Post by redsycorax on Mar 8, 2019 23:54:19 GMT
An alternate Earth full of marvels perished at the hands of the murderous Galactus, but several metahumans and mutants escaped to sanctuary of Earth 617- Tony Stark (Iron Man), Janet Van Dyne (Wasp), Jean Grey (Phoenix), James Logan Howlett (Wolverine), Sue Richards (Invisible Woman) and her children Valeria and Franklin, Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) and Johnny Storm (Human Torch). After Zeus of the Olympian Pantheon defeated Galactus, the expatriate marvels started their new lives on a world almost like our own but in some ways quite different...
"Lois? Clark?"
"In here, Susie. Good to see that Lex' tracker is still being diverted by the labyrinth programme Bruce installed."
"I have some intel for you. Lex is getting us to work on what looks like an interstellar vessel. And it seems as if it's headed for Alpha Centauri."
"I'd like to know why, though. Rann is orbiting Polaris now, the system is uninhabited. It's not like him to do something so altruistic."
"So, did this Rann have an accompanying solar system? In our universe, there were two habitable planets- a waterworld, Arima, and Centurii-Six. And Centurians from Beta Centauri, hundreds of light years away."
"Yes, it does. Hebos is a jungle world, Sfar is global desert and Anthorann contained a Rannian colony, New Ranagar. Rann hadn't laid claim to Hebos and Sfar before it was teleported out of Alpha Centauri's binary system." Clark said
"I think it might be Hebos, then. If this is a private colonisation or innocent interstellar exploratory mission..."
"The problem is, it probably won't be. I know Lex all too well."
"Clark, you don't think it might be Lexorian survivors?"
Clark turned away: "After all this time, sweetheart? Sorry, Sue, this needs some explanation. Lex settled offworld for a while on Lexor, a world orbiting a red dwarf sun and actually revealed a softer, almost humane side. He liberated the planet from its oppressors, fell in love with a Lexorian woman, Ardora, and together they had a child, Lex Junior. But one of Lex' battlesuits malfunctioned and destroyed the planet, killing his family. It tore him apart. He always seemed ...emptier, lost, somehow, after that."
"I know how that feels. No wonder he's so good with Franklin and Valeria... I almost feel sorry for him, but given what else you've told me..."
"We could send an expeditionary force over there. Me, Diana, Hal, J'onn, Jean and Carol."
"Just be careful, honey. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf sun and your abilities diminish when you're in Alpha Centauri's system as a result."
And so it was that six members of the Justice League set out for the nearest inhabited solar system to our own. Hebos was in an orbit within the ecosphere of its planetary system, covered with yellow xanthophyll vegetation and fluorescent pink geysers. Superboy and Supergirl had visited it decades in the past after a race had occurred between the two teenage Kryptonians. The climate was tropical and able to support life, but its very abundance militated against sapience amongst its multitude of animal species. Anthorann and Ekelon had been more closely affected by Rann's spatial transposition, but the New Ranagar colony on Anthorann had been evacuated shortly afterward.
Hal had created a vast ceramic mirror to deflect the red stellar radiation of Proxima Centauri from the rest of the Alpha Centauri ternary system. Clark had a power enhancer symbiosuit on just in case there were any difficulties, but thus far, there were none. Diana scanned the planet for traces of any surviving Lexorian colony, but didn't detect anything:
"That's weird. Why would Luthor try to launch an interstellar expedition here if it wasn't to try and rescue survivors from Lexor? Its primary isn't that far from here."
"Which suggests that someone is trying to lure Lex here." Clark pondered this.
"Could it be someone who has as much of a reason to hate him as he hates you, Clark? Any ideas?"
"A deceased green incarnation called Black Orchid. She tried to infiltrate LexCorp as an agent of ARGUS, but his security detail killed him. Lex also callously drained the abilities of several metahumans to power a teleport device escaping from the Apokoliptian colony Cygnus 4019, killing or seriously injuring several of them- Neutron, Heatmonger, Plasmus, Thunder and Lightning. Or Luthor's sister Tess Mercer. He's left a long string of bodies behind him."
Jean conducted a precautionary telepathic scan around the area, then her eyes widened:
"It's her all right, Clark. But there's something else. It...feels like another survivor of Earth-616. Oh, blazes. Victor Von Doom, the Fantastic Four's oldest foe. It makes sense. He might have been able to independently escape from our world, his level of technological sophistication was as high as that of Reed Richards, Charles Xavier or Tony. I'll rig up a psionic screen. Clark!" Before Phoenix could do anything to prevent it, a barbed plant shot venomous barbed extrusions into the Kryptonian's body. Given his compromised invulnerability, the effect was almost instantaneous.
"Damn you, Victor!" Carol growled, immediately flying aloft to deal with the emerging threat.
"Alba, sister, this isn't you. You aren't a cold blooded killer."
"What the hell would you know about it, Amazon?" Black Orchid's extrusions echoed around them as Hal dealt with the medical emergency, injecting white kryptonite into Clark's bloodstream and killing the hostile phytovenom instantly. Phoenix joined Captain Marvel and identified the source of the hostile action. She telepathically provided information about Doctor Doom to her newer colleagues, while Captain Marvel tapped into the Avengers microcomputer database records from their vanished home universe.
"I want to try and comprehend why you're doing this. I can understand why you want to kill Lex Luthor, given what happened to you after you tried to infiltrate LexCorp. But you must understand that we have to stop you."
"I'm sorry I overreacted, Superman. I didn't mean to harm you."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Diana?" Hal whispered.
"Amanda Waller. She's done something and warped Alba Garcia's biocentric consciousness, a pre-emptive strike against Lex Luthor."
"Which raises the question of where Victor Von Doom fits into this."
"Carol, there's something weird going on here. Something's wrong with Victor's mind. It's almost robotic. Either he uploaded himself into a neural net, or..."
"Or, that isn't him. He didn't survive the destruction of Earth-616 after all, but his armour did and it's carrying out a vendetta against all of the identifiable survivors of our home Earth."
"Damn you all! Superman, surely you can see what a clear and present danger Lex Luthor represents to our world! He's killed others to pursue his own objectives. How can you risk his continued survival?! What if he goes after your wife and son next? "
"Lex does need to be taken down, but there are more subtle and longer-term ways to do it, without killing him."
"Really? And for our two "marvels", what would you do if it were Magneto, Jean? Or one of the more cosmic level enemies that the Avengers faced, Carol?"
"I wouldn't have killed Erik, unless it were absolutely necessary and only then to save someone elses lives. I gave into the darkness and it's seared into my memory like molten lava. Never again. Black Orchid, you've fused with Victor's battlesuit, haven't you? Yet it still has enough of his neural residue to twist and warp your own consciousness and retrieve this obsession from it. Fight it. Please. I know what it was like to be possessed and have my own will and identity subordinated to something inhuman and predatory."
"Jean, perhaps you can...?" Phoenix nodded and her brow furrowed as she unleashed a heavy duty telepathic impulse at the purple threaded Doom battlesuit that now reared from the Hebosian undergrowth. It quaked at the bombardment and tried to exert further control over the battlesuit that it had had occupied, but the impact of the Phoenix' intervention was too great for it to resist.
However, as Black Orchid left the body that she had briefly usurped, a shadow fell across them as the LexCorp starship finally arrived at its destination. Then, catching sight of Luthor at the vessel's windows, the plant elemental leapt toward the vessel...
...and was abruptly teleported back to Earth within a zeta-plus teleport beam, courtesy of Tony Stark, back on the distant homeworld of humanity. The Justice Leaguers were present at the LexCorp arrival and Superman's oldest adversary looked frail and human as he realised his voyage across the distance had been worth nothing when it came to the secrets of his heart and his longings for intimacy and warmth with someone, anyone. At the end of it all, Ardora and Lex Junior were still dead and his hopes of Lexor survivors were in vain. This time, he could not blame his defeat and despair on the Kryptonian whom he had spent his life opposing. He sat numbly at his vessel's spectrographic console, watching as the data came in and LexCorp prepared to reap the benefits of its exploratory mission. But inside, he felt cold and dark and alone as he watched the Justice League depart for Earth. He knew he could not blame this on them in any sense and his vessel's sensors had detected the Black Orchid presence here, and what it had signified. His pyrrhic victory felt like ashes in his mouth and the chances for profit given LexCorp's pioneer voyage out here felt empty and hollow.
Clark looked over his shoulder and remembered two boys in Smallville, many decades ago. For a moment, he saw the other, redhaired boy again, vulnerable and uncertain of himself, before the coldness and harshness of adulthood closed over Luthor again.
THE END
"Lois? Clark?"
"In here, Susie. Good to see that Lex' tracker is still being diverted by the labyrinth programme Bruce installed."
"I have some intel for you. Lex is getting us to work on what looks like an interstellar vessel. And it seems as if it's headed for Alpha Centauri."
"I'd like to know why, though. Rann is orbiting Polaris now, the system is uninhabited. It's not like him to do something so altruistic."
"So, did this Rann have an accompanying solar system? In our universe, there were two habitable planets- a waterworld, Arima, and Centurii-Six. And Centurians from Beta Centauri, hundreds of light years away."
"Yes, it does. Hebos is a jungle world, Sfar is global desert and Anthorann contained a Rannian colony, New Ranagar. Rann hadn't laid claim to Hebos and Sfar before it was teleported out of Alpha Centauri's binary system." Clark said
"I think it might be Hebos, then. If this is a private colonisation or innocent interstellar exploratory mission..."
"The problem is, it probably won't be. I know Lex all too well."
"Clark, you don't think it might be Lexorian survivors?"
Clark turned away: "After all this time, sweetheart? Sorry, Sue, this needs some explanation. Lex settled offworld for a while on Lexor, a world orbiting a red dwarf sun and actually revealed a softer, almost humane side. He liberated the planet from its oppressors, fell in love with a Lexorian woman, Ardora, and together they had a child, Lex Junior. But one of Lex' battlesuits malfunctioned and destroyed the planet, killing his family. It tore him apart. He always seemed ...emptier, lost, somehow, after that."
"I know how that feels. No wonder he's so good with Franklin and Valeria... I almost feel sorry for him, but given what else you've told me..."
"We could send an expeditionary force over there. Me, Diana, Hal, J'onn, Jean and Carol."
"Just be careful, honey. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf sun and your abilities diminish when you're in Alpha Centauri's system as a result."
And so it was that six members of the Justice League set out for the nearest inhabited solar system to our own. Hebos was in an orbit within the ecosphere of its planetary system, covered with yellow xanthophyll vegetation and fluorescent pink geysers. Superboy and Supergirl had visited it decades in the past after a race had occurred between the two teenage Kryptonians. The climate was tropical and able to support life, but its very abundance militated against sapience amongst its multitude of animal species. Anthorann and Ekelon had been more closely affected by Rann's spatial transposition, but the New Ranagar colony on Anthorann had been evacuated shortly afterward.
Hal had created a vast ceramic mirror to deflect the red stellar radiation of Proxima Centauri from the rest of the Alpha Centauri ternary system. Clark had a power enhancer symbiosuit on just in case there were any difficulties, but thus far, there were none. Diana scanned the planet for traces of any surviving Lexorian colony, but didn't detect anything:
"That's weird. Why would Luthor try to launch an interstellar expedition here if it wasn't to try and rescue survivors from Lexor? Its primary isn't that far from here."
"Which suggests that someone is trying to lure Lex here." Clark pondered this.
"Could it be someone who has as much of a reason to hate him as he hates you, Clark? Any ideas?"
"A deceased green incarnation called Black Orchid. She tried to infiltrate LexCorp as an agent of ARGUS, but his security detail killed him. Lex also callously drained the abilities of several metahumans to power a teleport device escaping from the Apokoliptian colony Cygnus 4019, killing or seriously injuring several of them- Neutron, Heatmonger, Plasmus, Thunder and Lightning. Or Luthor's sister Tess Mercer. He's left a long string of bodies behind him."
Jean conducted a precautionary telepathic scan around the area, then her eyes widened:
"It's her all right, Clark. But there's something else. It...feels like another survivor of Earth-616. Oh, blazes. Victor Von Doom, the Fantastic Four's oldest foe. It makes sense. He might have been able to independently escape from our world, his level of technological sophistication was as high as that of Reed Richards, Charles Xavier or Tony. I'll rig up a psionic screen. Clark!" Before Phoenix could do anything to prevent it, a barbed plant shot venomous barbed extrusions into the Kryptonian's body. Given his compromised invulnerability, the effect was almost instantaneous.
"Damn you, Victor!" Carol growled, immediately flying aloft to deal with the emerging threat.
"Alba, sister, this isn't you. You aren't a cold blooded killer."
"What the hell would you know about it, Amazon?" Black Orchid's extrusions echoed around them as Hal dealt with the medical emergency, injecting white kryptonite into Clark's bloodstream and killing the hostile phytovenom instantly. Phoenix joined Captain Marvel and identified the source of the hostile action. She telepathically provided information about Doctor Doom to her newer colleagues, while Captain Marvel tapped into the Avengers microcomputer database records from their vanished home universe.
"I want to try and comprehend why you're doing this. I can understand why you want to kill Lex Luthor, given what happened to you after you tried to infiltrate LexCorp. But you must understand that we have to stop you."
"I'm sorry I overreacted, Superman. I didn't mean to harm you."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Diana?" Hal whispered.
"Amanda Waller. She's done something and warped Alba Garcia's biocentric consciousness, a pre-emptive strike against Lex Luthor."
"Which raises the question of where Victor Von Doom fits into this."
"Carol, there's something weird going on here. Something's wrong with Victor's mind. It's almost robotic. Either he uploaded himself into a neural net, or..."
"Or, that isn't him. He didn't survive the destruction of Earth-616 after all, but his armour did and it's carrying out a vendetta against all of the identifiable survivors of our home Earth."
"Damn you all! Superman, surely you can see what a clear and present danger Lex Luthor represents to our world! He's killed others to pursue his own objectives. How can you risk his continued survival?! What if he goes after your wife and son next? "
"Lex does need to be taken down, but there are more subtle and longer-term ways to do it, without killing him."
"Really? And for our two "marvels", what would you do if it were Magneto, Jean? Or one of the more cosmic level enemies that the Avengers faced, Carol?"
"I wouldn't have killed Erik, unless it were absolutely necessary and only then to save someone elses lives. I gave into the darkness and it's seared into my memory like molten lava. Never again. Black Orchid, you've fused with Victor's battlesuit, haven't you? Yet it still has enough of his neural residue to twist and warp your own consciousness and retrieve this obsession from it. Fight it. Please. I know what it was like to be possessed and have my own will and identity subordinated to something inhuman and predatory."
"Jean, perhaps you can...?" Phoenix nodded and her brow furrowed as she unleashed a heavy duty telepathic impulse at the purple threaded Doom battlesuit that now reared from the Hebosian undergrowth. It quaked at the bombardment and tried to exert further control over the battlesuit that it had had occupied, but the impact of the Phoenix' intervention was too great for it to resist.
However, as Black Orchid left the body that she had briefly usurped, a shadow fell across them as the LexCorp starship finally arrived at its destination. Then, catching sight of Luthor at the vessel's windows, the plant elemental leapt toward the vessel...
...and was abruptly teleported back to Earth within a zeta-plus teleport beam, courtesy of Tony Stark, back on the distant homeworld of humanity. The Justice Leaguers were present at the LexCorp arrival and Superman's oldest adversary looked frail and human as he realised his voyage across the distance had been worth nothing when it came to the secrets of his heart and his longings for intimacy and warmth with someone, anyone. At the end of it all, Ardora and Lex Junior were still dead and his hopes of Lexor survivors were in vain. This time, he could not blame his defeat and despair on the Kryptonian whom he had spent his life opposing. He sat numbly at his vessel's spectrographic console, watching as the data came in and LexCorp prepared to reap the benefits of its exploratory mission. But inside, he felt cold and dark and alone as he watched the Justice League depart for Earth. He knew he could not blame this on them in any sense and his vessel's sensors had detected the Black Orchid presence here, and what it had signified. His pyrrhic victory felt like ashes in his mouth and the chances for profit given LexCorp's pioneer voyage out here felt empty and hollow.
Clark looked over his shoulder and remembered two boys in Smallville, many decades ago. For a moment, he saw the other, redhaired boy again, vulnerable and uncertain of himself, before the coldness and harshness of adulthood closed over Luthor again.
THE END