Before I go about fulfilling my words in finding and breaking into a government facility in who knows where to rescue Ace, I need to take care of a few more things at home so they don't bite me in the ass while I'm gone or later.

First things first, Ivo.

Besides not wanting his body to stink up the place, it would be rather disrespectful to the man who created Amazo, the body I now inhabit. Be it through his sheer genius or some stroke of cosmically extraordinary luck, he managed to create one of if not the most powerful technological wonders in this universe. And a fact that I'll be abusing maliciously. The man deserved much more credit than what he got in the end.

So I lifted the man's body in a princess carry as I headed towards the backyard.

Once outside, I use one hand to make a hand construct to keep Ivo in the air above ground, and the other to dig out a grave in one scoop. Once the grave is 6 ft deep, I gently lower the body inside before burying the man by dumping the scoop of dirt on him and flatting it appropriately.

I looked around until I found a boulder of a decent size. I pulled it over with my Will and used heat vision to cut it into the shape of a gravestone. Rather than use my heat vision again, I formed a stick to chisel the proper markings of a grave.

'Rest in Peace

Professor Dr. Arthur Ivo

1962 - 2001

One of the greatest minds of all time'

With the gravestone made, I placed it firmly at the head of the grave.

"I hadn't known you for long, or at all, but I owe my current situation and odds of survival to you. So thank you for your brilliance, and may you find peace wherever you are, Professor Ivo."

I give the man's grave one last look before I head back inside. One more thing to do.

I went all throughout the areas near the stairs and the nearby windows and doors. My scans and x-ray vision had detected no camera or audio recorder at all. I knew that Batman never entered the house, but it never hurt to just make sure before I do something that'll give Batman ample cause to sic the League on me. Not that it'd be a problem but it'd be a hassle I could do without.

I put some thought and intent into the desire to change my shape, and my body obeyed. I shrunk a few inches and gained hair over my brows. I had a nose and an open mouth again but found that I couldn't breathe through them, though I still heard a beating heart and pulses

Wow, I never noticed how different becoming human again would feel after feeling so normal as an Android. Weirdly enough, I feel that I could remain in either state and be content with both. Though I couldn't truly be human just yet, I'm sure that there's some magic or super science out there that could fix that.

"Welcome to the 1980 Smallville High School Talent Show, my name is Sexy Lexy and we are Sexx Luthor!"

"I hate Superman because he made me bald."

"I love to suck on Jolly Ranchers."

"WRONG!"

"I don't wash my hands because I'm evil," I said completely straight-faced in Luthor's tone of voice though I was also barely holding off a chuckling fit. Quoting ancient memes, skits, ridiculous statements and an actual line from the voice of one the most 'distinguished' villains in the world is just too much not to laugh at. Now I know how the Flash felt when he got to mess around in Luthor's body, making him say that shit is hilarious. Hell, if I had a recorder this would make great proof that Luthor wasn't all there in the head before tripping.

I stopped myself from continuing to mess around though my mirth remained. I place a hand on the right side of my neck and feel the flesh that I wasn't supposed to, as Lex's armor should be covering that up. Meaning that I could replicate damaged individuals rather than only in a pristine state, which would make this a lot harder to snuff out than it had been traditionally.

As I head up the stairs, I try my best to recreate how Luthor was supposed to have gotten up here.

He was injured, suffering from poisoning, and desperate and not mentally sound. Well, he already was crazy and desperate, mad scientist with a raging Superman hate boner that he was. So I stomped up my stairs in a rush while leaving footprints dented in them, no matter how much it pained me to damage my own property.

Once at the top, it took a bit to figure out how exactly I should play this out. A memory of a Family Guy clip played in my head and I decided to just copy that.

Despite being fully aware that I'd feel practically nothing from this, instincts of old flared up and it took some concentration on my end not to fly out of it. I hadn't even felt any pain even in the neck, the purposely least durable part of myself just to try to mimic a human neck in reactions. Though by the end of it my neck would've bent like Luthor's did if it could.

With the result being a thoroughly fell down stairs, I got up and dusted myself, another thing I should work on later after fixing these steps because that was a lot of dust.

With the stairs properly dented, I was free to leave my thoroughly tampered crime scene to any eventual Batman detective session. I'm going to love the look on his face when he has to accept my bullshit as fact since all evidence would point to it being 'true'.

Though Batman might be salty enough to sick the Question on me. But I'd welcome the challenge and future victim, though on which end remains to be seen.

I went out the back door and flew into the sky. My next goal firmly in mind.

To rescue Ace from Cadmus. And the rest of the Royal Flush Gang as well, the group is a bunch of teenagers after all (even if they look way too much like adults, but this was the late 90s so maybe not).

If I can recall, they were in a remote facility. Odds are good that it'd be a desert area, or highly likely at least.

The main point is to test metahumans, so they'd want plenty of room for the more destructive ones to go loose. It'd also be somewhere there'd be no food, water, or transport except for what Cadmus could send which would dissuade any escape attempts or render them moot.

The only issue is that the only thing about the American desert that I know of is that it's west and south. Yeah, yeah, typical not to know where things are in your own country but in my defense, I was a New Englander in my old life and here I was… still a New Englander, maybe.

Where the hell is Metropolis located anyway?

I flew back to my house, went through the backdoor, went towards Ivo's lab, and booted up the latest LexTech computer. As a gen x, I was somewhat afraid that the internet here would match the horror stories of the internet back in 2002. But surprisingly enough it seems that Lex's computers were comparable to the 2010s in speed, well it was the computer of a mad scientist that worked for Lex so it'd make sense that it'd be beyond the current tech.

I entered my question into Googol (I refused to use Lexandria, that was essentially Bing) and found my answer.

Delaware. So not New York like I and many a fan had assumed, though it's still close to Gotham which is in New Jersey.

Next is to look up where the deserts in this country are and keep a memory of the map. Along with the rest of the country for future reference.

Huh, turns out that they're only four deserts in the entire country. Which are Great Basin, Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan, which are all Southwest. Cowboy movies always made me assume that the West would be a lot more desert than there is.

Making my search area most of Nevada, some of Utah, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

Fuck. That's going to be annoying to search. How about I start in Texas and make my way until I reach California? Hmm, it should be a simple search with my super speed and x-ray vision, assuming that they didn't use lead but Luthor had an interest in them so that'll be hard to tell. I'll just need to be invisible so I don't raise any alarm bells for any Cadmus base or the League on their Watchtower.

With an actual plan in mind, I set out to put it in motion. I turned invisible before rising high above the city into the sky. I was high enough that it would allow me a bird's eye view to conduct my searching. I then channeled both the powers of the Flash and Superman at once and went off with a sonic boom.

Flying from Delaware to Texas would take an average airplane about 3 hours, with the distance being 1,451 miles apart. Or 2335.158 meters to those who don't measure in American.

I managed to cross that in 10 minutes. Unlike the Flash or Superman, I didn't need to worry about running into, or through, things since I could be intangible, so I was more than free to fly as fast as I could.

Yet even with speed that I deemed to be stupidly fast, into the early tiers of Mach speed, was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to the Speed Force. But I was more than able to explore its heights and my lacking of an organic body prevented me from facing the drawbacks that came with it, though I was sure not to go too into it lest I be pulled in like Flash nearly was.

It took 10 more minutes before I concluded that they weren't there. My sight catching a few things of interest, but x-ray vision revealing that they lacked who I was looking for. So I moved on to the next state.

Flying from Texas to New Mexico took a plane about an hour. It took me 5 minutes to do the same for New Mexico, with matching results.

Next was Arizona.

It took 3 minutes in Arizona. The Sonoran desert was where I found the facility. Where Ace and the rest of those who would become the Royal Flush Gang were.

The facility was surprisingly large and above ground, making me feel for the poor saps who had to build that in a desert. But I remembered that Google Googol Maps wasn't a thing so they wouldn't need to worry about any schmucks or the senseless masses picking up on this and could easily handle, bribe/disappear, those who had found it. Which also confirmed my earlier guess.

Now I just needed to head on in and free the poor kids.

The question however is how do I go about it? I could just phase in, grab Ace and the others, and leave without Cadmus knowing where they went. I could also just barge in, beat up a ton of grunts and probably kill the first bunch scientists I see, then grab the kids and go, through that would definitely put me in Cadmus' radar.

Cadmus never retaliated against the Joker for stealing from them. Then again, they might have known better than to go after the Joker considering how loud and high profile he is, along with the fact that where he is involved, Batman is close to follow. And getting the League involved in their affairs is a big no no this early in the stage, though it'd be a certain I'm more than happy to unveil.

I would be a complete unknown however, at least for however long the League or I keep it that way, so they might deem an attack against me an acceptable risk. Hell, they might even send Galatea after me, they've done it for less. Well, they might until they find out the magnifying scope that Batman would have me under, and then the rest of the kids by proxy.

The only reason I'm bothering to debate this is that at the moment is that I know where they are, currently in a classroom of some sort with some teachers. I'm relieved that I didn't have to see them in the middle of any testing that involved prodding and poking. So I felt content to leave them there for now while I looked for another, the overseer in charge. Perhaps I should start with getting some information before I go, with minds such as his open like a book.

Well, I've been on a roll so far on my own, let's see how well I'll do now.

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Yeah, sorry it took so long for something to come out and not much happened here. Probably the least eventfull/weakest by far but eh, stepping stones have to happen so I hope you guys liked it at least. Plus I want to keep this decently short and adding Amazo entering the facility and what follows would be a chapter in itself. Tbh I got a bit of writer's block on how I'd want Amazo to go about this. I'm leaning heavily on him mind fucking the overseer for info and just grabbing the kids and leaving, but the monkey brain in me wants to write a bunch of violence against the scientists and some fights with Amazo against the guards and then the Royal Flush Gang themselves sans Ace. So I'd like to here what you guys think on that.

This might be different than how the previous chapters have felt since rather than writing all of this in a late night fueled rush, it was a series of spare moment writes finished by a late night write. I'll look this over after some sleep and fix whatever issues that pop up.

Same case as usual, I'm gonna get some sleep and do author stuff tomorrow, I hope you like and tell me what you think.