tenhawk
patreon
SCAU-DC 15
🕑 Added 2023-02-01 02:01:26 +0000 UTC*****
Superman paused briefly after clearing the smoke, mildly surprised at the lack of coughing from the people who’d been caught within it. His first thought was that the MPD officers had been carrying gas masks, but none of them appeared to be from his fast scan.
It was a puzzle he’d work out later, after he dealt with Metallo.
He fixed his gaze on the aforementioned villain, noting Kara rising up at his side while he evaluated the situation.
“You did well,” He told her. “I don’t see any Civilians in the immediate area, and the police are pulling everyone from the surroundings back. Good work.”
She flushed, eyes shifting away from looking directly at him, “Wasn’t my idea.”
“Then who’s…” Superman slumped as he recognized the figure flying up to meet them. “Magus.”
“Cheers to you too, big blue,” Xander grinned at him as he settled into a floating position near their altitude, “Cops are pulling everyone back, so we should be able to end this without too much in the way of civilian casualties.”
Superman nodded, “Excellent thinking, and good work… both of you.”
Kara practically glowed under the praise, while Xander did his best to hide the childish glee he could feel welling up inside. War veteran or not, he wasn’t immune to a pep talk from Superman.
Still, there were more important issues to deal with at the moment.
*****
Xander looked down at Metallo, impressed by the engineering that had gone into the form he was seeing. A humanoid golem was fairly easy to build with magic, but he knew some of the challenges well enough to recognize that it would take real genius to pull off a similar design without the benefits of magical help… something about the arcane just tended to handle the details as long as your design was clear and solid on the main bits.
As much as he hated to admit it, Luthor was capable of truly impressive work.
Too bad he’s such an idiosavant type. Genius at so much, complete moron where it really counts.Xander thought sourly. It was, sadly, not something he found himself unfamiliar with.
“Three of you?” Metallo seemed surprised. “you Kryptonians are like cockroaches, damn near impossible to kill and there’s always more around than you think.”
“Stand down, Corben,” Superman ordered, ignoring the crack from the cybernetic being. “You can’t win.”
“I think you forget the source of my power,” The metal man grinned as his chest plate opened up.
The green glow was easily visible from where Xander floated alongside Superman and Supergirl, and the instant it reached his eyes his glasses started throwing out warnings like he’d forgotten to pick up Wednesday’s preferred snack before a date.
“Whoa. That’s a lot of rads,” He mumbled, glancing to one side in time to see both of the kryptonians droop slightly from the exposure.
“I’ll handle it,” Superman said firmly, steeling himself for the fight. “You two, move back.”
Xander shot him a look, then rolled his eyes, “Now I know how Willow feels when I or Buffy threw ourselves into trouble like the idiots we were. Are, in my case at least. How about you let the guy not affected by Kryptonite help out a little?”
Superman hesitated, looking over at him uncertainly, “What can you do?”
A wand practically appeared in Xander’s hand, and he flicked it casually at Superman before repeating the gesture in Kara’s direction.
“Start with a sun block charm, see if that helps any,” Xander said, watching the pair carefully.
Both seemed to relax marginally as the spell was applied and he nodded.
“Looks like it does,” Xander told them, “It’ll last eight hours unless I undue it, protect you both from radiation… but, since your both solar powered, take care not to burn through your stored energy too fast.”
Then he turned to look at Metallo as he began to drop out of the sky in the cyborg’s general; direction.
“Now… what to do with you?”
*****
Corben shifted slightly as the unknown seemed to approach, showing no particular issues with the Kryptonite radiation. That just meant that he was a meta, the Cyborg supposed, rather than another Kryptonian as he’d originally supposed.
A bit annoying, but few Meta’s were remotely in Superman’s league, so while the Kryptonite wouldn’t be of much use against the new target, that still left a staggering array of other weapons and tactics for him to employ.
“That is some nasty shit you’re putting out,” The young man, practically still a kid, said as he landed a few paces away. “Close it up before you give someone cancer of the everything, would you?”
Corben snorted, “Not like I have much to care about in that regard, given that I’m all metal now. Cancer doesn’t exactly scare me.”
“And you don’t care at all for anyone else?”
The tone wasn’t really questioning, despite the shift in pitch at the end, but Corben opted to treat it as one.
“Why should I?” He snarled, looking around, “No one ever gave a damn about me, from the day I was born. All that matters now is revenge.”
He couldn’t help but keep his eyes from shifting up to focus on Superman, who was surprisingly hanging back and looking none the worse for wear despite the vast levels of Kryptonite radiation that was being thrown out.
The young man just nodded, no real emotional shift on his face.
“Blaming others for our own destiny… is very human,” The kid said, his right hand coming up.
Corben stiffened as he saw something in it, then relaxed as his HUD reported it as…
“A stick? Really?” he asked, chuckling.
“More of a carbon fibre dowel, actually,” The kid shrugged.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Accio Kryptonite.”
Corben felt a tugging sensation, then saw a blur of green flash through the air away from him as all of his systems instantly shunted over to power conservation mode and he got a shutdown alert blaring across all sensory systems.
Shutdown? That’s impossible, I have a full… core… of…
Corben looked down, stared really, at the gaping space within his wide open chest where the kryptonite had been. He was still trying to puzzle out what happened when the forced shutdown took over and everything vanished to darkness.
*****
Xander caught the glowing rock easily enough, though he was moderately surprised by how much it weighed. The sheer level of radiation, on a mystical frequency no less, was enough that he didn’t stare at it for long.
A quick twist of his wand told reality to bugger off and the kryptonite twisted and shifted until, a moment later, he was holding a green parrot in its place. The bird cawed and hopped easily along his arm, finally perching on his shoulder.
“What… what did you do?”
Kara was floating closer, despite Kal half heartedly trying to urge her away from the kryptonite.
“inanimate to animate transfiguration,” Xander answered, “didn’t want to risk just turning it into a block of lead or something without a Philosopher’s stone to ensure that the properties were completely changed. Might still have made you sick.”
“And the… uh… bird won’t?”
Xander smiled, reaching up to scratch the bird’s beak, “It’s… less than a bird, but more than an automaton. The animation let me focus the spell more tightly, we should be safe.”
Superman, who had landed next to Metallo and given the Cyborg a quick examination, looked over toward them. “That was nicely done. Thank you.”
Xander just nodded, flicking his wand in Superman’s direction again to undue the spell he’d previously cast, then he did the same for supergirl.
“Spells off, you can absorb sunlight and other radiation again,” He said absently, turning to examine the bird.
“thank you,” Superman said, walking over, his own gaze on the parrot. “How… uh, how long will it stay that way?”
“Honestly?” Xander shrugged. “I’m not sure. The Kryptonite isn’t just radioactive, there’s a mystical component… well, by my standards at least, and it seems to be fueling the spell. Very weird.”
“I suppose I should be surprised,” Superman sighed, wincing as Kara reached out with some delight to pet the bird. “Kara, that could still be dangerous.”
“I don’t feel anything,” She said, giggling as the bird caught her finger in it’s beak and cracked back and forth while crooning. “See? It’s fine, just a friendly… Ow!”
She yanked her finger back as the Parrot nipped at it, causing Superman to surge forward as Xander stared in surprised.
“Are you ok?”
“I’m fine, Kal,” she waved him off, examining her finger for a moment before glaring at the bird. “Bad bird! You drew blood!”
“It did?” Xander scowled, both curious at that outcome, but also annoyed. He reached up to rap the bird firmly on the beak, “No biting.”
“How?” Superman grabbed Kara’s hand, turning it over to expose the already healing nip.
“Relax, Kal,” she said firmly. “I should have been more careful anyway.”
“But how did it draw blood?”
Xander hummed, thinking about it, “Well only thing that I can think of is that it is using the Kryptonite to fuel its magic, which is why I’m not feeling the pull from the spell I would normally have. Very interesting. It might last indefinitely, which is… well, back home it would be a huge deal, not sure about whether it’s anything more than a minor curiosity here, though.”
“Back home?” Kara perked up, looking at him curiously.
“Later,” Superman said firmly. “First we have to clean things up here. I’ll get Metallo to Star Labs.”
“Right, ok, I’ll see about clearing some of the rubble from earlier.” Kara offered.
“I can help there as well,” Xander said as he held up his wand.
“Good, let’s get to it then.”
******
Comments
Dogbertcarroll
Not sure how sane Corben is, or was for that matter.
Jason L Owens
great, a new chapter!
