Author's Note – I do not own any of the characters, Marvel and DC do.
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Chapter Nine
Revelations
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"Uuuuuuh, what happened?" Ursa moaned as she regained consciousness to find herself lying on her sofa. "Did I really see Zod flying?"
"Much has changed, my beloved." Zod replied, love suffusing his normally stern voice and Ursa realized that she was lying with her head on his lap, his fingers gently stroking her hair. "For you, it has been barely an hour since we parted, but for me, it has been years, and all because of Brainiac."
"I… don't understand." Ursa admitted as she let Zod help her sit up. "What happened? And… you can fly? How?"
"You shall be able to in time, my beloved." Zod said, gently cupping her face in his hand as he looked at her, almost drinking in her appearance. "It is perhaps the one thing I can thank that accursed computer for, that he took my plans to preserve as much of Krypton as possible and perverted it, yet in doing so, he kept you safe…"
"Krypton is… no more?" Ursa gasped as the implications sank in and Zod nodded.
"My old friend's predictions were correct. He… did not make it. My people and I did only because we were no longer on Krypton when the core imploded."
"No…" Ursa whispered. "Jor-El is dead?"
"But his son lives still." Zod stated, a proud smile on his face. "Indeed, I call him friend and ally for it is he that laid the foundations for our race to rise once more, my beloved. Please, trust me."
Zod stood and offered his hand to Ursa. When she took it, he scooped her up into a bridal carry and walked out to the balcony.
"Let me show you what powers our new home has gifted me, and will gift you as well." He said, then he rose into the air, rising high above the city as Ursa clung to him.
"…zod?" She quavered and her husband smiled reassuringly as the city began to flow past beneath them. A moment later, a man who looked heartbreakingly like Jor-El joined them, a red cloak fluttering behind him.
"Clark."
"General." The new arrival replied. "And I assume that this lovely lady is Ursa?"
Zod nodded as they descended and Ursa stumbled slightly as she was lowered to the ground, then she blinked in shock at the sight of a blue-skinned woman giving the Jor-El lookalike a deep kiss.
"My beloved, meet Clark Kent, also known as… Kal-El, son of Jor-El and his wife, Raven Kent. Clark, Raven, this is the one who is the light of my life and the warmth of my soul, Ursa Dru-Zod."
"Kal… El?" Ursa repeated, staring at Clark. "But… you were a baby! You fell asleep in my arms!"
"Should I be jealous?" Raven asked, then she grinned. "Do you have baby-photos?"
Ursa stared at her for a long moment, then her eyes flicked over to Clark's expression of mingled amusement, embarrasment and exasperation.
"I thought you'd already seen the ones mom showed you." He half-complained and Ursa gasped.
"Lara's alive? Lara Van-El?"
Both Zod and Clark exchanged a long look and Ursa's burst of joy faded. "She… isn't?"
"She passed away when Krypton exploded." Zod sighed. "Clark was referring to the woman who adopted him, Martha Kent and her husband, Jonathan."
"After Dad died, mom moved to the Xavier Institute to help train the new generations of heroes." Clark explained. "The students love her, her cooking is amazing. One of the first things my team did was have a Martha-cooked meal together, it really helped to make it into a real team. You know, I think you should take her to meet mom. Jean can give her English too."
"English?" Ursa repeated curiously. "What's that?"
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"The third convoy is on its way to Kandor now, the New Kryptonians are… you know, that sentence actually doesn't really work with all of the new New Kryptonians… or would they be old Kryptonians… old new Kryptonians…?"
Several members of the Protectors hid their smiles as Clark failed to extricate himself from his convoluted sentence, then T'Challa coughed.
"So our intervention is probably not required?"
"Not at this time, no." Clark said, shooting him a look of gratitude. "Israel and New Olympus have the matter in hand and apparently quite a few of the new arrivals are already moving to New Kryptonopolis, apparently mainly due to the larger apartments."
"So we can relax for now." Connor smiled, only to freeze as Clark, T'Challa and Isaiah all glared at him. "What?"
"You just invoked Murphy's law." Betsy sighed as she cradled her head in her hands. "Something is going to happen, something bad."
"That's just superstition." Connor protested.
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"The time has come." Master Mold declared. "It is time to initiate the Bio-Sentinels with the area around Bayville being the first region to be activated."
"Master Mold, may I be the one to start the operation?" Boliver Trask asked, his expression eager. "This is the culmination of all my hopes and plans… the final stage to bring the Mutant Problem under control."
Master Mold stared at her primary agent for a long moment, then slowly nodded. One of the display screens reconfigured to show a large red button on a grey background.
"You may initiate the signal, my Prime Sentinel."
Boliver grinned ferally as he walked over to the screen and lifted one finger.
"And thus it begins!" He declaimed before tapping the screen, causing the button to flash from red to green. Master Mold turned most of her attention to the activation protocols and tactical feedback, but a tiny portion of her silicon mind pondered on how Trask would react should he discover that the screen in question hadn't actually been a touch-screen and Master Mold had faked the button-push in order to allow him to continue to believe wrongly that he was serving her of his own free will.
From the doorway, Bastion watched, his face emotionless and Master Mold diverted another tiny portion of her awareness to monitor him. Although he had been very useful, the chance that he would decide to turn against her and try to seize control himself sometime in the next year or so was a worryingly high 21.513 percent.
The attention she was paying to him would need to be increased.
Subtly.
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The signal was a complex multi-phase energy pulse that was transmitted on the border between realities. The very nature of the signal gave it a range measured in light-minutes while the actual source of the signal was virtually impossible to localise, even by Kryptonian sensors and analysis programs.
Despite the complexity of the signal, the actual information that could be carried inside it was minimal due to the requirement for a stable energy-matrix for propogation. Any attempt to incorporate more than minimal data would compromise the signal to the point that it would collapse after only a few meters.
However, the data that could be carried, properly encoded, was more than enough to deliver the activation signal to specific groups of receivers, each group being defined as being constructed by nanites from the same source.
One of the compromised Kryptonian Med-pods.
Despite her best efforts, Master Mold had managed to insert the required programming into less than one in fifty of the med-pods. Due to the need to generate the required nanites without activating the alert programs, less than one in ten patients for each pod were secretly implanted with the nanites in question, nanites which themselves carried complex programs, including plans for a receiver smaller than the last joint of a small child's little finger.
A receiver which had just been activated by the signal.
And which had passed the command on to the nanites that had been lying dormant in the flesh of the one they had been placed in.
Since no-one had detected the signal, there was no warning.
Surprise was total.
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"…and she said, that's odd, it didn't do that yesterday!" Marcus finished, causing the two of his friends to laugh while the third had the unfortunate timing to be drinking as he said the punchline. The resulting spray of sode was quite impressive and only added to the hilarity of the moment.
"Dammit, Marcus, how do you know jokes like these?" Simon asked as he used his mutant power over liquids to clean the soda out of his clothes, then at William's nod, he pulled the soda out of William's clothing too, leaving it dry. The collected liquid flowed through the air to the nearby drain, where it poured itself away.
"Family reunions." Marcus grinned. "My uncle's in the Navy and he-uuurk!"
Marcus suddenly stiffened, his skin going pale, then he fell over, convulsing.
"Get help!" Simon shouted and William dropped his cup as he sprinted back into the cafe to alert the staff. "Marcus! What's happening?"
Marcus screamed as his skin took on a silvery hue, then red panels seemed to ooze out of his skin, forming a combined collar and shoulder armor. The rest of his body turned metallic-blue, shifting in ways that shredded his clothing, then he stood.
"…marcus?" Simon asked nervously, looking at the thing that had less than a minute ago been his friend.
"Mutant detected." The being stated in a gravelly voice totally unlike Marcus' slow accent. "Primary mission engaged."
The being's right hand clenched, then fragments of Simon's skull went flying as the being's fist ended his life.
"Mutant deceased. Scanning for additional targets." The being stated, turning to the café where the owner was in the door, frozen with horror. "Additional targets located. Commencing termination protocols."
The cafe owner, whose mutant power was that he was heatproof, died half a second later.
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"X-gene detected. Commencing neutralization."
The frantic mother tried to hit the blue-and-red being reaching for her baby, but she was picked up in one hand and thrown across the mall. The being then started to reach into the pram for the sleeping child, only to be tackled by a pair of security guards.
"Warning. Any further attempt to prevent the purification of humanity will result in your termination. Do not interfere."
The larger guard moved to put the attacker into a headlock, only for the being to reach out and punch into his chest, pulling out his still-beating heart.
"Obstacle one, terminated."
A gunshot rang out and the sentinel turned to face the younger security guard, the bullet that had been fired at it landing on the floor.
"Hostile activity confirmed. You are now a designated hostile and will be terminated."
A second blue-and-red being landed behind the guard and grabbed him, twisting his head so that his neck snapped. The first being rose into the air and flew after the fleeing mother, ignoring the screaming crowd trying to escape.
"Place the mutant on the ground and move away from it. All mutants must be terminated."
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The school fire alarm triggered even as the first screaming students flooded out of the school, some of them with blood splatters on their clothing. One student was halfway through the door when a force-blast from behind caught him in the lower back, flinging him forwards with an impact that snapped his spine.
"Dammit!" Hank McCoy swore as he tackled the being that had once been a student, wrestling it so that its hands no longer pointed at the flood of students trying to escape the war-zone that minutes earlier had been a peaceful school. "What the hell are you?"
"Mutant detected." The being said, its glowing red eyes locking onto the PE teacher. "Termination protocols initiated."
Hank growled as he threw his not-inconsiderable strength into preventing his adversary's hands from getting into a position where they could unleash one of the lethal blasts, but he could feel his strength beginning to wane as something sapped it in a manner not too dissimilar (albeit slower) to a Power Neutralizer Band.
The being managed to force a hand into position and Hank stared at the gathering glow, then the thing shuddered and collapsed.
"What the hell is that thing?" Ray Carter asked, his hands crackling with electricity. "When I hit it with a stun discharge, it barely twitched! I had to zap its spine to take it down!"
"Someone help!" A scream echoed as a wall exploded outwards. Ray and Hank didn't even pause as they sprinted towards the new threat, electricity wreathing around Ray's hands.
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"Emergency on Earth! All heroes to Earth immediately!"
The siren and announcement cut through the Moonbase and Connor stared in shock at the speaker unit.
"It's not my fault!" He protested before sprinting to the deployment room.
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Authors Afternote – This chapter is why I chose an M rating for this story.
Master Mold's plan is going to leave a great many people traumatized and will have huge echoes…