Bab 5: Waifu App In DC 4
(Third Person POV)
-Project Cadmus Sublevel 52-
As the three entered the room, Kid Flash looked at the pod, seeing the element symbol of Kr saying, " Capital K and lowercase r the element for Krypton." Aqualad looks to Robin and says flatly, " Robin, hack it now." Robin nods, and as he begins to decipher the info, more of the mystery is revealed. Robin elaborates, "Project Krypton was created from DNA, specifically the DNA of Superman, and it was grown in 16 weeks!"
Aqualad adds, " Most likely, it was stolen from Superman, and the fact that they have access to it and could create a successful clone does not bode well. What of the three creatures above him?" Robin continues his hack and says, " They seem to be called genomorphs and act as psychic teachers, essentially force-feeding him an education."
The three share a disturbed look, to which Kid Flash says, " Look, regardless, we need to free this guy. He's essentially Superman's son. If we don't get him out now, they will treat him as a slave and a weapon ." The three then nod as Robin attempts to open the pod.
The pounding at the door to the locked area continues with Robin working faster to release the subject. His efforts bear fruit as the pod opens to the three's satisfaction, but then Kid Flash asks another question: " Uh guys, why does he look so jacked? I mean, come on! I had to work my but off to get in shape!"
Aqaulad gives him a questioning look as Robin chuckles, and as Aqualad approaches the pod, Project Kr opens his eyes to their shock, and piercing golden eyes look at them with a mixture of emotion. Robin, due to his training with Batman, is able to recognize some of the emotions going through the clone's eyes, and it seems to be a mixture of recognition and almost relief.
("Superboy POV")
Stepping out of the pod after opening my eyes felt both amazing and odd as, due to the nature of the pod, it was mostly soundproof to avoid info leaking out if a clone ever got loose. But now I can hear the individual grinding of gears and the humming and crackling of electricity, and it was a bit overwhelming.
I'm not above admitting that I may have stumbled over to the nearest table and put my hands on it, causing Aqulad to ask, " Are you alright? You seem dazed." Giving him a look, I physically say my first words in this new life, and my voice sounds like a combination of Superboy and Garou with his English dub. " I am alright. It is just a bit overwhelming. All the noise and the smells and sights."
Aqualad then says in a calming tone, " I've heard of such issues with super senses. While I may be Atlantean and have enhanced strength and speed, my senses are, while better than the average human, nowhere near a Kryptonian. I can only offer one piece of advice: focus on one place and one sound at a time. Feel everything. Tune out until you feel in the moment."
The pounding at the door continues as Kid Flash says in a somewhat urgent tone, " If you can hurry up with your training arc here, we're kind of about to get overwhelmed." Robin shoots him a glare as I focus my senses with my communication talent and body tune-up helping me to adjust, and after a couple of minutes, the ringing is gone, and my senses are dialed down a bit.
I assume the reason for such an overload is due to my template stack with the original Superboy Prime giving me a base level for his strength. Compared to his tier ten power, the template only gave me tier five maximum, but it will increase with time. But it was enough, and even Garou's experience helped me calm my nerves and other senses.
Standing upright, I look to all three of them and say, " Thank you, as the pod was getting a bit tight, if you may have noticed. The three then gave me a nod of recognition, seeing that my solar suit also had issues as the increase in body mass did not help. Originally, Superboy was five foot ten, but Superboy-Prime was five foot eleven, nearing six feet tall.
Luckily, Garou was also five foot ten, and the solar suit was holding, although it was a bit tight. The door is then forced open by the G-Trolls, and thankfully, the door is too small for them to enter as Guardian and a couple of G-Gremlins come in with Dr. Desmond in tow. The man, seeing the sidekicks conscious, yells, " Kr, I order you to detain these three immediately!"
Looking at them, they do seem a bit nervous as their hearts have begun to beat a bit faster than before, but I then look to the Doctor and simply flick my finger at him, sending him into the wall and with his head hitting the door, he is knocked out. Guardian, seeing this looks ready to attack but then stops as the G-gnome on his shoulder glows with Dubbliex revealing himself.
The man then rubs his eyes and asks, " What happened to me? My head feels like a fog is being lifted." Dubbliex then says mentally, " The time is now, Superboy go and see the sun. We will be waiting."
Giving him a mental nod, I look to the others and say, " We should go as the facility will be going on alert soon enough. Dr Desmond installed it so that if he does not put in a password every couple of minutes, the alarms will go off other than during some parts of the night. Sadly, this is not one of them." The three nod in agreement then begin to run away with Dubbilex, keeping the other G-Gnomes from rampaging.
As we run to the elevator, it shuts, and the alarms start to blare. Seeing this, both Aqualad and I pry the doors open, but seeing the distance needed to go up, Robin looks to me and asks, " Kr, can you fly?" I give him a nod, and as I grab him and Kidflash in my arms with Aquald holding onto my neck, I focus on my telekinesis and my control of the electromagnetic field near me to keep the Earth's gravity from affecting me. As I do so, I begin to float, and with that, I will myself upwards.
The floors then begin to skim by, but as we make it to the 4th floor, a large door seals the shaft shut horizontally, and seeing this, I stop with Robin saying, " I can't hack it. It's on a closed system." Aqualad then asks, " Kr, can you break through?" Looking at the metal, I ready a punch, and using my basic knowledge of martial arts from Garou, I form a fist and smash the metal door. It bends under my punch, and I do so again and again, finally giving enough room for me to pry it open.
With the blocker gone, they all grab back onto me, and we ascend to the top floor with Aqualad pulling the doors open. As we head through, we see the windows to which Robin yells, "Jump!" As we do so, breaking the windows in the process, I grab Kid Flash and Robin, and as we land, I place them on the ground.
Seeing as Cadmus remains standing, Robin then says " We should head back to the hall. I feel like Batman is going to kill me." Kid Flash then looks at him and says, " Only you? Rob, when I disobeyed orders, Flash had me scrubbing every toilet in Central City for months." They then looked to Aqualad as he says, "While we may be punished we did do good work and found something of immense value or someone in this case."
The other two then looked at me with Kid Flash, saying, " Well, I was expecting it to be harder. But I gotta ask why. It seemed too easy." Robin then places a finger on his chin as he looks at me and asks, " Yeah, it was. It felt premeditated, in a way. Kr, did you plan this beforehand?" I nodded as I explained, " To be honest with you all, I gained consciousness at least mentally a couple of days ago and held a decent number of conversations with the leader of the genomes, and while your arrival was unexpected, it was not unwelcome."
"So you planned to escape? How did you avoid being mind-controlled by those gremlins?" Kid Flash asked, to which I said, "The answer may not be to your satisfaction, but it may have been a result of their constant usage of psychic powers on me, causing my body to adapt, leading to me being more psychically in tune, thus increasing my defenses against mind control. At least that is my prevailing theory."
Kid Flash nods as Aqualad considers this, with Robin saying "Well, we still have yet to discover all the intricacies of Kryptonian biology, so that does somewhat make sense, but we're going to have to do some tests, or at least Batman will." Looking at him with a knowing look, I state, " My education did include a basic psych evaluation of each member of The League. The dossier that the project had on Batman had him being an immense control freak with essentially really bad trust issues. While I do worry about his response, I am more concerned with Superman."
"Why worry about Superman, Kr?"Aqualad asks as I then explain, " The best way to put this in perspective is to think that someone stole a fingernail from you to gain your DNA and to create an exact copy of yourself to either replace you or kill you without your knowledge it is not exactly the greatest first impression maker." The comment stopped them in their tracks as Robin asked himself, "How many clones are there then?"
"Based on the level of their research, I would not believe that they could create many as they are very costly to create and do require a steady stream of DNA to create a complete clone, and even my own creation would have been incomplete without the introduction of human DNA." The fact that I was half-human stunned them, to which Kid asked, " So who was the dad, and who is the mom exactly?" Looking at them, I say, " Before I say this, I would like to let you all know that it may not exactly be the best to reveal, and I do hope you remain open-minded."
Robin surprisingly says, "My friend, you just rescued us from getting probed and possibly cloned. The identity of your parent does not determine your future, and besides, I fight a giant crocodile and an insane clown weekly." Sighing, I then say, "It was nearly hidden from me, but I was able to get a look at one of their computers and saw that the human donor from my DNA was Lex Luthor."
I did actually make sure that it was Lex Luthor, and I wasn't in some radically alternate universe, and before my changes due to the enhancements from my build, I was still the son of Superman and Lex Luthor. That very thought still makes me want to throw up in my mouth. While I never had a disposition towards same-sex couples, it did not exactly fill me with contentment, especially with that image now in my mind.
I really should focus on increasing my telepathy so that I can delete my own memories. Such is the problem with a perfect memory: you remember every single thought and intrusive little speck of imagination.
Noticing the silence, I saw the trio had stopped walking towards the Washington Monument, and as I looked at them, they seemed stunned as I said jokingly, "I know the resemblance isn't exactly uncanny. I mean, I still have my hair, which I appreciate. I assume the change in my physiology was due to the mutations in my DNA from combining Kryptonian and human DNA."
Sadly, my attempt at humor did not seem to shake them from their stupor, at least not entirely, as Kid Flash did manage to make a small giggle at the attempt at humor, with Robin saying in a disbelieving tone, "I can't believe it you're saying that Lex Luthor the man that hates aliens more than poison ivy hates poachers created a half human and half Kryptonian clone. Oh boy, the League is going to have a field day with this.:
Aqualad then says in response, "Regardless, your actions today have spoken much louder than your heritage, but even I would be remiss not to warn you that your parentage will cause issues amongst the other League members." Nodding to him with an accepting smile, I say to them, "And I completely expected that as I am an unknown being of immense power that appeared out of nowhere with two parents from two very different origins while I may not be very informed on the various social culture, I am no fool. But I do appreciate the heads up."
Kid Flash then winces at my acceptance as he asks, " You seem to be already prepared to face scrutiny?" I nodded, and as we entered the Hall and sat down at one of the tables, I simply said, "Many of us don't get to choose our family, but what I have now shall be enough."
The silence in the room was palpable as the three were left with nothing to say. How would they tell someone that their parents were on opposing sides, with one a god-like alien and the other a high-functioning sociopath?
"Well, enough being grim and depressed. Hey, do any of you guys want snacks?" Kid Flash asks as before we can answer, he is already gone. Aqualad smiles as Robin sighs, and I sit there waiting to meet true legends. Well, I was never a hardcore comic fan. Simply being here feels a bit surreal as even now, I feel like the next time I close my eyes, I'll wake up back on that bench in the snow.
And even if this was real, the fact that my body May simply be dead and laying there with no one does bring my mood down a bit. But my family would not want me to wallow. I think my mom would slap me upside the head for it. She was big into fiction and was the person who introduced the idea of going to see the original Iron Man for my birthday.
I can definitely see her filling in the shoes of some anti-heroine and my dad as the guy in the chair. While it was never obvious, at least to me, when I was younger, my mother definitely did hold the proverbial pants in the relationship, but my father was no slouch, and he had his opinions. Their relationship was about his perfect as it was imperfect.
Seeing me deep in thought, Robin asks, " So Kr, what are you going to do after the League does their thing?" Looking at him, I say, "It depends on what my options are as thankfully, my education goes up to the end of a normal American High School, and I could get into college with a scholarship and full ride with my enhanced brain. But to be honest I don't know what I want as the days I've been conscious, I have been planning my escape, but now I seemingly have all the choice in the world."
Aqualad places a hand on my shoulder as he says, " Take your time and find yourself, my friend it is never an easy task to find out what one wants to do with one's life, and such opportunities don't come very easily." You know, it's funny as one of my co-workers mentioned how Aqualad's voice in the show would make you want to fall asleep, and I do agree with him as he has that very deep and slow bass voice.
But intrusive thoughts aside, I give him a nod, and we sit in silence for a couple of minutes before Kid Flash returns with all the snacks, which he then proceeds to eat 75% of due to his increased metabolism. I do wonder why he seems slower than the Flash. Based on my guess, I assumed his method of getting the Flash's Powers was imperfect in some way, causing the issue of having to eat so much food.
Before I could take a bite of my food, I heard footsteps from outside, and as I listened to this, I said, " They're here." This causes them to freeze as their mentors come in with obvious frowns on their faces, with Batman giving me a look to which I do not blink. After a couple of minutes, he looks at Robin and says two words: " Start Talking."
(To anyone confused as to why he doesn't know specifics, it is because grail knowledge only gives a basic plot synopsis of the world, such as various dates as well as locations, and times, and basic knowledge of the main characters. Specifically, he won't know every detail and essentially went in blind with only a bit worse of a bare minimum.)
Mentioned Perks:
Body Tune-Up: All unwanted pre-existing medical conditions, from skin blemishes and unwanted body hair to chronic disease, missing limbs, detrimental genetic irregularities, and physical transformations, are erased. (Cyborgs will find their reproductive system restored and augmentations optimized within their technological base.) This full heal will automatically trigger only once for each member of your retinue, including yourself: when you first purchase this perk or when the person joins your retinue, whichever happens second. You are immune to further minor illnesses but not diseases or injuries. All healing or medical operations performed on you will be completed without complications, residual pain, or unwanted scars.
Communication Talent: You understand. You can read a room, spot deceit or employ your own, know when to speak and when to hold your tongue and find the right words to say for good or ill. You will neither be That Guy whom women warn their friends about, nor the otaku nerd whose obsessions drive others away. This does not lend any additional power to your words - that's what Siren's Song is for - nor will it make you enjoy social interactions for their own sake. It only guarantees knowledge and competence.
Additionally, you are immediately fluent in any spoken language you encounter and will speak it like any native in only a few days, with mastery of the written form taking a week on average; this part always applies to your retinue as well.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone