Chapter 3
Lex Luthor didn't like to lose. He was used to getting things done the way he wanted them done. So naturally, every time he went up against the boy scout and lost, his anger grew a little more.
His most recent defeat had been against the Justice League, not just the Man of Tomorrow. He had organized an invasion from another universe to his own, and had still failed. This time, it had been the speedster who had defeated the invasion by himself. It would have been rather impressive to Luthor if he hadn't been on the receiving end of the blow. He had wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on building the dome for the factory, not to mention the portals themselves. He himself had devoted countless hours to the development of the portals, using motherbox technology, and had even hired Felix Faust to enchant the portals.
What Luthor had told nobody, including Mercy Graves, his personal assistant, was that after the failure of the invasion, he himself had seen a vision, like Thawne. But his was much different. He had seen the future, with himself as king.
Luthor acted as a spectre in his vision, not being able to interact with anything, only watching. There was a field, and most of the Justice League's heroes were there, fighting what looked like the monsters from the invasion. Except, these monsters were bigger, and looked stronger. The League looked as if it were stretched thin, with multiple heroes struggling. One by one, they fell, until only Batman and Superman were left, fighting back to back. A lucky shot from a blaster hit Batman, and he fell. Superman tried to help him, but the monsters reached him, and just like that, it was over. Interestingly, he never saw the Flash, so he assumed the man was away, probably cowering. As the smoke cleared over the field, two figures emerged from the distance. It was Lex himself in his warsuit, but also the being Thawne would later warn him about. The titan hovered in the air as he moved, wearing armor the color of gold, and wielding a gauntlet which contained five stones, each a different color, and each glowing. Oddly enough, he was completely purple, surprising Luthor. He raised his hand into a fist, and the vision ended.
Luthor had checked everything. He wanted to make sure it wasn't him going delusional. Up in his private satellite, there were very few ways anyone could send him visions. Only select magic users could, and even then, why would they send him visions of him winning? Either way, Luthor had confirmed nothing he could register had caused the vision. It must have come from somewhere in the galaxy. Or more probable, another universe.
He figured this being with the gems were powerful, which was why Luthor had aligned himself with him. It must have been in the future when the being finally came for the Earth. But if he could use the titan to finally rid himself of the boy scout, with the addition of the rest of the Justice League, then he would have work to do.
Immediately after, Luthor had gotten to work on creating a new monster, one improved from the previous ones the being had sent from his universe, when he received an unexpected visitor. Eobard Thawne, the man from the 25th century, had stumbled himself onto Luthor's front door, literally. After making sure he wasn't a threat, Luthor had brought him in, and put an inhibitor chip on the man, to track him. He had locked him up, but ultimately decided to relocate him to the other side of the planet, in what used to be his portal fabricating factory. At least this way, if he ever managed to escape, he would have around five more seconds to come up with a plan to try and stop him.
But before he could, the news broke that the Flash was dead, and had died in battle, saving everyone. Luthor couldn't believe it when he heard it, not even being defeated by Superman himself. He continued with the relocation of Thawne, but did not inform him of the passing of his archnemesis. This baffled Luthor, because if the Flash was dead, how was Eobard still breathing? He should have been erased from existence the moment the Flash died. He had ordered experimentation on him, to make sure he wasn't a living ghost, but as far as they could tell he was still standing, which meant...
The Justice League was lying. They were putting the spotlight on something else, in order to hide what they were really up to. It made perfect sense. Almost no one had been at the site of the invasion which the League were fighting in, so there were practically zero witnesses, and even those who were there would have been fleeing. To the average person, the news of the Flash dying would be tragic, hard to accept. But past the grief, no one else could see what was really going on, except maybe the villains.
And the villains. Would the League really endanger Central City to a horde of villains that were usually in hiding? Crime in the city would skyrocket with no protector. Luthor found it hard to believe the League would allow it, unless whatever they were hiding was something they deemed greater than human threats. There was a possibility of them having found something pertaining to the invasion. Maybe they were preparing for the final assault on Earth from the titan himself. Whatever it was, Luthor had to learn more.
He knew he needed to know more about what happened on the day of the invasion, but every street camera had been damaged or destroyed from the shockwave of the portals opening. Luckily for him, most damage had been repaired by the League afterwards, including the cameras, and he had ordered Mercy to hack into them. She had retrieved hundreds of hours of footage, and was ordered to comb through them, to see if anything had happened. He was expecting maybe a hiccup from the portals, maybe a stray alien that had wandered off and was returning to the scene of where the battle took place. What she found shocked Luthor.
There was an explosion in the downtown area of Metropolis, but it seemed like there were no people around, since it was still being rebuilt. Once the blinding light had gone, a body appeared for a moment, laying still on the ground, with a box next to it. The next moment, the body was gone. Something had happened, and it wasn't a corrupted file. He slowed down the video to one frame per second, and found that Superman had flown in, and taken the body and box. What Luthor saw was an interdimensional traveller being kidnapped by the Man of Steel. He then had a thought, and checked the date of the footage. He then checked the date of the first report of the Flash's death, and discovered the date of the body only preceded the announcement by three hours. So he was right. Something was being hidden from the world by the Justice League. Ironic. It was usually Luthor himself who pulled stunts like that, hiding secrets.
Luthor understood that whatever was in the box looked important, and Batman would probably insist on keeping it. However, the body was a different case. Though a man from another universe was a big deal, he thought it wouldn't be a priority for the League. He figured he had been kept away somewhere on Earth, and not the Watchtower the League owned. They probably didn't have a morgue or anything like it on the satellite anyway. Where would they send a corpse then? Most likely a facility in Metropolis, since Superman or Supergirl would have close tabs on Metropolis either way. Luthor deduced the corpse would be sent to a morgue in the city, to make it seem as if it weren't suspicious, and he had Mercy find every morgue in the city. Thankfully, there were only three, so it wouldn't take long too find the body. Luthor had ordered Mercy to pay off thieves and criminals to cause crimes at around the same time, in order to distract Superman and Supergirl from her, while she would be infiltrating the morgues to try and find the corpse. He figured he would play the League's game of distraction.
The plan worked perfectly. While banks were being robbed, citizens being assaulted, Mercy Graves entered the first morgue undercover as a nurse with false documentation provided by Luthor, and searched for the body, with a device Luthor had created to detect multiversal visitors. It only worked in theory, but it was their only shot. She couldn't find the body in the first morgue, so she moved on to the second. Before she entered the room, she used her handheld EMP device Luthor had provided to take out the cameras, and during her search, she hit the jackpot, finding the body they had been looking for. The multiversal detector had worked. And it was a he, who had been muscular. Just in case he had any tracker on him, she used the EMP device on him. She then placed him onto a stretcher, and rolled him to the back, where a limo was waiting, and left.
The best part of it was that Batman had been away during the robbery. Alarms sounded in Luthor's skyscraper which alerted him to an enemy near his Siberian base, where he had been keeping Thawne hidden. He came up with a new plan; he would willingly 'hand over' Thawne to whoever was attacking, in order to divert even more attention from Mercy's work. Besides, Thawne still had the inhibitor chip in him, so he could be tracked, and really, he wasn't needed anymore, since Luthor had finished the experimentation on Thawne. It worked, and Batman had taken Thawne away to the Watchtower.
Luthor had also decided to take advantage of the fact the League would be panicking once they noticed their body was missing and the fact that Batman had 'captured' Thawne, and had sent Mercy to retrieve the remains of an alien invader, which he would need for later. They were publically known to have gone to STAR Labs, for them to be studied, and he knew he couldn't fabricate an identity for Mercy to enter the highly guarded building. So he gave her a prototype stealth jetpack he had been planning to sell to the military, which she would use to break in. The rockets on it made almost no sound, which were perfect for going undetected.
During the night, Mercy broke into one of the top floors of the STAR Labs skyscraper. Luthor had given her the task of finding blueprints for the building, and mapping out where in the building the bodies would most likely be stored, in order to not waste any time at all. Once inside, she quickly found a room that said "LEVEL 4 CLEARANCE" on the door, so she broke it with all her strength, and entered. There were scientists working, but they all raised their hands in fear at the sight of a hooded bandit. She quickly grabbed an alien body, and headed for the roof to see if anyone had spotted her. Unfortunately for her, a certain bird had.
Nightwing had been patrolling Gotham at night, since Batman was still busy with the League, and had spotted a thief breaking into STAR Labs. He had gotten to the scene as fast as he could, and on the roof he met the perpetrator, who was making off with an alien body. Mercy hadn't even let him quip before she used the silent jetpack to rush him, and pushed him off the edge of the building. She flew away with the body, back to Metropolis.
Luthor had been displeased with how Mercy had left Nightwing alive, but he knew the scientists working on the aliens would have said something, so it was unavoidable.
He quickly got to work on the man, who appeared as human as anyone else. However, the DNA in his blood proved to be enhanced, and although you could attribute it to being how things worked in his universe, the man's anatomy was completely the same as Luthor's, or any other man's.
This led Luthor to believe the man would have had enhanced senses in all categories, and from the terrible quality of the footage showing the body in some sort of suit, somewhat like the ones superheroes wore, Luthor came to the conclusion the man who had travelled to this universe had been a superhero in his world. If it were true, it would also be likely he fought against the titan from his vision, and that was the reason he was dead.
Luthor quickly reverse engineered the effects from the man's body into his world's first super soldier serum. He quickly bottled it, and called Mercy up to his private laboratory. When she did, he wasted no time.
"Mercy, I'm glad you could join me for this historic moment," he boasted.
"Of course, sir," she said blankly.
"You are about to witness the transformation of a normal human being, into a super human," Luthor explained, and he popped off the cork from the test tube he was holding, and drank the contents of the tube. He had not tested it on anything beforehand, but was so confident of himself, he experimented on himself. After a moment, he groaned, and fell on one knee, grasping his stomach. Mercy ran up to him to help him back on his feet, but he denied her the help, and his heavy breathing eventually stopped, as he looked up at her.
"I feel incredible, Mercy," he exclaimed. "It's like all my senses have been increased tenfold."
He demonstrated his new power by lifting an entire desk with one hand. Visually, Lex had always been a bulkier man, but now he had changed, looking much more muscular.
"It's time to get work."
Batman was torn between letting Eobard Thawne be taken to Belle Reve, or keep him on the Watchtower. On the one hand, if his powers were dormant, and were able to be activated with a signal or command, he could cause inconceivable damage, possibly being able to kill everyone on board. On the other hand, if he were taken to Belle Reve, then the whole world was at risk if he escaped, and who knew what the goons who ran the prison would do to someone who had escaped from them. Not to mention the fact that Thanos could arrive any day.
Bruce Wayne was in the Batcave, thinking of what to do, when Elsa joined him.
"Busy day?" she asked, as she entered his sight.
"You have no idea," he mumbled.
"What's bothering you?" she asked gently.
He let out a long sigh before answering. "You remember why Barry destroyed Arendelle?"
"Yes," she responded bitterly. Only the memories of her and her sister's childhood were left after Arendelle was leveled.
"We caught the man who tricked Barry into doing it," Bruce said.
"You caught him?" she said, as her eyes widened. She thought the one thing speedsters were good for were not being caught.
"He doesn't have his powers anymore," he revealed. "But that's what worries me. I believe he's tricking us into thinking his powers are gone, at least permanently."
"You think he has a way of 'activating' them again," she said. "If only I could do that."
"Yes, I do think that, but he's told the truth so far, and given us more insight into Thanos," Bruce replied.
"So you're conflicted?" she asked.
"Indeed. That's what worries me. And ever since we found Luthor was behind the theft of the man and alien from the multiverse, it's only made me worry more," he said.
"What if I help you?" she suggested.
"And put you in the line of fire?" he scoffed.
"If I have these powers, I should at least help those who need it," she argued.
Bruce knew she was right, but didn't ever want to see her get hurt. She was the best thing that had happened to him in a very long time, and he was willing to put her before most other things.
"My next mission. You can come," he said, a smile forming on his face.
Elsa's face became excited, and then gave Bruce a kiss on his forehead.
"I won't let you down," she whispered.
"You couldn't," he whispered back, as he held her.
"Who is Lex Luthor?" she asked, suddenly.
"Oh, he's a, a bad guy," Bruce responded. "Rich and smart, but uses his best qualities for bad things."
"Do you think he could defeat you?" She sounded worried.
"He almost did, but lost because of Barry," he told her.
"What if he tried it again?"
Bruce thought for a moment. "It's best not to think about it." Though he said this, he had already thought of what Luthor's next move could be. He knew Luthor was completely capable of recreating the serum of the man from the multiverse, and probably find a way to use it on the alien. He could create an army, this time launching an invasion directly from Earth. Maybe Superman could hold them back for a while, but Thanos would probably finish the job easily, given he could wield the stones.
He had a hard choice to make; Go after Luthor, or resurrect the Flash. But at the moment, even if they did resurrect the Flash, there were no promises he could stop enhanced monsters. If they stopped Luthor now, they could stop it from ever happening. But then, Thanos might arrive anyway with his own army, and everything would be over. Bruce knew bringing back Flash was possible, since he himself had told Bruce, so he figured he would first go after Luthor. The problem with Luthor was he was nowhere to be found. He might as well have disappeared from the face of the Earth. Which come to think of it, there was a chance Luthor was hiding in space. He owned his own satellite, and it was big enough to accommodate for his stay, by Batman's guesses. He supposed he would have to convince the League to go after Luthor, which he knew already wanted Luthor anyway. But not tonight. Tonight he would take it easy, and let Nightwing patrol the streets of Gotham. Tonight, he would spend time with Elsa.
Immediately after Luthor had undergone the serum's transformation, he had gotten to work on the next step of his plan. For it, he would need to bring back an alien to life.
The first problem was that the creature was never alive to begin with. It had been more of a zombie, having 'blood', but not being able to think. Luthor believed the creature could be programmed when it functioned. He spent a good amount of time trying to 'revive' his specimen, but with no luck, he decided to move on.
His next idea was rather simple: cloning. He had already thought of using cloning before, using Superman's DNA, but never got around to it. He still had the cloning technology he needed, and he got to work right away.
The first few thousand attempts were unsuccessful, and he had lost count, but finally, there was one attempt that yielded fruit. A small baby hatched from egg. Luthor thought it was disgusting, but he knew this thing was the key to his survival. There was a problem, however. The baby was just that, a baby, and Luthor had no clue how long it would take for it to reach adulthood. He made several more baby monsters, to test on and see how they would turn out, but now he needed to find a way to give them the super serum.
The monster didn't have DNA, which would make it seem impossible for it to take the serum, but further testing proved sedatives did indeed work on it.
The first test was Luthor just administering the serum to the beast. He needed to know what would happen to it. It wasn't unexpected, but nothing happened. Even higher concentrations didn't do anything. He would have to work on that.
The next sets of tests were basic durability tests. Luthor wanted to see how strong the 'base' of the monster was. First, he used high caliber weaponry. The baby survived for a while, before it was too much for it. Then he moved on to its 'breathing' capabilities. Sure enough, it survived underwater without the need to breath, and once he transported one of them to his space station, he sent it outside with nothing, and it came back perfectly fine. The liquid inside of it had not frozen, which was interesting to Luthor.
He had learned a lot from his experiments, but he still wasn't where he wanted to be. He needed to upgrade the beasts if he wanted to make them Justice League proof. The serum would not work on them, which meant he had to start again. This time, he would use human DNA as the base of the monster, and enhance it as he went.
Luthor's monsters were inhuman, to say the least. They resembled the Chitauri very much, but had a more human look to them. After extensive testing, he came to the conclusion his monsters were stronger and more agile, but weaker defensively. They could hit harder, but were a tad easier to destroy. It didn't matter to Luthor; with an army, he could throw as many monsters as he needed, and their firepower would get the job done.
There was only one problem. They were growing very slowly. By his estimates, it would take them several weeks to reach adulthood, even with all the genetic modifications he had made. He only hoped the mad titan wouldn't arrive before his army was ready.
"Thawne!" Batman growled, as he entered the room with the cell containing the villain. "What was your plan?"
"What plan?" he snorted. "If I had a plan, I would have already used it."
"Then why is there a tracker in your head?"
Thawne quickly rose from his chair, and then rolled his eyes. "It was Luthor."
As Batman entered the cell, he said, "Can't take any chances."
When Thawne woke up, he felt a pain inside his head. He looked around, and saw he was still in his cell. Batman was standing on the other side of the glass.
"What did you do to me?" Thawne groaned.
"We destroyed the inhibitor chip in your head, thanks to the Atom," Batman responded. "Now, why was it there?"
"My best guess is Luthor put it there to track me, in case I ever escaped," Thawne answered. "I certainly didn't do it."
Batman considered what the once speedster said, then continued.
"You're going to help us track down Luthor," Batman said sternly.
Luthor laughed. "And why do you think I would help you?"
Batman put a screen to the glass separating the two men. "Because if you don't, this will be your future."
As Thawne read, his eyes widened in fear, and he had no other option but to reconsider. "What do you need from me?"
Batman put the screen away, and told him. "We need any information that can help us locate Luthor's base of operations."
"As far as I know, he has three. The one you found me in, his skyscraper in Metropolis, and his satellite space station. That last one I can't actually confirm, since I was never there, but I did overhear him ordering his assistant to bring whatever to the satellite many times. Feels like it was a getaway for him," Thawne remembered.
"Anything of importance you can tell us? Security?"
"Well, it's Luthor, so it's invisible. You can't see it," he said, while thinking. "Unless you have a Kryptonian."
"What do you mean 'invisible'?"
"The boy scout mentioned something about you capturing me from Luthor's invisible base. I assume wherever I was, it was hard for your merry little band to find?" Thawne was finding ways to keep surprising them.
Batman knew he could check the skyscraper first, but he believed Luthor wouldn't see a visit to his space station coming.
He gave Thawne a Bat-glare, and left the room.
"It should just be you and I," Batman said to Superman. He had just explained the situation, and thought they should go alone, without anyone else knowing. He didn't want to have to organize a search party.
"We could use Green Lantern," Superman argued, referring to the fact that Hal Jordan could create a bubble with oxygen for Batman to breathe in.
"I have my space suit," Batman muttered.
"We still might need him! He can protect anything or anyone in there," Superman insisted.
"Fine. But him and no one else," Batman approved. It was a little humiliating for him whenever he had to use Jordan's air bubbles.
Superman called Green Lanterns over the comms while the world's finest made their way to the shuttle bay.
"Uh, Batman, you never told us the plan," Superman said.
"The plan is for you to stay on your X-ray vision and pay attention," Batman said, annoyed. The trio had flown out into open space, and were stationed still, ignoring Earth's gravity, waiting for an invisible satellite to pass by.
"Yeah, but there's nothing else to it? No clever trick you're going to use?" Green Lantern asked.
"Focus, Jordan," Batman ordered.
"Oh come on!" Green Lanterns complained, as he moved a bit forward from where they were. "It's not like I'm going to-"
Suddenly, Green Lantern was hit by an invisible force, being thrown away. The bubble Batman was in flickered, as if the power had gone out for a moment. Superman flew off to retrieve Hal, and Batman stayed in the same place. Finally, the bubble started moving, and soon, Batman could see the two Leaguers again, along with a giant, malfunctioning satellite. The screens on it were flashing, and Batman assumed they were the panels which had donned the cloaking technology.
"What is it?" Batman asked, still in the bubble.
"I was hit by this thing." Jordan was rubbing his head. "Superman grabbed me and brought me back, and then he punched it."
"Just in case it had Kryptonite defenses," Superman added.
"Are there any visible windows?" Batman asked as he looked at the megastructure.
"Not that I saw," Superman said, while shaking his head.
"Then we make our way in!" Green Lantern hollered, as he made a chainsaw construct and made a hole in the side of the space station.
"Lantern, wait!" Batman yelled, but it was too late, and he was forced inside. Air was rushing out, and Superman yelled to Jordan, "Seal it!"
He did, and there was calm. No noise at all, making it seem to be too good to be true.
"The air is good," Superman confirmed, and Green Lantern unmade the bubble, leaving Batman to jump off of it. He was already readying his tools.
"There's no one here," Superman informed him, after using his super hearing.
"This place may still have defenses," he returned.
"Guys, I found the lab!" Green Lanterns called. He had flown deeper into the space station, down a corridor, and he had just come out of a room.
Batman and Superman followed, and they caught up to Lantern. They turned and saw a room full of equipment, much of which Batman recognized.
Jordan stepped in, and said, "I say we-"
But he never finished his sentence, because at that moment, the whole satellite was blown to smithereens.
Luckily for Batman, Green Lanterns put him in a bubble again, but unluckily for their efforts, the space station was completely gone.
Once they had returned to the Watchtower, the three men talked amongst themselves about what had just transpired.
"Luthor knew we'd find out about it," Batman said, frowning.
"I doubt it, he probably had those explosives installed the day it was built," Superman said, dismissing Batman's claim. He knew from personal experience Luthor liked to be prepared for most situations.
"Why does it matter if he knew or didn't?" Green Lanterns spoke.
"If he did know, then he might know a lot more," Batman said.
Superman shook his head. "Can we at least find out what was in that laboratory?"
"I have cameras on my cowl. We should be able to see what was there," responded Batman. The group walked into the private chambers of the League's meeting room, and Batman began uploading the footage from his cameras into a computer. He waited a moment, and then showed Superman and Lantern the video footage the moments before the explosion. He paused right before the explosion, and Batman knew what was going on.
"Cloning technology," Batman muttered.
"Are you sure?" Superman said worried.
"Positive," came the sure response from Batman. There was no doubt about it.
"Wait, guys, what does this mean, exactly?" Jordan asked, confused.
"A while ago, Luthor had plans to make a clone of myself which he could control to take me down," Superman explained.
"It failed, but I'm afraid he's started cloning the invaders," Batman said grimly.
"Do you think he's found a way to give them the super serum?" Superman asked.
"Knowing Luthor, he did as soon as he figured it out," Batman replied.
"But I don't think Luthor would make his cloning headquarters in space. What if one got out?" Superman pointed out.
"You're right, it must be somewhere on Earth," Batman said.
"Any clue we could have discovered is gone forever, along with Luthor's satellite," Jordan chimed in.
"Then there is only one place left we haven't looked at," Superman declared.
"LexCorp," Batman finished. "I've got things to do at home. We'll have to investigate tomorrow."
"You're really warming up to Elsa, aren't you Bruce?" Superman asked slyly. Hal's jaw dropped.
"You and-? No way, Bats!" Jordan exclaimed.
"Up until now, only Superman knew. If you tell anyone, I'll use the Yellow Lantern ring in my cave against you," Batman threatened. "And do that again, Kent, and I won't stop myself from using what's in my belt's left compartment." Both Superman and Green Lantern quickly left the room, leaving Batman alone. He made his way to the League's teleporter, ready to go home.
