'BOOM'
An explosive finale yet a dying whimper
This time it seemed that Green Lantern anticipated an explosion and tried to get everyone into a protective barrier to shield them from the explosion.
Though he couldn't act quickly enough as they were all at point-blank range so they all suffered some degree of damage, but his action did help in sparing them from any more harm. The only one completely unharmed was Martian Manhunter who phased through the explosion.
While the League was in the middle of dealing with the aftermath of that explosion, I made a quick trip toward my house, literally as I then blurred in motion as I ran the distance.
In five seconds I was already back at my home, I looked around before quickly finding what I was looking for. The branch that actually broke Luthor's neck.
Was I being a bit paranoid? Sure, but with Luthor's body gone, Batman would absolutely want to search my home and the surrounding area for any hint of evidence, now more than ever. It wouldn't surprise me if he could somehow deduct that the branch was the true cause of injury, 'greatest detective in the world' and all that.
I quickly broke the branch into mini sticks and broke them into even smaller bits before channeling some energy into my eyes and using my heat vision to burn them into ashes. Then I used my power ring to generate a fan to blow them away from the area.
After that I ran inside the house itself. Just as I left it, so thankfully the League hadn't entered while I was gone. Though the phone was ringing a bunch weirdly enough, which was awfully familiar for some reason. Anyway, in here I find the pillow that I used to suffocate Lex with. That gets burned with heat vision and its ashes scattered to the wind outside. I quickly grab a couch cushion and place it under Ivo's head, since a sick man would absolutely want a pillow.
With all possible pieces of evidence that could give me away gone, I ran back to where I'd left the downed heroes and found them still unconscious and the rest of the League still a bit far from here. I wasn't gone for long then, good. Super speed is showing its use already.
Soon enough they make their way back here. Manhunter was the best out of them as they all suffered some harm but nothing life-threatening, along with chunks of Luther and Brainiac sticking on them. Wonder Woman was the least happy for obvious reasons. Less so upon the sight of her downed allies.
"Bru- Batman! Superman! What happened?" She asked.
"Brainiac triggered two explosions, a smoke screen where he injured Bats here and another consisting of Kryptonite. I've scanned their vitals, broken ribs for Batman, and some Kryptonite poisoning for Superman. But other than that they're fine, just resting." I answered.
At that she and the rest of the League were relieved. Lantern knew more than they did but he didn't have much time to give more than a simple check before having to help in the fight.
"Did they wake a little at least?" The Lantern asked me.
It was at this moment that the man in question began to wake, he started off groggy before instantly becoming alert and immediately raising himself. Only to falter as a pain I'm sure he was familiar with made itself known to him. He pushed through anyway and was sitting as straight as he could.
His eyes fell on the still knocked-out Superman, shifted them over to me, and then to the rest of his team. "... judging by the gore of man and machine on you all, I take it that Brainiac has been destroyed."
"I made sure to jam my mace right into his core. There's no trace left of him other than… what you see all over us." Hawkgirl said. Being the one at point-blank range, she was mostly covered in man and machine gore.
"I am going to need the hottest shower!" Flash said, in a now stained spandex suit. Though his face had some bits of meat and machine on it. "And mouthwash! My mouth was open, yuck!" gagged.
"You're wearing a spandex suit, you shouldn't be talking about needing showers." Wonder Woman gritted out with a glare. With her outfit being the most revealing, it got all over her arms, legs, and hair. But she seemed to have gotten lucky to avoid having any of that get inside anything, unlike the Flash.
"Regardless of Brainiac's destruction, we still need to collect every scrap that remains. If he was able to hide in Luthor through nanotechnology that no one has been able to detect, it's likely that any of those bits could contain it." Batman said before a new thought just came to him. "In fact…"
"You don't mean to say that everything Luthor could have touched could be-" Green Lantern asked.
"If it happened once, it's more than likely to have happened again. Especially since Brainiac had access to the plethora of resources that Luthor would have for who knows how long."
"A search of that kind would have to be incredibly extensive. Not to mention dubious, since we'd need to have access to Luthor's private property. And even then, we won't be able to detect it. " Lantern countered.
"Well," Batman said before he turned to me, "We just so happen to have a piece of nanotechnology able to do such a search and detection."
Huh, it seems that my bullshit has come to bite me in the ass.
Well, not exactly. Since I scanned Brainiac I should be more than able to detect him. But the thing is that there were no other copies, Brainiac never did such a thing even though he was able to build his spaceship within LexCorp tower. Plus I'm fairly certain that Tala would've found a remnant of Brainiac on Earth before having to resort to space where the original died with Darkseid.
"Well, I can tell you that I detect no trace of Brainiac in the surrounding area, or on you guys. Besides, you know." I said, gesturing loosely at them.
"Hmm, we're still collecting this mess. Flash, Lantern, collect everything." Batman ordered. At that they both went off to collect, Flash running around and picking up the chunks while Green Lantern kept them contained in a constructed bubble.
"Good, I don't exactly want a dead body… parts on my lawn. Well, besides the grave I'll dig for Ivo but that'll be for the backyard."
Well, with me having gotten everything I could want from our meeting and for them to deal with a new mess to clean up, I do believe that our time together is at a close. Got a body to bury and some bodies to find.
"And where do you think you're going?" Batman demanded.
"I'm going home?" I answered, "I did my duty as a citizen and informed the authorities of a dead body on my property. Now I'm going to leave you to handle this while I bury the dead."
"Not so fast. Since Luthor died in your home, that makes it a crime scene. I'm going to need to examine it for evidence."
Aren't you an annoyingly thorough detective?
"Don't you need to take care of Brainiac first?" I countered with a raised brow. "Make sure that he's gone for good and all of that."
Batman just glared at me for the reminder. "This isn't over Android."
"Wait, we're just going to leave the Android here?" Hawkgirl asked with some surprise but drained from her earlier battle.
"Ensuring that Brainiac is gone for good is a higher priority. Not to mention we need to get Superman medical attention as well."
"Yourself included, don't think that we didn't hear the Android mention your broken ribs." Wonder Woman sternly pointed out. Batman tried to refute this by getting up, which he did but it was still clear that he still needed some rest.
"Well, since we'll be bidding each other goodbye, I wish you guys a quick recovery." I waved them off with a hand.
"Don't think that this is over. Until we know for certain that Luthor truly did die as you claimed that he did, we're going to keep an eye on you." Batman warned with his Bat-glare.
"Fine, I'll allow you into my home to find your evidence. Be sure to call first though, I'm sure you can find my number. Which is the same as Ivo's since it's mine now."
Batman glared even more at my mention of allowing but other than that remained silent as Wonder Woman picked him up.
Once the Flash was done collecting all of the chunks and noticing that our business was done, shouted "dibs on the shower" and ran off.
Which prompted her to gently hand Batman over to Martian Manhunter before rushing after the speedster with her flight. "You most certainly will not!" she cried out in the distance.
Green Lantern just sighed before lifting the bubble with him before he too flew away.
Martian Manhunter picked Superman up before turning and blinked at me as if he only just now noticed my presence. "My apologies for not greeting you, Android."
"It's fine, you're the first one who showed me some manners," I said before looking at Hawkgirl pointedly.
And it made some sense that he didn't notice me at first, his people spoke with their minds but couldn't apply that to Androids and Robots since we thought differently than how organics did.
Which makes it weird that I could read the minds of organics just as well as he could, barring the difference in experience and all that. And while I'd like to give my telepathy a test, I won't because I know damn well that the Manhunter will detect me the moment that I do. Sure, he won't be able to read my mind but it won't be too hard to find a first suspect.
And I wouldn't be surprised if either the expert mind reader or the expert paranoid had some kind of countermeasure against enemy telepaths.
Though a question of when contact with these people would entail did pop up. "Hold up, I forgot to ask. What number should I be expecting?"
"I don't know, I don't use the phone," Hawkgirl answered bluntly as she shrugged at me.
"You're telling me that I'll have to accept every call I get then!?"
"I assure you that we'll contact you as soon as possible." Martian Manhunter assured.
"Do you know how many telemarketers and scammers ring our phone!?" Annoyingly enough, that was an actual thing to worry about since the phone was ringing constantly. Ivo having not unregistered himself from their lists for whatever reason and Amazo refusing to leave his creator's side left it like that.
To my plight, the Manhunter only shrugged with a helpless smile. "If it helps, you would be surprised to know that despite how overwhelming the negativity can be, not everything will be as bad as you expect it to be. You may even find some good among it. It's something that I recently learned." He said before waving me goodbye and flying away.
I'm just going to assume that he was learning some life lesson while he was gone and just tried to impart it to me, with it being so fresh in his mind and all.
"I'm sure that a citizen such as yourself can handle such mundane hassles, now can't you, big boy?" Hawkgirl chuckled at me, chuckling even more at seeing my surprised expression, before waving me off and flying away with the flapping of her wings. I just chuckled as I waved her back, nice to see that she's not as confrontational as she was at the start of this.
As I look off into the distance, to the retreating forms of the fliers (and the jiggling of Hawkgirls' cheeks, hoo boy), I see that my first meeting with the Earth's Mightiest Heroes went well.
Let's see if it'll remain that way after some of the things that I have planned. Sure it'll be breaking into a government facility, but I doubt you could call rescuing an experiment child anything but something that a respectable citizen would do! Though the government may argue otherwise...
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And here we have the aftermath of the battle. Not much otherwise but I think this sound wrap it up for now, though I may or may not have missed a few things. Wrote this in a bit of a daze so some things may or may not seem like much sense but I'd like to explain. (do feel free to point any leaps in logic tho)
As much as Batman would like to investigate Amazo, taking care of Brainiac is their top priority at the moment. That and getting Batman, who can't detective well with broken ribs (at least the League won't let him), and Superman some medical attention. But as soon as those are dealt with, they'll be paying him a visit soon enough for a proper investigation.
As for the ending, Amazo will be doing what he claims but I'm still deciding on having him do it asap and baffling the League with his newly found orphan (Ace) or chilling until he gets the League off of his back for a little while and then going after said orphan and clone (Galatea). I'd like to hear what you guys think.
Same case as the last chapter, time of publishing is hella late so imma get some sleep and fix some stuff up later. I hope you guys liked this and tell me what you thought.
