given every woman warrior the equivalent of a PHD in engineering and several other esoteric fields that would be helpful to their roll in The Leviathan's Empire.
"Go ahead and send the order." Xander commanded from behind his helmet, continuing to wave to the latest grouping of peoples to join his Empire. "RedTree, keep me up to date on the retrieval and integration of the Kryptonian technology. Coordinate with Jarvis and make sure my internal nano-clanks get an immediate upload of everything we learn. I'll need it for my next sortie in pranking Superman." Xander finished with a gleam in his eye and a bloodthirsty grin on his face; while to the outside crowd all they saw was the pleasantly waving Leviathan float down the street at the head of his armed forces.
"Right away Xander," The voice of RedTree replied, just as Artemis started to give out her own orders.
"Red team you have permission to go. Repeat, Red team; go." Artemis commanded into her speakers as she broadcast back to Romania and to the forces that had been awaiting that signal; Xander picked up the broadcast from his master communication suite in his helmet, allowing him to selectively listen into any conversation that utilized his communications systems.
With Artemis's orders more red portals opened up over the buildings on the sides of the streets, and floating clouds of trillions of nano-clanks and waves of billions of little clanks floated out of the portals on their little rocket boots or propelled by little spinning whirly blades. The nano-clanks flowed off in tentacle like wisps that flew through the crowds and scattered through the capital city, systematically beginning the health upgrades and criminal pruning in the population while others flowed across the buildings cleaning and renewing the infrastructure.
Lining the street in front of Xander were dingy weathered buildings that were a mix of Soviet era concrete mixed with metal alloys of Kryptonian design. But as Xander and his forces moved forward they left behind citizens in the prime of health and buildings and infrastructure that shown like new as the little clanks and nano-clanks did their work.
"RedTree here Xander, we've successfully entered all laboratory, science and control structures in the country with our nano and little clanks. We are beginning integration and upload of all Kryptonian technology now." The voice of RedTree sounded in Xander's ear via the communications system in his helmet.
"Excellent." Xander said with an evil smile. "Jarvis, start the live upload to my mind." Xander finished with a command.
"Yes sir," The proper British voice of Xander's AI Jarvis stated, while in Xander's mind's eye lines of data appeared in his mindscape before being rapidly sorted and absorbed as Xander partook of the freshly captured knowledge on Kryptonian technology at a prodigious rate.
Multi-tasking, Xander continued to smile and wave while his mind was busy learning the alien technology. By the end of the day he would be fully ready to implement his next planned prank.
"All is going according to plan, bwa ha ha ha, mwa ha ha ha, BWA HA HA HA HA HA!" Xander cackled to himself while on the outside of Xander's helmet the crowds continued to cheer; blissfully unaware of that their new leader was madly cackling away within the confines of his Leviathan disguise.
The Fortress of Solitude was one of the last great testaments to the might and power of Krypton and the science that had propelled it into a truly formidable galactic power in its time. The Kryptonians race may have been long gone, but within the confines of the crystalline Fortress the science of Krypton's peoples still lived on; if only in a museum like state. The Fortress was a colossal structure hidden away from the sensor technology of the human nations of Earth, and it had been entirely grown out of a single handheld crystal seed planted by Kal-El, the son of Jor-El and Lara of the Kryptonian House of El.
Kal-El, also known as Clark Kent or Superman, had created the fortress from the crystal that his biological father had planted within the space ship that sent the tiny infant Kal safely to planet Earth. Within that fortress was a copy of Krypton's greatest legacy, the science of the lost planet which was held safely in the heart of the fortress. In truth, it really was a fortress in all the meaning of the word. Mostly empty of living beings, the Fortress of Solitude securely held a museum and a zoo of alien life forms. In addition to the viewing areas, the fortress's only fulltime inhabitants were Superman's pet dog Krypto, the computerized security system and the army of protection/maintenance drones that were state of the art Kryptonian technology. Yes, the Fortress was well protected, but its primary protection wasn't in its security systems or exotic animals. No, the Fortress of Solitude's primary protection was in the fact that not only was it secreted in the Arctic ice, it was that nobody on Earth other than Superman truly understood or could communicate with Kryptonian technology.
Well, that is nobody on Earth but Superman truly understood Kryptonian technology up until roughly 24 hours ago. But seeing how it was now Wednesday morning in the Arctic, and Xander had finished fully integrating his education in Kryptonian technology, well all of those securities that protected the Fortress of Solitude had pretty much just been thrown out the window.
A service drone was floating around the main room of the Fortress of Solitude doing its every day maintenance review. The giant statutes of Jor-El and his wife Lara standing together and holding up a representation of Planet Earth computed as being in perfect order, and the crystalline command console that controlled the entire fortress also computed to be in working order as it sat placed at the base of the statues. However the sudden appearance of a black portal which formed in front of the command console did not compute and the human figure that stepped out of it immediately caused the security protocols to initiate an alarm.
"Alert! Security-" The service drone tried to broadcast, but the figure of the man in Bermuda shorts and a gaudy Hawaiian shirt aimed some sort of remote control at the drone, and suddenly the drone dropped to the ground as it was shut down.
"Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to prank I go." Xander sang to himself as he put the Kryptonian technology based remote control away in one of his pockets of his shorts as he flip flopped his way over to the control consol in his sandals, shorts and glaringly bright orange Hawaiian shirt.
Xander reached into his other pocket and pulled out a crystal that looked as if it was a duplicate of any of the other crystals that made up the Fortress of Solitude's main control console. Xander plugged in his personally designed Kryptonian-compatible-crystal-technology-interface, try saying that five times fast, while whistling a changed version of the song sung by the seven Dwarves from the Disney movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."
Xander waited a few moments, just looking around the room and taking it all in while happily whistling away until a musical chime sounded from the consol before him, and suddenly a holographic image of RedTree appeared smiling and floating in the air above the console.
"Hi Xander, I'm finally in." The image of Xander's friend Willow said to him as his AI RedTree gained access to the Fortress of Solitudes computer system and memory core.
"Hey Red, how's it going?" Xander asked with a smile and a wave as he looked up at his friendly AI with a lopsided grin on his face.
"Good now. I'm fully integrated into the technology and am beaming out a copy of everything I can get." Red replied, as lines of code written in the boxy Kryptonian language seemed to appear in the air before the holographic RedTree's eyes.
"Security systems are down and all record of you being here is permanently erased. You should have roughly an hour to get your work done before the hardwired alerts go out to Superman and he arrives to check out the disturbance. Sorry I can't give you any more time than that." The AI finished, looking genuinely sheepish about not being able to give Xander more time to work.
Xander just shrugged and smiled at his computerized friend. "No worries Red, I should be done and out of here in a snap." Xander stated, before snapping his fingers on his right hand.
Red portals appeared in the air around the giant main room of the Fortress, and suddenly literal tons of sand began to pour out of the portals to cover the floor of the fortress ten feet deep in white small grained sand.
Xander smirked and pulled out a long handled rake from his small pocket before he blurred around the room evening out the sand as it poured through the portals. Soon another portal opened up, and a blurred after image of Xander's glow in the dark orange shirt could be seen running in and out of the new portal carrying multiple different items that he set up around the room. A little voice in the back of his head made a mental note that the sound of flip flops running at super speed was still as dorky sounding as regular walking, just sped up a lot.
About five minutes later the giant statues of Superman's parents were surrounded by a ring of sand that sloped down to their feet, just as a new portal opened up and water gushed out to fill the opening in the ring of sand.
Xander stopped his work and took a step back to gaze at his creation, rubbing his chin in thought while leaning on the handle of his rake.
"Hmmm, I know I'm forgetting something." Xander said to himself, before getting an idea and snapping his fingers again while sending a mental command.
The other portals snapped shut, and a new portal opened up over the large pond of water, and suddenly hundreds of goldfish rained out of the air to plop into the water below.
Xander smiled and rubbed his chin again.
"Better, but I'm sure there is something I'm forgetting." Xander said to himself.
"Um, Xander…" The voice of RedTree said hesitantly from Xander's left and slightly behind him at her place hovering over where the command console used to be; that is before it was covered over in sand.
"No, wait a second Red, I know there is something I'm forgetting and it's just about to come to me." Xander said as he looked in front of him at the prank he had set up.
"Um, no, um Xander, you may want to look…" The voice of Red started to say, only to be interrupted by a deep rumbling growl. A growl that was right behind Xander.
"GRRRRRRRRRR" The growl was loud enough to vibrate in Xander's chest.
Xander's eyes went wide as he suddenly realized what he had forgotten.
Letting go of the rake and slowly turning around without making any sudden movements, Xander came face to face with a snarling white dog that was wearing a gold Superman "S" for a dog tag and it had a red "super cape" attached to its collar. Teeth bared in a snarl, the dog was hovering in the air right at the level of Xander's face.
"Crikey, will you get a load of that." The distinctive sounds of an Australian accent issued out of one of the pockets on Xander's pants; apparently these were the shorts that Xander had left his Green Directional device in. "That's a Canis Lupus Kryptonus, very rare and very dangerous, and would you look at the teeth on that one, He's Angry. Woo, Look out over there Mate, Danger, Danger!" The voice of Steve Irwin the late great crocodile hunter sounded out of the speaker of the Green Directional Device in Xander's pocket.
Xander slowly raised his hands up and stepped back slowly. "Um, nice doggy? Good doggy?" Xander hopefully questioned, he really didn't want to hurt the dog as this was supposed to be a fun prank and not a fight. Then again, he really didn't want to find out what a super strength dog bite felt like either.
The dog Krypto's growl got louder and he seemed to bend down as if he was getting ready to pounce from his position floating in the air.
"Um, can't we just be friends?" Xander asked with a smile and a pleading shrug.
Krpyto lunged for Xander, and Xander screamed and took off in a sprint, flip-flops flopping for all they were worth as Xander ran as if for his life.
"AH! Bad doggy, Bad Doggy, can't we all just get along?" Xander yelled as he sprinted circles in a blur around the room, the flying super-dog snapping at Xander behind.
Xander zagged, Krypto zagged.
Xander zigged, Krytpo zigged.
Around and around the room they ran. Xander picking up enough speed that he was off the ground and running circles up and down the walls and ceiling, diving away just in time to miss the snapping jaws that tried to take a piece out of his ass, and all the time screaming his head off.
"Help Help I'm being repressed! Little help here! Little Help, I need HELP!" Xander yelled as he flew through the legs of the two giant statues and tried to duck through a portal he called forth, only to get intercepted by the super fast flying mutt and having to suddenly fly off in another direction.
As Xander ran, flew, ducked and dived around the room trying to get away from Superman's pet dog, RedTree frantically tried to do anything she could do to help.
"Oh uh, on your left! No, your other Left!" RedTree tried to call encouragement to Xander while she attempted to open portals that Xander could escape into only to watch as the super-mutt repeatedly intercepted Xander before he could be saved. Everything would have been easier if Xander would be willing to hurt the dog, but since he wasn't willing to do so Xander was up the proverbial dog-shit creek without a pooper-scooper.
'Danger Xander Harris, Danger ,Danger.' A voice in Xander's brain yelled, taking on the form of the robot from the Lost in Space TV show.
'Not HELPING!' Xander mentally screamed, while in his brain his voices furiously tried to come up with a plan.
'Can't you do something Primal?' The voice of Reason asked quickly.
The Primal didn't even look up from where he was picking his nails with a knife at the mental conference table. 'Not unless you want to establish which one of us is the alpha. Since the dog is the only Kryptonian mutt in existence, that makes it an alpha also, so it would have to be a fight to the finish.' The Primal explained in his rumbly voice in Xander's head before giving the voice of Reason a pointed toothed smile.
'Anybody else have an idea?' The voice of Reason questioned hopefully, while in the real world Xander continued to run circles through the room, and now through the Zoo wing, and then back into the main chamber with Krypto hot on Xander's tail.
'Oh! Oh! I have an idea, pick me!' The voice of insanity said, raising his hand and jumping up and down excitedly.
The voice of Reason looked around hopefully. 'Anybody besides Insanity have an idea?' The voice of Reason questioned.
It was at this point that Xander zigged when he should have zagged, and Xander was nailed by Krypto with all the power of a locomotive as Krypto pounced and knocked Xander out of the air.
Xander hit the sand covered ground with an "OOF" as the air was knocked out of him by the blow, even though his armor system had covered him in time so that he didn't suffer any real injuries.
Xander flipped himself over in the human shaped divot in the sand, only to see Krypto standing over the crater and growling down at Xander's black armored figure.
'I'm going to regret this, but Insanity, you have a go.'The voice of Reason stated with a cringe.
Xander realized what insanity wanted to do, and he figured that sometimes crazy works, so he agreed.
'Yay!' Insanity cheered inside Xander's mind, and in the real world Xander snapped his fingers.
Xander looked up…
Krypto looked up to see where his target was looking…
And suddenly above the SuperDog a portal opened, disgorging several tons of processed beef steaks, pork loins and whole chickens which buried Krypto alive.
In the real world Xander smiled behind the protection of his armor as he watched the dog get caught in the tidal-wave of meat. 'Good job insanity.' Xander thought to himself.
'What?' The voice of Insanity asked; at that point Insanity looked up from where he was busy gazing at his toes with both bare feet on the conference table in Xander's mind.
"Never mind." Xander said to himself with a smile as he stood up out of the crater, just as the head of Krypto poked its way out of the large pile of meat.
Xander stared at Krypto, and Krypto stared back at the black armored figure that had invaded his territory, but brought the gift of meat.
"Ok Krypto, I know you are smart enough to understand me so here's the deal." Xander stated, and his armor rippled until it returned to its form as a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and flip flops.
The dog Krypto quirked his head to the side, as if waiting to hear what this intruder had to say.
Xander smiled at the dog's actions and continued, "I promise that what I've done here isn't going to directly hurt you or Superman. And I'll let you keep all of this meat if you let me go without a fight. Ok?" Xander finished, and waited for some response from Krypto.
Krypto stared at Xander, and Xander stared back while waiting.
"Woof." Finally Krypto barked, and then ignored Xander while concentrating on disappearing back into the pile of meat that shifted and slowly started to shrink.
Xander smirked to himself, and zipped out of the hole in the sand.
Quickly evening the sand out again, Xander flew over to where the consol was located and dug his arm into the sand until he felt the crystal he had brought with him. With a yank, the hologram of RedTree disappeared as Xander removed his interface crystal.
A quick pat on the sand to settle it down again, and Xander grabbed his rake and then disappeared into a black portal with a smirk on his face.
Twenty minutes later an alarm went off on Superman's watch as he worked quietly at the Daily Planet. All of the men who were employed there were also working away quietly; none of them wanting to draw the attention of their still quietly fuming female coworkers.
Looking around carefully Clark Kent realized that Lois was distracted with a phone call, so he quietly disappeared in a blur out the door before anybody could tell he had left.
Less than a minute later Superman arrived at the secret side entrance to his Fortress of Solitude and cautiously entered, keeping a look out for the intruder that his security systems warned him about.
Slowly flying through the secret entrance that led through the zoo and the museum, Kal-El noticed that nothing looked out of place.
Slowly, ever so slowly and carefully, Superman moved through the Fortress. The entrance hall was ok, the laboratories and robotic suites were ok, it wasn't until he reached the central chamber that he found anything amiss, but when he did, boy was it amiss.
Apparently it was Luau season in the Arctic fortress for everywhere Superman looked was sand, palm trees, water and grass skirts. The scariest part about the grass skirts was that every one of them was being worn by a manikin.
A manikin that looked exactly like Lex Luthor to be exact.
To Superman's right a mechanical Lex Luthor played a ukulele while hula dancing in a grass skirt and Hawaiian shirt, to his left, two mechanical Lex Luthor manikins twirled fire torches, and on the other side of the pond that covered the statutes of his parent's feet was a Lex Luthor standing in front of a BBQ with a shirt that proclaimed, "Please Kiss The Cook." Everywhere else pairs and groupings of Lex Luthor manikins appeared to be chatting and drinking beer together, and all those smiling Luthor faces, Brrrr, it just put a shiver down Superman's back.
"Buuuuuuuurrrp," Rumbled out from behind the leg of one of his parent's statutes, and Superman quickly darted around to the other side of his new indoor beach until he could see what was there.
Looking like some sort of albino baby hippopotamus was Krypto, bloated and lying on his back with his legs sticking up in the air and belly bulging.
Clark frowned and looked around the room, realizing that once again he had been pranked.
"Lot of good you did fearless protector." Clark groused at his dog.
"Woof!" Krypto answered, only to pant up at Superman while not even deigning to move in reply, only a doggy grin smirking back at his owner.
"Maybe Wonder Woman was right, maybe I should have gotten a cat." Superman said under his breath as he shook his head and looked around, trying to figure out the best place to start in cleaning up the mess and realizing that the pond was even full of live gold fish.
"Grrrrrr." Krypto growled back at the disparaging statement, but still refused to move while the multiple tons of meat digested its way through his belly. Just for that statement, Krypto decided he was going to hide his super poop under Clark's coffee table at Superman's apartment.
Clark just shook his head and grumbled to himself as he got to work cleaning up the mess, not realizing that his last comment to Krypto meant that the mess would be extended to Clark's Metropolis apartment.
Thursday was miraculously uneventful for Superman, well, except for cleaning up the poop under his table. Clark had gone out of his way to bring donuts in for all of his coworkers, Perry got a box of Cuban cigars that Clark just "happened to have," and Lois's cubical got filled with fresh cut roses; plucked fresh and purchased from the rose fields outside Quito Ecuador and shipped in fresh by way of Superman-Air.
All in all, Clark Kent had a good Thursday. He had a good lunch with Lois at that French bistro she enjoyed, at which point she admitted to loving him again and they kissed and made up. Clark even had a chance to let off some frustration; he foiled two bank robberies, saved everybody in that burning orphanage, and was able to still be home in time to make an Italian dinner for Lois and he by candle light followed by an evening of super-nookie.
Yes. Thursday had turned out really well, and it looked like Superman would even get a good night's sleep that night. Further, what with the LexCorp Arms Expo being canceled for Friday, it looked like the rest of Clark's week was going to be good as well.
Clark Kent couldn't help thinking to himself that he should have been pranked that day, and that he should look out for something on Friday. However as Superman reached over and turned out the light and then spooned up behind the lovely backside of his girlfriend Lois Lane, Clark couldn't help thinking that everything was going to work out just fine.
Little did Superman know, however, but the reason that his Thursday had gone so well was because Xander had shifted his activities towards another target for the day; a target that Xander held true ire towards.
In the very early hours of Thursday morning, about the time that people refer to as O'Dark thirty, flashes of light snapped all across Metropolis. One flash of light happened in that dingy abandoned warehouse down by the Metropolis Docks, and another on the opposite side of town in the basement of a large mansion on the cliffs of the sea. The same thing happened in a hanger at the International Airport, and one at the private Airport. The Naval station, the Army Base, the commercial holding areas, dance clubs, mom and pop shops, warehouses of all shapes and sizes, big businesses and medium businesses, Skyscrapers and underground bunkers, and all locations were affected by the bright flashes of light. The lights flashed all together at the very same time all across Metropolis and then disappeared with a snapping sound before once again the leaving the night in silence. There didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason as almost random buildings and locations were affected.
However the key word was "almost," for every one of those locations had one thing in common. Every single place where a light flashed had a connection with Lex Luthor.
At exactly eleven o'clock that same Thursday morning, Lex Luthor stood in black martial arts pants sans shirt while partaking in his morning martial arts workout. Four men wearing black belts and white gi's stood around Lex until with an unspoken command they all attacked Lex simultaneously. It was a virtual slaughter as the billionaire scientist and industrialist proceeded to brutally toss his attackers around like so many ragdolls.
With a final shoulder throw and a vicious punch to the nose of his last downed opponent, Lex Luthor smirked to himself as he heard the wood and paper door to his private dojo quietly slide open behind him.
"This better be important. You're interrupting my fun time." Lex stated with a smirk on his face as he stood up and kicked his downed opponent in the ribs.
"It is important." The voice of Mercy, Lex Luthor's chauffer, bodyguard and henchwoman all-in-one stated as she walked into the room in her tailored grey chauffer's uniform; ignoring the groaning men scattered about the floor.
Lex turned his back to her and walked over to a stand on the side of the room where he picked up a towel and wiped his face, bald head and then his chest before draping the towel around his shoulders.
With a smirk on his face he moved towards Mercy while casually ordering, "Get rid of these jokers, they barely made me raise a sweat." Lex commanded before reaching out for the binder of paper that Mercy silently handed him.
Lex Luthor paged through the report, his frown growing as he read through the contents. He totally ignored the big black suited bodyguards that entered the room at Mercy's direction to remove his former sparing partners. That's what Lex paid them for, so why should he pay any attention to them when they were just doing what he paid them to do?
"Shit." Lex cursed as he read further into the papers, his frown growing into an outright scowl until he threw the binder over his shoulder to release a flurry of floating papers as he yelled, "FUCK!" and threw his hands in the air.
Pacing across the room, ignoring Marcy while he thought, Lex Luthor paced back and forth mumbling to himself, cursing loudly every now and then.
Mercy just patiently and blandly waited for her boss to stop and tell her what he wanted her to do. She didn't really care what he ordered her to do; she never really had before and wouldn't start now. She had killed for Lex, stolen for him, and those were some of the more "honest" things that she did for her boss. Lex had taken her off the streets and out of the poorest of the poor section of Metropolis's Skid Row, and for that Mercy was loyal to the man. Besides, he paid well.
Finally Lex stopped his pacing and turned to address Mercy. "Mercy, are you sure all of the weapons stashes were taken? Really sure? Several of those warehouses were to be transferred to interested parties during tomorrow's expo." Lex asked, a scowl painted across his face and lines creasing his bald forehead.
"Yes I'm sure." Mercy answered succinctly. "I even checked the secret locker you had installed in the basement of my apartment complex, it was totally bare." Mercy reported.
"Damn." Lex cursed as he began to pace again, only to stop and go wide eyed as he realized something.
"They wouldn't dare…" Lex's voice trailed off as he sprinted out the door of the dojo, through the length of his mansion and into his personal bedroom. Mercy trailed behind her boss, keeping up as he quickly ran through the mansion.
Mercy entered the master bedroom to see Lex Luthor approach one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined one of the room's walls. Mercy watched as Lex leaned forward and pulled on the spine of the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a book that Lex liked not only for its scientific significance but more so because of Oppenheimer's quote; "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" when the man had created the atomic bomb.
At Lex's tug, the bookshelf shifted and slid into the floor to reveal a giant lead lined door with a keypad that was embossed with glowing green rocks, kryptonite to be exact.
Quickly plugging in a sixty eight digit code from memory, the keypad slid away to reveal a biometric scanner which Lex put his hand on, the scanner then slid away to reveal an iris scanner which also slid away when Lex looked into it.
With a "pop –hiss" the giant door unlocked with the sound of large metal bolts sliding free before the door swung inwards to reveal a large room.
The light turned on… and there, where Lex's pride and joy should have been. Where the war-suit that was capable of battling Superman should have rested, was nothing.
Lex was about to scream in rage, but then he noticed a small piece of paper situated on the floor next to the rack that should have housed his green colored and kryptonite powered war suit.
Stomping into the room in growing rage, Lex leaned down and swooped up the piece of paper and read it.
"YOINK! It's mine now Lex. Goodbye for now, and thanks for all the fish, or, at least thanks for all the toys." The note read cryptically enough.
Still, in the mind of Lex Luthor, there was only one enemy daring enough to taunt him, only one enemy who was a match for the power and genius that was Lex Luthor. There was only one man whom Lex Luthor could blame for this catastrophe, who he always blamed for every catastrophe in his life.
With a bellow of rage and fists raised to the sky as he crumpled the note in his hand Lex Luthor screamed out, "SUPERMAN!"
And at the Daily Planet Clark Kent sneezed, right before smiling as he finished his Thursday article early and decided that it was the perfect time to take Lois out to an early lunch at that French Bistro she liked.
Friday was a long but good day at work for Clark Kent. Because the LexCorp Arms Expo had been canceled, for no stated reason, Perry had shifted around the reporters to find different topics to include in the next day's newspaper. After a joking comment by Lois about Clark being from Farmville, which she said was the same difference when he corrected her that he was from Smallville, Perry had decided to assign Clark to the county fair and 4H event. Lois on the other hand was assigned to cover the legislative meeting for the city council.
What Lois had jokingly meant as sticking Clark with the worse of the two jobs actually turned out pretty good for Clark as he not only got a chance to roll up his sleeves and show off his cow milking skills at the 4H event, but he also was chosen to fill in as a judge for the pie baking contest. This had led to Clark being able to tease Lois back at the office when she finally got back to the Daily Planet after the eight hour debate on whether or not to increase the size of the city's main sewage lines. Clark had playfully shown off his new trophy on his desk for winning the hotdog eating contest at that year's fair whereas all Lois wanted to do was kick off her heels and chug some Sparkbucks coffee after her incredibly boring afternoon.
Still, Clark was a good sport and after he finished his article by four, he spent a few more hours helping Lois out with her article so that she could finish up before six o'clock and the deadline for that day's articles.
Thus with a smile on his face Clark gave Lois a kiss goodnight and they departed for their separate apartments for the evening; Clark hopped the bus that would take him a few blocks away to his sky-rise apartment.
After about thirty minutes of the bus driving through traffic and making a few stops Clark's bus pulled up to his stop and he hopped off with a smile and a wave to the bus driver as he helped an older lady off the tall step from the bus to the curb. Then with his briefcase and hat in hand, Clark thanked the doorman and made his way to his apartment door on the top floor, right as his cell phone rang.
Without looking at the number Clark pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and answered it while trying to juggle his keys, briefcase and hat.
"This is Clark." He answered, pinching his phone to his shoulder by cricking his neck to the side so that he could use two hands to juggle his stuff and open the door at the same time.
"Give me back my car." A deep gravelly voice growled into the phone.
"Wait, what?" Clark stated into the phone as he looked confused, still fumbling with the keys to his door.
It took a second, but finally Clark Kent recognized the voice of the billionaire playboy from Gotham.
"Bruce, is that you?" Clark questioned, finally finding the right key on his keychain as it was hidden by Clark's keys for the Daily Planet office.
"My car, I want it back." The voice of Batman growled out of the phone.
Clark frowned and finally unlocked the door before pushing it open.
"Bruce, I don't know what you're talking about, I don't have your car… oh poop." Clark started to deny all knowledge of Bruce Wayne's missing car, only to open the door to his apartment and turn on the light; which was the point when the boy scout Clark Kent semi-cursed.
There sitting in the middle of Clark Kent's large living room, with part of it extending into the dining area, was the Batmobile.
Clark Kent's eyes went large and he quickly slammed the door shut behind him so that any neighbors that happened to pass by in the hall didn't see the Dark Knight's well known vehicle sitting in the middle of Clark's apartment.
Clark was stunned, his furniture was all piled to the side and it left enough room for the Batmobile to extend through his living room and partially into Clark's dining room where the table had been turned on its side so that there was enough room for the swept back bat like wings and rocket engine.
A growling sound came from the speaker of Clark's cell phone, and Superman realized that his phone was dangling in his hand limply by his side.
Clark snatched the phone back to his ear.
"Bruce, why is your CAR, your special CAR in my apartment?" Clark questioned with confusion clearly pasted across his face, and when he said the word "CAR" you could clearly hear the capitalization in the word.
"Because you took it!" The Dark Knight growled in return.
"What?" Clark asked confused back into the phone before continuing. "I was at the county fair all day; I even won the hot dog eating contest." Superman said the first thing that came to his mind that would prove his alibi.
There was silence from the other end of the phone for several moments.
Finally Batman responded, "Fine, I believe you. Now bring me back my car."
Clark walked around the large black vehicle sitting in his apartment and sighed as he realized he had been pranked again, and he didn't have an easy way to get the Batmobile out of the room without taking it totally apart or busting down the wall of his apartment building.
Finally Superman replied, "Ok, I'll try and figure out a way to get you your car, but you're going to need to analyze a Furby doll for me so we can figure out who pranked us." Kal-El responded.
"Ok, I'll see you in a few minutes… wait, what's a Furby doll?" Came the gruff reply from Batman, only to be cut off as Superman hung up on the caped crusader.
Clark just stood staring at the Batmobile for a moment before shaking his head in frustration.
"Damn, well there goes the good ending to my week." Clark said before taking off his tie and rolling up his sleeves. "It's a good thing Pa taught me how to take apart and put together all of those cars and tractors, the Batmobile shouldn't be too much more difficult."
The reality of the situation would soon hit Superman as he repeatedly had to pull and plug in wires in a special order so that the damn car wouldn't self destruct on him. Two hours of speed mechanic work later, the Batmobile was finally back home in its cave in Gotham; back, but still in pieces.
Along with the pieces of the Batmobile were two Justice League members who were grumbling about the Bat-cave's security camera system clearly showing somebody looking exactly like Superman stealing the Batmobile piece by piece.
Neither Batman nor Superman would get a lot of sleep that night, while Superman put Batman's car back together again, and Batman played with Superman's doll… Furby… whatever.
Saturday morning dawned bright and early in Metropolis just about the same time that Friday morning had rolled around the previous day. The main difference between Friday morning and Saturday morning, at least where Superman was concerned, was that on Friday morning Clark was just waking up at dawn from a great night's sleep, but on Saturday morning he was just going to bed at dawn.
With a tired yawn after hiding his super-suit in the hidden room behind his closet, Clark Kent flopped into bed and threw a pillow over his head as he grumbled, "Good thing this is a Saturday and I don't have to go into work, these pranks are starting to wear me out."
With that, the sounds of muffled breathing was heard as Clark Kent drifted off to sleep after a long night.
Three hours later, just as Clark was getting to a particularly good part in his dream where Lois Lane and Wonder Woman decided to share him, he was startled out of bed by the screeching sound of one of his alarm whistles blaring.
Clark shot out of bed and blurred into his secret room to return and dive out the apartment window in his Superman uniform, for only his closest friends and loved ones had been given the special watches that would call Superman in their time of need.
Faster than a speeding bullet, Superman homed in on the subsonic warning sound and zipped across the city in a red and blue blur that left a contrail across the Metropolis sky.
"There's the source." Kal-El said to himself as he realized that the whistle was coming from the playground of Metropolis central park and darted down to check out the scene.
It was only when Superman was floating over the large sandbox with the jungle gym in the middle of it did he realize that there was no source of worry.
There was no super villain, no alien invasion, no giant blob from beneath the earth, there wasn't even a little Timmy who had fallen down a well let alone Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen in trouble.
Looking around in confusion, Superman was startled again when the shrill sound of his signature warning whistle hit him again from no more than fifty feet below him. Looking down in surprise, Superman saw a bunch of kids crowded around a pole, and the cutest little girl with ringlets in her blonde hair and a pink dress was bulging out her cheeks before blowing as hard as she could on a red whistle that only Superman could hear.
Clark covered his ears in pain, and flew down slowly to the group of kids who were all pointing at him and cheering.
"Superman! It's Superman! You really came, you did you did!" They cheered and all crowded around him and reached out hands to tug on his cape or smile up at him while asking for airplane rides or if they ate their vegetables would they really be strong like him some day.
"Wait wait wait, one at a time please." Superman stated with a smile, only to cringe as the cute little girl blew the whistle again that was chained to the pole stuck in the sand.
Kal-El covered his ears until the little girl ran out of air and stopped blowing the whistle. When she had stopped, he turned to her and politely asked.
"Would you stop blowing that whistle please?" Superman asked the little girl politely as he bent down to her level.
"Why?" The little cute girl asked in what sounded like the most innocent question in the world before taking a big breath and preparing to blow the whistle again.
Superman's eyes grew large and he quickly, but carefully, wrapped his hands around the whistle so that the girl ended up slobbering on the back of his hand rather than blowing the whistle at point blank range.
The little girl looked up from where she had slobbered on his hands, and gave him the cutest little glare and pout with her arms crossed over her chest as she let go of the whistle.
"Why are you being a meany and not letting me blow the whistle?" The little girl asked in a huff, and the kids that were gathered around quieted down to hear the answer.
Clark looked around him at the little kids that all assumed pouty faces and imitated the little girl's crossed arms.
Kal-El smiled gently at them and answered, "Because I'm the only one who can hear that whistle, and I thought somebody needed me to help them."
"But that's why we blew it." The girl stated, big blue eyes rolling with exasperation as if he said the silliest thing in the world. "The sign says right there to blow the whistle if you need Superman."
Sure enough, Clark turned and on the top of the pole that the whistle was chained to was a sign that said, "In case of needing Superman, blow whistle."
Kal-El stared at the sign, realized that he had been pranked again and then with a huff sighed to himself and shook his head before pasting a smile on his face and looking back at the little girl and asking, "Ok, so I'm here now. What did you need help with?" He asked politely.
The little girl looked down at her feet and put her hands behind her back as she tipped forward and back on the heels of her little black patented leather shoes. "Well uh, Timmy said we should get some Ice Cream from the Ice Cream man over there." The little girl quickly explained between hemming and hawing as she shyly explained and then pointed about one hundred feet away where a big tall man with glasses and wearing a white dairyman's uniform was taking money and handing out ice cream cones from a white cooler cart.
Clark brought his attention back to the girl as he realized she wasn't done talking, "So then Julie told Danny, Timmy and Eric that we didn't have any money for ice cream, but I said there is the sign over there and mommy always says that Superman is a nice man and that I can trust him so I thought that Superman might buy us ice cream if we called him and asked him really nicely so Pleeeeeeeaaasseee will you buy us ice cream? Pretty please with a cherry on top and whipped cream and all those sprinkles and stuff?" The little girl finished pleading, and then the other kids surrounding Superman all started begging with long drawn out pleases.
Superman looked around smiling at the kids as they jumped around and begged him to buy them ice cream.
Finally with a smile Kal-El acquiesced to their pleas, "Ok, ok ok already, I'll buy you ice cream."
"Yay!" All the kids cheered in joy, jumping up and down or clapping as they ran off toward the ice cream man, and the little girl grabbed Superman's hand and tried to jerk him to get him to follow along faster.
Superman smiled down at the little girl before sweeping her off the ground and plopping her down on his right shoulder before reaching out with his left hand and snapping the whistle off of the chain before crushing the whistle into dust. The little blonde girl cheered and giggled in joy as Superman carried her as they followed behind the screaming and whooping group of little boys and girls that were running towards the ice cream man.
Finally Kal-El reached the ice cream man just as the man handed a large chocolate covered ice cream bar to a girl that was holding a beautiful redhead's hand.
"And what do you say to the man Helen?" Superman heard the redhead ask as he and his swarm of kids arrived to crowd around the ice cream cart.
"Thank you sir!" The little girl holding the woman's hand stated.
"Good, now come along," The woman stated as she turned, only to see Superman. "Oh my, Superman." She said with a smile that almost looked like a smirk as she continued to hold onto the hand of the little girl next to her.
"Morning Ma'am." Superman said with a polite smile before turning to face the ice cream man who was looking at Superman with a big smile on his face, "Morning sir." Superman continued in greeting to the dairy treats man.
"Wow, it's you, your Superman!" The Dairy man said before reaching out a hand to vigorously shake Superman's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you in person Superman, a real pleasure." The ice cream man said with a big smile on his face while pumping Superman's hand up and down, only to pause for a moment and shake his head before smiling and letting go of Kal-El's hand.
"So what can I get you and your friends Superman?" The dairy treats man asked with a huge smile on his face.
Kal-El returned the smile and bantered back, "It's a pleasure to meet you too sir, and that's a good grip you've got there." Superman jokingly stated while looking down at the kids around him and not noticing the slight twitch on the face of the ice cream man's face.
"I'd like to buy ice cream treats for all my friends here." Superman said as he looked up at the girl on his shoulder and settled her down among her friends as the kids started yelling out the flavors of ice cream that they wanted.
By the time Superman looked up again, the ice cream man was all smiles.
"It's all the dairy I eat, makes the body strong," The ice cream man stated before fulfilling the requests that the kids were yelling out. No matter how strange or specific the requested ice cream they wanted, the dairy treat man seemed to have that exact thing in his ice cream cart.
Finally the ice cream man finished handing out ice cream and then addressed the kids, "Now what do you say to the nice Superman for buying you ice cream?" The dairy man questioned.
"Thanks Superman!" The kids all yelled together.
"That will be fifty dollars please." The ice cream man said with a smile towards Superman, a brief glimmer of glee passing through the dairy man's eyes as he saw Superman cringe for a moment before pulling out several bills from the back of Superman's red briefs.
"Here you go." Superman said as he handed over a fifty dollar bill before smiling back at the ice cream man and then turning towards the kids.
"Ok kids, you have a good day." Superman said with a smile before looking to the sky.
"Bye Superman!" The kids all cried out together as if they had practiced it before.
"Up up and away!" Superman cried, and then with a mighty leap he jumped into the air and then darted away to disappear from view.
The ice cream man smiled, the red head smiled, and the kids all smiled until all of their smiles turned devious and quite a bit blood thirsty as they looked at each other and then broke out in laughter.
"Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" They all laughed together before stopping abruptly when the ice cream man stopped laughing.
Removing his glasses, Xander closed his eyes and rubbed his nose where the cheap pieces of window pane glasses had pinched.
"Did you get what you wanted?" Artemis asked with a smirk on her lips and a hand on her hip as she patted the little girl on the head for a good job well done.
Xander opened his eyes and looked at Artemis, and then his smile turned into a leer as he looked her up and down with a gleam in his eye.
"Yes, yes I think I did." Xander replied with a naughty grin on his face.
Artemis smirked back at him and cocked her hip to the side, "Like what you see?" She playfully asked.
"Yep." Xander happily replied, "X-Ray vision, got to love it. Though when I shook his hand and was hit with the increased hearing it took me a moment to get it under control; I was worried I botched it when he mentioned me squeezing his hand harder than most people." Xander continued as he blinked several times as he turned off his newly stolen power.
"Well no worries, it seemed you were right about those glasses. I can't believe anybody could be fooled by a simple pair of glasses." Artemis finished with a wry shake of her head at the simple stupidity of normally very bright people.
"I know what you mean, but I figured if he thought it was a good disguise then it would work equally well against him. After I ran into Wonder Woman in India on League business, I thought it would be better to have some sort of disguise," Xander finished as he pulled several hidden levers on the ice cream cart and it collapsed and folded itself into a block no bigger than a rubik's cube which Xander then put into his deep pockets.
"Dr. Alexander." A young voice from behind Xander called to him and pulled his attention around until he faced the little girl with blonde hair that had so masterfully played Superman.
"Yes Susan?" Xander asked with a smile on his face.
"Did you get the powers you wanted to sample Sir?" Susan asked politely as she looked up at whom she believed to be the head scientist on The Leviathan's projects.
"Yes, yes I think I did." Xander answered with a smile as he seemed to gaze out into the distance with his head cocked to the side, only to look back down at the little girl and nod with a smile.
"Including the bullet proof powers?" Susan asked politely in her little girl voice, the rest of her 'friends' gathered behind her as she was obviously the leader of the group.
Xander crouched down to match Susan's height so that she wouldn't have to strain her neck to look up at him.
"No Susan, I didn't. I didn't want to copy his DNA as that would be the requirement to gain the invulnerability. Besides, his Kryptonian DNA is subject to way too many known and easily accessible vulnerabilities, it seems like Kryptonite is practically sold in the corner stores or something it's so common these days." Xander answered with a smile on his face.
One little boy in the back raised his hand, but it was Susan who waved him to speak, "Dr. Alexander, it actually is sold in the corner stores back in the Empire." The boy added helpfully with a smile and a rapid nod.
Susan turned to look at Xander and quirked her head to the side in thought, the blonde ringlets bouncing and seeming to exude incredible cuteness with every move of her little head. "So if I understand the mechanism right, the Kryptonian DNA must grant some form of molecular density shielding that enables him to be bullet proof, additionally increased by the stored solar radiation which creates a shield above his skintight uniform… hmm the formation of the molecule must be such that it is disturbed by the radiation expelled by the Kryptonite, correct?"
Xander's smile grew larger as he nodded, "Exactly, that is mine and the Leviathan's hypothesis as well." Xander agreed.
"Good." Susan nodded while sending her curls bouncing again before giving Xander a serious look, "So our part of the bargain is complete, so now you will include me and my team on the construction project for the Grey City?" Susan questioned while crossing her arms as she tried to look daunting.
Xander controlled his urge to laugh as the team of child geniuses from his Empire all crossed their arms and nodded.
"Yes, I'll keep my word. You will all be on the team to build the new city." Xander replied with a smile as the kids all broke into smiles and cheers.
"Besides!" Xander stated, loud enough to be heard over the cheering of the children and to draw their attention back to him and then repeated his previous statement. "Besides, it was your team that figured out that the laws of gravity functioned differently in the dimensional pocket. It was your work that ensured that The Leviathan wouldn't have to waste all of his Nth Metal supplies on building the city." Xander said with a gleam in his eye as he stood up and finished addressing the children.
"In addition to that, I have it on good authority that The Leviathan was impressed with your work and wanted you to not only to help with the city, but also to help finish up the work on the new Castle Wulfenbach airship." Xander said with a wink.
All the kids gasped, and then with huge smiles on their faces they started jumping up and down in the air and screaming in joy. The screams of joy quickly devolved into technological discussions across multiple fields of science, each of the children excitedly discussing what they would add to the soon to be Embassy of the Empire to the United States. One boy looked excited and shouted that he was going to be able to build that new death ray assembly he had been dreaming of, while a little girl said her biological manipulation program had created just the right tentacle monster whose purple spots would really liven up the color scheme for the floating castle.
As Xander listened in to the kids rapid fire discussions he thought it was funny how you could put the mad science into the child, but you couldn't take the child out of the mad scientist. This was proven especially true when one of the young girls started to go off on a tangent about flying flesh eating ponies that could double as unwelcome visitor management.
Shaking his head in wry amusement, Xander yelled over the sound of the children scientists, "Ok you scamps, back to your laboratories with you. Science waits for no one!" Xander finished dramatically and struck a pose while triggering a portal next to him.
The children all cheered in joy and ran through the portal headed back to Romania and The Empire of The Leviathan.
The portal snapped shut and Xander let go of his dramatic pose before chuckling to himself and turning to look at Artemis.
Artemis smirked at him as she stood there in the sunny spring morning with one hand cocked on her hip as both her and Xander's clothing rippled and flowed until he was left standing in a bright red Hawaiian shirt and jeans and she was in a long sleeved green turtleneck and black slacks.
"Having fun are we?" Artemis asked as she came up and took the elbow that Xander offered her.
"Absolutely." Xander said with a smirk as the two started walking down the surprisingly empty paths of Metropolis's Central Park. "After all, it's not every day that I get to prank Superman, steal several of his superpowers, help corrupt the next generation of mad scientists, and then have a picnic lunch with a lovely lady." Xander continued, only to snap his fingers and catch the picnic basket that appeared before it could hit the ground.
Artemis raised an eyebrow at Xander's theatrics. She had only been around his "real" self for about a week but she was already getting to the point where she was hardly surprised by the wild things he seemed to pull out of midair.
"Smooth." Artemis said with a wink and a kiss on his cheek before letting go of Xander's elbow and sauntering ahead in front of him with a sway in her hips.
Looking back over her shoulder she quipped, "If you provide a good company for lunch, then perhaps I will provide the Dessert." She hinted, clearly capitalizing the D in dessert as she drew out the word with a pure. Then with a lascivious look as she looked him up and down and added, "And if you provide naughty company for lunch, then I know where the whipped topping is at the castle, and there are a few women who want to join me in being dessert." With a wink, Artemis sauntered ahead.
Xander's eyebrows rose and his smile seemed to stretch from one ear to the other.
Xander shook himself as he watched Artemis continue walking in front of him with an exaggerated sway in her step, and he couldn't help but switch to x-ray vision and then back again as he watched her move.
"God I love my life." Xander said to himself, before running to catch up with his new girlfriend with a smile that would take an industrial grade sandblaster to remove.
Sunday morning Superman woke up in a cold sweat as he quickly looked around his bedroom to realize that his dreams about falling prey to a prank where he was covered in chocolate syrup and then set upon by Kryptonian fire ants had been just that, dreams.
With a groan, Clark Kent threw his pillow over his head and decided that he was going to sleep in while he got the chance, it had been a long week.
Meanwhile in Castle Bob, Xander woke up about noon with Jenny curled up on one shoulder, Artemis on the other, Dora spooned up behind Artemis and Tara behind Jenny, and spooned up on the backsides of Tara and Dora were several Valkyries who just 'happened' to be standing outside Xander's bedroom door when Artemis initiated the previous evenings fun.
Inside Xander's head the little voice of his libido kicked his feet up on the conference table in Xander's mind with a smug look on his face while smoking one of the Primal's cigars. 'Yep, this is the life baby, we've finally made it.' The little voice finished with a relaxed exhale of smoke.
Staring up at the ceiling with an absolute shit eating grin, Xander said quietly to himself, "God I love my life!"
And with that, Xander snuggled down into the bevy of sleeping beauties in his bed, to hell with pranking Superman that day.
Monday dawned at the normal time for Clark Kent and as he stretched and yawned from his place in his bed he looked around and scratched before smiling to himself… there had been no pranks on Sunday.
With a cheerful whistle and a spring in his step, Clark went about his morning activities and made it into the Daily Planet without anything breaking him out of his wonderful mood.
"Good morning Lois," Clark said with a quick kiss on her cheek as he passed by her cubicle before whistling to himself and leaving his smiling girlfriend behind on his way to his desk.
"Morning Jimmy!" Clark called out as he looked over the top of Jimmy Olsen's cube and greeted his buddy.
"Hey Clark, you sound peppy this morning, what's the news that has you so happy today?" Jimmy asked as Jimmy rose out of his chair and followed Clark to Clark's cubicle.
"Oh nothing much Jimmy, good Sunday is all. Got to sleep in and it was much appreciated to just have a day of rest." Clark said with a smile before whistling and booting up his computer.
"Well that sounds nice, a little boring, but nice." Jimmy added as the photographer leaned on the doorway to Clark's cube.
"Nah, it was exactly what I needed. I'm a farm boy at heart, and after the work's done it's nice to be able to just kick back and relax and watch the proverbial grass grow. So what's new with you?" Clark asked politely as his computer booted up and he quickly read all of his emails, looking for all the world that Clark was just skimming the contents when in reality Clark Kent had just read twenty emails in the span of even less seconds.
Jimmy smiled and shrugged, "Nothing much, oh, but have you seen Perry this morning?" The photographer questioned.
Clark quirked an eyebrow up and spun his chair to face his young friend. "No I haven't, why do you ask?" Clark queried.
"Oh, no real reason, except he isn't here yet and his office is all closed up. You know how it is, Perry usually leaves it open and the curtains up when he leaves for the night so that his cigar smoke can filter out, he must have forgotten last night, that's all." Jimmy said with a shrug before turning to head back to his cubicle.
Clark shrugged and went back to start working on his computer.
"Good morning Jimmy, did you get those photographs developed from Saturday's Mayoral Gala?" The voice of the Daily Planet's Editor and Chief, Perry, was heard from the aisle outside Clark's cubicle.
"Yep Chief, got them right here, I've already emailed them to the Connie over in copy and edit." Jimmy's voice filtered back through the aisles.
"Good morning Daily Planet." Perry said loud enough so everybody in the news room could hear him over the ringing phones, morning conversations and clacking keyboards.
"Good morning Perry." Everybody chimed, heads poking out of cubicles to greet their often gruff but always caring boss.
Clark smiled as he watched Perry walk by and approach the editor's office. Clark continued watching with a smile as Perry opened the door to the office.
A quizzical look came to Perry's face and to the rest of the watching Daily Planet's staff as they looked into the open door to Perry's office and tried to connect what exactly it was that they were seeing.
Perry's office was full of water. No, not just covered in Dixie cups full of water, not water bottles stacked up, but literally covered and full of water from floor to ceiling.
Not only that, but very large fish where swimming around in the aquarium that Perry's office had been turned into.
Clark Kent had a very bad feeling about this, a feeling that was proven true when one of the very large fish turned towards the light of the open door and tried to make its escape from the tight confines with his other brother and sister fish.
It was at that point that the journalist staff of the Daily Planet learned two things in rapid order:
One, the barrier that was holding back the water in the doorway, the barrier that kept the water in the large office of the Editor and Chief, was some type of strong but not unbreakable cellophane or cling wrap like material; similar to what people wrap food in.
Two, the very large fish were sword fish, and their sword-noses just happened to be sharp enough to tear right through the thin clear membrane that separated the Daily Planet's staff from a Monday morning saltwater bath.
Swordfish hit membrane.
Sword-nose tore membrane.
And chaos was the name of the game.
Women screamed and men bellowed as suddenly a torrential wave of water swept out of the very large office and hit the staff right in the face. And then it was ass over tea kettle for everybody including Clark Kent as suddenly sword noses were being introduced to human anatomical features that were not meant to meet.
The wave of water had passed through the office in a matter of seconds, only to cover the floor in about six inches of salty water with large thirty pound fish flopping about and accidentally stabbing people in awkward places; Clark Kent was very happy that he had the equivalent of buns of steel, else the sword fish poking him in the rear may have required a super proctologist.
Clark pulled the flopping swordfish's prodigious beak out of the back of his sopping wet pants and flung it away while at the same time removing the soaking piece of newspaper that had stuck itself to the side of his face.
Looking to his right Clark saw Lois push herself out of the water, wet straggly hair streaming down over her face, white dress-suit stained with coffee and wet newspaper stains, and she did not look happy, no, not happy at all.
Lois sputtered and spit out a mouth full of salt water as Clark moved forward to help her out, only to have his girlfriend's head seem to home in on him like some sort of missile tracking system, and she delivered a death glare right in his direction through her raccoon looking mascara dripping eyes.
"YOU!" Lois made it sound like a curse word as she filled her statement with venom and anger.
Meanwhile Clark's coworkers were busy picking themselves up or moving away from flopping fish that struggled to swim in the shallow waters that were cluttered with every from Sparkbucks' to-go coffee cups to pens, pencils and paper. Perry had somehow ended up all the way by the glass front doors to the news room, and the Editor and Chief just stared blinking ahead stunned from his position sitting on the ground in the water.
"But Lois, I didn't have anything to-" Clark tried to plead while attempting to help Lois to her feet, only for his girlfriend to push his hands away right before she slipped and fell into the watery morass at her feet and glare at him again.
That's when Lois said the words that made Clark's heart race and blood turn cold in fear.
"I'm… Calling…Your…Mother." Lois stated emphatically.
Clark just stared at her as the utter doom in her words hit home in his brain, he was in big trouble.
Lois pushed herself up to her feet, struggled to take off her ruined pair of designer white pumps, and then sloshed her way out the door of the Daily Planet's news room.
Behind her Clark's shoulders slumped, he was so going to get grounded for this.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday the office of the Daily Planet was closed for repairs, and after Xander's mechanical-clank fly on the wall reported the outcome of the latest prank, well Xander felt a bit sorry for Superman.
That didn't mean that Xander wasn't going to continue pranking Superman, oh no, not by a long shot. That just meant that as the pranks rolled on that Xander would space them out a bit more. After all, plans had changed and responsibilities had to be met, that meant Superman had to suffer a bit.
Xander needed a constant outlet for his Sparky creation, and this pranking thing had worked out very well as for the last two weeks he hadn't woken up to find that he had unconsciously created some wild and wacky new dooms day device during his sleep. Then it again it was also nice that he got to work out all of those pranking ideas that he never had the chance to use on Principal Snyder back in Sunnydale; what for lack of resources or time when he lived on the Hellmouth.
Thus during the three days that Ma Kent had grounded Clark to either the farm, the apartment or hero duties, Xander left the bested hero alone.
Now Friday on the other hand, that was a different story. Xander had snuck in with the last repair crew to leave the Daily Planet, and behind him he had left a little prank that wasn't up to his normal level of snuff but should still do the trick in driving Superman to distraction.
On Friday the Daily Planet office opened its doors again as the news reporters were able to finally work from the office rather than from home. As Clark and his other workers schlepped their way to their newly cleaned and dried cubicles they sighed in relief to note that the Editor and Chief's office was left wide open with the blinds open for all to peer in and see Perry already at work. Just by that one fact alone Friday was already looking better than the earlier part of the week and as the morning started to roll on the staffers got back into the rhythm of work.
Yes, everything was just getting back to normal when on the opposite side of the office from Clark there came a strange loud beep sound. A little time passed, and nobody really noticed it over the sound of conversations, keyboards and phone calls, but then more beeping sounds were heard.
First here, then there the beeps sounded
Then the beeps began to change to different volumes, pitches and durations, but never for long enough to truly pinpoint where the sound was coming from. It was at this point that the staffers started to really notice that the beeps didn't belong, and were beginning to get irritating.
"Beep …. beep… BEEP beep …" the sounds started to come from everywhere at random times, and because Xander's devices were planted in every out of the way place the mad genius could think of, the staffers didn't know where to search first as they tried to follow the sound only for it to come from a totally different direction.
Lois rolled her wheelie office chair out of her cubical and glared across the way at Clark.
Clark quickly got the drift of her message, so lowered his glasses and looked around with his x-ray vision only to find that there were little devices planted everywhere from the lights on the ceiling to under his very own desk. He also noted, somewhat embarrassingly, that many of the women were once again wearing their lead lined underwear.
Clark bent down to look under his desk and saw a small circuit board with a red LED light on it and a single watch battery. As he watched, the light blinked at the same time that the device gave a "beep" sound. Shaking his head in disgust, Clark pulled the device off the underside of his desk, realizing that it easily loosened as the magnet on the back lost its connection with the metal of the desk it was attached to.
Standing up, Clark announced, "It's some type of pranking device that beeps, it looks like its scavenger hunt time people."
Perry came out of the door of his office and yelled, "Well don't just stare at him people, get to finding those little buggers so we can get back to work." With that, the Editor slammed his door so he couldn't hear the incessant beeping.
Lois just shook her head in Clark's direction, and he gave her an apologetic shrug. Based on their conversation last night Clark had explained that not even Batman had a clue where these pranks were coming from, especially since they varied from simple little toys to random manufactured goods and seemed to be planted with relative ease. Not even Batman surveillance devices planted at the Daily Planet's office had caught the perpetrator of the fish prank or the beepers.
Work would end up going long that day as after the staff of the Daily Planet got done finding the annoying little devices, they still had a full day's worth of work to do.
Saturday dawned for Clark, and it was his shift to cover Watchtower duty for the Justice League, the only problem was that he didn't have anything to wear for his week of vacation from the Planet while he was on tower duty.
"Well crap." Kal-El stated as he stared at his open closet of uniforms in the secret room hidden behind the closet in his apartment.
Oh, the closet was full of uniforms alright, but what had Clark Kent cursing was the color of said uniforms.
Where once was blue spandex, was now white spandex; white spandex covered with little red and pink hearts to be exact. Gone was the red cape, and in its place was a cape in the light shade of pink with bright red letters written across it declaring that he was "Fantastic!" To top off the ensemble, the formerly red briefs which Superman wore on the outside of his blue spandex? Well those were now bright almost glow in the dark pink, with large red letters written across the front of his pelvic region which stated in bold capitalized font, "MAN OF STEEL!" Even the exclamation point was there.
"Oh hell no. No, No, no no no…" Clark said as he just stared at what was left of his entire supply of spare uniforms.
Just then his communicator went off with an emergency signal, and Clark grabbed it from the stand it was set on next to him.
"Superman here, what's the emergency?" Kal-El questioned quickly, eyes still focusing on the eyesore before him.
"Jonn'z here, Gorilla Grodd has invaded Long Island New York with an army of Gorillas, and they are attacking civilians everywhere with police already on the scene. People are about to die and we need Superman immediately." The report came through quickly from the Justice League's Watchtower.
Clark just stared at the communicator bug eyed for a moment, but then with a shake of his head and a clenched jaw Kal-El knew what he needed to do. Biting the proverbial bullet, a pink, red and white blur was quickly jetting its way towards New York City.
Later news commentary was conflicting at the possible existence of a new hero "Fantasticman," where as other's thought Superman had finally come out of the closet. One particularly adroit reporter noted that they had always questioned why Superman wore his underwear on the outside of his pants and likened it to some of the garb commonly worn in San Francisco's Castro district. Still other hopeful sources pointed to the possibility of another Superman clone that didn't completely copy right. Back at Clark's apartment, the voice message machine blinked with an irate message from Lois Lane and another from Ma and Pa Kent telling Clark that they loved him no matter what choices he made in life.
Saturday was also an early day for Xander as he had a meeting with King Orin of Atlantis, a man also known by the hero name of Aquaman. After a quick stop by Superman's apartment while testing out Xander's new sound suppression device, which was actually powered by a caffeinated hamster in a squeaky wheel, Xander disappeared through a portal after swiping Superman's old uniforms and replacing them with the FANTASTIC set that made Xander giggle with evil glee. Xander had originally thought about making Superman's costume different Hawaiian styles of print and colors, but decided that if Xander ever wanted to work with the hero face to face then it might be an eventual give away when Xander showed up in his usual Hawaiian garb.
After swapping costumes at Clark's apartment, Xander's portal snapped open to deposit him two miles up in the sky above the roiling Atlantic Ocean. Whereas it had been a warmish morning in Metropolis with sunny skies and white fluffy clouds, the sky around Xander now was packed with dark grey clouds packed with moisture.
Xander seemed to step out of the portal before dropping like a rock as gravity claimed his black nano-clank armored form. Feet planted together and body almost stiff as a plank Xander dropped feet first towards the ocean without any attempt to stop his increasing downward momentum.
"Is everything ready for my meeting with Aquaman Jarvis?" Xander casually questioned his suit's AI as outside his helmet he watched light and dark wisps of cloud dart by as torrential rains splattered and beat against his well protected form as he freefell at increasingly greater speeds.
"Yes Sir." The warm tones of the British butler like AI responded before going into more detail, "You are currently located at 41.244772, -29.53125nd, just above the flank of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge over the center of the Atlantic Ocean."
Xander nodded to himself, not making a verbal reply as he spent his time in freefall reviewing details on what he knew about the ruler Aquaman, the Atlantians that King Orin ruled, and whatever historical facts that Xander could recall from his days as a comic book geek with his buddy Jesse. Half surface dweller, half Atlantian prince born of the executed Queen. Xander reviewed that Aquaman's powers were aquatic life telepathy as well as super strength and durability plus the ability to breathe underwater. Other than those gifts, Xander remembered that Aquaman's life pretty much sucked, as the aquatic hero was inflicted with one pyrrhic victory after another and was constantly beat down as all Orin wanted was to protect the Atlantian people and live with the woman Orin loved. That is why Xander had come, to visit Aquaman, for Xander felt that in Aquaman Xander could find another fellow ruler who held several similar beliefs.
Jarvis's voice interrupted Xander's musings on his quickly approaching meeting, a meeting that was drawing literally closer as Xander shot out of the low hanging clouds and towards the now visible waves beneath him; the waves roiling with swells ranging from twenty to twenty five feet tall due to the anger of the storm around him.
"Atlantis is located approximately seven thousand five hundred meters below the surface of your current position. You have reached terminal velocity sir and should hit the surface of the water at terminal velocity speeds in approximately 20 seconds, 19 seconds, 18 seconds… should I activate your shield and change you into your Leviathan outfit Sir?" Jarvis politely asked.
"Yes please Jarvis." Xander replied casually with all the care as if replying to a waiter asking if he would like more water with his meal and in no way comparable to a normal human's reaction would have been in a similar situation of plummeting towards an angry sea without a parachute.
"Deploying Sir." Jarvis stated, and at that same time a slight shine appeared around Xander's armor as the shield system engaged while the armor itself rippled and molded into the featureless black helmet and all black suit, gloves and shoes with the shirt and blood red tie.
"Shape shield to effect maximum penetration please." Xander commanded right before he just missed hitting the peak of a wave beneath him and instead hit a valley between the waves where Xander entered the water like a torpedo; shield system now shaping around Xander so it formed him into a human dart that slipped down through the water almost effortlessly.
Xander went deeper and deeper, and a small part of him was interested to note how quiet the water around him seemed compared to the angry skies and loud choppy waters above the surface.
"No wonder the Atlantians prefer to be left in peace to live out their lives." Xander postulated to himself behind his helmet as he was content to continue dropping at the speed imparted from the fall. As Xander's body began to slow from the friction and pressure of the water against his shield he began to call upon his powers of flight to drive his body deeper still as he moved closer to his goal.
"Why, to Aquaman and his peoples they must consider the surface itself to be a violent place, let alone the surface dwellers that like to invade or pollute the depths of the ocean. It's really peaceful down here." Xander finished talking to himself, which was the time when he saw an incredibly large Great White shark swimming by and turn towards Xander.
Xander's rapid descent, quickly took him out of range and interest of the Great White while also serving to remind Xander that though the ocean was a place of beauty, peace and abundance, it was also a place full of predators where if the sharks and toothy mouths of the deep didn't get you then the pressure of the ocean itself would try and smother you within its powerful blue embrace.
"Jarvis, just double checking that Plan C is ready in case I need backup?" Xander queried his computer as he drew deeper and deeper and ever closer to his meeting location on the secured boarders of Atlantis; frankly Xander was surprised he hadn't run across any patrols on the outskirts of the city given how close Xander was to the city. That in itself was odd and of enough reason to query about Plan C.
"Yes sir, as Igor assured you previously, the biological manipulation of the samples combined with the carbon based nano-clanks enabled the completion of the project as desired. However please let me remind you that Plan C mandates that you acquire Aquaman's powers in order for it to be fully implemented. The danger of implementation without that power is raised by a factor of twenty if you don't…" Jarvis replied as he added his cautionary advice only for Xander to cut him off.
"I know, I know Jarvis, I'm the one who came up with Plan C in the first case. Besides, we're here." Xander interrupted, and sure enough they had arrived as in the distant dark depths beneath Xander rested a humongous domed city glowing blue but with gold lines that seemed to imitate the pattern of brain coral.
Floating between Xander and the city that rested on the sea bottom was a blonde haired muscular figure wearing a tight orange shirt and green pants that seemed to shimmer like scales in the glow of the city's energy dorm.
'Shield off Jarvis.' Xander mentally commanded as he reached up and fixed his already perfectly situated crimson tie before floating forward slowly towards Aquaman. As Xander moved forward his black suit didn't waiver at all, as if the fabric of the suit refused to get wet or be moved by Xander traveling through the water.
"Greetings King Orin of Atlantis, or do you prefer Aquaman?" Xander broadcast on his speaker systems in English as he approached the King under the sea.
"Either will suffice, and greetings to you as well Leviathan," and Aquaman held out his hand in greeting before clasping forearms with the Leviathan; a formal way of greeting apparently older than even medieval times and which signified that neither party at the meeting had a dagger up their sleeve with which to stab the other in the back.
Xander smirked and his eyes sparkled behind his mask as not only did he suddenly feel his mind expand to connect with the sea creatures around him, but also he felt as it pinged against a suddenly startled Aquaman. The smirk was also caused by the additional irony of the fact that though they were clasping forearms Xander's very sleeves could turn into the aforementioned dagger, not that he planned on stabbing Aquaman in the back literally or figuratively.
Aquaman's grasp on the Leviathan's forearm tightened and King Orin frowned for a moment as he queried, "I feel you, your mind's voice calling out. As if you were a creature of the sea, and can hear your voice echo off the minds of my friends, yet I can't get a lock on your own mind to speak to it. Why is that Leviathan?"
Xander tilted his head to the side and smiled while tightening his own grasp on the forearm of Aquaman. "We all have secrets King under the sea, yet my secrets will not harm you as long as you do not harm me. I would think that the fact that I have a similar talent to your own would assure you that I am not your common surface dweller and can be better trusted. Didn't my cleaning of the great floating waste dumps in the ocean, not only above but also in the Pacific show that I consider you and your people as a worthy ally? Do not my actions speak louder than your bought of paranoia?" Xander questioned from behind his Leviathan helmet before waiting quietly for Aquaman to answer.
Aquaman just stared back at The Leviathan quietly before the frown slowly turned into a bland expression and Orin nodded while releasing his clasp on The Leviathan's forearm.
"Ok, I'll trust you at your word for now. But I can't ignore past experience that states that often those who greet me as friends or even family end up turning into my worst enemies." Aquaman said in explanation as he crossed his arms across his chest.
Xander smirked under his helmet before releasing a laugh. "Ha, Yes, I absolutely understand. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you." Xander broadcast verbally with humor in his voice.
"Heh," Aquaman chuckled and smiled back at The Leviathan. "I see that we understand each other." Orin stated after smirking back at the black clothed figure of the Leviathan.
"Yes we do." The Leviathan replied as Xander's voice issued out of the helmet in an amused tone of voice. "Now on to business. I asked for this meeting to request an alliance between our peoples as we will soon be neighbors of a sort." Xander explained through the speakers on his system.
Aquaman's smile left his face and he frowned for a bit, "It would have to depend on what type of alliance you are requesting and what you mean regarding us soon being neighbors." Aquaman stated a bit wearily. The King of Atlantis was willing to give The Leviathan the benefit of the doubt for the moment, but that didn't mean that he wasn't incredibly wary of all surface dwellers as a whole. After all, it made sense given that the saying, "burn me once shame on you, burn me twice shame on me" had special meaning to a man whose people were water based.
"Understandable." The Leviathan answered honestly. "As to the first I am requesting trade links between your peoples and mine in regards to food and resources. There are minerals and elements that I need for the furtherance and protection of my people yet can only be found in the depths of the sea. As such I don't want to just mine them as you were the first people to this part of the world. Additionally I would offer the services of my forces if you were attacked and would expect the same in return. As to the second, my people will soon start building dwellings along the bottom of the oceans off the coasts of my lands, and I wanted to be a good neighbor and introduce myself first before we moved in." Xander finished explaining while he figuratively laid out his cards on the table.
Aquaman frowned in thought while bending his right arm up so that he could rub his chin while still crossing his arms over his chest. After a few moments Orin carefully answered, "While I appreciate you letting us know about your movement into the oceans of the world, I am hesitant to ally with a surface dweller, even one as conscientious of the seas as you appear to be." Aquaman raised his hand to still any comments as The Leviathan's head moved as if he was going to say something.
"That isn't to say that we cannot trade or figure out some way of working for the acquisition of the minerals that you need for your people's safety, though the mining methods would have to be such as would leave zero pollution or tainting of the waters where you quest for the resources." Aquaman quickly added before continuing, "It's just that we try not to get involved in the politics and wars of the surface as they seem to happen all of the time."
Xander was quiet as he thought about Aquaman's answer. In truth, Xander had pretty much already achieved the main reason for traveling to meet King Orin, namely the bullet and explosive proofing that Aquaman's hybrid status as part Atlantian part Human gifted him. Due to Aquaman's part human DNA, Xander's Amazo nano-clank technology was able to treat the human/Atlantian hybrid portion of Aquaman's genetic code as a metagene which the nano-clanks could mimic. Even while Aquaman spoke, Xander could feel the trillions of little nano-clanks changing the molecular substance of Xander's body's cells; packing them more tightly together and replicating more in order to mimic Aquaman's ability to survive and deflect impact strikes at point blank range. That said, there were some very real political, scientific, economic and safety benefits that Xander could gain if he could acquire a broad sweeping alliance and trade agreement with Atlantis and Aquaman.
Finally The Leviathan spoke as Aquaman had allowed the foreign ruler the time to think over Orin's statement.
"I understand your concerns King Orin and welcome the increased trade. And I assure you that all mining or resource farming will create zero pollution that could harm the oceans or their residents." Xander stated patiently in his persona as the leader of the Empire of the Leviathan, but here is where he called upon the persuasive powers of The Spark, and it slowly started to fill his voice.
"However you must understand that just because you ignore the conflicts and strife that plagues the surface world does not mean that the surface dwellers will return the courtesy to those who live under the sea, as I know you have discovered time and time again." The Leviathan stated, and the truth and power of his words were such that Aquaman couldn't help but find himself nodding in agreement.
Xander saw Aquaman nod and realized that King Orin was beginning to understand what The Leviathan was saying. Xander was going to continue speaking, but then he noticed a rapidly approaching figure swimming for all she was worth towards him and Aquaman.
The sudden arrival drew Xander's attention as he turned his focus to the redheaded woman wearing a crown and a single formfitting seaweed looking spandex like outfit that covered her just under the shoulder then across her chest and then down to her wrists and toes. With the entrance of the woman, well Lady Luck and Irony decided that it was time that they paid a visit also.
"ORIN! Orin thank the gods I've found you!" The women yelled as she raced through the water towards Aquaman.
Aquaman's eyes darted wide as he was startled and turned to see the woman charging towards him. "Mera! What are you doing here? What's wrong? Why aren't you with our son Arthur Jr.?" Aquaman questioned as his wife crashed into Orin in a hug. Xander could tell even from where he was that this women, apparently Aquaman's Queen and wife, was crying. It was a curious effect as her eyes were red tinged from tears, but the salt of her tears meshed with the ocean before they could be noted.
"He's gone!" Mera cried and looked up horrified into her husband's eyes. "Black Manta took him and fled after killing several of the guards along with the maid who was tending to Arthur while I went to help some of our people in the deeps. I returned just as Manta's soldiers fled but the explosives they left blocked off my ability to follow them! Oh Orin, they took our Son, I don't know what I'll do!" She hysterically cried in the arms of her husband at the loss of her son.
"Don't worry Mera, I'll get him." Aquaman stated, ignoring The Leviathan who was witness to the desperate conversation between Aquaman and his wife. "There is no way that Manta can hide from all of my friends. I'll find him no matter where he is." Orin stated as confidently as he could seeing as his arch enemy.
At that statement, cue Murphy and his mayhem; stage left.
"No Aquaman, I'll find you!" Boomed a deep melodramatic voice from behind Xander.
"Sir, Black Manta is floating directly behind you about fifty feet away. I thought you should know." The voice of Jarvis stated.
"Thanks Jarvis, I kind of figured that one out." Xander replied sarcastically as he and the King and Queen of Atlantis turned around to be confronted by the sight of Black Manta who was backed up by a literal army of black and purple wetsuit wearing divers with spear guns.
'I guess that's why there were no patrols to greet me on my approach, Manta probably killed them.' Xander thought to himself before his thoughts were interrupted.
"Black Manta!" Aquaman growled in anger as he looked at his arch enemy.
Xander couldn't help but roll his eyes behind his helmet at the melodramatic confrontation between the two long time enemies. In fact, part of Xander thought about calling the villain and the hero on their overly dramatic greeting. Xander really would have done it too, that is if it wasn't for the fact that the glowing red laser eyes of Black Manta were pointing towards where the villain held the glossy looking bubble of air in which was trapped a blonde haired infant; an infant that was starting to turn a bit blue in the face at the lack of water with which to breath. Black Manta seemed to almost be posing as the villain floated in his solid black wetsuit, baby in a bubble in one hand, blade in another and red laser opticals pointed towards the baby. However for all the posturing, if there was one thing Xander had learned due to Kaznian situation where Jenny had died, it was that he really really hated hostage takers.
"Arthur!" Mera screamed and tried to dart forward only to get pulled back by Aquaman.
"Bwa ha ha ha ha," Black Manta cackled before beginning to monologue. "Yes, that's right I have your son. Finally I have you in my grasp Aquaman just as I hold your infant son in my gras-AAAAAGH!"
Black Manta's monolog was rudely interrupted as a red flash of light severed his right arm at the elbow only to disappear along with the bubble of air and the infant that was trapped inside.
Said infant, air bubble and severed forearm appeared in The Leviathan's hands at almost the same moment.
Xander ignored the screaming bleeding Black Manta and the open mouthed stunned Aquaman and Mera and instead focused on the baby in his hands.
The Leviathan took a look at the hand attached to the bubble and threw the severed arm over his shoulder before laying his hand on the hard surface of the water bubble. In less than a second there was a pop as The Leviathan's hand seemed to vibrate and then shatter the integrity of the bubble, and then Xander was left holding a baby that looked up surprised at the leader of the Empire of The Leviathan.
"Who's a cute little water breathing baby? You are! You are!" Xander cooed through his helmet in a high pitched voice as his glove hand startled and then tickled a giggle out of the infant.
Behind The Leviathan the Black Manta screamed in pain as he tried to staunch the blood flow. Behind the Black Manta the divers looked on in confusion, and in front of the Leviathan Mera and Aquaman held each other too stunned to even move as they watched The Leviathan, a man who captured countries in a day and who had just brutally severed the arm of the Black Manta, play gently with their giggling child.
Both Mera and Aquaman shared a wide eyed momentary look with each other, and both thought the same thing, 'He's Crazy!'
When that moment passed however Aquaman and Mera shook off their shock and rushed to The Leviathan's side where the ruler of the Empire gently handed the baby over to Mera as she came close.
"Oh my son!" Mera cried out as she clasped her son tightly to her chest.
'You're so lucky. You still get to breast feed on a regular basis.' The little voice of Xander's libido griped playfully at the baby as Xander smiled as the woman clutch her son to her bosom. Then Xander turned to face Black Manta just as the villain was yelling something-something about Xander's supposed upcoming doom.
"Excuse me." The Leviathan interrupted the Black Manta's tirade of what Manta wanted to do to The Leviathan and Aquaman for vengeance regarding his lost arm.
The polite interruption was so startling to the watery villain Black Manta that said villain actually stopped cursing and turned his head to see what The Leviathan wanted.
"Firstly, if you are going to be a villain, don't monologue where the heroes can kill you. Just a word of advice." The Leviathan stated in a casual tone with a negligent shrug and a wave of his hand.
The Black Manta was so stunned that he was getting advice on how to be an evil villain from a person whom Manta had just threatened to kill that all he could do was nod along; though the power of Xander's Spark probably had something to do with it.
"Second, your laugh was pitiful. This is how you laugh evilly," The Leviathan stated, and then the dark helmeted Leviathan began to chuckle darkly and deeply as the hairs on backs of not only Black Manta's but also Aquaman and Mera's necks' started to stand on end.
Starting off quietly with deep rumbles that echoed up from his chest, The Leviathan gave Black Manta his one and only lesson on how to cackle like an evil genius, "bwa ha ha ha, Mwa ha ha, BWA HA HA HA! MWAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" The Leviathan finished as he threw his head back while calling up all the power of his Spark, and around Xander his spectator's eyes went wide in fear and all of them slowly started to back away from the almost physical manifestations of true wiggin's relaying power that radiated off of the maniacally laughing Leviathan.
As quickly as it had started, it stopped in an abrupt change as The Leviathan just halted all laughter and cleared his throat while looking casually at his spectators.
"Ahem, ok, where were we then?" Xander asked with a large smile on his face from behind the cover of his helmet. 'It's kind of funny how big their eyes get when I do things like that.' Xander thought to himself with a smirk as he watched all of the beings around him just stare at him dumbstruck.
Apparently the pain of losing an arm enabled Black Manta to come out of his stupor first, for the villain bellowed out in rage, "Now you Die!" before attempting to blast The Leviathan with the red lasers from Black Manta's silver colored helmet.
Xander's shields flashed to life with plenty of time to stop the twin laser blasts and absorb them, storing the power for later usage.
"Um no, I don't think so." Xander broadcast through his speakers before mentally giving his armor the command to enlarge the shield so that it not only surrounded Xander but also Aquaman, Mera and little Arthur.
Black Manta saw the shield absorb the laser blasts before enlarging to not only protect The Leviathan but also Aquaman's family as well.
"Fine then, if I can't attack you, then I'll take the city by force instead!" Black Manta threatened as he waved forward for his army to charge towards the city of Atlantis.
"No!" Aquaman called and moved forward to intercept the army that started to move forward, only Aquaman impacted against the inside of The Leviathan's shield before quickly rounding to The Leviathan.
"Drop the shields! I need to save my city." Orin demanded commandingly.
"No, don't worry about it. You're safer in here for the moment, besides it's time for Plan C." The Leviathan explained while shrugging off the Atlantian King's order.
Aquaman looked quickly towards the encroaching army that was just reaching the sphere of Xander's shield, and then back at The Leviathan.
"Plan C? But what about a Plan A or B?" Aquaman questioned quickly, desperate to find a way to save both his family and his city.
"I don't need a Plan A or B. Besides, Plan C isn't the third plan, it's the only plan." Xander's smirk became bloodthirsty behind his Leviathan helmet and a gleam came to his eyes as answered.
"Jarvis, activate Plan C and send it through please." Xander ordered patiently.
At that command there was a gigantic flash of red light and a portal the size of a sky scraper appeared behind the Black Manta and his attacking army that was just reaching The Leviathan's shielded position.
The flash was so bright that the attacking divers stopped and turned to look at what was happening while shielding eyes already adapted to the darkness sea's depths while trying to see what was happening behind them.
And then it appeared out of the portal to float right behind the army… and the invading army knew fear. They didn't know what it was, but they feared it.
The portal snapped shut and left behind a massive green colossal figure, some three hundred and fifty feet tall and easily one hundred wide. Whatever it was it was totally bright almost glow in the dark green, but it was a glow that both gave and seemed to suck the light back into the depths of its body as if it was trying to eat the world and the light around it. The thing had huge clawed feet that led to huge muscular legs that trailed up to a hulk of a body as big around as an Atlantian battle-sub with arms the size of blue whales that were also tipped with long sharp claws.
However the most distinguishing factor of the incredibly huge creature floating silently behind the army wasn't the huge size or the light absorbing green color, it wasn't the claws nor was it the giant wings spread from its back, no, it was the bald green head with black eyes the diameter of grain silos… eyes that were mounted above a head full of giant green tentacles.
The Leviathan's happy voice broke the stunned silence. "Black Manta and invading army of idiots, I present my Cthulhu, also affectionately termed Plan C. Cthulhu, I present snacks, go get'em Boy!"
With that, Xander sent both a telepathic signal to the beast's giant squid like brain, the aquatic telepathy gained from stealing Aquaman's powers and coupled with a mechanical signal to the nano-clanks controlling the other part of the beast's nature. And then it was time to kick back and watch the fun begin.
"RROAAAAAAAAAAAR!" Cthulhu roared, and with that it darted forward with amazing speed and attacked the army of divers.
Divers screamed behind their masks, and Black Manta appeared too scared to move as surprisingly fast clawed hands lashed out and captured hordes of divers before quickly releasing said divers into the waiting clutches of thousands of wiggling tentacles. With the a score of the enemy soldiers firmly captured by the tentacles, the hands shot out to capture more of the army as the tentacles quickly wrapped around and crushed the captured invaders before shoving the men down the beast's toothy mouth.
Aquaman and Mera could only watch aghast as the creature absolutely demolished the attacking army like a bus full of sumo wrestlers at an all you can eat Twinkie feed.
"Isn't he cute?" The sound of true pride shown through the voice of The Leviathan as he floated next to Aquaman.
Aquaman turned his head to look stunned at The Leviathan and noticed that the ruler of the Empire was engrossed in watching the invading army get devoured.
"That beast started out as a cross between some mutagens that I accidentally spilled together over a sample of giant squid." The Leviathan explained as he enjoyed watching one of his perversions of nature come to life; it was always nice when a science experiment worked out. "Add a few thousand tons of growth hormone, some nano-technology, raise it in a septic lagoon the size of a mountain and wa'la! One homemade Cthulhu ready to order." Xander finished with a smile and an insane gleam to his eyes behind his helmet before turning to Aquaman and adding as an afterthought, "though I don't suggest trying this experiment at home you understand. I'm a trained expert at mad science. Why I tell you, a few of the other scientists tried to see if they could reproduce the effects and the creature they created ended up trying to eat several Jägers."
Aquaman looked aghast and paled at the thought that this man could have other such monstrosities, and ones that The Leviathan couldn't even control.
Of course Xander totally misinterpreted the look on Aquaman's face and smiled behind his helmet while patting Aquaman on the shoulder.
"No, don't worry. The Jäger's were just fine by the time they clawed their way out of the beast's belly… though they did forever swear off sushi." The Leviathan finished with a shrug as he went back to watching the show.
Xander's Cthulhu continued to dine and the divers continued to die as the spears shot from the divers' spear guns just bounced off the things thick hide.
"Oh look! There goes Black Manta." The Leviathan narrated as the Cthulhu was finally able to capture the villain who had been desperately dodging while trying to blast the creature with laser beams all to no effect. Black Manta was fast in the water, but apparently the constant blood loss was getting to him as with a fast sweep of the claw Manta was snatched up and shoved immediately into the gaping maw of the giant beast.
"NOOOOOO-Gurk!" Black Manta called out, only to be cut off as the Cthulhu jaws chomped closed.
With that the battle was over; as the villain had been the last one devoured given his ability to out swim his minions.
"Well now that that's over, how about that alliance." The Leviathan asked while canceling out his shield and turning towards the still pale and shaken Aquaman and the man's wife and child.
"BURP!" And as if perfectly planned the Cthulhu burped and a silvery item shot out of the creatures mouth and right at The Leviathan who easily plucked it out of the water and held it still.
Aquaman blinked and looked at The Leviathan, then down to the red eyed visage of the empty helmet that used to belong to Black Manta, and then back at The Leviathan.
Pasting an artificially large smile on his face, Aquaman began nod his head very vigorously before looking at his wife with a shake of the head towards The Leviathan, and then Mera also joined her husband in nodding quickly.
"Absolutely, we would love to have you as a friend rather than an enemy." Aquaman quickly stated.
"Not that we would ever think of you as an enemy!" Mera hurriedly added wide eyed, hoping to cover over any possible gaff in her husband's statement before nervously turning to look at her husband.
"No never, never your enemy." Aquaman agreed quickly and nervously while rapidly shaking his head in agreement.
"Especially after you saved our son." Mera swiftly inserted while continuing to nod vigorously.
"Allies, definitely allies and trade partners too." Aquaman added, hoping that The Leviathan would say something soon as the featureless black helmet of The Leviathan was unnerving. Add to that the ending where The Leviathan's trained creature showed what happened to those who annoyed the Empire's ruler.
All of Aquaman and Mera's nervousness was totally lost on the normally observant Xander, and he too thought the trick with the burp and the helmet was pretty cool; maybe he'd train the Cthulhu to do that on command so that he could use it to entertain at parties?
Xander looked up from where he was admiring the shiny helmet in his hands and smiled from behind his own helmet.
"Good then, I'm glad we were able to work everything out so well." The Leviathan answered pleasantly before handing over the Black Manta's old helmet to Aquaman.
"I'll have my people call your people and work out all the details, and it was good talking to you, but I should probably head back and take the Cthulhu with me; it always likes to take a nap after feeding time." The Leviathan added the last part a bit conspiratorially while talking behind the back of his hand, as if the silently floating creature that stared down at them cared one way or another about Xander's comment.
"Um, sure, well nice meeting you too." Aquaman added hesitantly and with a bit of a forced smile. Orin then looked down to his side as he pulled his wife and child closer to him in a one armed hug before looking back at The Leviathan.
"And thank you. Thank you so much for saving my son's life." Aquaman said with a real smile this time, and Mera bent down to kiss her infant son's head as he was held protectively in her arms. "I don't know what would have happened if he had died."
"Oh I know that one, your wife would have gone crazy and run away and you would have lost your hand to a mutant shark called Charybdis, but now that's all behind you so you should be ok." The Leviathan answered nonchalantly before waving and swimming away towards his pet Cthulhu only to stop and wave goodbye one more time. The Leviathan left a stunned couple who didn't know what to think as they watched The Leviathan swim away after dropping such a bombshell on the two of them.
Xander stopped and turned to the pair of Atlantian rulers one last time from his position floating right next to his pet Cthulhu.
"Take care you two, and expect a call from my Chief Steward Igor." The Leviathan called to the still stunned couple. Then with a loud zap and a flash of red light The Leviathan and the Cthulhu were gone.
It was quiet again in the ocean as Mera and Aquaman stared unblinking where The Leviathan and the beast had just been. It was Arthur Jr. that broke the silence however as with a gurgle and a grab for his father's nose he caused his smiling parents to refocus back on him.
Orin turned and wrapped both of his arms around his shorter wife and his son that was carefully clutched between the two of them.
"I love you." Orin stated sincerely down to his wife, who looked up at him with care in her eyes where she replied.
"I love you too." Mera stated, and the King and Queen bent forward and kissed briefly over the head of their child.
Drawing back Aquaman added, "But I think we can both agree when I say that we want to keep that man as happy with us as possible, correct?"
Mera nodded vigorously as the couple and their son turned and started swimming back towards Atlantis.
"Absolutely." Mera said before adding, "Besides, The Leviathan saved our son's life, so how bad could he be?"
As the sun rose on Monday morning over Metropolis City it quickly became clear that entire population of the city had now officially been brought into fun that had been Superman's life for the last two weeks. There were a rare few who knew about the fact that a rash of pranks had been going on the previous two weeks, but as the business week began in the city it soon became apparent to all that something was amiss.
Traffic was backed up everywhere, and as the Monday morning work commute started up and more cars pulled onto the road, it quickly became clear that nobody was getting to work if they didn't walk. The reason for this lack of mobility was none other than gift packages situated exactly in the middle of every major intersection of the city, packages that measured twenty wide by twenty feet long by twenty feet tall. Attached to each of these gaily wrapped packages where bright red, blue or green ribbons that clashed with the varied colors of the packages themselves that ranged from solid crimson red to purple poka-dot and even plaid. However the piece de résistance of the packages were probably the large poster sized gift tags that read "From: Mr. Myxlsptlk, To: Metropolis City" attached to the packages right above giant red buttons that had the words "PUSH ME!" printed in bold black letters. Thus far nobody had pressed the button, as gridlock traffic prevented any inquisitive pedestrian from getting too close to the giant gifts.
Not wanting anybody to be left out, and given that Lex Luthor took a private helicopter into work each day, Xander had kindly provided Lex Luthor with his very own anonymous gift package; a package that took up a good half of Lex's office and which Xander had nicely dropped on top of Lex's mahogany and glass desk. The desk had been an expensive item which had been given to Lex from some dictator whom Lex had sold arms to. The important part of that description being the word "had" as in the desk was no longer an expensive item given the fact that it was currently crushed under a ten foot by ten foot by ten foot lead lined package which as stated, Xander had politely left on Lex's desk via a transporter. Of course RedTree had deleted all security coverage of the gift arriving seeing as how the female AI was already fully embedded in Lex Luthor's computer systems.
Thus it was that Lex Luthor first learned about his "gift" when he opened his office door that morning, only to see a rainbow colored crate like gift crushing his position of power.
"What the hell is this!" Lex cursed.
At which time Murphy decided that Xander wasn't the only person who bad luck should visit on a regular basis, as across town a little boy broke loose of his mother's grip and ran up to a gift package in Metropolis central park, and hit the giant "PUSH ME" button on the package.
Bedlam, pure and simple chaos erupted all over the city as every box in the city opened at the same time.
Here one box popped open to reveal a giant jack-in-the-box that shot fire hose thick bands of silly-string all around the square, knocking down pedestrians and painting buildings in an ever changing color of silly-string as the pressure of the blasting rainbow concoction made the spring mounted jack-in-the-box head bounce every which way.
In other parts of the city Furby dolls erupted from the boxes to pelt the surrounding cars and crowds before they began high pitched screams of "AIEEEEEEEEEEE! Hello My Pretty! BWA HA HA HA HA HA!"
Several boxes presented firework displays that spelled out inappropriate words about Superman's Fantastic fashion sense, or Lex Luthor's lack of manhood. Other gifts box disintegrated to unleash impossibly large solid waves of shaving cream that poured forth and covered the first few rows of cars and anybody that happened to be too close. Two boxes turned into giant bubble blowers that filled the surrounding streets with suds while the sky was filled with bubbles the size of VW Beetles, and to top off the whole chaos, Lex Luthor's box exploded in raw sewage from the Cthulhu pit.
Xander's thought had been sure, he had shut down LexCorp towers before due to his stink bombs, but in this case he figured, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Thus Lex and his five thousand dollar suit were blasted back out of his office as the executive level of LexCorp towers was suddenly rendered unfit for human consumption, residence, or both.
Speaking of consumption, due to Lex's mouth being open while cursing, he would be visiting the toilet for the next week or so due to the amount of sewage he consumed. Of course the sewage had an even more sinister element to it, as the taste of sewage does a very good job of hiding the flavor of a nano-clank infusion as it enters somebody's mouth and diffuses into their body. Lex Luthor would end up too sick to notice the carbon and plant matter based nano-clanks that were even then beginning to infiltrate his body, and his mind.
Xander stood on top of the globe that was perched on the top of the Daily Planet building, and from his position he could enjoy the chaos while a very smug imp floated next to him.
From their perch on top of the Daily Planet building and across from the LexCorp Towers, Xander and Mr. Myxlsptlk watched as the glass windows of Lex Luthor's top floor office was suddenly painted brown with green tinges and Xander's newly upgraded hearing could distinctively hear Lex Luthor cursing Superman's name in between retching. Xander smirked before turning, and out of the corner of his eye he noted a blue and red blur streak across the city streets below as Superman began to help in the cleanup effort from the latest prank.
Xander continued his turn so that he faced Myxlsptlk. "So, we are agreed that we're even, correct? Not only are we paid up on the due pranks from the foray into hell. But the extras cover that you won't stop me sending help to my friends back in Sunnydale, and no matter what happens you won't hurt my friends or family or cause others to do so." Xander smiled a bit smugly at the imp.
Myxlsptlk smiled back with a smile that stretched from one ear to the other ear on his overly large impish head. "Agreed, and good work on the boyscout. I haven't had this much fun since I brought the daily planet building to life. Oh boy, you do a good job and we will have to see what we can do in the future to drive more people nuts. You've met your part of the deal and I agree we are even on all counts. Well then, Toodle loo!" The Imp finished while vigorously shaking Xander's hand before releasing it and fading out of view.
Xander stood there smiling evilly at the chaos he had created while just enjoying the sunny day atop the Daily Planet building.
However as soon as Myxlsptlk disappeared so did Xander's smile. Looking around from his place on the top of the building, Xander noted that he was all alone.
"Double check that the imp is gone Jarvis." Xander commanded as his nano-clank clothing shivered and then rippled to cover his body in the solid black garb of his black full-body armor.
"Yes Sir, the emanations of power that the imp gives off when he is present in visible or non-visible spectrums has departed from the present area." The voice of Xander's personal AI butler responded.
"Well then, seeing as how I just made Superman's life hell, it's time to save it before it's even threatened while pissing off Luthor again." Xander stated.
With that said, a portal opened, and Xander disappeared from a Metropolis City left in chaos.
If Xander would have waited around for just five more minutes, he would have witnessed a glowing gold Ankh appear in the air before disappearing as a gold helmeted and yellow caped man appeared exactly where Xander and the imp had just been standing.
"I see that I am too late to stop the chaos." Dr. Fate stated as he not only felt the dimensional shivers that were left behind by an agent of chaos, but also as his eyes watched the bedlam below.
With that, Dr. Fate spread his arms and the sorcerer that was empowered by the Lords of Order disappeared once again as a golden Ankh swept him away.
That night in a palace that overlooked the Nile River in Southern Egypt, Ra's al Ghul was reviewing documents regarding the latest activities of The Detective and comparing them to Alexander Harris.
"Hmm, I must find a way to test the mind of Alexander. He must be tested to see if he can make the sacrifices necessary to fulfill my goals." Ra's said to himself. Mr. Harris continued to be a conundrum to Ra's and his agents as the young man seemed to move about the world at will, and it seemed as if Mr. Harris was very adroit at losing any tail that Ra's assigned to follow the boy.
Ra's shifted through several papers on his desk and pulled out a folder on Bruce Wayne, aka Batman.
It was clear from what his informants were telling him that the Batman was losing his touch, as the folder of updated information on Bruce stated that the electronic monitoring devices secreted in the Batcave stated that batman had even had the Batmobile stolen right out from under his nose; and by an unknown individual that didn't even show up on Ra's monitoring bugs. The fact that Batman had been unable to locate the thief who had then gone on to pull the wool over Superman's eyes as well was a blot against the Detective. However the fact that not even Ra's al Ghul's League of Shadow's assassins could pinpoint the Batcave's infiltrator did assuage some of Bruce's folly.
Setting aside the latest report on Bruce Wayne, Ra's sorted through the latest information on the ghost that Mr. Harris had seemed to have become recently.
As Ra's read, he noted that the report stated that an agent had spotted a man whom they thought was Alexander Harris having an intimate picnic lunch with a beautiful unknown girl. However when the agent had attempted to move to a location that would give an unfettered view of the man's face, a copse of trees had blocked the agents view just as the couple was cleaning up their picnic lunch. The report went on to state that as the agent cleared the trees they were shocked to find that the couple had disappeared as if into thin air.
Ra's cursed under his breath as so far his agent's hadn't even been able to find any information on how Xander got to Metropolis from his last sighting in Asia. This 'Alexander' not only had the skills and knowledge to draw Ra's al Ghul's attention, but the man was good at disappearing and reappearing as he wished. Not only that, but Alexander was also willing to kill; something that was a must if one were to come alongside and someday help lead the League of Shadows and their many assassins.
Suddenly, a slight movement at the window caught Ra's al Ghul's eye. Whirling towards the dark shadow, a dagger flew from the Demon Head's sleeve only to miss as he saw a lithe figure of a women in a full leather outfit jump out the window and into the moonlit night, which was quickly followed by the sound of a powerful motorcycle revving its engines and kicking up dirt as it disappeared into the distance.
Ra's turned around with wide eyes to see if any further infiltrators had entered his office, only then noticing that the jeweled wedding bands that he had given to his first wife were missing from the glass case. The bands had been intricately carved solid gold arm bands, his with etchings of eagles with diamond chips for eyes, his late wife's with leopards with emerald chips for eyes.
Furious, Ra's grabbed the security radio that road on his hip and yelled into it, "A thief just stole from my personal suite! I want her dead! Go get her before she gets away!" He turned to glare out the window.
It was silent for a moment, but then a tentative report came over the radio. "Sir, I regret to inform you that the theft from your person isn't the only thing the thief took… Apparently she also took all of the lug nuts off the vehicles Sir."
"GRAAAAAHH!" Ra's al Ghul yelled in fury and smashed his fists into his desk, causing papers to go flying. This was the fifteenth time that the unknown female thief had stolen from him before leaving behind mayhem, and he wanted that woman dead.
In the distance, Catwoman slid her bike to a halt and looked down from the hill she was perched on top of. Over the quiet idling of the bike she swore she heard a yell of rage. With that, a "cat who got the canary" smile crept across her face and then Selena Kyle turned the bike back onto the road and disappeared into the night. It was time she headed back to Gotham City, as Ra's al Ghul had been poked at enough… for now.
AN: And there you have it. A long chapter at more than 26k words, but short by 10k of the length of the doozy that was two chapters ago. I hope you enjoyed the pranks as much as I enjoyed coming up with them, and you will note that there were several more than just the 5 original promised ones due to a bit of foreshadowing about a secondary agreement. Anyway, I have to really say that I appreciate the reviews and recommendations, as I've really been encouraged to keep writing on a more regular basis; as opposed to just reading other people's works and ignoring my own stories. Frankly, this would have been posted sooner if it wasn't for the fact that I was busy traveling for work. Oh well, I do want to say that it really makes my day and gives me a smile when my email notifies me that a review or pm comes in about the story, so honestly you have my thanks. Cheers!