Chapter Text
March
Superboy gracefully arced through the air, evading brilliant beams of energy shooting up at him from the ground. “What do these bozos want?”
Miss Martian, energy blasts passing harmlessly through her phased form, shrugged. “World domination? Rob banks? Who knows, who cares?”
“I care,” Superboy replied. “Thwarting world domination is way cooler than foiling a bank robbery.”
“Hold still, ya little shit!” a booming, electronic voice shouted from below. “So we can fry your ass!”
“Not much incentive for me to stand still, then, huh?” Superboy replied, zipping and dodging.
The bad guys in question stood in the street below, wearing suits of metal power armor that seemed simultaneously jury-rigged clunky and sleekly high-tech, holding large and powerful energy blasters. Definitely a cut above your average gangster.
“How do you want to handle this?” Superboy asked.
“Hm. How about this?” Miss Martian replied, swooping down. Her phased body passed through one of the power armored thugs, who startled and screamed at the unexpected intrusion, though physically he felt nothing at all. Once she was clear of his body and armor, she turned, re-solidifying herself, grabbed the back of his tough metal armor in her slender, delicate green fingers. She gripped, squeezed, and pulled, and the metal tore like paper. Deprived of integrity and power, the remaining armor was useless, and the thug fell to the ground.
Superboy nodded his approval. “Simple, direct, totally lacking in subtlety. I dig it.”
Miss Martian smiled. “I knew you would.”
Superboy dove, fists slamming into the chestplate of another thug’s armor, fingers drilling into the metal, and tore the armor to pieces.
Between Superboy’s speed and strength, and Miss Martian’s intangibility and might, the thugs fell one after the other in rapid succession, the remains of their armor clattering around them.
Superboy blew across his knuckles. “Man, I am just so damn talented.”
“Of course you are, dear,” Miss Martian replied with indulgent sarcasm.
The Coast City police rolled up, and Superboy and Miss Martian stripped the thugs of their remaining armor so the police could arrest them, then helped load the debris into vans as evidence.
“Thank you Superboy, Miss Martian,” one of the officers said.
“No problemo, dude,” Superboy replied. “Always happy to help. And hey, thank you for handling all the hard stuff that comes next.”
The officer smiled, the other cops smiling and waving as they finished up and departed.
“Well,” Kon-El said, smiling and sidling up to M’gann. “That was fun.”
“Uh-huh,” M’gann replied, poking a slender green finger into his chest. “Just so we’re absolutely clear, this does not count as a date.”
“You sure?” Kon asked, looking around at the aftermath of the battle. “Because this seems pretty on-brand for us.”
M’gann smiled, but stuck to her guns. “Yes. A date must include at least two of: meal, movie, flowers, long walk in aesthetically pleasing location, shopping, dancing.”
“Dancing?” Kon replied with his usual cocky grin. “We cut a pretty good rug up there, don’t you think?”
“At least two, Kon.”
Kon smiled, pointing over her shoulder. “Food truck.”
M’gann laughed. “You’re incorrigible!”
“Yes I am,” Kon replied proudly, then frowned. “Assuming that’s a good thing. What’s ‘incorrigible’ mean?”
Bruno Mannheim sat in his jail cell, sulking. After Luthor’s arrest, he’d managed to keep Intergang mostly out of it by going to ground hard, making sure the police could find them. Or, at least, him. Then they’d started to poke their heads up again, in part with help from the Cyborg Superman, who’d used them to make his bones by turning around and dismantling them, with help from the other three faux Supermen. The Cyborg had pretty much gone straight for Bruno, and now he was in jail awaiting trial. And one of the star witnesses against him was Lex Fucking Luthor, supplying any and all information he could on Intergang in general and Mannheim in particular.
Ya just can’t trust people these days, Mannheim thought ruefully.
A guard stopped outside his cell. “Get up, Mannheim. You’ve got a visitor.”
Mannheim glared back. “Little late for visitors, ain’t it?”
The guard shrugged. “Just get moving.”
Mannheim stood, the guard entered and secured him, and they moved down the hall. “Be quick, sir,” the guard whispered. “And quiet. We’re on a timetable.”
“What?” Mannheim said, and the guard shushed him.
They moved through the halls of Stryker’s Island, but not towards the visitor area. Towards the checkpoints that led out of maximum security, and from there out of the prison.
“What’s going on?” Mannheim asked.
“Quiet,” the guard replied. “I’ll explain later, just keep moving."
They reached the checkpoint, and Mannheim gasped. The guards were all asleep, and the monitors showed live feeds from the surrounding cameras. . . but Mannheim and his escort were invisible to them.
They walked right through, into the lower security areas. They passed through those, and through the next checkpoints in the exact same way, past sleeping guards and security cameras that couldn’t see them.
“What the hell is going on?” Mannheim demanded.
“Later, sir!” the guard hissed.
Soon, they were outside the prison. Two more prison guards stood outside a prison transpo van, opening the doors. The guard ushered Mannheim in, the other two guards entered, latched the doors, and sat. The van started up and began to drive away.
“The driver’s one of ours, too,” the guard said. “Now, let’s get those off you, sir.” He produced a key and unlocked Mannheim’s shackles.
“Alright,” Bruno agreed. “Now will someone explain what in the ever-loving fuck is going on here?”
“Intergang’s back,” another of the fake prison guards said. “Back, and better than ever. We’ve got a new benefactor, we can really make a difference now.”
“But we need you, sir,” the first fake guard said.
Mannheim scoffed. “A new benefactor, right. How long before this one stabs us in the back?”
“He won’t,” the first guard said. “He wants to see you, sir. And you to See Him. And when you See, you’ll Believe.”
“What? What the fuck does that mean?”
“You’ll See,” another said. “And when you See, you’ll Believe.”
Mannheim looked at the third fake guard. “You buying this shit?”
“He’s coming. When He comes, He’ll bring the day of reckoning.”
Bruno Mannheim put his head in his hands and sighed. “Why me?” he moaned.
They pulled to a stop, the doors opened, and Mannheim saw Intergang’s new HQ, a heavily fortified old warehouse. “The hell?” he asked, looking around at the obvious crowd of thugs, weapons, armor, and heavy industry taking place. “You think the capes aren’t going to notice this shit?”
“They can’t see,” one of the fake guards said. “He won’t let them. We’re protected under His unfathomable power, His guidance and decree.”
“Seriously, knock that shit off,” Mannheim said. “You’re giving me the creeps.”
“You’ll See, sir. And when you See–”
“Please shut up,” Mannheim interrupted.
They took him inside, and there was more equipment, a lot of which Bruno didn’t recognize. In the middle of the large open space was some kind of. . . pool, what looked like a massive black stone circle containing some kind of thick, viscous black liquid, a strange carved obelisk or monolith rising up at the back. Bruno began to panic as the men pushed him towards it, wondering what the hell they were going to do to him.
The black sludge in the pool rippled and swirled of its own accord, began to surge upward, and Bruno Mannheim screamed in terror.
Then the liquid in the pool began to take shape. A form seemed to solidify from it.
And Mannheim Saw.
And when he Saw, he Believed.
“My Lord,” Mannheim sighed in awe, bending down, genuflecting before his new god.