章節 148: CHAPTER 146
[Connor Kent's POV]
My original plan involved using the jet, but the thought of being tracked down quickly made me reconsider. I couldn't risk anyone discovering my whereabouts or my intentions. So, I ditched the jet and opted for a more inconspicuous look: blue jeans, a simple black shirt, and a hoodie. I added a face cap and left the hood down.
Dressed like an everyday teenager, I made my way to the subway, taking several winding routes to ensure I wasn't being followed. About half an hour after I left, I finally boarded a train bound for Metropolis.
Fortunately, the train was sparsely populated, a stroke of luck in a city as bustling as this. While I proceeded towards Lex, I couldn't shake the thought that Lex's security detail included both highly skilled individuals and metahumans.
He was a frigging billionaire who had both money and power, of course his security detail would be tight and unpredictable. Especially after the last incident with him and the League the other time at his private estate.
While deep in thought, my reverie was broken by a voice beside me, and I turned to see Dick sitting next to me on the train. "How did you…?" I began, but he interrupted with an answer that actually made sense.
"Come on, you think I wouldn't know you had intentions of searching for Superman, even if it meant stepping outside your comfort zone? If it were Batman who got kidnapped, I'd do something similar," Dick said, glancing around the empty train.
I couldn't help but wonder how I hadn't noticed him earlier, especially with my enhanced senses. "How were you able to stalk and follow me without my knowing?" I asked as it still marveled me as to how he did it, he even went as far as sitting right next to me in the train.
"When you grow up with Batman and gain many years of both training and live action experience with him, you pick up a few tricks," he explained, brushing off my question and steering the conversation back to our mission.
"I plan to talk to Lex, hoping he'll be reasonable enough to give me the location of Superman and that of Flash. In some way I am like a son to him and he might hear me out or at least lend me a listening ear as a father. Even if he wants me ti join his cause in return, am okay with that because I know the League would put an end to this madness soon enough." I looked down at my hands as I spoke, wondering how it all got to this.
*UGH…*
I could feel Dick's exasperation even before he sarcastically smacked his forehead and gave me an earful of lecture. "Sometimes, you acted too naive, seeing the good in people when you should see them for who they really were. You know how diabolical Lex Luthor can be. He manipulated the League, lured them into a trap, captured the Flash and Superman, turning heroes into criminals in spandex, all in one night. What makes you think he won't do the same to you? What would you do if he refuses to go ahead with youe request?"
He bombarded me with a barrage of questions which needed indepth thinking before giving my answer. I needed to be smart about it because this might also be part of Lex's plan, a plan to draw me to himself.
Dick waited for my response, but before I could speak, he continued, "Let me guess, you plan to threaten him. Do you really believe threats work on someone like Lex?"
"Of course not, I know how terrifying of a person he can be. A piece of my genetics came from him. Do you think I don't understand what he's capable of?"
"I know," Dick said, "I just needed to make sure you were thinking straight. When a parent is involved, most people tend to let their emotions cloud their judgment. And in this case Superman is involved." He turned over to me as he added. "You might be brainy and good with tech, but Lex has been in this game way longer than you have."
I smirked at his indirect reference to my intelligence compared to his. "Word of focus, 'brainy.' Not smarter than most." He said as he saw the smirk tugged by the side of my lips.
As the train pulled into Metropolis, we disembarked from the train and Dick's attention was abruptly drawn to a shocking news broadcast displayed on a screen as we disembarked. I looked up and saw Superman standing alongside Lex Luthor and the President of the United States.
They announced that Superman was no longer a member of the League but was dedicated to protecting the nation. They even shook hands, seemingly putting an end to their long-standing rivalry, something Clark would never do. Something was wrong, he wasn't wearing the psychic dampener that Bruce made and it all made sense at that point.
Without hesitation, I grabbed Dick and dashed at superspeed. We headed straight for a building near LexCorp, the very spot where the broadcast had taken place. However, they were no longer there.
"So, what now?" Dick asked, relinquishing control of the mission to me, normally he would take command and lead the mission but this was my mission and he intended to follow my lead.
I pondered our next move, my mind racing with possibilities. Lex had orchestrated this situation brilliantly, and it was clear that this was a game we were unprepared to play. But I couldn't back down now. "We need to find out what Lex is really up to and try to rescue Superman from his grip before Superman ends uo doing something that might hunt him for a long time. We'll need more allies, and we'll have to be smarter than ever."
Dick nodded, his trust in me evident. As we gazed out at the sprawling city of Metropolis, we both understood that this mission had just become more challenging than we ever imagined. Now the Man of Steel was one of Lex's security detail.
…
[Tom Hendricks POV]
I strode down the blood-splattered hallway, the lifeless forms of soldiers left in my wake. Their initial bravado had crumbled into sheer terror as they realized the peril they faced. My relentless pursuit of Raven had brought me to this grim scene.
Raven lay on a sterile medical bed, her pallid form connected to an array of tubes, draining her blood. A man in a pristine white lab coat, adjusting his glasses, dared to question me, "Who are you, and what do you want?"
I couldn't help but scoff at his audacity. "Amid the chaos I've unleashed until getting here, you still wonder who I am?" I approached Raven's side, unplugging the invasive tubes. The scientist's voice grew stern, "Stop that!" He yelled at me while reaching an arm to his face as he adjusted his glasses.
I ignored him and laid my hand on the bags of extracted blood, heating them to such extremes that they nearly vaporized. "Didn't you hear me? I said stop!" he yelled, brandishing a blaster.
I glared at him, my disdain for his obsession with Raven's blood evident. "You scientists and your sick obsessions. If you desire demon blood so fervently, perhaps I should send you directly to hell to fetch some." With a telekinetic pull, I yanked him toward me, my grip like a vice around his neck. "Say hi to the devil for me, will you." With those words, his fear bubbled to the surface as he struggled against my grip. I snapped his neck like a twig, then dropped his lifeless body as I turned to Raven.
Gently, I cradled her in my arms, levitating off the ground as she began to regain consciousness. Her voice was weak, drugged. "Where are you taking me?"
"You're safe now," I assured her. She noticed the trail of lifeless bodies I'd left behind, a testament to the price they'd paid for crossing me.
Exiting the underground research facility through the hole I'd initially created, I glanced at the general's lifeless form, dangling from the wall, blood staining the ground as it created a puddle of blood below.
The soldiers above ground were paralyzed by fear, unable to retrieve their fallen leader who was brutally murdered, unsure of what I might do to those who dared take down his lifeless body from the wall before I left the base.
I offered a parting nod to the trembling soldiers. "Goodnight, gentlemen. If you have no unfinished business with me, I'll be on my way." Most shook their heads in response, and with a graceful motion, I took flight.
As we soared through the night sky, Raven groaned softly, her head throbbing. "Ugh... My head."
"Relax," I murmured, my voice reassuring. "You lost a lot of blood and need to rest. The headache is just a side effect of the sedative they used on you. Don't worry; you're in safe hands. I'll make sure you're okay."
"Thank you... Tom," she mumbled drowsily, drifting back into unconsciousness. I continued to carry her through the night, my thoughts consumed by her unexpected words.
'Wait… Did she just say Tom?'
=======
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章節 149: CHAPTER 147
[Clark Kent's POV]
Luthor and I were once childhood best friends but became mortal enemies as we no longer saw eye to eye and Luthor became a narcissistic villain who sought after my head.
But now I can't seem to access any memories of us fighting or not getting along, not until I joined the League of course. Lex and I had a conversation while I was in a cell, and he revealed to me how the League had been manipulating both I and humanity as a whole.
Crime was more like a cancerous tumor. And Lex helped me see how the League had only been prolonging the illness by fighting off criminals who eventually end up escaping from jail again. Only to come out from their imprisonment and resume their mundane activity of killing and hurting civilians.
Instead they should have attacked the tumor at it's core by striking fear into the hearts of the mucus and disintegrate them from existence. Our no kill rule had made criminals stand toe-to-toe with us intead of fearing us, but Lex showed me a path we could use to put the criminals under control and keep crime at bay if we ruled with an iron fist of tyranny.
I was open to that idea and came to realize that Bruce's ideology on crime was wrong, so was mine. Then Lex made me see how Bruce and the rest of the League appeared to be saviors of the world, when they were actually enemies of humanity.
For Lois sake and for that of Connor, for the sake of this world I call home, I joined Lex and would help save this world.
…
[Tom Hendricks POV]
I took Raven to one of my safe houses over at Coast City. One thing I learnt from Leo back in the day was to purchase multiple safe houses in different cities, you never know when you might be in a bit of a snag or in a tight spot where you need to lay low wherever you were cornered in.
He sometimes just took them as vacation homes because of the serenity he got from being alone with his thoughts, which kind of makes me wonder why he's been crashing over at my place lately.
The scientist seemed to want Raven's blood for some reason which could either be for a demonic ritual or to summon her big bad daddy, a.k.a my future father in law.
Maybe he wanted knowledge on demon technology, who knows what crazy thing goes on in the minds of those mad men.
I sat on a chair next to Raven who was fast asleep like sleeping beauty herself, wondering if I should let Lex keep going what he was doing or just go over and kill the mother fuck. Then again it wouldn't serve as entertainment to me if it all ended so soon, I guess I would just let it turn into an all out war.
I have a feeling that a bigger opponent would eventually show up and entertain me in an all out battle if I let Lex keep pushing. This verse is filled with a lot of big bads and considering I haven't encountered any of them for a while, one is bound to want to take advantage of the current state with the heroes.
"Oh, oh…" I muttered in excitement as an idea to spice things up came to mind.
The world was going into a crisis and there I was checking the sales chat of my Psychic blocking device in the black market. Powerful business owners were making purchases as they were seeing the rate at which LexCorp was taking over top companies and making their rivals sell their company's biggest shares to them.
The ones at the top had heard the rumors of Lex being able to take control of the minds of people and manipulate them to do his bidding, so they turned over to the black market to buy my device or purchase from my underlings who had their own shares in each purchase made through them.
'Who says one can not rake in a lot of Benjamin's in times of crisis…' At this point I don't know if it was weird but I totally felt like ending that thought with an evil laugh.
Then again the thought of Raven knowing my identity as Tom came across my mind, I never intended to have any of the heroes know my identity. Yet again, how did she figure out I was Ace?
A question that lingered in my mind because there was nothing that could be used to connect my alter ego and me. An average teenager living on his inheritance as he goes ahead with his boring everyday life, without indulging in any activity out of the ordinary.
And a narcissistic dude in a badass costume who's powerful enough to beat up anyone who pissed him off the wrong way, heroes and villains alike and with no regard for the law. They were the complete opposites of one another, so I found it difficult to derive a suitable answer as to how she got to know I was Ace.
My mental fortitude was strong enough to block her out of my mind, unless it was more than that, something I wasn't aware of or hadn't even thought of.
*Yawn*
I turned to Raven who seemed to have regained consciousness and was giving a yawn as she stretched a bit.
"Hey…" I said as I gave her a small wave to pull her attention to me, and with my mask on.
"Where are we?" She asked as she slowly got up in a sitting position and took a look at the room.
"Relax, you are in a safe house. The military can't track us here. Not that they would dare to." I replied to her. "Care for some tea?"
"Um… Sure." Raven responded before laying back into the bed. I walked to the kitchen, trying to avoid the elephant in the room until she was feeling comfortable to speak. I tried to assume maybe her calling me by my actual name was a fluke as I was someone she felt safest with.
I guess stocking my safe houses with long lasting edible snacks wasn't a bad idea after all.
The living room could clearly be seen from the kitchen, i saw Raven walk into the living room as if she was taking a tour around the house.
"Hey, here's your tea." She turned to see me in the kitchen and saw the tea cup slowly floating towards her.
"Tom, why are you still wearing that mask, it's just you and I in here?" Raven asked while reaching to take hold of the tea I had sent to her.
At this point it became clear to me that she knew my identity and playing dumb would just be… Well you know, dumb.
*Sign*
"How'd you figure it out?" I asked her as I watched her take a long sip from her tea before clearing her throat to answer me.
"I didn't actually, your presence gave it away." She replied before taking a seat on the couch.
"What do you mean my presence did?" I was a little but confused by her response and needed a more elaborate explanation.
"Honestly I don't know how to explain this…" She said as she seemed to be thinking of the most simplistic manner to explain her findings.
"Remember that night we first met at that alley way over at Bludhaven?"
"Yeah." I replied as I tapped on my watch and my suit crept back into it with nanotechnology, convenience at its peak, if I must say.
"I used my powers as an empath to scan the area for the thief who we were chasing that night but came across a mind which blocked me out and a presence that stood out unlike anything i had ever seen." That explains how she was able to detect that I was in the alley that night and tracked me down with false accusations.
False because i stole something else and not the tech that was reported stolen when they arrived.
"When you carried me in your arms as we passed through the gruesome scene back at the military base, I tried reading you to know why you would go through all that to rescue me. But then it was identical to that of my boyfriend's, which explained why you would go through the burden of mass slaughter to rescue me." She replied to me as she took another sip from her steaming hot tea which was intended to warm her up from the inside out.
Her tone suddenly became serious as she looked me dead in the eye and asked. "Tom, who are you really?" She asked but i didn't reply, only looked her in the eye as i remained silent.
She went ahead to ask me another question, but this time with a tone which indicated that she was sure of what she was saying. "You aren't from around here, are you?"
===========
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