Prologue
A Hidden Laboratory in the mountains of Nevada
Batman and Superman stared at the wall of glass tubes in horror. Luthor hadn't stopped at just creating one human-Kryptonian hybrid he'd created…hundreds!
"Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" an alarm rang out as the computer system freed itself from the logic loop Batman had trapped it in.
"Uhh!" Superman flinched back as red light bathed the area and glowing green particles of sand were dropped in the tubes causing the figures inside to convulse.
"He's killing them!" Batman growled.
"A fail safe to prevent them falling into someone else's hands," Superman said as explosions could be heard coming from the far end of the complex. "The last thing he'd want to do is create more of me."
"Good point," Batman agreed throwing one of Superman's arms over his shoulder and helping him run for the exit as the explosions grew nearer. "We've gotta get out of here!"
The two scanned the smoking pile of rubble. Superman with his eyes and Batman with something he'd pulled off his belt.
"It looks like Lex managed to cover his tracks once again," Superman said with a sigh.
"I've got a life sign," Batman said staring at his scanner.
"The Kryptonite must still be affecting me," Superman said. "Where?"
Batman adjusted his scanner and moved around the rubble until he found what he was looking for. "Five point three meters straight down. I'd suggest freezing it into a solid mass and using super speed to move it and retreat before any stray bits of kryptonite can affect you."
Taking a deep breath Superman waited until Batman had moved back before freezing a large chunk of the rubble with his freeze breath and digging his hands into it. With a quick heave he ripped it from the earth and set it aside before stumbling away from the exposed tube and its cargo of deadly kryptonite.
Batman leapt into the hole, whipped a glass cutter off his belt and quickly opened the tube and pulled the clone out. "Batman to Watchtower, two for emergency beam up to medical."
Superman opted to fly up instead of teleporting to help shake the remaining nausea from his kryptonite exposure but he still reached the Watchtower far too soon to suit him. He stopped to talk to several people he passed in the hall on the way to medical and he even checked in the monitor room for any possible emergencies requiring his attention, but Superman still found himself meeting Batman outside medical not more than five minutes later. "How is he?" Superman asked nervously.
"Complicated," Batman replied.
"How do you mean?"
"He has more human DNA than Kryptonian, enough to make him immune to kryptonite, so he survived while the rest of the hybrid clones perished," Batman explained. "We're keeping him unconscious until J'onn's available, so we can root out any possible brainwashing."
"Did he mix his DNA with mine again this time?" Superman asked with a sigh, still more than a little creeped out by Lex's continual use of his DNA to make hybrid clones of the two of them.
"According to the files I managed to decrypt he's the combination of DNA derived from a Kryptonian foot found floating in space and a sperm bank robbery."
"What?" Superman asked not sure he heard Batman correctly.
"Lex has a couple of space probes that he uses to sweep the local area of space for any kryptonite he can find and a boot with a foot in it was found floating in a cloud of kryptonite sand."
"A Kryptonian completely unrelated to me," Superman said in shock. "And the fact that he used random DNA samples to combine with it as opposed to his own, which he always does with mine, makes the fact that he insists on using his own with mine even creepier."
Batman opened and closed his mouth several times without saying anything. "Yes it does," he finally admitted several minutes later.
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
It took several sessions over a week's time before the Martian Manhunter declared him 'clean', having found no hidden programming or subliminal commands.
Watchtower Simulation Room 1a
"Red sunlight at full intensity," Batman announced. "Superman, Supergirl hang back and wait for my signal."
The two Kryptonians waited in the hall outside the room.
"Wonder Woman, apply the lasso," he ordered. "Manhunter, I'm cutting off the gas and sunlight now, he'll awake at any moment."
"Isn't this a bit excessive?" Supergirl asked.
"Probably," Superman agreed, "but its effective and an ounce of prevention-"
"Beats a pound of cure," Supergirl finished with a sigh.
"He's waking up," Batman announced, waving the two in.
The dark haired young man blinked a few times trying to clear the grit from the corner of his eyes. He looked down at the sheet covering him and the lasso tied around him following it up to Wonder Woman who was holding it. "Is this going to cost me extra?"
"What?" Wonder Woman asked, while everyone else aside from the two flinched back.
"I wake up naked, feeling like I've been drinking a lot, and a beautiful woman has me tied up and is wearing a Wonder Woman outfit," he replied. "I'm guessing I paid for some companionship, since I don't remember having a girlfriend."
"And how do you know you're not the sex worker?" Wonder Woman asked, nostrils flaring.
"Even better," he said perking up. "Do what you want to me Wonder Woman, but you'll never get the disarming code from me using violence," he swore, trying to get in character.
Supergirl snorted and had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing.
Coming fully awake he sat up and looked around. "Four guys and two girls," he counted out with a frown. "It's generally better to have more girls than guys for this sort of thing, but two on one is workable."
"We are who we are dressed as," Martian Manhunter assured him, floating off the ground to demonstrate.
"OK, since you're heroes first times free," he said. "But let me wake up a little more first."
Supergirl fell down laughing, while Superman was almost a solid red.
"This isn't an orgy!" Batman growled out.
"It could be if you'd just loosen up," the clone complained.
"Are you planning on harming anyone here?" Wonder Woman demanded.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times finding himself saying, "Supergirl's probably going to be walking a bit tenderly once I'm done and I believe you have enough daddy issues to enjoy a good spanking."
Supergirl now matched Superman in the red category and Wonder Woman had paled.
"I don't have a father," she said firmly.
"Yes you do," the clone disagreed. "Hey, you're forcing me to tell the truth with this thing, aren't you?!"
"It's the quickest and easiest way to prove you're not a threat," Batman explained.
"It's heavy handed is what it is," the clone said. He broke out in a grin, "But that's OK, I just thought of a workaround."
"Are you planning to do anything malicious to the Earth or humanity in general?" Wonder Woman asked.
Closing his eyes and concentrating the clone said, "Your breasts are works of art."
Jaws dropped.
"I mean that quite literally," the clone said with a relieved sigh. "The hands of an artist sculpted you. Most women have to rely on Mother Nature, but your mother designed you specifically. It makes me wonder if she had anyone in mind. I mean she'd want you to be as beautiful as possible, so odds are you were designed based on the most beautiful women she knew. Of course they were probably past lovers because it's the heart that truly defines beauty."
"The lasso compels you to speak the truth, but not a specific truth," the Manhunter said with a sigh.
"Yep," the clone agreed before looking at a red faced Wonder Woman. "And if forced to tell the truth, which I consider a hostile act, I will start at embarrassing and move on to harsher and harsher truths. The truth hurts and with it I can make you bleed!"
"He has a point," Superman admitted. "Treating someone as an enemy is a good way to make one."
Wonder Woman unwound the lasso from around him.
"You are a hybrid clone of Kryptonian and human DNA," Batman stated. "For all we know you were programmed to be the Joker with Kryptonian powers."
"My favorite Martian over there should be able to tell you I'm my own man and not a deranged killer."
"Your mind is a bit too disordered for me to give a valid interpretation of your personality or morality," J'onn explained.
"I got a lotta data," the clone said tapping a knuckle against his temple, "but no real identity. I guess the question isn't who am I so much as who do I want to be."
Typing by: The Last Primarch!
AN: Another one of my strange ideas on how clones would actually behave… plus, does anyone else think Lex has a bit of a thing for Supes or is it just me?